Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The CSSS Microworld

The CSSS microworld simulates the task of a closed-circuit television (CCTV) operator responsible for monitoring multiple CCTV feeds in the context of security surveillance. Operators must manage the display of multiple CCTV feeds, monitor the feeds for critical incidents, and then report detected incidents. The microworld can be used for human factors research, interface design, training and personnel selection, and systems engineering. We present a use case of the CSSS microworld to identify the best predictors of CCTV performance. Our results show that the Automated Operation Span and inattentional blindness tests can predict both CSSS detection rate and false alarms, suggesting that these instruments have the potential for quickly assessing the surveillance competency of candidates. This use case illustrates how the CSSS platform may prove to be useful in the selection of personnel for CCTV operator roles.
Computing pit excavation volume using Multiple Regression Analysis

Volume estimation of borrow pits is common application in civil Engineering. Several methods for volume estimation have been presented in literature. In general, they rely on a specific polynomial to fit the surface heights. Practically, each site’s topography is unique and may not follow that polynomial. In this paper, regression analysis to find the most suitable equation that fit each site is presented. Using numerical examples, results from the proposed approach are presented and accuracy compared with existing methods.
Infectious diseases, comorbidities and outcomes in hospitalized people who inject drugs (PWID) infections in persons who inject drugs

Injection drug use poses a public health challenge. Clinical experience indicates that people who inject drugs (PWID) are hospitalized frequently for infectious diseases, but little is known about outcomes when admitted. Charts were identified from local hospitals between 2013–2018 using consultation lists and hospital record searches. Included individuals injected drugs in the past six months and presented with infection. Charts were accessed using the hospital information system, undergoing primary and secondary reviews using Research Electronic Data Capture (REDCap). The Wilcoxon rank-sum test was used for comparisons between outcome categories. Categorical data were summarized as count and frequency, and compared using Fisher’s exact test. Of 240 individuals, 33% were admitted to the intensive care unit, 36% underwent surgery, 12% left against medical advice (AMA), and 9% died. Infectious diagnoses included bacteremia (31%), abscess (29%), endocarditis (29%), cellulitis (20%), sepsis (10%), osteomyelitis (9%), septic arthritis (8%), pneumonia (7%), discitis (2%), meningitis/encephalitis (2%), or other (7%). Sixty-six percent had stable housing and 60% had a family physician. Fifty-four percent of patient-initiated discharges were seen in the emergency department within 30 days and 29% were readmitted. PWID are at risk for infections. Understanding their healthcare trajectory is essential to improve their care.
Customized low-cost high-throughput amplifier for electro-fluidic detection of cell volume changes in point-of-care applications

Physical parameters of the pathogenic cells, like its volume, shape, and stiffness, are important biomarkers for diseases, chemical changes within the cell, and overall cell health. The response of pathogenic bacteria and viruses to different chemical disinfectants is studied widely. Some of the routinely employed techniques to measure these changes require elaborate and expensive equipment which limits any study to a non-mobile research lab facility. Recently, we showed a micropore-based electro-fluidic technique to have great promise in measuring subtle changes in cell volumes at high throughput and resolution. This method, however, requires commercial amplifiers, which makes this technique expensive and incompatible for in-field use. In this paper, we develop a home-built amplifier to make this technique in-field compatible and apply it to measure changes in bacterial volumes upon exposure to alcohol. First, we introduce our low-cost and portable transimpedance amplifier and characterize the maximum range, absolute error percentage, and RMS noise of the amplifier in the measured current signal, along with the amplifier’s bandwidth, and compared these characteristics with the commercial amplifiers. Using our home-built amplifier, we demonstrate a high throughput detection of ~1300 cells/second and resolve cell diameter changes down to 1 μm. Finally, we demonstrate measurement of cell volume changes in E. coli bacteria when exposed to ethanol (5% v/v), which is otherwise difficult to measure via imaging techniques. Our low-cost amplifier (~100-fold lower than commercial alternatives) is battery-run, completely portable for point-of-care applications, and the electro-fluidic devices are currently being tested for in-field applications.
Translation and Validation of the Questionnaire on Acceptance to Telemedicine from the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) for Use in Malaysia

The COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated implementation of telemedicine in healthcare facilities for delivery of care. Healthcare providers' acceptance of the telemedicine services is important for successful implementation of this new system. A questionnaire based on the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) has been used to measure user acceptance of telemedicine service. The aim of this study was to translate and validate the English version of the questionnaire into Malay, to extend the availability and utilization of this questionnaire in Malaysia. A forward and backward translation of the questionnaire was conducted to produce the TAM in the Malay version (Malay-TAM). Panel experts assessed content validity. Internal consistency reliability was determined using Cronbach's alpha. Confirmatory factor analysis based on structural equation modelling was performed to validate the factor structure. The questionnaire was then tested on and completed by 149 healthcare workers from several public health clinics across Malaysia. The Malay-TAM demonstrated good reliability with Cronbach's alphas ranging from 0.823 to 0.912. Factor analysis showed good convergent validity but relatively poor discriminant validity. All five constructs were retained to preserve content validity. The findings suggest that the Malay-TAM can serve as a reliable and valid instrument to measure acceptance to telemedicine.
Mineralized belemnoid cephalic cartilage from the late Triassic Polzberg Konservat-Lagerstätte (Austria)

