Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Optical differential binary phase shift keying of return-to-zero pulses for long-haul DWDM transmission systems

Transmission of 12.5 Gb/s return-to-zero differential binary phase shift keyed (RZDBPSK) DWDM signals with 25 GHz channel spacing in a circulating loop was performed. Test results show that transmission distance of 3000 km over SMF-28 fiber is feasible without Raman amplification and without special dispersion management. Direct comparison of the DBPSK and OOK formats had shown at least 4-dB signal-to-noise ratio advantage of the DBPSK due to better resistance to nonlinearities and balanced detection. Introduction It had been demonstrated experimentally and by simulation [1-3] that the RZ-DBPSK format offers better resistance to fiber nonlinearities than RZ-OOK. In this paper we report results on transmission tests of 12.5 Gb/s RZ-DBPSK and RZ-OOK DWDM signals with 25 GHz spacing in a SMF-28 fiber based circulating loop without distributed Raman amplification or dedicated dispersion map such as pre-or-postcompensation. Test results show that transmission over a distance of 3000 km is feasible when SuperFEC (25% overhead) is employed. Comparison of the two formats show that DBPSK has at least 4 dB SNR advantage over OOK. Experimental setup and results The experimental setup is shown in Fig. 1. Seven or nine DFB lasers (25-GHz spaced) are combined using a fiber coupler before launching into a lithium niobate Mach-Zehnder modulator (MZM) driven by a 12.5 GHz sine wave producing an RZ optical pulse train. The RZ optical pulse (approx. 50% duty cycle) is encoded with a DBPSK (or OOK) signal using a push-pull MZM biased at null (or quadrature) driven by a 12.5 Gb/s NRZ data (PRBS: 2-1) with peak-to-peak voltage of 2Vπ (or Vπ). The DWDM signals are amplified and launched into a circulating loop through an acousto-optic switch. All the channels in the same polarization state are launched into the loop that consists of 82.4 km of SMF-28 fiber followed by 10.9 km of Corning dispersion compensating fiber. One EDFA is used to boost the launch optical power into the SMF-28 span and another one to compensate for the loss in the switch and coupler. Due to the short loop length, a polarization controller is inserted in the loop for long-haul transmission tests in order to compensate for the polarization-dependent losses. The output signal is filtered, polarization controlled and split to ensure a proper polarization state at the input of an asymmetric Mach-Zehnder (AMZ) demodulator. The polarization-sensitive AMZ demodulator has a differential delay of 80 ps, and its temperature is stabilized using a thermo-electric cooler. A fiber Bragg grating filter is used to select the center channel. The optical signal was tappedoff for clock recovery before the amplifier and detected by either a single photoreceiver or a balanced photoreceiver (for DBPSK only). For the case of OOK detection the AMZ demodulator was bypassed.
Assessment of plants grown and maintained in home gardens in Odeda area Southwestern Nigeria

A survey of thirty (30) home gardens in Odeda Local Government Area (LGA) of Ogun State, Southwestern Nigeria was conducted to assess plants grown and maintained by household members and the diversity of vegetal species and their uses. Semi-structured questionnaire and structured interviews were used to collect useful information. A total of 120 plant species belonging to 50 botanical families were documented. From the data, Euphorbiaceae, Solanaceae, Rutaceae, Malvaceae, Caesalpiniaceae, Poaceae and Apocynaceae (in order of decreasing number of species) were the most frequent families. Taxa such as Musa species,Vernonia amygdalina, Citrus species, Psidium guajava and Terminalia catapa were found to be the common food/medicinal plants as evidenced by their densities in the study sites. The household members cited most of the plants as food; others as medicinal and ornamentals. Miscellaneous uses include cosmetics, ceremonial and scouring. Species composition, shapes/structures as well as plant uses are discussed. Home garden products serve alimentary purposes and represent promising base materials for poverty alleviation and may also help to augment “fresh” food nutrient intake. The wealth of the home gardens may be related to the rural origin and to the culture of the owners who still keep a cultivation tradition. Some plant species are frequent. This may suggest uniformity in plant use and could contribute to the conservation of local species. Home gardens can also be regarded as ‘humble’ germplasm bases; hence, the need to re-energize the productive capacity of home gardens. Key words: Agro-forest systems, home garden, ethnobotany, diversity, Odeda, Southwestern Nigeria.
Predicting PPE use, post-traumatic stress, and physical symptoms during the early weeks of COVID-19 lockdowns in the USA

