Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Analyzing the influence of website design parameters on website usability

Web site usability is concerned with how easy and intuitive it is for individuals to learn to use and interact with a Web site. It is a measure of the quality of a Web site’s presence, as perceived by users. The usability of Web sites is important, because high usability is associated with a positive attitude toward the Web site and results in higher online transactions. Poorly designed Web sites with low usability, on the other hand, lead to negative financial impacts. Existing approaches to Web site usability include measurement and tracking of parameters, such as response time and task completion time, and software engineering approaches that specify general usability guidelines and common practices during software development. This paper analyzes usability from the point of view of Web site design parameters. An analysis of usability and other design characteristics of 200 Web sites of different kinds revealed that design aspects, such as information content, ease of navigation, download delay, and Web site availability positively influence usability. Web site security and customization were not found to influence usability. The paper explains these results and suggests design strategies for increasing Web site usability.
The Effect of Early Life Stress on Emotional Behaviors in GPR37KO Mice

GPR37 is an orphan G-protein-coupled receptor, a substrate of parkin which is linked to Parkinson’s disease (PD) and affective disorders. In this study, we sought to address the effects of early life stress (ELS) by employing the paradigm of limited nesting material on emotional behaviors in adult GPR37 knockout (KO) mice. Our results showed that, while there was an adverse effect of ELS on various domains of emotional behaviors in wild type (WT) mice in a sex specific manner (anxiety in females, depression and context-dependent fear memory in males), GPR37KO mice subjected to ELS exhibited less deteriorated emotional behaviors. GPR37KO female mice under ELS conditions displayed reduced anxiety compared to WT mice. This was paralleled by lower plasma corticosterone in GPR37KO females and a lower increase in P-T286-CaMKII by ELS in the amygdala. GPR37KO male mice, under ELS conditions, showed better retention of hippocampal-dependent emotional processing in the passive avoidance behavioral task. GPR37KO male mice showed increased immobility in the forced swim task and increased P-T286-CaMKII in the ventral hippocampus under baseline conditions. Taken together, our data showed overall long-term effects of ELS—deleterious or beneficial depending on the genotype, sex of the mice and the emotional context.
Wide-range, high-precision multiple microwave frequency measurement using a chip-based photonic Brillouin filter

Spectrum analysis is a key functionality in modern radio frequency (RF) systems. In particular, fast and accurate estimation of multiple unknown RF signal frequencies over a wide measurement range is crucial in defense applications. Although photonic techniques benefit from an enhanced frequency estimation range along with reduced size and weight relative to their RF counterparts, they have been limited by a fundamental trade-off between measurement range and accuracy. Here, we circumvent this trade-off by harnessing the photon and phonon interactions in a photonic chip through stimulated Brillouin scattering, resulting in an accurate estimation of multiple RFs of up to 38 GHz with a record-low error of 1 MHz.
Effect of Dietary L-Carnitine Supplementation on Growth, Serum Biochemical Indices, Oxidative and Growth-Related Gene Expressions in Chinese Soft-Shelled Turtle (Pelodiscus sinensis)

1Yangtze River Fisheries Research Institute, Chinese Academy of Fishery Sciences, Wuhan 430223, China. 2Department of Animal Production, Faculty of Agriculture, Kafrelsheikh University, 33516, Egypt. 3Anhui XIjia Agricultural Development Co. Ltd, Bengbu 233700, China Article Information R ceived 13 January 2020 Revised 22 June 2020 Accepted 15 December 2020 Available online 22 December 2021 (early access)
Bacterial Causes and their Antimicrobial Susceptibility Testing among Urinary Tract Infection Patients in Tobruk Area, Libya

