Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Independent Component Analysis in a convoluted world

This thesis is about convolutive ICA with application to EEG. Two methods for convolutive ICA are proposed. One method, the CICAP algorithm, uses a linear predictor in order to formulate the convolutive ICA problem in two steps: linear deconvolution followed by instantaneous ICA. The other method, the CICAAR algorithm, generalizes Infomax ICA to include the case of convolutive mixing. One advantage to the CICAAR algorithm is that Bayesian model selection is made possible, and in particular, it is possible to select the optimal order of the filters in a convolutive mixing model. A protocol for detecting the optimal dimensions is proposed, and verified in a simulated data set. The role of instantaneous ICA in context of EEG is described in physiological terms, and in particular the nature of dipolar ICA components is described. It is showed that instantaneous ICA components of EEG lacks independence when time lags are taken into consideration. The CICAAR algorithm is shown to be able to remove the delayed temporal dependencies in a subset of ICA components, thus making the components “more independent”. A general recipe for ICA analysis of EEG is proposed: first decompose the data using instantaneous ICA, then select a physiologically interesting subspace, then remove the delayed temporal dependencies among the instantaneous ICA components by using convolutive ICA. By Bayesian model selection, in a real world EEG data set, it is shown that convolutive ICA is a better model for EEG than instantaneous ICA.
The Degree of Practicing Media Education Skills among Public School Teachers in Al-Kourah District in North of Jordan

The study aimed to reveal the degree to which Public School Teachers in Al-Kourah District in North of Jordan is Practicing Media Education Skills, and Identify the factors that influence the teachers’ degree to practice media education skills such as (Gender, Educational level, and Years of practice). Descriptive method was adopted, and the study population consisted of all the Public School Teachers in Al-Kourah District in Irbid governorate North of Jordan, a survey sampling used by distributing the questionnaire via google forms, a total of (311) respondents formed the sample. The designed questionnaire consisted of (31) items under the four main factors; Access (9 items), analyze (9 items), evaluate (6 items), and communicate (7 items), validity and reliability of the scale was tested on a pilot study and was valid and reliable. The result showed that the Degree of practicing Media Education Skill among Public School Teachers in Al-Kourah District was “Medium’ degree, the media education skills Analyzing and Access scored “High” degree of practice, while the Media Education Skills Evaluate and communicate scored “Medium”. Also, there was no significant statistical differences in the degree of practicing Media Education Skill and the teachers’ Gender, Educational level, and Years of practice.
Assessing the Feasibility of a Multimodal Approach to Pain Evaluation in Early Stages after Spinal Cord Injury

This research evaluates the feasibility of a multimodal pain assessment protocol during rehabilitation following spinal cord injury (SCI). The protocol amalgamates clinical workup (CW), quantitative sensory testing (QST), and psychosocial factors (PSF) administered at 4 (T1), 12 (T2), and 24 (T3) weeks post injury and at discharge (T4). Molecular blood biomarkers (BB) were evaluated via gene expression and proteomic assays at T1 and T4. Different pain trajectories and temporal changes were identified using QST, with inflammation and pain-related biomarkers recorded. Higher concentrations of osteopontin and cystatin-C were found in SCI patients compared to healthy controls, indicating their potential as biomarkers. We observed altered inflammatory responses and a slight increase in ICAM-1 and CCL3 were noted, pointing towards changes in cellular adhesion linked with spinal injury and a possible connection with neuropathic pain. Despite a small patient sample hindering the correlation of feasibility data, descriptive statistical analyses were conducted on stress, depression, anxiety, quality of life, and pain interferences. The SCI Pain Instrument (SCIPI) was efficient in distinguishing between nociceptive and neuropathic pain, showing a progressive increase in severity over time. The findings emphasize the need for the careful consideration of recruitment setting and protocol adjustments to enhance the feasibility of multimodal pain evaluation studies post SCI. They also shed light on potential early adaptive mechanisms in SCI pathophysiology, warranting the further exploration of prognostic and preventive strategies for chronic pain in the SCI population.
A Survey on FPGA-Based Heterogeneous Clusters Architectures

In recent years, the most powerful supercomputers have already reached megawatt power consumption levels, an important issue that challenges sustainability and shows the impossibility of maintaining this trend. To this date, the prevalent approach to supercomputing is dominated by CPUs and GPUs. Given their fixed architectures with generic instruction sets, they have been favored with lots of tools and mature workflows which led to mass adoption and further growth. However, reconfigurable hardware such as FPGAs has repeatedly proven that it offers substantial advantages over this supercomputing approach concerning performance and power consumption. In this survey, we review the most relevant works that advanced the field of heterogeneous supercomputing using FPGAs focusing on their architectural characteristics. Each work was divided into three main parts: network, hardware, and software tools. All implementations face challenges that involve all three parts. These dependencies result in compromises that designers must take into account. The advantages and limitations of each approach are discussed and compared in detail. The classification and study of the architectures illustrate the trade-offs of the solutions and help identify open problems and research lines.
Appraisal of combining ability and gene action for yield, it’s governing characters and quality traits in tomato (Solanum lycopersicum L.)

