Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Reversed fortunes in the south : a comparison of the role of FDI in industrial development in Kenya and Malaysia

This book examines the causes of observed reversal of fortunes between Sub-Saharan Africa and South East Asia in the last 50 years. Specifically, it compares Kenya and Malaysia which 50 years ago were arguably at similar levels of development. Today, Malaysia is an industrialised country while Kenya has stagnated economically. It finds itself in an awkward position, where it has to learn from Malaysia’s industrial experience as it aspires to industrialise by the year 2030. The book also examines how foreign direct investment can be attracted and used to spur industrial development and provides important lessons for developing countries
Clinical factors predicting rotavirus diarrhea in children: A cross-sectional study from two hospitals

BACKGROUND Rotavirus is still a significant contributing morbidity and mortality in pediatric patients. AIM To look at clinical signs and symptoms and laboratory findings that can predict rotavirus gastroenteritis compared to non-rotavirus gastroenteritis. METHODS This was a cross-sectional study with medical records obtained from December 2015 to December 2019. Inclusion criteria for this study include all hospitalised pediatric patients (0-18 years old) diagnosed with suspected rotavirus diarrhea. The receiver operating curve and Hosmer-Lemeshow test would be used to assess the final prediction findings' calibration (goodness of fit) and discrimination performance. RESULTS This study included 267 participants with 187 (70%) rotavirus-diarrhea cases. The patients were primarily male in both rotavirus (65.2%) and non-rotavirus (62.5%) groups. The median age is 1.33 years old (0.08-17.67 years old). Multivariate analysis shows that wet season (ORadj = 2.5; 95%CI: 1.3-4.8, Padj = 0.006), length of stay (LOS) ≥ 3 days (ORadj = 5.1; 95%CI: 1.4-4.8, Padj = 0.015), presence of abdominal pain (ORadj = 3.0; 95%CI: 1.3-6.8, Padj = 0.007), severe dehydration (ORadj = 2.9; 95%CI: 1.1-7.9, Padj = 0.034), abnormal white blood cell counts (ORadj = 2.8; 95%CI: 1.3-6.0, Padj = 0.006), abnormal random blood glucose (ORadj = 2.3; 95%CI: 1.2-4.4, Padj = 0.018) and presence of fecal leukocytes (ORadj = 4.1, 95%CI: 1.7-9.5, Padj = 0.001) are predictors of rotavirus diarrhea. The area under the curve for this model is 0.819 (95%CI: 0.746-0.878, P value < 0.001), which shows that this model has good discrimination. CONCLUSION Wet season, LOS ≥ 3 d, presence of abdominal pain, severe dehydration, abnormal white blood cell counts, abnormal random blood glucose, and presence of fecal leukocytes predict rotavirus diarrhea.
The complementary relationship between actual and potential evaporation for spatially heterogeneous surfaces

The Complementary Relationship (CR) between actual and potential evaporation offers an attractive framework for estimating actual evaporation of drying land surfaces from simple meteorological measurements. Land surfaces are often heterogeneous with variable soil types, land cover, and local hydrologic conditions that give rise to spatially variable evaporation dynamics. The main aim is to incorporate effects of spatial heterogeneities on estimates of actual evaporation in the CR framework. The study extends the physically based approach of Aminzadeh et al. (2016) and proposes upscaling schemes for land‐atmosphere interactions affecting reference evaporation from heterogeneous surfaces comprised of vegetation and bare soil patches. For small‐scale surface heterogeneity relative to the extent of convective boundary layer (CBL), area‐averaged atmospheric boundary conditions were imposed over the domain of interest to integrate contributions from patches with different dynamics. For large‐scale heterogeneity (large patches relative to the scale of the mean CBL), fluxes from each patch were weighted by their respective areas. Preliminary results are in reasonable agreement with available field measurements and illustrate various effects of heterogeneous surface evaporative fluxes on the CR response. The results also highlight hidden dynamics not captured by standard CR, such as ability of vegetated patches to support steady evaporative fluxes until the onset of water stress while bare soil has already dried out. The study provides new insights into the roles of different vegetation types, land cover fraction, and atmospheric conditions on regional CR behavior hence advancing predictive capabilities of actual evapotranspiration from spatially heterogeneous land surfaces.
High-Area-Efficiency Polar Decoder Chip Architecture Reconfiguring SCL-Decoding With Reconfigurable Pipelined Sorter and SCF-Decoding With Non-Uniform 4-Segment CRC

