Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Customizable Nichrome Wire Heaters for Molecular Diagnostic Applications

Accurate sample heating is vital for nucleic acid extraction and amplification, requiring a sophisticated thermal cycling process in nucleic acid detection. Traditional molecular detection systems with heating capability are bulky, expensive, and primarily designed for lab settings. Consequently, their use is limited where lab systems are unavailable. This study introduces a technique for performing the heating process required in molecular diagnostics applicable for point-of-care testing (POCT), by presenting a method for crafting customized heaters using freely patterned nichrome (NiCr) wire. This technique, fabricating heaters by arranging protrusions on a carbon black-polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) cast and patterning NiCr wire, utilizes cost-effective materials and is not constrained by shape, thereby enabling customized fabrication in both two-dimensional (2D) and three-dimensional (3D). To illustrate its versatility and practicality, a 2D heater with three temperature zones was developed for a portable device capable of automatic thermocycling for polymerase chain reaction (PCR) to detect Escherichia coli (E. coli) O157:H7 pathogen DNA. Furthermore, the detection of the same pathogen was demonstrated using a customized 3D heater surrounding a microtube for loop-mediated isothermal amplification (LAMP). Successful DNA amplification using the proposed heater suggests that the heating technique introduced in this study can be effectively applied to POCT.
Performance Analysis of the Activation Neuron Function in the Flexible Neural Tree Model

The time series prediction and forecasting is an important area in the field of Machine Learning. Around ten years ago, a kind of Multilayer Neural Network was introduced under the name of Flexible Neural Tree (FNT). This model uses meta-heuristic techniques to deter- minate its topology and its embedded parameters. The FNT model has been successfully employed on time-series modeling and temporal learn- ing tasks. The activation function used in the FNT belongs to the family of radial basis functions. It is a parametric function and the parameters are set employing an heuristic procedure. In this article, we analyze the impact on the performance of the FNT model when it used other fam- ily of neuron activation functions. For that, we use the hyperbolic tan- gent and Fermi activation functions on the tree nodes. Both functions have been extensively used in the field of Neural Networks. Moreover, we study the FNT technique with a linear variant of the Fermi function. We present an experimental comparison of our approaches on two widely used time-series benchmarks.
Nutritional and Microbial Qualities of Fermented Cereal-Based Porridges Produced in Northern Benin

Fermentation has been used for centuries to enhance the sensory and nutritional qualities and the antioxidant content of plant-based foods, making them beneficial for health. This study aims to investigate the microbiological and nutritional qualities of fermented porridges produced in northern Benin. Various nutritional tests and the identification of different microorganisms have gained insights into eight porridges produced in 9 localities of northern Benin. Lactic acid bacteria have the highest proportion among all microorganisms in fermented porridges, followed by the total mesophyll aerobic flora. E. coli, thermotolerant coliforms, and molds are not present in all porridges analyzed. Recorded data suggested that porridges have a variable microbial load depending on the collection municipalities. The dry matter of the eight types of porridge varies greatly, with akloui having 27.03 ± 3.83 g/100 g and fourra having 48.63 ± 3.83 g/100 g. The total ashes also differ significantly, with bita having 39.36 ± 4.67 g/100 g and sagagnèga having 63.19 ± 4.67 g/100 g. It is worth noting that all fermented porridges have a pH lower than 5, and the titratable acidity ranges from 0.01 ± 0.00 g to 0.02 ± 0.00 g. The brix degree varies from 0.46 ± 0.54 to 4.4 ± 0.54. The beta-carotene values of the 8 types of porridge vary from 0.037 ± 0.018 mg/g to 0.138 ± 0.018 mg/g, while the total sugars range from 1.926 ± 0.877 to 5.773 ± 0.877 g/100 g. The lipid content, when present, varies from 0.226 ± 0.029% to 0.408 ± 0.029%. Finally, the protein percentage of the porridge ranges from 7.061 ± 0.779 to 12.419 ± 0.779.
Extraction of hybrid trace features with evolutionary computation for face recognition