Urinary tract infections are very common among people of all ages, but the disease is more prevalent in women, so proper clinical and laboratory diagnosis, and the right treatment are very important to avoid complications and antimicrobial resistance. This study aimed to determine the bacterial causes and antibiotic susceptibility patterns of UTI patients. Recorded results of 6065 urine sample cultures and their antimicrobial susceptibility tests from the Department of Microbiology in Tobruk Medical Center, Tobruk City, were obtained from September 2016 to December 2018. The data was analyzed and discussed in compare with other studies. The study showed that a UTI is more common in females (78.8%) compared with male patients (21.2%). Gram-negative bacteria accounted for the majority of urinary pathogens (90%), where E. coli alone was (58.4%), klebsiellae (17.4%), Proteus (10.7%), while Pseudomonas species was the least common (3.3%) of the total. While the Gram-positive bacteria S. aureus constituted 9.6% of the total. The study was found statistically significant (P=0.000). The most effective antibiotics against all uropathogens were Imipenem and Amikacin, and less effective antibiotics were Ampicillin and Amoxicillin-clavulanic acid. This study concluded that the most common cause of UTI in Tobruk was Escherichia coli and the most effective antibiotics appear to be Imipenem and Amikacin.
General-Purpose and Scalable Internal-Combustion Engine Model for Energy-Efficiency Studies

Hybrid powertrains that combine electric machines and internal-combustion engines offer substantial opportunities to increase the energy efficiency and minimize the exhaust emissions of vehicles and nonroad working machines. Due to the wide range of applications of such powertrains, simulation tools are used to evaluate and compare the energy efficiency of hybrid powertrains for application-specific working cycles in virtual environments. Therefore, the accurate modeling of the powertrain components of a hybrid system is important. This paper presents an agile calculation tool that can generate realistic fuel consumption data of a scalable diesel engine. This method utilizes a simple efficiency model of the combustion and crank train friction model to generate the fuel consumption map in the operating area of a typical diesel engine. The model parameters are calibrated to produce accurate fuel consumption data in the initial phase of system-level simulations. The proposed method is also validated by using three real engine datasets, and the comparison of results is presented.
Potential biomarkers and signaling pathways associated with the pathogenesis of primary salivary gland carcinoma: a bioinformatics study

Salivary gland carcinoma (SGC) is rare cancer, constituting 6% of neoplasms in the head and neck area. The most responsible genes and pathways involved in the pathology of this disorder have not been fully understood. We aimed to identify differentially expressed genes (DEGs), the most critical hub genes, transcription factors, signaling pathways, and biological processes (BPs) associated with the pathogenesis of primary SGC. The mRNA dataset GSE153283 in the Gene Expression Omnibus database was re-analyzed for determining DEGs in cancer tissue of patients with primary SGC compared to the adjacent normal tissue (adjusted p-value < 0.001; |Log2 fold change| > 1). A protein interaction map (PIM) was built, and the main modules within the network were identified and focused on the different pathways and BP analyses. The hub genes of PIM were discovered, and their associated gene regulatory network was built to determine the master regulators involved in the pathogenesis of primary SGC. A total of 137 genes were found to be differentially expressed in primary SGC. The most significant pathways and BPs that were deregulated in the primary disease condition were associated with the cell cycle and fibroblast proliferation procedures. TP53, EGF, FN1, NOTCH1, EZH2, COL1A1, SPP1, CDKN2A, WNT5A, PDGFRB, CCNB1, and H2AFX were demonstrated to be the most critical genes linked with the primary SGC. SPIB, FOXM1, and POLR2A significantly regulate all the hub genes. This study illustrated several hub genes and their master regulators that might be appropriate targets for the therapeutic aims of primary SGC.
Patches Are All You Need?

