Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Traffic Learning and Proactive UAV Trajectory Planning for Data Uplink in Markovian IoT Models

The age of information (AoI) is used to measure the freshness of the data. In IoT networks, the traditional resource management schemes rely on a message exchange between the devices and the base station (BS) before communication which causes high AoI, high energy consumption, and low reliability. Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) as flying BSs have many advantages in minimizing the AoI, energy-saving, and throughput improvement. In this paper, we present a novel learning-based framework that estimates the traffic arrival of IoT devices based on Markovian events. The learning proceeds to optimize the trajectory of multiple UAVs and their scheduling policy. First, the BS predicts the future traffic of the devices. We compare two traffic predictors: the forward algorithm (FA) and the long short-term memory (LSTM). Afterward, we propose a deep reinforcement learning (DRL) approach to optimize the optimal policy of each UAV. Finally, we manipulate the optimum reward function for the proposed DRL approach. Simulation results show that the proposed algorithm outperforms the random-walk (RW) baseline model regarding the AoI, scheduling accuracy, and transmission power.
POTENTIAL PRODUCTIVITY AND LIVESTOCK CARRYING CAPACITY OF HIGH-FRIGID GRASSLAND IN CHINA

Analysis of the potential productivity and livestock carrying situation in China's high\|frigid grassland (CHFG) facilitated drawing the following conclusions: 1)annual rainfall is the key factor limiting the climatic potential productivity of CHFG. 2)The climatic potential productivity of CHFG is 6 568\^6kg/hm\+2,and the grassland potential productivity is 2 971\^4kg/hm\+2,but the actual productivity is 1 632\^2kg/hm\+2 which is only 54\^9% of the grassland potential productivity and 24\^8% of the climatic one. This shows that there is a big room for developing grassland productivity. 3)The maximum theoretical livestock carrying capacity of the whole CHFG is 147\^71 million standard sheep and suitable carrying capacity is 79\^32 million. With continuous exploitation of the grassland potential productivity in the future,the suitable carrying capacity will increase by 1\^46 and 1\^76 times respectively for the years 2010 and 2020. 4)There exists an overloading of 24\^64 million sheep on CHFG at present,being as high as 28\^6%. 5)There is great difference in productivity and livestock carrying capacity in different types of CHFG,it is necessary to adopt measures suitable to different places.
A Metasurface-Based Electronically Reconfigurable and Dual-Polarized Reflectarray Antenna for Beam-Steering Applications

In this work, a metasurface-based, 1-bit electronically reconfigurable reflectarray antenna (RRA) is proposed for dual-polarization beam-steering applications. The proposed RRA consists of $16\times16$ Jerusalem cross-shaped unit cells loaded with PIN diodes, which are used as active and reconfigurable devices to generate a reflection phase difference of 180° between their on- and off-states. An optimal focal length to diameter ratio $(f/D)$ for the feed antenna is determined to maximize its radiation coverage on the RRA. Microcontroller-based shift registers are used to resolve the complexity of the individual DC bias networks for the PIN diodes. The proposed RRA is designed, fabricated, and measured to evaluate its beam-steering performance. The measurement results show that the proposed RRA can achieve beam-steering of ±60° for x- and y-polarizations in both azimuth and elevation planes. Moreover, the proposed RRA is further verified by full-wave simulations to evaluate its additional functions, such as the generation of sum and difference beams for monopulse radar systems. The proposed RRA is anticipated to have significant potential in areas such as wireless communications, imaging, and radar systems, and is a particularly suitable candidate for reconfigurable intelligent surfaces (RISs) due to its adaptability and capability of dynamically generating different radiation patterns.
City Research Online