The hybrid trace features (HTF), a new face representation, is proposed for face authentication system. Trace transforms of multiple Trace functionals are used to construct the HTF, and Genetic Algorithms is implemented as the data fusion tool. In addition, rotation based hybrid trace features (r-HTF) is also introduced as facial features. The systemic evaluations on Cambridge ORL face database reveal that HTF and r-HTF present high discriminatory power and outperform the features extracted by principal component analysis (PCA), linear discriminant analysis (LDA) and kernel PCA in the task of classification.
BEVLOC: End-to-End 6-DoF Localization Via Cross-Modality Correlation Under Bird’s Eye View

Accurate ego-centric localization assumes a paramount significance in the domain of autonomous driving. However, traditional methods for camera-LiDAR map localization rely on perspective projection to create a unified representation, which often falls short due to challenges such as occlusion and the sparse nature of point cloud data. Despite the recent surge in popularity of the Bird’s-Eye-View (BEV) paradigm within autonomous driving, its potential applications in localization tasks have remained relatively underexplored. In response to this concern, this paper presents a pioneering end-to-end approach called the BEV Localization Network via Li-DAR Map (BEVLoc). By fusing the image and LiDAR map in the BEV space via the concept of optical flow-based correlation, the BEVLoc framework can leverage the synergistic power of cross-modalities in localizing the vehicle. Experimental results conducted on the KITTI dataset highlight the efficacy and performance of BEVLoc in the realm of autonomous vehicle localization.
A fluorometric method for measurement of oxygen radical-scavenging activity of water-soluble antioxidants.

The relative activities of the antioxidants Trolox, ascorbic acid, uric acid, quercetin, and rutin, and the activities of total antioxidants in serum samples were determined using a fluorometric assay based on the dye 6-carboxyfluoroscein (6C-Fl) as a fluorescent indicator; 2,2'-azobis-2-amidinopropane hydrochloride (AAPH) as a peroxyl radical generator; 6-hydroxy-2,5,7, 8-tetramethyl-1-chroman-2-carboxylic acid (Trolox) as a calibrator; and phosphate buffer (pH 7.0) as a solvent. Incubation of 6C-Fl in 0. 075 M phosphate buffer, in the presence of AAPH at 37 degrees C, resulted in loss of its fluorescence signal at 520 nm with excitation at 495 nm. The antioxidants Trolox, ascorbic acid, and uric acid provided protection of the fluorescence of 6C-Fl, and the relative antioxidant activities, determined by the net protection area under curve technique, were found to be 1:0.4:1, respectively. Trolox and ascorbic acid were used to validate this assay. A linear correlation of the net protection value with the concentration of serum, Trolox, ascorbic acid, and uric acid was demonstrated. Quercetin and rutin were shown to have strong antioxidant activities, nearly 10 times those of vitamin C. This assay is simple, reliable, and suitable for automation to handle many samples and requires few microliters of serum samples.
Influence of Magnesium Alloy Degradation on Undifferentiated Human Cells

Background Magnesium alloys are of particular interest in medical science since they provide compatible mechanical properties with those of the cortical bone and, depending on the alloying elements, they have the capability to tailor the degradation rate in physiological conditions, providing alternative bioresorbable materials for bone applications. The present study investigates the in vitro short-term response of human undifferentiated cells on three magnesium alloys and high-purity magnesium (Mg). Materials and Methods The degradation parameters of magnesium-silver (Mg2Ag), magnesium-gadolinium (Mg10Gd) and magnesium-rare-earth (Mg4Y3RE) alloys were analysed after 1, 2, and 3 days of incubation in cell culture medium under cell culture condition. Changes in cell viability and cell adhesion were evaluated by culturing human umbilical cord perivascular cells on corroded Mg materials to examine how the degradation influences the cellular development. Results and Conclusions The pH and osmolality of the medium increased with increasing degradation rate and it was found to be most pronounced for Mg4Y3RE alloy. The biological observations showed that HUCPV exhibited a more homogeneous cell growth on Mg alloys compared to high-purity Mg, where they showed a clustered morphology. Moreover, cells exhibited a slightly higher density on Mg2Ag and Mg10Gd in comparison to Mg4Y3RE, due to the lower alkalinisation and osmolality of the incubation medium. However, cells grown on Mg10Gd and Mg4Y3RE generated more developed and healthy cellular structures that allowed them to better adhere to the surface. This can be attributable to a more stable and homogeneous degradation of the outer surface with respect to the incubation time.
People Detection under Occlusion in Multiple Camera Views