Although convolutional networks have been the dominant architecture for vision tasks for many years, recent experiments have shown that Transformer-based models, most notably the Vision Transformer (ViT), may exceed their performance in some settings. However, due to the quadratic runtime of the self-attention layers in Transformers, ViTs require the use of patch embeddings, which group together small regions of the image into single input features, in order to be applied to larger image sizes. This raises a question: Is the performance of ViTs due to the inherently-more-powerful Transformer architecture, or is it at least partly due to using patches as the input representation? In this paper, we present some evidence for the latter: specifically, we propose the ConvMixer, an extremely simple model that is similar in spirit to the ViT and the even-more-basic MLP-Mixer in that it operates directly on patches as input, separates the mixing of spatial and channel dimensions, and maintains equal size and resolution throughout the network. In contrast, however, the ConvMixer uses only standard convolutions to achieve the mixing steps. Despite its simplicity, we show that the ConvMixer outperforms the ViT, MLP-Mixer, and some of their variants for similar parameter counts and data set sizes, in addition to outperforming classical vision models such as the ResNet. Our code is available at https://github.com/locuslab/convmixer.
EFFECT OF FOLIAR SPRAYING WITH CHITOSAN AND MICRONIZED SULFUR ON GROWTH AND YIELD OF TOMATO FRUITS CHARACTERISTICS UNDER UNHEATED GREENHOUSE CONDITIONS

The experiment was conducted at the Research Station of the Department of Horticulture and Landscaping Gardening/College of Agriculture/Diyala University, which is located at longitude during season 2020/2021, The study included two factors, the first four chitosan concentrations 0, 100, 150, 200 mg L and the second four concentrations of micronized sulfur 0,3,4,5cm L. Randomized Complete Block Design )RCBD) was using in the research with a factorial experiment. the averages were compared according to Duncan's polynomial test at a probability level of 5%, and the results were as follows: Chitosan spraying at a concentration of 200 mg L recorded a significant increase in all characteristics of vegetative growth, flowering, yield and characteristics represented by chlorophyll in leaves, percentage of dry matter and nitrogen in the leaves, the number of days required for the first flower to open, plant yield and it amounted to 50.36 spad, 4.601%, 2.868%, 72.83 day, 2.898 kg respectively, compared to the control treatment, and it amounted to 42.59 spad, 2.121%, 1.470%, 78.83 days, 1.268 kg respectively. Spraying with micronized sulfur at a concentration of 5 cm L recorded a significant increase in most of the characteristics of vegetative, flowering, yield and characteristics it there 47.04 spad, 3.769%, 2.327%, 74.41 days, 2,300 kg respectively, compared to the control treatment which amounted to 45.01 spad, 3.007%, 2.050%, 77.16 days, 1.854 kg respectively. The interaction treatment between spraying with chitosan at a concentration of 200 mg L and spraying with micronized sulfur at a concentration of 5cm L had a significant effect in achieving the highest significant increase in chlorophyll in leaves, percentage of dry matter and nitrogen in the leaves, the number of days required for the first flower to open, plant yield and it amounted to52.84 Spad, 5.080%, 3.045%, 70.33 days, 3.219 kg respectively, were all treatments superior to the control treatment.
Interaction between homophony and semantic transparency of Chinese characters on dictation across primary grades

Ninety students from Grade One, Three and Five of normal primary schools were tested under a writing-to-dictation paradigm to investigate the interaction of semantic transparency and homophonic neighborhood size on children’s lexical processing of low-frequency Chinese semantic-phonetic compound characters across grades. Significant semantic transparency effect indicated that nature of paradigm determines the employment of information carried by semantic radicals in lexical processing. Children of Grade One are able to master the skill of inferring semantic radical in writing. Significant 3-way interaction suggested that transparency effect was shown under high homophonic neighbourhood size condition in Grade five students. Extensive homophony in Chinese induces competition in both semantic and orthographic representations resulted in the adoption of sub-character semantic radical processing to retrieve exact meaning of target character. The disturbance of homophonic neighbourhood size in dictation becomes prominent as children move up the grades.
MH370 and MH17 Airplane Catastrophes: Reporting Verbs in Malaysian Online Newspaper Articles