Information-seeking is important for lawyers, who have access to many dedicated electronic resources. However there is considerable scope for improving the design of these resources to better support information-seeking. One way of informing design is to use information-seeking models as theoretical lenses to analyse users’ behaviour with existing systems. However many models, including those informed by studying lawyers, analyse information-seeking at a high level of abstraction and are only likely to lead to broad-scoped design insights. We illustrate that one potentially useful (and lower-level) model is Ellis’s - by using it as a lens to analyse and make design suggestions based on the information-seeking behaviour of twenty-seven academic lawyers, who were asked to think aloud whilst using electronic legal resources to find information for their work. We identify similar information-seeking behaviours to those originally found by Ellis and his colleagues in scientific domains, along with several that were not identified in previous studies such as ‘updating’ (which we believe is particularly pertinent to legal information-seeking). We also present a refinement of Ellis’s model based on the identification of several levels that the behaviours were found to operate at and the identification of sets of mutually exclusive subtypes of behaviours.
KLF9‑regulated FBXO31 inhibits the progression of endometrial cancer and enhances the sensitivity of endometrial cancer cells to cisplatin

Endometrial cancer (EC) is one of the most common malignancies with an increasing annual incidence. F-box only protein 31 (FBXO31) plays a significant regulatory role in several types of cancer. The transcription factor Krüppel-like factor 9 (KLF9) of FBXO31 is reduced in EC as a tumor suppressor. However, their particular regulatory role and mechanism in EC have not been previously reported. Therefore, the UALCAN database was used to predict the expression levels of FBXO31 in EC. In addition, the regulatory effect of FBXO31 on EC cell proliferation, invasion, migration, apoptosis and cisplatin (DDP) sensitivity was investigated at the cellular level. The association between KLF9 and FBXO31 was predicted using the JASPAR database and verified by chromatin immunoprecipitation and luciferase reporter assays. Finally, the regulatory effects of KLF9 and FBXO31 overexpression or silencing were also explored. The results demonstrated that FBXO31 was poorly expressed in EC. Additionally, FBXO31 overexpression inhibited the malignant progression of EC cells and enhanced their sensitivity to DDP. Furthermore, KLF9 promoted FBXO31 transcription. Overall, the present study suggested that the KLF9-mediated regulation of FBXO31 could inhibit the progression of EC and enhance the sensitivity of EC cells to DDP.
International Survey on Mechanical Ventilation During Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygenation

The optimal ventilation strategy for patients on extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) remains uncertain. This survey reports current mechanical ventilation strategies adopted by ECMO centers worldwide. An international, multicenter, cross-sectional survey was conducted anonymously through an internet-based tool. Participants from North America, Europe, Asia, and Oceania were recruited from the extracorporeal life support organization (ELSO) directory. Responses were received from 48 adult ECMO centers (response rate 10.6%). Half of these had dedicated ventilation protocols for ECMO support. Pressure-controlled ventilation was the preferred initial ventilation mode for both venovenous ECMO (VV-ECMO) (60%) and venoarterial ECMO (VA-ECMO) (34%). In VV-ECMO, the primary goal was lung rest (93%), with rescue therapies commonly employed, especially neuromuscular blockade (93%) and prone positioning (74%). Spontaneous ventilation was typically introduced after signs of pulmonary recovery, with few centers using it as the initial mode (7%). A quarter of centers stopped sedation within 3 days after ECMO initiation. Ventilation strategies during VA-ECMO focused less on lung-protective goals and transitioned to spontaneous ventilation earlier. Ventilation strategies during ECMO support differ considerably. Controlled ventilation is predominantly used initially to provide lung rest, often facilitated by sedation and neuromuscular blockade. Few centers apply “awake ECMO” early during ECMO support, some utilizing partial neuromuscular blockade.
Kinematics of the Neogene Terror Rift: Constraints from calcite twinning strains in the ANDRILL McMurdo Ice Shelf (AND-1B) core, Victoria Land Basin, Antarctica