Although hyaline cartilage is widely distributed in various invertebrate groups such as sabellid polychaetes, molluscs (cephalopods, gastropods) and a chelicerate arthropod group (horseshoe crabs), the enigmatic relationship and distribution of cartilage in taxonomic groups remains to be explained. It can be interpreted as a convergent trait in animal evolution and thus does not seem to be a vertebrate invention. Due to the poor fossil record of cartilaginous structures, occurrences of mineralized fossil cartilages are important for evolutionary biology and paleontology. Although the biochemical composition of recent cephalopod cartilage differs from vertebrate cartilage, histologically the cartilages of these animal groups resemble one another remarkably. In this study we present fossil material from the late Triassic Polzberg Konservat-Lagerstätte near Lunz am See (Lower Austria, Northern Calcareous Alps). A rich Carnian fauna is preserved here, whereby a morphogroup (often associated with belemnoid remains) of black, amorphous appearing fossils still remained undetermined. These multi-elemental, symmetrical fossils show remarkable similarities to recent cartilage. We examined the conspicuous micro- and ultrastructure of these enigmatic fossils by thin-sectioning and Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM). The geochemical composition analyzed by Microprobe and Energy Dispersive X-ray Spectroscopy (SEM-EDX) revealed carbonization as the taphonomic pathway for this fossil group. Mineralization of soft tissues permits the 3D preservation of otherwise degraded soft tissues such as cartilage. We examined eighty-one specimens from the Polzberg locality and seven specimens from Cave del Predil (formerly Raibl, Julian Alps, Italy). The study included morphological examinations of these multi-elemental fossils and a focus on noticeable structures like grooves and ridges. The detected grooves are interpreted to be muscular attachment areas, and the preserved branched system of canaliculi is comparable to a channel system that is also present in recent coleoid cartilage. The new findings on these long-known enigmatic structures strongly point to the preservation of cephalic cartilage belonging to the belemnoid Phragmoteuthis bisinuata and its homologization to the cephalic cartilage of modern coleoids.
Comparing the hydrological performance of an irrigated native vegetation green roof with a conventional Sedum spp. green roof in New York City

The objective of this study was to compare the hydrological performance of an irrigated, 127 mm deep green roof, planted with vegetation native to the New York City area, to a conventional, non-irrigated, 100 mm deep green roof, planted with drought-tolerant Sedum spp. Four years of climate and runoff data from both green roofs were analyzed to determine seasonal stormwater retention. Empirical relationships between rainfall and runoff were developed for both roofs, and applied to historical rainfall data in order to compare stormwater retention values for different rainfall depths. Crop coefficients for the vegetation on each green roof were estimated using the soil moisture extraction function. This function was also used to estimate monthly evapotranspiration. Despite being irrigated, the green roof with native vegetation retained more stormwater per annum (64%) than the non-irrigated green roof planted with Sedum spp. (54%). The green roof planted with native vegetation also had approximately twice the crop coefficient (1.13) than the green roof planted with Sedum spp. (0.57), indicating that the New York City native plants transpire more stormwater than the Sedum spp. plants given certain climate and substrate moisture conditions. Overall, the results of the study indicate that, for the New York City climate region, irrigated green roofs of native vegetation have the capacity to better manage stormwater than non-irrigated green roofs planted with drought-tolerant succulents.
REVIEW Stratocumulus Clouds