Reporting verbs are important in news articles on controversial events or issues because of the need to present the attitude of news sources towards the topic or even to indicate the journalist’s attitudes towards information cited in the articles. The study investigated the use of reporting verbs in news articles on MH370 and MH17 airplane catastrophes in online English newspapers published in Malaysia. A total of 80 news articles on MH370 and MH17 from two online English-language, New Straits Time and The Star, were analysed for the author’s stance and writer’s stance using Thompson and Ye’s (1991) framework on reporting verbs. The analysis identified 931 instances of reporting verbs (91.75%, author’s stance; 8.25%, writer’s stance). For the author’s stance, 91.75% of the articles on MH370 and MH17 were reported positively using mainly the verb “said”, and the various news sources were stated clearly. New Straits Time reported MH17 more positively than MH370 but the pattern was the opposite for The Star. The neutral author’s stance was hardly used. There was no negative author’s stance for MH370 articles in both newspapers. As for the writer’s stance, counter-factive (42.51%) and non-factive (47.90%) reporting dominated. Articles on the disappearance of MH370 had more non-factive reporting verbs than counter-factive reporting verbs in both newspapers but for the MH17 articles, New Straits Time leaned towards a counter-factive writer’s stance, suggesting more critical reporting. The study showed that the articles on airplane catastrophes reflected safe reporting, often affirming the validity of statements from news sources.
The Fate of Deep Reading in the Digital Age

: The digital age has transformed the nature of reading. Due to the proliferation of information available online and through digital devices, students’ reading behaviours are increasingly changing from paper reading to reading on screen. This paper aims to review current literature from a variety of disciplines on the effect of the digital age on students’ deep reading skills. It also aims to provide teachers with effective strategies to encourage and sustain students’ deep reading in the online world. Addressing the issue of deep reading in the digital age would deepen teachers’ insights about the benefits and challenges of technology in the reading realm.
Black Economy, Financial Inclusion, Financial Liberalization Nexus: A Panel Analysis of Developing Countries

This study has examined the impact of financial liberalization and financial inclusion on the black economy in the case of developing countries from 2004 to 2019. The black economy is selected as an explained variable, whereas financial inclusion, financial liberalization, tax collection, level of corruption and political instability are selected as explanatory variables. Panel unit root issue has been checked with the help of PP-Fisher Chi-square (PP-FC), ADFFisher Chi-square (ADF-FC), Im, Pesaran, and Shin W-stat (IPSW), and Levin, Lin & Chu t* (LLC) unit root tests. The fixed-effect model has been used for examining the dependence of the black economy on selected explanatory variables. Panel Granger causality test has been applied for checking the causal relationship among the selected variables. The results show that financial liberalization has a negative and insignificant impact on the black economy. Financial inclusions, the level of corruption, and political instability have a positive and significant impact on the black economy. Tax collection has a negative and significant impact on the black economy. The results of the causality test show that most of the variables have unidirectional causality between each other. Based on estimated results, the developing countries should control corruption, political instability, hence level of financial inclusion and tax collection for the reduction of the black economy.
An Exploratory Analysis of Key Antecedents of Academic Entrepreneurship in Nigeria

Caleb M. Adelowo, Jhalukpreya Surujlal, Postdoctoral Fellow, Faculty of Economic and Management Sciences, North-West University, Potchefstroom, South Africa, Professor, Faculty of Economic and Management Sciences, NorthWest University, Potchefstroom, South Africa. Email: calebakinrinademip@gmail.com babs.susrujlal@nwu.ac. za https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4578-5708 https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0604-4971
Developments in car crash safety since the 1980s

This study aimed to evaluate developments in car crash safety in cars launched since the 1980s based on real-world crashes occurring years 2000–2019, with focus on the number of injuries leading to permanent medical impairment to different body regions, separated for gender and age. Police-reported two-car crashes were used to calculate relative risk of any injury, fatal and serious injury and fatality, and together with occupant injuries reported by Swedish emergency care centres the risk for permanent medical impairment was assessed. The cars were categorised in ten-year periods according to year of introduction. It was found that vehicle crashworthiness has improved steadily since the 1980s, with largest improvements for serious and fatal injuries and for injuries leading to PMI. Females were found to have higher injury risk for all types of injury severity studied (except for fatal injuries). The risk for serious and fatal injuries and fatal injuries alone was higher for occupants older than 50 years of age compared to those younger than 50. For male occupants, as well as for occupants younger than 50 years, the risk for injury leading to PMI to the cervical spine was found to increase in modern cars. Older occupants were also found to have an increased risk for injuries to the thoracic and lumbar spine.
Dynamic Causal Effects Evaluation in A/B Testing with a Reinforcement Learning Framework