We report new strain analyses of mechanically twinned calcite in veins hosted by Neogene (13.6–4.3 Ma) sedimentary and volcanic rocks recovered from the Terror Rift system in the southern Ross Sea, Antarctica, by the ANDRILL (ANtarctic geological DRILLing) McMurdo Ice Shelf (MIS) Project. Strain analyses of the ANDRILL MIS AND-1B drill core samples yield prolate and oblate ellipsoids with principal shortening and extension strains ranging from −7% to 9%, respectively. The majority of samples show ≤25% negative expected values, indicating homogeneous coaxial strain characterized predominantly by subvertical shortening. We attribute the subvertical shortening strains to mechanical twinning at relatively shallow depths in an Andersonian normal faulting stress regime induced by sedimentary and ice sheet loading of the stratigraphic sequence and characterized by low stress magnitudes. Oriented samples yield a northwest-southeast average extension direction that is subparallel to other indicators of Neogene extension. This northwest-southeast extension is consistent with strain predicted by Neogene orthogonal rifting in a north-northeast–trending rift segment, as well as models of right-lateral transtensional rifting. The overall paucity of a noncoaxial layer-parallel shortening signal in the AND-1B twin populations favors orthogonal extension in the Neogene Terror Rift system, but could also be due to spatial partitioning of strain in a transtensional rift regime.
Business Dynamics and Red Tape Barriers

This study examines the impact of reforms aimed at reducing red tape barriers for new firms and new exporters in 17 EU Member States. The results confirm that higher bureaucratic barriers are associated with lower entry dynamics and suggest that recent reforms in Portugal, Spain and Italy should have a significant positive impact. The ability of new firms to enter markets is a key element of the transmission mechanism through which market reforms ultimately affect productivity and growth. Reforms that make it easier for new firms to enter therefore have the added benefit of enabling other competition-enhancing reforms to achieve their maximum impact. The report looks at data for Austria, Belgium, the Czech Republic, Germany, Denmark, Estonia, Spain, Finland, France, Hungary, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Sweden, Slovakia and the UK between 2004 and 2011.
The Paradoxical Effect of Digital Transformation on Innovation Performance: Does Risk-Taking Matter?

The impact of enterprises’ digital transformation on innovation performance has attracted the attention of enterprises and scholars. The positive effects of digital transformation are well described in the literature, but the dark side of digital transformation and the digitalization paradox have been less explored. Meanwhile, the role of risk-taking seems to have been ignored. From the perspectives of dynamic capability theory and organizational inertia theory, this study explores the double-edged sword effect of enterprise digital transformation on innovation performance and the moderating role of the risk-taking level. Based on data from computer, communication, and other electronic equipment manufacturing sector companies listed in the Shanghai and Shenzhen stock markets from 2007 to 2020, the empirical results indicate that there is an inverted U-shaped relationship between digital transformation and innovation performance, and the corporate risk-taking level positively moderates the relationship such that the inverted-U shape becomes steeper (more positive for low degrees of digital transformation and more negative for high degrees of digital transformation) in enterprises with a high risk-taking level compared to enterprises with a low risk-taking level. This study enriches the current theoretical explanation of the digitalization paradox and provides practical inspiration for enterprises to implement digital transformation.
Beyond the Supermarket Solution: Linking Food Deserts, Neighborhood Context, and Everyday Mobility

Most research on urban food deserts has employed spatial measures of accessibility, recording distances to various food stores from place of residence. Despite the popularity of this approach, empirical support for its prediction of dietary and health outcomes has been inconsistent. One reason might be the ways in which food deserts frame food access as fundamentally an issue of food supply. This article suggests a complementary approach that examines how store characteristics, neighborhood context, and individual mobility interact to shape food provisioning practices. I recruited thirty-eight participants living in two low-income neighborhoods of Minneapolis, Minnesota, tracking their daily mobility and the food sources they used over a five-day study period. Follow-up interviews gathered more information on the food stores used by participants. Project results show that participants were highly mobile in their food shopping, visiting 153 different locations on 217 different shopping trips at an average distance of 3.4 km from home. Reported store quality was closely tied to neighborhoods' economic and racial composition, and in several cases, food purchasing and consumption occurred en route to other destinations. Future research on urban food access could benefit by studying how food access is intertwined with broader livability issues such as housing and transportation.
Preparation and Characterization of Transethosome Formulation for the Enhanced Delivery of Sinapic Acid