Abstract: The COVID-19 pandemic combined with inconsistent governmental and public health recommendations, media communications emphasizing threat, and widespread lockdowns created a complex psychological environment for Americans. In this study, 450 MTurk workers completed measures of (a) risk for COVID-19, (b) perceived vulnerability to disease, (c) intolerance of uncertainty, (d) mindfulness, (e) COVID-19 preventive health behaviors, (f) post-Trauma symptoms, and (g) stress related physical symptoms. The surveys were completed between April 9, 2020 and April 18, 2020 which is a period that corresponded to the first 2-3 weeks of lockdown for most participants. A substantial number of participants reported a reduction employment status and 69% were in self-isolation. The participants reported a high degree of perceived vulnerability with 68% indicating they felt there was a 50/50 chance or greater they would contract COVID-19. Mask wearing was variable: 16% not at all, 20% some of the time, 42% a good part of the time, and 26% most of the time. Using clinical cutoff on the post-trauma scale, 70% of the sample would be considered to have symptoms consistent with PTSD. The mean level of physical symptoms was significantly (p < .001) and substantially higher (d = 1.46) than norms. PPE use was positively associated with level of education and mindfulness nonreactivity and negatively associated with age, having a current medical condition, and mindfulness nonjudgment. Post trauma and physical health symptoms were strongly predicted by susceptibility variables and intolerance of uncertainty.
Examining Australian’s beliefs, misconceptions and sources of information for COVID-19: a national online survey

Objective Public cooperation to practise preventive health behaviours is essential to manage the transmission of infectious diseases such as COVID-19. We aimed to investigate beliefs about COVID-19 diagnosis, transmission and prevention that have the potential to impact the uptake of recommended public health strategies. Design An online cross-sectional survey. Participants A national sample of 1500 Australian adults with representative quotas for age and gender provided by an online panel provider. Main outcome measure Proportion of participants with correct/incorrect knowledge of COVID-19 preventive behaviours and reasons for misconceptions. Results Of the 1802 potential participants contacted, 289 did not qualify, 13 declined and 1500 participated in the survey (response rate 83%). Most participants correctly identified ‘washing your hands regularly with soap and water’ (92%) and ‘staying at least 1.5 m away from others’ (90%) could help prevent COVID-19. Over 40% (incorrectly) considered wearing gloves outside of the home would prevent them from contracting COVID-19. Views about face masks were divided. Only 66% of participants correctly identified that ‘regular use of antibiotics’ would not prevent COVID-19. Most participants (90%) identified ‘fever, fatigue and cough’ as indicators of COVID-19. However, 42% of participants thought that being unable to ‘hold your breath for 10 s without coughing’ was an indicator of having the virus. The most frequently reported sources of COVID-19 information were commercial television channels (56%), the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (43%) and the Australian Government COVID-19 information app (31%). Conclusions Public messaging about hand hygiene and physical distancing to prevent transmission appears to have been effective. However, there are clear, identified barriers for many individuals that have the potential to impede uptake or maintenance of these behaviours in the long term. We need to develop public health messages that harness these barriers to improve future cooperation. Ensuring adherence to these interventions is critical.
CP-JKU SUBMISSIONS TO DCASE’20: LOW-COMPLEXITY CROSS-DEVICE ACOUSTIC SCENE CLASSIFICATION WITH RF-REGULARIZED CNNS Technical Report