This brief proposes a high-area-efficiency reconfigurable (RC) Polar decoder chip architecture. For the code length of 2048 bits, it can be reconfigured to decode SCL with the list size of 2 or 4 and SCF in chip. In addition to our proposed hardware architecture, we also develop three useful design techniques for different design purposes, including Four-Stage Reconfigurable Sorter (FRS), Non-Uniformly Segmented CRC Scheme (NSCS), and LLR Register Bit Reduction (LRBR). Regarding the ASIC implementation with TSMC 40-nm low-Vt CMOS technology, our design work only occupies a total core area of <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$1.146~{\mathrm{ mm}}^{2}$ </tex-math></inline-formula> in chip layout, maximally operating at 522 MHz. The throughput for SCL (<inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\text{L}=$ </tex-math></inline-formula>2), SCL (<inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\text{L}=$ </tex-math></inline-formula>4), and SCF decoding is 331, 244, and 269 Mbps (worst case), respectively. As compared to other works in the current literature, our developed chip has the best area-efficiency property while supporting the usage choices of SCL (two list sizes) and SCF decoding in chip.
Improving Domain Generalization in Appearance-Based Gaze Estimation With Consistency Regularization

Gaze estimation, a method for understanding human behavior by analyzing where a person is looking, has significant applications in various fields including advertising, driving assistance, medical diagnostics, and human-computer interaction. Although appearance-based methods have shown promising performance in uncontrolled environments, they often perform poorly when applied to similar but different domains due to variances in image quality, gaze distribution, and illumination. To overcome this limitation, this study aims to improve the domain generalization of appearance-based gaze estimation models using deep learning techniques. We propose an end-to-end deep learning approach that facilitates domain-agnostic feature learning and introduce a novel loss function, spherical gaze distance (SGD), and a regularization method, gaze consistency regularization (GCR). Our experiments, conducted using three commonly used datasets for appearance-based gaze estimation: ETH-XGaze, MPIIGaze, and GazeCapture, demonstrate the effectiveness of SGD and GCR. The results show that the proposed approach outperforms all the state-of-the-art methods on the domain generalization task and significantly improves performance when SGD and GCR are combined. These findings have important implications for the field of gaze estimation, suggesting that the proposed method could enhance the robustness and generalizability of gaze estimation models.
Sickle Cell Disease and Other Risk Factors for Pediatric Arterial Ischemic Stroke: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

Purpose: The incidence and mortality rates of arterial ischemic stroke (AIS) among pediatric patients have been frequently reported. While pediatric stroke can have multiple severe effects, its risk factors have not been methodically examined. This systematic review and meta-analysis were completed to summarize the existing evidence regarding risk factors for AIS in pediatric patients. Methods: To gather relevant articles published in the past 15 years, searches were conducted of PubMed and Scopus. Multivariate odds ratios (ORs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) were analyzed using Review Manager 5.4. Results: From the initial screening of 507 articles, five articles comprising a total of 1,423 participants were selected for qualitative analysis. Two of these additionally underwent quantitative analysis. Among the total participants, 1,108 children with AIS (77.9%) had arteriopathy as the underlying disease. Types of arteriopathy included moyamoya disease (24.28%), arterial dissection (23.29%), focal cerebral arteriopathy (16.16%), and vasculitis (14.71%). The meta-analysis revealed that being between 6 and 9 years of age (OR, 2.19; 95% CI, 1.76 to 2.73; P <0.00001) and having sickle cell disease (OR, 3.46; 95% CI, 2.38 to 5.05; P <0.00001) were associated with arteriopathy in pediatric AIS. Conclusion: Arteriopathy is the most common risk factor for AIS in pediatric patients, and in turn, an age of 6 to 9 years and sickle cell disease are risk factors for arteriopathy within this demographic.
In-group Unity in Anglophone Cameroon's Separatist Discourse. Strategies and Means of Realization