Sinapic acid (SA) is a bioactive phenolic acid; its diverse properties are its anti-inflammatory, antioxidant, anticancer, and antibacterial activities. The bioactive compound SA is poorly soluble in water. Our goal was to formulate SA-transethosomes using thin-film hydration. The prepared formulations were examined for various parameters. In addition, the optimized formulation was evaluated for surface morphology, in-vitro penetration studies across the Strat M®, and its antioxidant activity. The optimized formulation (F5) exhibited 74.36% entrapment efficacy. The vesicle size, zeta potential, and polydispersity index were found to be 111.67 nm, −7.253 mV, and 0.240, respectively. The surface morphology showed smooth and spherical vesicles of SA-transethosomes. In addition, the prepared SA-transethosomes exhibited enhanced antioxidant activity. The SA-transethosomes demonstrated considerably greater penetration across the Strat M® membrane during the study. The flux of SA and SA-transethosomes through the Strat M® membrane was 1.03 ± 0.07 µg/cm2/h and 2.93 ± 0.16 µg/cm2/h. The enhancement ratio of SA-transethosomes was 2.86 ± 0.35 compared to the control. The SA-transethosomes are flexible nano-sized vesicles and are able to penetrate the entrapped drug in a higher concentration. Hence, it was concluded that SA-transethosome-based approaches have the potential to be useful for accentuating the penetrability of SA across the skin.
RECONNAISSANCE INVESTIGATION OF WATER QUALITY, BOTTOM SEDIMENT, AND BIOTA ASSOCIATED WITH IRRIGATION DRAINAGE IN THE KENDRICK RECLAMATION PROJECT AREA, WYOMING, 1986-87

Samples of surface water were collected at 10 sites and ground water at 5 sites. Surface-water analyses included trace elements, radiochemicals, and pesticides. Concentrations in the water generally were less than national standards for public water supplies, with the exception of selenium. The median concentration of dissolved selenium was 7.5 microgm/L in 24 samples of surface and groundwater. Of the 11 samples that contained dissolved-selenium concentrations greater than the national standard for public water supplies of 10 microgm/L, 10 of the samples were collected at sites on streams that are not used for public water supplies; the eleventh sample was collected from a shallow well. Dissolved-selenium concentrations ranged from less than 1 to 300 microgm/L. Concentrations of dissolved selenium in the North Plate River, which supplies drinking water for several municipalities, ranged from less than 1 to 4 microgm/L. The dissolved-selenium concentration and selenium discharge in the North Platte River increased in the downstream direction. The four principal tributaries that receive drainage from the Kendrick Reclamation Project contributed substantially to the increase in selenium concentration and discharge in the North Platte River. Bottom-sediment samples from the North Platte River contained selenium contents of 1.2 microgm/g or less. 6 figs., 17more » tabs. « less
A comparative analysis of perioperative complications and biochemical recurrence between standard and extended pelvic lymph node dissection in prostate cancer patients undergoing radical prostatectomy: a systematic review and meta-analysis

Introduction: Pelvic lymph node dissection (PLND) is commonly performed during radical prostatectomy (RP) for prostate cancer staging. This study aimed to comprehensively analyze existing evidence compare perioperative complications associated with standard (sPLND) versus extended PLND templates (ePLND) in RP patients. Methods: A meta-analysis of prospective studies on PLND complications was conducted. Systematic searches were performed on Web of Science, Pubmed, Embase, and the Cochrane Library until May 2023. Risk ratios (RRs) were estimated using random-effects models in the meta-analysis. The statistical analysis of the data was carried out using Review Manager software. Results: Nine studies, including three randomized clinical trial and six prospective studies, with a total of 4962 patients were analyzed. The meta-analysis revealed that patients undergoing ePLND had a higher risk of partial perioperative complications, such as lymphedema (I 2=28%; RR 0.05; 95% CI: 0.01–0.27; P<0.001) and urinary retention (I 2=0%; RR 0.30; 95% CI: 0.09–0.94; P=0.04) compared to those undergoing sPLND. However, there were no significant difference was observed in pelvic hematoma (I 2=0%; RR 1.65; 95% CI: 0.44–6.17; P=0.46), thromboembolic (I 2=57%; RR 0.91; 95% CI: 0.35–2.38; P=0.85), ureteral injury (I 2=33%; RR 0.28; 95% CI: 0.05–1.52; P=0.14), intraoperative bowel injury (I 2=0%; RR 0.87; 95% CI: 0.14–5.27; P=0.88), and lymphocele (I 2=0%; RR 1.58; 95% CI: 0.54–4.60; P=0.40) between sPLND and ePLND. Additionally, no significant difference was observed in overall perioperative complications (I 2=85%; RR 0.68; 95% CI: 0.40–1.16; P=0.16). Furthermore, ePLND did not significantly reduce biochemical recurrence (I 2=68%; RR 0.59; 95% CI: 0.28–1.24; P=0.16) of prostate cancer. Conclusion: This analysis found no significant differences in overall perioperative complications or biochemical recurrence between sPLND and ePLND, but ePLND may offer enhanced diagnostic advantages by increasing the detection rate of lymph node metastasis.
Increasing concentrations of iron in surface waters as a consequence of reducing conditions in the catchment area