This paper proposes a method to locate people on a reference plane using multiple cameras. Previous works rely on people trajectories and color models to solve occlusion.This new approach solves people detection under occlusion by accumulating evidence from multiple views instantaneously and does not rely on previous segmentation of individuals in foreground data or any tracking information.First, foreground data from one view, segmented using background subtraction, is projected onto the ground plane or reference image. The projected foreground of a second view overlaps the first projected foreground only on the points where the foreground intersects the ground plane.Thus, by accumulating the evidence from multiple views,people can be located by detecting local maxima on the accumulated reference image. Experimental results using publicly available data from PETSpsila06 [9] show that the method robustly locates people in very challenging situations with occlusion in most of the views. The locations on the ground plane can further be used for segmentation and tracking on each camera view under severe occlusion.
ROOT RESISTANCE AS A CAUSE OF DECREASED WATER ABSORPTION BY PLANTS AT LOW TEMPERATURES.

It is well known that low soil temperatures decrease the absorptionl of water by plants. Many years ago SACHS (24) reported that tobacco and gourd plants growing in moist soil under conditions favoring a low rate of transpiration wilted when the soil was cooled to 30 to 50 C. , but recovered when the soil was warmed to 120 to 180 C. Cabbage and turnips were less affected, absorbing enough water at a soil temperature just above freezing to prevent wilting during times of moderate transpiration. A few years later VESQUE (29) made further studies using a potometer method in which the roots of Hedera helix were immersed in water and cooled to low temperatures. He reported that absorption by transpiring plants decreased as the temperature was decreased although some absorption occurred even at 0.50 C. The most rapid decrease occurred between 150 and 100 C. VESQUE stated that since temperatures higher than 150 C. sometimes resulted in an increase and sometimes in a decrease in absorption, it was impossible to decide as to the real effect. KOSAROFF (17), by the use of potometers, made an extensive investigation of the effects of low temperature on water intake through living root systems and root systems killed by scalding. He found that lowering the temperature from about 200 C. to freezing retarded the absorption of water by living root systems of Phaseolus and Pisum 25 or 30 per cent. but did not decrease the absorption of water through dead root systems. Lowered temperature decreased water intake through cut branches of woody plants, but not as much as through living root systems. KOSAROFF also reported that certain species including Sinapis alba and Chrysanthemum indicum were able to absorb water from soil at 10 C. ; Chrysanthemutm indicum and Salix absorbed water from ice in which their roots were frozen. Since the claim that absorption occurred was based on recovery of wilted leaves in a humid atmosphere, it might be supposed that recovery was brought about by movement of water from stem to leaves rather than by absorption through the roots. KOSAROFF discounted this explanation, however, since shoots not in water or ice failed to recover their turgor in a saturated atmosphere. STAHL (25) reported guttation from the leaves of oats, barley, wheat, and Geranium pyrenaicum with roots in soil cooled to approximately 00 C. This, he believed, indicated that some absorption was occurring even at freezing. DUNCAN and COOKE (12) found that the rate of absorption by sugar cane
Pivoted Cholesky decomposition by Cross Approximation for efficient solution of kernel systems

Large kernel systems are prone to be ill-conditioned. Pivoted Cholesky decomposition (PCD) render a stable and ecient solution to the systems without a perturbation of regularization. This paper proposes a new PCD algorithm by tuning Cross Approximation (CA) algorithm to kernel matrices which merges the merits of PCD and CA, and proves as well as numerically exemplies that it solves large kernel systems two-order more eciently than those resorts to regularization. As a by-product, a diagonal-pivoted CA technique is also shown ecient in eigen-decomposition of large covariance matrices in an uncertainty quantication problem.
Enabling GLOSA for adaptive traffic lights