This technical report describes the CP-JKU team’s submission for Task 1 – Subtask A (Acoustic Scene Classiﬁcation with Multiple Devices) and Subtask B (Low-Complexity Acoustic Scene Classiﬁ-cation) of the DCASE-2020 challenge [1]. For Subtask 1.A, we provide our Receptive Field (RF) regularized CNN model as a baseline, and additionally explore the use of two different domain adaptation objectives in the form of the Maximum Mean Discrepancy (MMD) and the Sliced Wasserstein Distance (SWD) . For Subtask 1.B, we investigate different parameter reduction methods such as Pruning , while maintaining the receptive ﬁeld of the networks. Additionally, we incorporate a decomposed convolutional layer that reduces the number of non-zero parameters in our models while only slightly decreasing the accuracy, compared to the full-parameter baseline. 1
Gender, Language and Society - Word Embeddings as a Reflection of Social Inequalities in Linguistic Corpora

Research on language and gender has a long tradition, and large electronic text corpora and novel computational methods for representing word meaning have recently opened new directions. We explain how gender can be analysed using word embeddings: vector representations of words computationally derived from lexical context in large corpora and capturing a degree of semantics. Being derived from naturally-occurring text, these also capture human biases, stereotypes and reflect social inequalities. The relation between the English words man and programmer can correspond to that between woman and homemaker. In Slovene, the availability of male and female forms for many words for occupations means that such effects might be reduced; however, we study a range of such relations and show that some gender bias still persists (e.g. the relation between words woman and secretary is very similar to that between man and boss).
The Relationship between Neuroticism, Extraversion and Psychological Well-Being in Sudanese Undergraduate Students between Different Gender and Age Cohort

Psychological well-being is more than just happiness or satisfaction; rather it refers to being able to develop as a person and to being fulfilled and happy, and thus, contributes to the well-being of the community at large. However, since 2014, the issue of psychological well-being in Sudan has become a prodigious concern due to the rising rate of psychological problems among students. Past literature highlighted the recent increase in numbers of Sudanese students who are suffering from psychological issues. In spite that, the research on psychological well-being and personality has undergone extensive empirical review and theoretical evaluation, there is a dearth of empirical studies on the relationship between personality and psychological well-being among Sudanese students. Thus, the current study investigated the relationship between extraversion, neuroticism and psychological well-being of undergraduate students. A correlational research design was used in this study. The study used stratified random sampling procedure to select 382 undergraduate students as the sample of the study. The Eysenck Personality Inventory (EPI) that measures two dimensions of personality and Ryff’s Psychological Well-being scales were administered. The findings of this study with a p-value =. 000 < . 01 threshold of alpha showed that there was positive correlation between extraversion and the psychological well-being; the findings further explained with a p-value =. 000 < . 01 that neuroticism was positively correlated with the psychological wellbeing of the students.This study contributed to the literature of psychological wellbeing and established the relationships of extraversion, neuroticism and psychological well-being among
Risk Factors for COVID-19-associated hospitalization: COVID-19-Associated Hospitalization Surveillance Network and Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System

Background: Identification of risk factors for COVID-19-associated hospitalization is needed to guide prevention and clinical care. Objective: To examine if age, sex, race/ethnicity, and underlying medical conditions is independently associated with COVID-19-associated hospitalizations. Design: Cross-sectional. Setting: 70 counties within 12 states participating in the Coronavirus Disease 2019-Associated Hospitalization Surveillance Network (COVID-NET) and a population-based sample of non-hospitalized adults residing in the COVID-NET catchment area from the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System. Participants: U.S. community-dwelling adults ([≥]18 years) with laboratory-confirmed COVID-19-associated hospitalizations, March 1- June 23, 2020. Measurements: Adjusted rate ratios (aRR) of hospitalization by age, sex, race/ethnicity and underlying medical conditions (hypertension, coronary artery disease, history of stroke, diabetes, obesity [BMI [≥]30 kg/m2], severe obesity [BMI[≥]40 kg/m2], chronic kidney disease, asthma, and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease). Results: Our sample included 5,416 adults with COVID-19-associated hospitalizations. Adults with (versus without) severe obesity (aRR:4.4; 95%CI: 3.4, 5.7), chronic kidney disease (aRR:4.0; 95%CI: 3.0, 5.2), diabetes (aRR:3.2; 95%CI: 2.5, 4.1), obesity (aRR:2.9; 95%CI: 2.3, 3.5), hypertension (aRR:2.8; 95%CI: 2.3, 3.4), and asthma (aRR:1.4; 95%CI: 1.1, 1.7) had higher rates of hospitalization, after adjusting for age, sex, and race/ethnicity. In models adjusting for the presence of an individual underlying medical condition, higher hospitalization rates were observed for adults [≥]65 years, 45-64 years (versus 18-44 years), males (versus females), and non-Hispanic black and other race/ethnicities (versus non-Hispanic whites). Limitations: Interim analysis limited to hospitalizations with underlying medical condition data. Conclusion: Our findings elucidate groups with higher hospitalization risk that may benefit from targeted preventive and therapeutic interventions.
The optimal level of serum vitamin D in apparently healthy Bangladeshi adult volunteer