The present research was undertaken to examine the combining ability of 10 parents and 21 hybrids that resulted from crossing of seven lines and three testers in line × tester mating design, for yield and quality governing traits in tomato. The study indicated that no single parent was the finest combiner of all the attributes. The estimated variance resulting from GCA was significant for fruit yield per plant and fruit girth, suggesting that the additive gene action was responsible for these characteristics. The SCA variance was observed significant for plant height, fruits per plant, TSS and ascorbic acid, manifesting that inheritance of these characters was governed by dominant and epistatic gene action. Combining ability studies indicated that fruit weight and seeds per fruit exhibited significant GCA and SCA variance, while their relative magnitude bear witness to non-additive gene effect. The estimates of gca effects demonstrated that, the line NTL-14-08 is good general combiner for fruit yield per plant.
Primary Tubercular Breast Abscess in an Indian Female: A Rare Case

Tuberculosis is widespread in developing countries, which usually presents as pulmonary tuberculosis. However, cases of extrapulmonary tuberculosis at sites other than the lungs are also reported. The present case is a rare variety of extrapulmonary tuberculosis presenting as a primary tubercular breast abscess in an Indian female with no pulmonary involvement and no history of tuberculosis. A detailed clinical workup led to the final diagnosis, and she was put on anti-tuberculous treatment per the national guidelines.
Simple mandates, monetary rules, and trend-inflation

A mandate framework is proposed for delegating monetary policy to an instrument-independent, but goal-dependent central bank that emphasizes simplicity in both the objectives entering the welfare criterion and those in the instrument rule. It consists of: (i) a simple quadratic loss function penalizing deviations from target variables; (ii) a welfare-optimized, Taylor-type log-linear nominal interest-rate rule with targets that match those in the loss function; (iii) a zero-lower-bound (ZLB) constraint on the nominal interest rate imposing a low unconditional probability of ZLB episodes; and (iv) a long-run inflation target. In an estimated New Keynesian model with these features, we find that for a quarterly probability of 5%, an optimal annual inflation target is close to 2%, weights for real variables in the loss function are small compared with inflation except for the real wage growth mandate and the optimized rules mimic a price-level rule.
Let's Count: Evaluation of a Pilot Early Mathematics Program in Low Socioeconomic Locations in Australia

The Let’s Count pilot early mathematics program was implemented in five early childhood educational contexts across Australia during 2011. The program used specifically formulated materials and workshops to enlist the assistance of early childhood educators to work with parents and other family members of children in their settings to help develop these children’s awareness, confidence and skills in early mathematics. The pilot program was evaluated by the authors of this paper using a multi-methods approach. The evaluation was focused on the success of the Let’s Count program in bringing early childhood educators, parents and other family members together, to enhance children’s mathematical engagement, learning outcomes and dispositions.
FREQUENCY OF 30 DAYS MORTALITY IN PATIENTS OF ST-SEGMENT ELEVATION MI WITH VARYING HEMATOCRIT LEVELS

A descriptive study was carried out in the Emergency Department of Punjab Institute of Cardiology, Lahore, from Oct 2022-April 2023 to assess the incidence of 30 days mortality in STEMI patients with varying hematocrit levels. A total of 440 cases with ST-segment elevation MI with varying hematocrit levels (anemia and erythrocytosis) were included in the study. In our study, the average age was 44.12+10.16 years, 273 (62%) were male, and 167 (37.9%) were females; frequency of different hematocrit levels was recorded, which showed that 263 (59.7%) had anemia and 177 (40.2%) had erythrocytosis. Out of 263 cases of anemia, 26 (9.8%) and out of 177 cases of erythrocytosis, 11 (6.2%) were recorded with mortality, while the remaining 237 (90.8%) cases of anemia and 166 (94.3%) of erythrocytosis had no mortality, the p-value was calculated as 0.17 which shows the insignificant difference between the two groups. We concluded that the frequency of 30 days mortality in STEMI patients is higher in anemic patients than in erythrocytosis, but hematocrit levels could be used as a biomarker for mortality in STEMI.
Description of the Early Developmental Stages of the Sense Organs of the Egyptian Passer Domesticus