This paper reviews the current knowledge of the climatological, structural, and organizational aspects of stratocumulus clouds and the physicalprocessescontrolling them.Moreof Earth’ssurfaceiscoveredbystratocumuluscloudsthanbyanyothercloudtypemakingthem extremely important for Earth’s energy balance, primarily through their reﬂection of solar radiation. They are generally thin clouds, typically occupying the upper few hundred meters of the planetary boundary layer (PBL), and they preferably occur in shallow PBLs that are readily coupled by turbulent mixing to the surface moisture supply. Thus, stratocumuli favor conditions of strong lower-tropospheric stability,large-scale subsidence,and a readysupplyof surfacemoisture; therefore,they are commonover the coolerregionsof subtropical and midlatitude oceans where their coverage can exceed 50% in the annual mean. Convective instability in stratocumulus clouds is driven primarily by the emission of thermal infrared radiation from near the cloud tops and the resulting turbulence circulations are enhanced by latent heating in updrafts and cooling in downdrafts. Turbulent eddies and evaporative cooling drives entrainment at the top of the stratocumulus-topped boundary layer (STBL), which is stronger than it would be in the absence of cloud, and this tends to result in a deepening of the STBL over time. Many stratocumulus clouds produce some drizzle through the collision–coalescence process, but thicker clouds drizzle more readily, which can lead to changes in the dynamics of the STBL that favor increased mesoscale variability, stratiﬁcation of the STBL, and in some cases cloud breakup. Feedbacks between radiative cooling, precipitation formation, turbulence, and entrainment help to regulate stratocumulus. Although stratocumulus is arguably the most well-understood cloud type, it continues to challenge understanding. Indeed, recent ﬁeld studies demonstrate that marine stratocumulus precipitate more strongly, and entrain less, than was deepens way interactionsmay bea key driver ofaerosol concentrations over the remoteoceans. therefore one of the most challenging frontiers in cloud–climate research. Low-cloud feedbacks are also a leading cause of uncertainty in future climate prediction because even small changes in cloud coverage and thickness have a major impact on the radiation budget. Stratocumuli remain challenging to represent in climate models since their controlling processes occur on such small scales. A better understanding of stra- tocumulus dynamics, particularly entrainment processes and mesoscale variability, will be required to constrain these feedbacks.
Safety vs. Economy in Performance-Based Design of Buildings: Inevitable Compromise or False Dilemma?

ABSTRACT The objective of the present paper is to investigate the influence of the design objective on the total cost of buildings. A series of reinforced concrete buildings are designed for various design objectives, and the construction cost is calculated. Additionally, the earthquake losses for three different earthquake scenarios are estimated. The total cost of the buildings is calculated as the sum of the construction cost plus the earthquake losses. The whole investigation demonstrates that designing for elastic response against the design earthquake is both the safest and the most economical in long-term option in the case of strong seismic excitations.
Proposed diagnostic methodology using the cross-correlation coefficient factor technique for power transformer fault identification

This study investigates the impact of electrical parameter variation of a high-frequency transformer model on its sweep frequency response analysis (SFRA) signature to help in classification and interpretation. The simulations have been done using MATLAB and compared with the reference data. The results of SFRA measurements are repeatable up to and beyond 1MHz. The proposed diagnostic methodology using the Cross-Correlation Coefficient Factor (CCF) is used to identify the transformer faults. CCF used to measure the degree of relationship between two variables that establish a relation between the predicted and actual data set. The results of this proposed methodology using the CCF compared with existing Chinese Standard factor (CSF) indicate that, the proposed method is valid to identify the transformer faults. Characteristics of the proposed scheme are fully analyzed by extensive MATLAB simulation studies that clearly reveal that this method can accurately identify the transformer faults compared with CSF. And also does not affected by different fault conditions such as transformer normal condition, Turn to Turn Fault for both HV, LV sides, Axial Fault and/or Radial Faults on both sides, Short Circuit Fault between H.V and L.V Sides, Short Circuit to Ground Fault for both HV, LV sides.
Poly‐L‐lysine/hyaluronan nanocarriers as a novel nanosystem for gene delivery

The present research comes up with a novel DNA‐loaded poly‐L‐lysine (PLL)/hyaluronan (HA) nanocarrier (DNA‐loaded PLL/HA NCs) for gene delivery applications, as a promising candidate for gene delivery into diverse cells. A straightforward approach was employed to prepare such a nanosystem through masking DNA‐loaded PLL molecules by HA. Fourier‐transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy, dynamic light scattering (DLS), field emission‐scanning electron microscopy (FE‐SEM) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM) were used to analyse the interaction of the molecules as well as the physicochemical properties of the NCs. The NCs showed a negative charge of –24 ± 3 mV, with an average size of 138 ± 6 nm, in an ellipsoid‐shape with smooth surfaces. The DNA loading efficiency (LE) measured by DNA absorbance was around 95 %. The MTT assay showed that the developed NCs are non‐toxic to the cells. Furthermore, the uptake of the DNA‐loaded PLL/HA NCs by the human embryonic kidney (HEK)‐293T cells was evaluated by a flow cytometry method, and demonstrated high potential cellular uptake over 90% for transferring the gene to HEK‐293T cells at the optimised conditions. Therefore, the DNA‐loaded PLL/HA NCs are the potent strategy for developing nanosystems for gene delivery applications.
Relationship between the morphology and composition of the lumbar paraspinal and psoas muscles and lumbar intervertebral motion in chronic low‐back pain: An exploratory study