Introduction: Vitamin D level has profound clinical implications but there is a dilemma of optimal vitamin D cut off level among the Bangladeshi population as well in many parts of the world. This study aimed to determine the optimal level of vitamin D in relation to intact parathyroid hormone (iPTH) and serum calcium in apparently healthy adult volunteer. Methods: This observational cross-sectional study was carried out in 130 apparently healthy adult participants of BSMMU. All the subjects were taken their demographic profile and investigated for vitamin D level, iPTH, corrected calcium and phosphate. Serum 25(OH)D was measured by high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) whereas iPTH, corrected serum calcium and serum phosphate were measured by chemiluminescent method. Results: The mean 25(OH)D level was found to be 16.78(SD8.47) ng/ml and extensively distinct by age distribution and adequacy of sun exposure. There was substantially inverse correlation between serum iPTH and serum 25(OH)D (r = - 0.22, p = 0.01). Serum 25(OH)D levels < 27.5ng/ml were associated with a steep increase in serum iPTH levels. Serum iPTH was stabilized at level 54.5pg/ml by using the quadratic fit with plateau model. Conclusions: From this study the optimal level of 25(OH)D for the apparently healthy adult in Bangladesh is 27.5 ng/ml.
Video classification with memory and computation-efficient convolutional neural network

Video understanding involves problems such as video classification, which consists in labeling videos based on their contents and frames. In many real world applications such as robotics, self-driving car, augmented reality, and Internet of Things (IoT), video understanding tasks need to be carried out in a real-time manner on a device with limited memory resources and computation capabilities, while meeting latency requirement. In this context, whereas neural networks that are memory and computatione cient i.e., that present a reasonable trade-o between accuracy and e ciency with respect to memory size and computational speed have been developed for image recognition tasks, studies about video classification have not made the most of these networks. To fill this gap, this project answers the following research question: how to build video classification pipelines that are based on memory and computation-e cient convolutional neural network (CNN) and how do the latter perform? In order to answer this question, the project builds and evaluates video classification pipelines that are new artefacts. This research involves triangulation (i.e., is qualitative and quantitative at the same time) and the empirical research method is used for the evaluation. The artefacts are based on one of existing memory and computation-e cient CNNs and its evaluation is based on a public video classification dataset and multiclass classification performance metrics. The case study research strategy is adopted: we try to generalize obtained results as far as possible to other memory and computation-e cient CNNs and video classification datasets. The abductive research approach is used in order to verify or falsify hypotheses. As results, the artefacts are built and show satisfactory performance metrics compared to baseline pipelines that are also developed in this thesis and metric values that are reported in other papers that used the same dataset. To conclude, video-classification pipelines based on memory and computation-e cient CNN can be built by designing and developing artefacts that combine approaches inspired from existing papers and new approaches and these artefacts present satisfactory performance. In particular, we observe that the drop in accuracy induced by memory and computation-e cient CNN when dealing with video frames is, to some extent, compensated by capturing temporal information via consideration of sequence of these frames.
Serial population based serosurvey of antibodies to SARS-CoV-2 in a low and high transmission area of Karachi, Pakistan