The present study deals with the development of the early embryonic stages of the sense organs and their surrounding mesenchyme of Passer domesticus at 8, 10, 15 and 19 mm total body lengths. The olfactory organs began its appearance in 15 mm stage as two olfactory placodes. They are formed ventro-laterally to most anterior part of the fore brain then they invaginated forming two olfactory pits. An olfactory sac and its lateral and medial nasal processes formed in19 mm stage. The two eyes arised as two optic vesicles in 8 mm stage simultinously with the lens placode opposing to them. The optic vesicle invaginated in 10 mm stage to form the optic cup simultaneously with the invagination of the lens placode forming the lens pit. In15 mm stages, a double layered optic cup with its choroid primordium are formed. Also, the primary fibers of the lens are formed and arranged in concentric layers with lens epithelium. In 19 mm stage, the optic cup gave two layers; inner neural and outer pigmented layers. Also, the corneal epithelium was formed. The first appearance of sclera primordium was in 19 mm stage. The membranous labyrinth of the inner ear began to appear at 8 mm stage as an otic placode from the ectodermal layer at the level of the hind brain. Then it invaginates to form the otocyst. The invagination process of the otocyst was completed in 10 mm stage. The ductus endolymphaticus appeared in the dorso-lateral portion of the middle part of otocyst in 15 mm stage, followed by the ductus cochleararis from the ventro-medial wall in 19 mm stage. The beginning of condensation process; the first step towards the otic capsule chondrogenesis was in 19 mm stage. By comparing the present results with other studied avian species revealed a similar genesis of the early development of the main three sense organs when compared to the other studied avian species.
Designing a Conceptual Framework to Align Learning Objectives to the Interprofessional Education Collaborative Core Competencies: A Narrative Review

Introduction: Early placement of interprofessional education (IPE) in academic curricula may foster foundational learning to shape student attitudes, knowledge, and skills and better prepare practice-ready clinicians for future team-based collaboration. The purpose of this narrative review was to investigate and analyze the current use of IPE in OT and PT higher education. Methods: Three databases, Academic Search Complete, Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, and ERIC, were searched from 2017 to 2022. Inclusion criteria were articles with full text availability, published within the 5 year search time range from the time of the narrative review process, peer reviewed studies, original research, meta-analysis studies, case studies, and review articles. Duplicates were removed, and studies were excluded if related to only clinical or practice-based healthcare delivery, community health service-learning, virtual or telehealth platforms, not applicable to the disciplines of OT and PT, or not available in English. Results: After filtering and screening articles yielded from the literature review, a total of studies (n = 76) provided considerable evidence for contributing to best-practice guidelines in aligning IPE learning with student outcomes and the Interprofessional Education Collaborative Core Competencies. Substantial evidence was found, which resulted in the creation of a conceptual framework to advance IPE health science education and to meet discipline-specific IPE accreditation standards for OT and PT education. The resultant proposed IPE Conceptual Framework provides alignment of course learning objectives, accreditation standards, institutional and programmatic learning outcomes, and IPEC Core Competencies to create authentic IPE learning activities. Conclusions: This study provides a current review for IPE in OT and PT education in the United States and can have application abroad. The findings guided development of a conceptual framework for alignment of IPEC Core Competencies, curricular outcomes, and accreditation standards. Follow-up studies are recommended to validate the utilization of the proposed framework, and then subsequent research inquiry to further assess IPE effectiveness.
CABRI-GÉOMÈTRE AS A MEDIATOR IN THE PROCESS OF TRANSITION TO PROOFS IN OPEN GEOMETRIC SITUATIONS: An exploratory study

In this paper I will present some findings of a teaching experiment on proof. Pupils were requested to produce conjectures in open geometric situations, to validate and, finally, to prove them. These activities took place in the microworld Cabri-Geometre Our project was aimed to investigate the validity of the Cabri software as a mediator in the process discovering-conjecturing-proving. We found out that different dragging modalities are crucial for producing a shift from conjecturing to proving: these modalities can be analysed as the perceptive counterpart of the cognitive processes students use.
A basic general model of vector-borne diseases

We propose a model that can translate the dynamics of vector-borne diseases, for this model we compute the basic reproduction number and show that if $\mathcal{R}_0 1$ we prove the existence of a unique endemic equilibrium and if $\mathcal {R}_0 \leq 1$ the system can have one or two endemic equilibrium, we also show the existence of a backward bifurcation. By numerical simulations we illustrate with data on malaria all the results including existence, stability and bifurcation.
W transport and accumulation control in the termination phase of JET H-mode discharges and implications for ITER