Recent studies report trends of strongly increasing iron (Fe) concentrations in freshwaters. Since Fe is a key element with a decisive role in the biogeochemical cycling of major elements, it is important to understand the mechanisms behind these trends. We hypothesized that variations in Fe concentration are driven mainly by redox dynamics in hydraulically connected soils. Notably, Fe(III), which is the favored oxidation state except in environments where microbial activity provide strong reducing intensity, has several orders of magnitude lower water solubility than Fe(II). To test our hypothesis, seasonal variation in water chemistry, discharge, and air temperature was studied in three Swedish rivers. Methylmercury and sulfate were used as indicators of seasonal redox changes. Seasonal variability in water chemistry, discharge, and air temperature in the Emån and Lyckeby Rivers implied that the variation in Fe was primarily driven by the prevalence of reducing conditions in the catchment. In general, high Fe concentrations were observed when methylmercury was high and sulfate was low, indicative of reducing conditions. The Fe concentrations showed no or weak relationships with variations in dissolved organic matter concentration and aromaticity. The seasonal variation in Fe concentration of the Ume river was primarily dependent on timing of the snowmelt in high‐ versus low‐altitude areas of the catchment. There were long‐term trends of increasing temperature in all catchments and also trends of increasing discharge in the southern rivers, which should increase the probability for anaerobic conditions in space and time and thereby increase Fe transport to the aquatic systems.
Supplementary: Implicit Field Supervision For Robust Non-Rigid Shape Matching

In Section 1, we provide an elaborate illustration of the proposed Signed Distance Regularisation (SDR), followed by implementation details (Section 2) and evaluation protocols (Section 3). In Section 4, we perform an in-depth ablation study to quantitatively justify the efficacy of different components in our pipeline. In Section 5, we extend the robustness analysis by discussing the ability of our approach to endure varying noise levels and the impact of training data required to achieve optimal performance. Notably, we compare against methods trained with 100× more training shapes with data-augmentation and show that our approach, trained on a fraction of data is more robust. Finally, we conclude by discussing the known shortcomings of our method in Section 7 and show more qualitative results over different challenging datasets in Section 6. We emphasize that for this supplementary material, we do not perform any additional parameter tuning or improve upon our reported results in the main submission.
Supplementary: The Box Size Confidence Bias Harms Your Object Detector

We observed that the performance change from conditional calibration appears to be negatively correlated with the object detectors model size and performance. We verify the observation on the EfficientDet [7], which is available in 8 different size and performance versions. This ensures that there are no other influences, such as loss functions, augmentations or similar factors. The trend largely holds for the different EfficientDet model variants, but there ares some minor outliers (see Tab. 2).
Supplementary: GateHUB: Gated History Unit with Background Suppression for Online Action Detection

To extract features from TSN [12], we take the average of RGB features of 6 consecutive frames at 24 FPS to represent each frame at 4 FPS. Similarly, we stack optical flow maps of 5 frames preceding each frame along channel dimension at 24 FPS to obtain optical flow features for each frame at 4 FPS. Since TimeSformer [1] requires an input of 96 RGB frames, we uniformly sample 96 frames from the time duration set for past frames, tps, and future frames, tf , for Future-augmented History (FaH) as input to TimeSformer and use the output corresponding to the last frame as the feature for a history frame.