Background Pakistan is among the first low- and middle-income countries affected by COVID-19 pandemic. Monitoring progress through serial sero-surveys, particularly at household level, in densely populated urban communities can provide insights in areas where testing is non-uniform. Methods Two serial cross-sectional household surveys were performed in April (phase 1) and June (phase 2) 2020 each in a low- (District Malir) and high-transmission (District East) area of Karachi, Pakistan. Household were selected using simple random sampling (Malir) and systematic random sampling (East). Individual participation rate from consented households was 82.3% (1000/1215 eligible) in phase 1 and 76.5% (1004/1312 eligible) in phase 2. All household members or their legal guardians answered questions related to symptoms of Covid-19 and provided blood for testing with commercial Elecsys Anti-SARS-CoV-2 immunoassay targeting combined IgG and IgM. Seroprevalence estimates were computed for each area and time point independently. Given correlation among household seropositivity values, a Bayesian regression model accounting for household membership, age and gender was used to estimate seroprevalence. These estimates by age and gender were then post-stratified to adjust for the demographic makeup of the respective district. The household conditional risk of infection was estimated for each district and its confidence interval were obtained using a non-parametric bootstrap of households. Findings Post-stratified seroprevalence was estimated to be 0.2% (95% CI 0-0.7) in low-and 0.4% (95% CI 0 - 1.3) in high-transmission areas in phase 1 and 8.7% (95% CI 5.1-13.1) in low- and 15.1% (95% CI 9.4 -21.7) in high-transmission areas in phase 2, with no consistent patterns between prevalence rates for males and females. Conditional risk of infection estimates (possible only for phase 2) were 0.31 (95% CI 0.16-0.47) in low- and 0.41(95% CI 0.28-0.52) in high-transmission areas. Of the 166 participants who tested positive, only 9(5.4%) gave a history of any symptoms. Interpretation A large increase in seroprevalence to SARS-CoV-2 infection is seen, even in areas where transmission is reported to be low. Mostly the population is still seronegative. A large majority of seropositives do not report any symptoms. The probability that an individual in a household is infected, given that another household member is infected is high in both the areas. These results emphasise the need to enhance surveillance activities of COVID-19 especially in low-transmission sites and provide insights to risks of household transmission in tightly knit neighbourhoods in urban LMIC settings.
GENETIC POLYMORPHISM IN NOS GENE AND CORRELATED WITH PEROXYNITRITE LEVEL VARIANT IN T2DM OF IRAQI PATIENTS

The effect of the genetic polymorphism of three SNPs rs1549758 (T132C), rs1799983 (T517G), rs1007311 (A414G) of endothelial nitric oxide synthase gene (NOS3) as a risk factor for the complication of T2DM showed that rs1549758 (T132C) of NOS3 gene aligned with reference sequence in (NCBI BLAST) where TC heterozygous polymorphic percentage appeared in 40% of patients compared to 50% in healthy controls. On the other hand, the mutant homozygous (CC) percentage was 60% in patients and 50% in healthy controls. There was a significant (p-value 4.392) between the TC, CC genotypes in both of T2DM patients and controls. This variation causes synonymous (silent) mutation without changing the amino acid (Aspartic acid GAT and GAC). Accordingly, this may not represent a risk factor to T2DM.Variant rs1799983 (T517G) appeared patients as TG heterozygous polymorphic 46.67% and mutant homozygous GG 53.33%. Furthermore, results showed both TG heterozygous polymorphic and mutant homozygous GG 50% in controls. These differences in TG and GG were not significant between patients and controls. This variation cause missense mutation by changing Aspartic acid (GAT) to Glutamic acid (GAG), however, both amino acid have the same properties (mono amino dicarboxylic acid, polar, hydrophilic, ionisable, acidic group). Again, whether this mutation can considered as a risk factor for T2DM, is still unknown. Variation rs1007311 (A414G) presented in patients, it appeared 33.33% in AA non-polymorphic while 46.67% as a heterozygous polymorphic AG and 20% appeared as homozygous mutant GG. While appeared in controls 40% as a non-polymorphic AA and 60% were heterozygous polymorphic AG. Both AG and GG variants were shown to be significant (p-value 0.0277, 7.250) respectively. It was noted, that variation located in the intron region, which may not be involved in influencing.