Muscles of the lumbar spine play an important role in controlling segmental intervertebral motion. This study aimed to evaluate the association between lumbar intervertebral motion and changes in lumbar morphology/composition in people with chronic low‐back pain (CLBP). A sample of 183 patients with CLBP participated in this cross‐sectional study. Participants underwent lumbar flexion‐extension X‐rays to determine vertebral motion (translational and/or rotational motion) of lumbar levels (L1–L2 to L5–S1) and lumbar spine magnetic resonance imaging to quantify total and functional cross‐sectional areas (CSAs) and asymmetry of the multifidus (MF), lumbar erector spinae (LES), and psoas muscles. The relationship between morphology/composition of the muscles and lumbar intervertebral motion was investigated. Smaller total and functional CSAs of the MF and greater CSAs of the LES muscle were observed in participants with greater intervertebral motion. Muscle asymmetry was observed at different lumbar vertebral levels. The greatest amount of translational intervertebral motion was observed at the L3–L4 level, while the greatest amount of rotational translation occurred at the L4–L5. Associations were observed between the morphology of the paraspinal muscles at the vertebral levels adjacent to the L3–L4 level and the increased intervertebral motion at this level. Relationships between measures of muscle morphology/composition and increased segmental vertebral motion were observed. The results may provide a plausible biological reason for the effectiveness of rehabilitating deficient paraspinal muscles in a subset of people with CLBP.
Techniques to derive and clean acceleration and deceleration data of athlete tracking technologies in team sports: A scoping review

ABSTRACT The application of acceleration and deceleration data as a measure of an athlete’s physical performance is common practice in team sports. Acceleration and deceleration are monitored with athlete tracking technologies during training and games to quantify training load, prevent injury and enhance performance. However, inconsistencies exist throughout the literature in the reported methodological procedures used to quantify acceleration and deceleration. The object of this review was to systematically map and provide a summary of the methodological procedures being used on acceleration and deceleration data obtained from athlete tracking technologies in team sports and describe the applications of the data. Systematic searches of multiple databases were undertaken. To be included, studies must have investigated full body acceleration and/or deceleration data of athlete tracking technologies. The search identified 276 eligible studies. Most studies (60%) did not provide information on how the data was derived and what sequence of steps were taken to clean the data. Acceleration and deceleration data were commonly applied to quantify and describe movement demands using effort metrics. This scoping review identified research gaps in the methodological procedures and deriving and cleaning techniques that warrant future research focussing on their effect on acceleration and deceleration data.
Training of artificial neural networks with the multi-population based artifical bee colony algorithm

ABSTRACT Nowadays, artificial intelligence has gained recognition in every aspect of life. Artificial neural networks, one of the most efficient artificial intelligence techniques, is remarkably successful in computers’ acquisition of the learning and interpretation capabilities of humans and attainment of meaningful results. Whether artificial intelligence networks can yield meaningful results is directly related to how the network is trained. The traditional algorithms, which are used to train artificial intelligence networks, do not always yield successful results in complicated problems and real-life problems. Metaheuristic algorithms are efficient techniques developed in order to figure out time-consuming and challenging problems fast and as optimally as possible. This study makes use of the artificial bee colony algorithm, which has been widely used recently in solving many kinds of problems so as to train artificial neural networks efficiently. Within this study, different strategies are used on subpopulations, so that the algorithm can search without getting tangled with the local optima. And also same and different parameter settings are considered for each population to reflect different search behaviours. The proposed approach was analysed through applied results of different data sets. The results yielded that the used strategies can be promising alternatives to the current search algorithms.
Transplacental Zika virus transmission in ex vivo perfused human placentas

A Zika virus (ZIKV) infection during pregnancy can result in severe birth defects such as microcephaly. To date, it is incompletely understood how ZIKV can cross the human placenta. Furthermore, results from studies in pregnant mice and non-human primates are conflicting regarding the role of cross-reactive dengue virus (DENV) antibodies on transplacental ZIKV transmission. Elucidating how ZIKV can cross the placenta and which risk factors contribute to this is important for risk assessment and for potential intervention strategies for transplacental ZIKV transmission. In this study we use an ex vivo human placental perfusion model to study transplacental ZIKV transmission and the effect that cross-reactive DENV antibodies have on this transmission. By using this model, we demonstrate that DENV antibodies significantly increase ZIKV uptake in perfused human placentas and that this increased uptake is neonatal Fc-receptor-dependent. Furthermore, we show that cross-reactive DENV antibodies enhance ZIKV infection in term human placental explants and in primary fetal macrophages but not in primary trophoblasts. Our data supports the hypothesis that presence of cross-reactive DENV antibodies could be an important risk factor for transplacental ZIKV transmission. Furthermore, we demonstrate that the ex vivo placental perfusion model is a relevant and animal friendly model to study transplacental pathogen transmission.