Green Light Optimized Speed Advisory (GLOSA) systems aim at giving ideal target speed recommendations to the driver when approaching a traffic light to lower CO2 emissions (and fuel consumption) and to reduce the number of unnecessary stops. These systems have been shown to work well with static traffic light programs, unfortunately, a large portion of traffic lights in inner cities are adaptive and can change their behaviour with almost no lead time. This paper presents and validates (using field tests and simulation) a method to help overcome this problem and forecast fully and semi-adaptive traffic lights. First, we transformed the state graph of the traffic light controller into a transition graph focusing on signal changes and their occurrence probability. We then reduced routing possibilities within the graph using real life observations and recorded detector data of the traffic light. We further optimized our system in terms of needed storage and computationally efficiency. Our results show that in 80% of all cases we could predict signal changes 15s in the future with a high enough accuracy to enable GLOSA for adaptive traffic lights.
Face Verification Using GaborWavelets and AdaBoost

This paper presents a new face verification algorithm based on Gabor wavelets and AdaBoost. In the algorithm, faces are represented by Gabor wavelet features generated by Gabor wavelet transform. Gabor wavelets with 5 scales and 8 orientations are chosen to form a family of Gabor wavelets. By convolving face images with these 40 Gabor wavelets, the original images are transformed into magnitude response images of Gabor wavelet features. The AdaBoost algorithm selects a small set of significant features from the pool of the Gabor wavelet features. Each feature is the basis for a weak classifier which is trained with face images taken from the XM2VTS database. The feature with the lowest classification error is selected in each iteration of the AdaBoost operation. We also address issues regarding computational costs in feature selection with AdaBoost. A support vector machine (SVM) is trained with examples of 20 features, and the results have shown a low false positive rate and a low classification error rate in face verification
Comparing the first and second hundred AIDS cases in Hong Kong.

OBJECTIVES To study the clinical and epidemiological features of the first 200 AIDS patients in Hong Kong. METHOD A retrospective analysis of the data reported to the Department of Health. The patients were divided into two groups of first 100 and second 100 cases for comparison so as to discern the temporal changes. RESULTS The first 100 AIDS cases were reported from February 1985 through to March 1994 (122 months) while the second 100 in the following 26 months. For both groups, they were predominantly male (94%, 89%), Chinese (66%, 74%) who acquired HIV via sex (83%, 91%). The proportion of Caucasians and homo/bi-sexual contacts in first and second 100 cases have fallen from 26% to 12% (p = 0.012), and from 53% to 31% (p = 0.006) respectively. For primary AIDS-defining illness (ADI), the frequency of Pneumocystis carinii pneumonia (PCP) has decreased (46% to 30%, p = 0.03) while that of tuberculosis (10%, 19%) and Penicillium marneffei (5%, 14%) infection have increased. Mycobacterium avium intracellualare and cytomegalovirus infection have become commoner subsequent ADIs. Frequency of PCP (22%, 9.5%) as the cause of death have dropped while that of tuberculosis has risen (4.8%, 14.3%). Median survival probability had improved from 7.3 months for the first half of patients to 11.9 months for the second half. CONCLUSION Incidence of PCP has declined among local AIDS patients whereas tuberculosis, penicilliosis, MAI, and CMV diseases have increased. Survival chance of AIDS patients has improved over the years.
The Utility of Spectroscopic MRI in Stereotactic Biopsy and Radiotherapy Guidance in Newly Diagnosed Glioblastoma