The present paper is the result of a scientific venture into the discursive construction of separatism in Cameroon’s English-speakingregions, which separatists refer to as Southern Cameroons or Ambazonia. My study aims specifically at identifying the linguistic and rhetorical strategies separatist leaders use in order to create a sense of unity amongst all English-speaking Cameroonians and make them join the fight for independence. To achieve this aim, I have analysed speeches authored between 2010 and 2015 by two Anglophone Cameroonian separatist leaders. The analysis of the speeches, which followed the Discourse Historical Approach (Wodak et al. 2009), reveals that Southern Cameroonian nationalists try to achieve unity by resorting to strategies such as nomination, predication, and argumentation through topoi. These strategies were realised by means of linguistic resources including lexicon, imperatives, deontic and epistemic modals.
A community study of neutralizing antibodies against SARS-CoV-2 in China

Background The immune background of the overall population before and after the outbreak of SARS-CoV-2 in China remains unexplored. And the level of neutralizing antibodies is a reliable indicator of individual immunity. Objectives This study aimed to assess the immune levels of different population groups during a viral outbreak and identify the factors influencing these levels. Methods We measured the levels of neutralizing antibodies in 12,137 participants using the COVID19 Neutralizing Antibody Detection kit. The dynamics of neutralizing antibodies were analyzed using a generalized additive model, while a generalized linear model and multi-factor analysis of variance were employed to investigate the influencing factors. Additionally, statistical methods were used to compare neutralizing antibody levels among subgroups of the real-world population. Results Participants who received booster doses exhibited significantly higher levels of neutralizing antibodies compared to those who received only one or two doses (p<0.001). Both elderly [22.55 (5.12, 62.03) IU/mL, 55%] and minors [21.41 (8.15, 45.06) IU/mL, 56%] showed lower positivity rates and neutralizing antibody levels compared to young adults [29.30 (9.82, 188.08) IU/mL, 62%] (p<0.001). Furthermore, the HIV-positive group demonstrated a slightly lower seropositivity rate compared to the healthy group across the three vaccination time points. Notably, three months after the large-scale infection, both the neutralizing antibody level and positivity rate in real-world populations were higher than the previous record [300 (300, 300) IU/mL, 89%; 27.10 (8.77, 139.28) IU/mL, 60%], and this difference was statistically significant. Conclusions Increasing vaccine dosage enhances neutralizing antibody levels, resulting in greater and longer-lasting immunity. Monitoring immune levels in older individuals and those with AIDS is crucial. Additionally, the neutralizing antibodies generated from vaccination have not yet reached the threshold for achieving herd immunity, while individuals exhibit higher immune levels following a large-scale infection. These findings provide valuable insights for guiding new strategies in vaccine administration.
Rhinocerotidae and Chalicotheriidae (Perissodactyla, Tapiromorpha)

ABSTRACT Here we describe mandibular, dental, and postcranial remains referable to Rhinocerotidae and Chalicotheriidae (Perissodactyla) originating from the vertebrate localities of Küçükçekmece East and Küçükçekmece West, in Thrace (European Turkey). The four rhinocerotids recognized comprise the early diverging Ronzotherium sp. (one lower molar, reworked from Oligocene deposits; Küçükçekmece West), the two-horned rhinocerotine Ceratotherium neumayri (Osborn, 1900), and two small chilothere aceratheriines: Chilotherium schlosseri (Weber, 1905) and Persiatherium sp. A chalicotheriine chalicotheriid, Kalimantsia sp. , is documented by two tooth fragments and an unfused second phalanx of undoubtful affinities in Küçükçekmece West. This occurrence substantiates the record of Kalimantsia, previously restricted to the type locality Kalimantsi-Pehsata, in SW Bulgaria, and allows notably for the first recognition of postcranial remains for this taxon. Although distinct in terms of taxonomic composition and relative abundance, the rhinocerotid assemblages of Küçükçekmece East and Küçükçekmece West are in total agreement with a single biostratigraphical age, estimated to be correlated with the late Vallesian MN10 zone.
A Model-Based Markerless Protocol for Clinical Gait Analysis Based on a Single RGB-Depth Camera: Concurrent Validation on Patients With Cerebral Palsy