Tokamak operation with W PFCs is associated with specific challenges for impurity control, which may be particularly demanding in the transition from stationary H-mode to L-mode. To address W control issues in this phase, dedicated experiments have been performed at JET including the variation of the decrease of the power and current, gas fuelling and central ion cyclotron heating (ICRH), and applying active ELM control by vertical kicks. The experimental results obtained demonstrate the key role of maintaining ELM control to control the W concentration in the exit phase of H-modes with slow (ITER-like) ramp-down of the neutral beam injection power in JET. For these experiments, integrated fully predictive core+edge+SOL transport modelling studies applying discrete models for the description of transients such as sawteeth and ELMs have been performed for the first time with the JINTRAC suite of codes for the entire transition from stationary H-mode until the time when the plasma would return to L-mode focusing on the W transport behaviour. Simulations have shown that the existing models can appropriately reproduce the plasma profile evolution in the core, edge and SOL as well as W accumulation trends in the termination phase of JET H-mode discharges as function of the applied ICRH and ELM control schemes, substantiating the ambivalent effect of ELMs on W sputtering on one side and on edge transport affecting core W accumulation on the other side. The sensitivity with respect to NB particle and momentum sources has also been analysed and their impact on neoclassical W transport has been found to be crucial to reproduce the observed W accumulation characteristics in JET discharges. In this paper the results of the JET experiments, the comparison with JINTRAC modelling and the adequacy of the models to reproduce the experimental results are described and conclusions are drawn regarding the applicability of these models for the extrapolation of the applied W accumulation control techniques to ITER.
Landauer Bound and Continuous Phase Transitions

In this review, we establish a relation between information erasure and continuous phase transitions. The order parameter, which characterizes these transitions, measures the order of the systems. It varies between 0, when the system is completely disordered, and 1, when the system is completely ordered. This ordering process can be seen as information erasure by resetting a certain number of bits to a standard value. The thermodynamic entropy in the partially ordered phase is given by the information-theoretic expression for the generalized Landauer bound in terms of error probability. We will demonstrate this for the Hopfield neural network model of associative memory, where the Landauer bound sets a lower limit for the work associated with ‘remembering’ rather than ‘forgetting’. Using the relation between the Landauer bound and continuous phase transition, we will be able to extend the bound to analog computing systems. In the case of the erasure of an analog variable, the entropy production per degree of freedom is given by the logarithm of the configurational volume measured in units of its minimal quantum.
Balance and Quality of Life Variations Post Achilles Tenotomy versus Conventional Physical Therapy

Background : The lives of children with cerebral palsy were worsened by the development of deformities, which impacted their lifestyle negatively. One of the major concerns was the equinus deformity in hemiparetic children. Different treatment procedures were used to remedy such deformities, including physical therapy training, or surgical correction through different types of Achilles tenotomies. Objective : To evaluate the effect of conventional physical therapy training versus Achilles tenotomy on balance as well as quality of life in hemiparetic children. Patients and Methods : Thirty-four hemiparetic children from both sexes, whose ages ranged from 6 to 10 years, were recruited equally into 2 groups. Group A underwent an Achilles tenotomy and received conventional physical therapy training for one month after removing the immobilizing plaster cast, while Group B received continuous physical therapy training over 3 months without any surgical procedures. Evaluation was done at three intervals, using the Humac Balance System and Quality of Life Questionnaire. Results : The stability scores for Group A showed a significant decline at post-treatment (1) in comparison with pre-treatment. Whereas in Group B there was a significantly higher stability score at post-treatment (1) in comparison with pre-treatment. The overall limit of stability and quality of life measurements showed a decline in their scores post-treatment in Group A, while higher scores post-treatment were seen in Group B. Conclusion : The findings of the study support the impact of physical therapy, given the emergence of complications after Achilles tenotomy, which affect the balance and quality of a child's life.
The effect of information and communication technology on economic growth high-income countries

This study analyzes the influence of information and communication technology (ICT) and financial developments on the economic growth in high-income countries. This research uses the panel data regression method with a random effects model (REM) approach. The data were sourced from the World Bank and the International Telecommunication Union publications from 2001–2020. The results show that ICT (fixed telephone subscriptions, mobile/cellular telephone subscriptions, internet users and fixed broadband subscriptions) had no significant effect on economic growth. On the other hand, financial development (domestic credit to the private sector and stock market capitalization) had a significant effect on economic growth. Thus, indicators of financial development are better at promoting economic growth in high-income countries. Domestic credit to the private sector has a greater influence on economic growth compared to stock market capitalization. The research implications show that it is necessary to increase the contribution of financial development, such as facilitating access to credit to the real sector and increasing access to the capital market for economic actors to increase economic growth.
The Determinant of Financial System Stability in Indonesia

The stability of the financial system in Indonesia is still quite vulnerable to disturbances (shock) from within and outside the country as indicated by a high ratio of NPLs or bad loans. The purpose of this study was to determine and analyze the effect of world crude oil prices as an indicator of external shock, exchange rates, inflation, and the BI rate on financial system stability in Indonesia in the short and long term. This study uses regression analysis of time series data from 2002 to 2020, using the ECM (Error Correction Model) method. The results show that in the short term the variables that affect financial system stability are inflation and BI rate variables, as well as world crude oil prices and variables. The exchange rate has no effect on financial system stability, while in the long term the variables that affect financial system stability are world crude oil prices, exchange rates, and the BI rate, while inflation has no effect on financial system stability.