Simple Summary This report aims to demonstrate the value of spectroscopic MRI in glioma diagnostics and therapeutics planning. We first demonstrate clinical translatability by showing a biopsy case of a lower-grade glioma patient. The biopsy target was delineated via spectroscopy. Then, we conducted a secondary analysis of our clinical trial treating newly diagnosed glioblastoma (GBM) patients with belinostat by investigating the relationship between under-radiated tumor areas identified via spectroscopy and overall survival. Our results revealed that patients with a lower volume of undertreated tumors detected via spectroscopy had improved survival outcomes, highlighting the potential benefits of integrating metabolite information with treatment planning. Finally, we establish the utility of spectroscopic MRI for treating areas of future recurrence in patients with GBM. The report highlights the potential of advanced imaging techniques in improving the diagnostic and treatment strategies for this challenging disease. Abstract Current diagnostic and therapeutic approaches for gliomas have limitations hindering survival outcomes. We propose spectroscopic magnetic resonance imaging as an adjunct to standard MRI to bridge these gaps. Spectroscopic MRI is a volumetric MRI technique capable of identifying tumor infiltration based on its elevated choline (Cho) and decreased N-acetylaspartate (NAA). We present the clinical translatability of spectroscopic imaging with a Cho/NAA ≥ 5x threshold for delineating a biopsy target in a patient diagnosed with non-enhancing glioma. Then, we describe the relationship between the undertreated tumor detected with metabolite imaging and overall survival (OS) from a pilot study of newly diagnosed GBM patients treated with belinostat and chemoradiation. Each cohort (control and belinostat) were split into subgroups using the median difference between pre-radiotherapy Cho/NAA ≥ 2x and the treated T1-weighted contrast-enhanced (T1w-CE) volume. We used the Kaplan–Meier estimator to calculate median OS for each subgroup. The median OS was 14.4 months when the difference between Cho/NAA ≥ 2x and T1w-CE volumes was higher than the median compared with 34.3 months when this difference was lower than the median. The T1w-CE volumes were similar in both subgroups. We find that patients who had lower volumes of undertreated tumors detected via spectroscopy had better survival outcomes.
Hybrid Android Malware Detection: A Review of Heuristic-Based Approach

Over the last decade, numerous research efforts have been dedicated to countering malicious mobile applications. Given its market share, Android OS has been the primary target for most of these apps. Researchers have devised numerous solutions to protect Android devices and their users, categorizing them into static and dynamic approaches. Each of these approaches has its own advantages and disadvantages. The hybrid approach aims to combine the benefits of both. This study closely examines the hybrid solutions proposed between 2012 and 2023, highlighting their strengths and limitations. The objective of this study is to provide a comprehensive review of existing research on Android malware detection using a hybrid approach. Our review identifies several issues related to hybrid detection approaches, including datasets, feature utilization and selection, working environments, detection order mechanisms, integrity of the detection step, detection algorithms, and the use of automated input generation. Key findings of this study include: (i) the majority of studies have not adequately addressed on-device detection and have overlooked the importance of system usability, (ii) many studies rely on outdated datasets that do not accurately represent the current threat landscape, (iii) there is a need for a methodology to detect zero-day attacks, and (iv) most research has not paid attention to the impact of automated input generation on malware behavior and code coverage. We also discuss some open issues and future directions that will help substantiate the hybrid approach study.
Evaluation of the representativeness of networks of sites for the global validation and intercomparison of land biophysical products: proposition of the CEOS-BELMANIP

This study investigates the representativeness of land cover and leaf area index (LAI) sampled by a global network of sites to be used for the evaluation of land biophysical products, such as LAI or fAPAR, derived from current satellite systems. The networks of sites considered include 100 sites where ground measurements of LAI or fAPAR have been performed for the validation of medium resolution satellite land biophysical products, 188 FLUXNET sites and 52 AERONET sites. All the sites retained had less than 25% of water bodies within a 8times8 km 2 window, and were separated by more than 20 km. The ECOCLIMAP global classification was used to quantify the representativeness of the networks. It allowed describing the Earth's surface with seven main types and proposed a climatology for monthly LAI values at a spatial resolution around 1 km. The site distribution indicates a large over representation of the northern midlatitudes relative to other regions, and an under-representation of bare surfaces, grass, and evergreen broadleaf forests. These three networks represent all together 295 sites after elimination of sites that were too close. They were thus completed by 76 additional sites to improve the representativeness in latitude, longitude, and surface type. This constitutes the BELMANIP network proposed as a benchmark for intercomparison of land biophysical products. Suitable approaches to conducting intercomparison at the sites are recommended