Clinical gait analysis is a diagnostic tool often used for identifying and quantifying gait alterations in cerebral palsy (CP) patients. To date, 3D clinical gait analysis protocols based on motion capture systems featuring multiple infrared cameras and retroreflective markers to be attached to the subject’s skin are considered the gold standard. However, the need for fully dedicated personnel and space in addition to the inconvenient requirement of multiple markers attached on the patient’s body limit their use in the clinical practice. To shorten the time necessary to setup the patient and to limit his/her discomfort motion tracking performed using markerless technologies may offer a promising alternative to marker-based motion capture. This study aims at proposing and validating on 18 CP patients, an original markerless clinical gait analysis protocol based on a single RGB-D camera. Accuracy and reliability of the spatial-temporal parameters and sagittal lower limb joint kinematics were assessed based on a 3D marker-based clinical gait analysis protocol. The smallest percent mean absolute errors were obtained for stride duration (2%), followed by the step and stride length (2.2% and 2.5%, respectively) and by gait speed (3.1%). The average angular offset values between the two protocols were 8° for the ankle, 6° for the knee and 7° for the hip joint. The smallest root mean square error values were found for the knee joint kinematics (3.2°), followed by the hip (3.5°) and the ankle (4.5°). Both protocols showed a good-to-excellent reliability. Thus, this study demonstrated the technical validity of a markerless single-camera protocol for clinical gait analysis in CP population. The dataset containing markerless data from 10 CP patients along with the MATLAB codes have been made available.
Analysis of Physical Literacy Measurement in Physical Education for Early Childhood

The problem and research question in this study is how to measure Physical Literacy (PL) skills, especially in early childhood, especially since teachers' perceptions of PL are still limited to theories and concepts. This article aims to analyze PL measurement tools for early childhood, as library material for AUD teaching staff. The research approach used was a literature review. This approach was chosen because the data collected was secondary data. Data collection is done by determining keywords which are then searched through reputable scientific databases. The data that has been obtained is analyzed using a two-themed approach, namely PL Assessment in Concept and Practice by sorting out Scopus Q1 reputable international journals and well-known publishers. The results of the analysis show that practically there are 5 journals and 2 journals conceptually for early childhood in the age range category 8-12 years so that it can be called big children or later chillhood. While in early chilhood the research that develops is still on the discussion of concepts, characteristics and how teaching teachers understand to better understand the concept of PL as a whole.
Discussion of Suitable Chemical Weathering Proxies in Sediments by Comparing the Dissolution Rates of Minerals in Different Rocks

In studies of paleoclimate change, variations in major and minor elements are often used as proxies for chemical weathering in soil or lake sediments. To prove the suitability of chemical weathering proxies and further discuss the impact of mineral dissolution on element migrations, various parent rocks in Taiwan were chosen to react with sulfuric acid for discussing mineral dissolution rankings and element leaching during chemical weathering processes. The parent rocks include granite, andesite, actinolite schist, slate, quartz sandstone, calcium sandstone, and mudstone. Experimental results show that dissolution rates are mainly controlled by mineral structures and the chemical compositions of rocks. The ranking of rock dissolution rates is as follows: mudstone > slate > actinolite schist > quartz sandstone > granite. Dissolution rates of andesite and calcium sandstone cannot be compared due to secondary minerals being produced in experiments. Moreover, the dissolution sequences of minerals are of the following order: calcite > chlorite > muscovite and illite > augite > hornblende ≈ feldspar > quartz. This result is consistent with the stability of silicate polymerization. Most notable among the results was that the dissolution rates of clay minerals were faster than those of feldspar. Element migration ranking in dissolution processes is as follows: Mg > Ca ≈ Rb > K > Na > Sr > Al > Zr > Fe ≈ Ti. The dissolution rates of univalent elements follow the sequence of bonding forces; however, those of divalent elements are less ordered. This is due to divalent elements being rich in different mineral phases. Therefore, the study suggests that univalent elements are more suitable as chemical weathering proxy candidates. Moreover, whether ratios of Rb/Sr and K/Rb or chemical index of alteration values in sediments are suitable proxies of paleorainfall intensity is discussed in detail.
COMMUNITY-BASED WATER MONITORING: A CASE STUDY OF THE OAK RIDGES MORAINE, ONTARIO, CANADA

The existence of community-based ecosystem monitoring activities is a relatively new concept that has been on the rise in past years for several reasons, including decreased governmental funding and capacity for monitoring, a growing awareness of environmental issues and a desire to participate in environmental planning and protection (Au et al., 2000; Bliss et al., 2001; Sharpe and Conrad, 2006; Sharpe et al., 2000). Water quality monitoring has become one of the most widespread types of community monitoring (Devlin, 2011). This research project is part of a larger initiative called the CURA H2O Project, based out of St. Mary’s University, Nova Scotia, Canada. CURA H2O looks at streamlining community-based water monitoring and resource management, with a focus on Nova Scotia. The province currently lacks a comprehensive policy water management framework (Sharpe and Conrad, 2006), but has very active community groups monitoring water resources to fill in the governance gap. This research project relates to one of CURA H2O’s objectives to review the state of CBM in Canada: the purpose of this research project is to investigate the state of community-based water monitoring in Southern Ontario, Canada, focusing on the Oak Ridges Moraine (ORM) landscape north of the Greater Toronto Area as a case study. The ORM was chosen for its ecological and hydrological significance, as well as the history of environmental activism and its water governance framework. The qualitative methods used to obtain this data included a literature review, in-depth interviews and a workshop with relevant stakeholders, as well as a document analysis of grey literature related to CBM. The main findings from the research project can be summarized as follows: 1.Water governance in Ontario involves multiple stakeholders. 2.CBM on the ORM takes the form of water quality and quantity, as well as policy monitoring. 3.Government agencies are involved in CBM initiatives, although it is not officially recognized. 4. CBM groups face many barriers which inhibit their ability to impact decision-making. 5.Participation in CBM is likely to increase in the future. 6.CBM programs in Nova Scotia and the ORM have some similarities and differences.
A Novel Hierarchical Tree-DCNN Structure for Unbalanced Data Diagnosis in Microelectronic Manufacturing Process

The quality of flexible integrated circuit substrates (FICSs) is critical to the reliability of various electronic products, making intelligent defect measurement essential for efficient manufacturing and cost-saving. However, existing solutions for substrate defect diagnosis heavily rely on human visual interpretation, which leads to poor efficiency and a high error rate. A novel vision-based detection system consisting of a multiscale imaging module and a hierarchical structure based on the deep convolution neural network (DCNN) is proposed in this article. Rapid and accurate fault diagnosis can be enabled for high-density FICS, and various defects could be located and classified in a coarse-to-fine resolution. Specifically, a new mechanism of hierarchical decision based on DCNNs is built for FICS fault diagnosis, wherein the challenge of unbalanced data is addressed in the network learning process to reach a good trade-off between detection accuracy and speed. The substantial experiments and effectiveness comparison by using the typical methods on three categories of FICS and their corresponding eight-type faults reveal that the proposed system could facilitate the solution of substrate fault measurement and achieve high accuracy and efficiency, which could provide essential information of FICS to divide its industrial acceptance quality level.
Intranasal Oxytocin and Pain Reduction: Testing a Social Cognitive Mediation Model

Oxytocin is well known for its role in relationships and social cognition and has more recently been implicated in pain relief and pain perception. Connections between prosocial feelings and pain relief are also well documented; however, the effects of exogenous oxytocin on social cognition and pain have not been explored. The current study tested whether intranasally delivered oxytocin affects pain perception through prosocial behaviors. Additionally, moderation of the effects of oxytocin by life history or genetic polymorphisms is examined. Young adults (n = 43; 65% female) were administered intranasal oxytocin (24 IU) or placebo in a crossover design on two visits separated by a one-week washout period. Pain was delivered via cold pressor. Baseline measures for decision-making and social cognition were collected, as well as pain sensitivity and medication history. Saliva samples were collected for analysis of genetic markers, and urine samples were collected to assess oxytocin saturation. Following oxytocin administration, participants reported increased prosocial cognition and decision-making. Pain perception appeared to be adaptive, with procedural order and expectation affecting perception. Finally, behavioral trust and cooperation responses were significantly predicted by genetic markers. Oxytocin may increase a patient’s trust and cooperation and reduce pain sensitivity while having fewer physiological side effects than current pharmaceutical options.