Abstract A/B testing, or online experiment is a standard business strategy to compare a new product with an old one in pharmaceutical, technological, and traditional industries. Major challenges arise in online experiments of two-sided marketplace platforms (e.g., Uber) where there is only one unit that receives a sequence of treatments over time. In those experiments, the treatment at a given time impacts current outcome as well as future outcomes. The aim of this article is to introduce a reinforcement learning framework for carrying A/B testing in these experiments, while characterizing the long-term treatment effects. Our proposed testing procedure allows for sequential monitoring and online updating. It is generally applicable to a variety of treatment designs in different industries. In addition, we systematically investigate the theoretical properties (e.g., size and power) of our testing procedure. Finally, we apply our framework to both simulated data and a real-world data example obtained from a technological company to illustrate its advantage over the current practice. A Python implementation of our test is available at https://github.com/callmespring/CausalRL. Supplementary materials for this article are available online.
Hydrodynamic helicity polarization in relativistic heavy ion collisions

We study helicity polarization through the (3+1) dimensional relativistic viscous hydrodynamic models at √ s NN = 200 GeV Au+Au collisions. Similar to the local spin polarization, we consider the helicity polarization beyond global equilibrium and investigate the contributions induced by thermal vorticity, shear viscous tensor, and the ﬂuid acceleration. We ﬁnd that the local helicity polarization induced by thermal vorticity dominates over other contributions. It also implies that in the low-energy collisions, the the ﬂuid vorticity as part of thermal vorticity may play the crucial role to the total helicity polarization. Such a ﬁnding could be useful for probing the local strength of vorticity in rotational quark gluon plasmas by measuring helicity polarization. Our simulation conﬁrms the strict space reversal symmetry, whereas we also compare our numerical results with approximated relations derived from ideal Bjorken ﬂow. Our studies also provide a baseline for the future investigation on local parity violation through the correlations of helicity polarization.
Studying the Interplay between Information Loss and Operation Loss in Representations for Classification

Information-theoretic measures have been widely adopted in the design of features for learning and decision problems. Inspired by this, we look at the relationship between i) a weak form of information loss in the Shannon sense and ii) the operation loss in the minimum probability of error (MPE) sense when considering a family of lossy continuous representations (features) of a continuous observation. We present several results that shed light on this interplay. Our first result offers a lower bound on a weak form of information loss as a function of its respective operation loss when adopting a discrete lossy representation (quantization) instead of the original raw observation. From this, our main result shows that a specific form of vanishing information loss (a weak notion of asymptotic informational sufficiency) implies a vanishing MPE loss (or asymptotic operational sufficiency) when considering a general family of lossy continuous representations. Our theoretical findings support the observation that the selection of feature representations that attempt to capture informational sufficiency is appropriate for learning, but this selection is a rather conservative design principle if the intended goal is achieving MPE in classification. Supporting this last point, and under some structural conditions, we show that it is possible to adopt an alternative notion of informational sufficiency (strictly weaker than pure sufficiency in the mutual information sense) to achieve operational sufficiency in learning. J. F. Silva, M. Vicuña and F. Cordova are with the Information and Decision Systems (IDS) Group, University of Chile, Av. Tupper 2007 Santiago, 412-3, Room 508, Chile, (email: josilva@ing.uchile.cl). F. Tobar is with the Initiative for Data&Artificial Intelligence, University of Chile, Beucheff 851, Santiago, Chile (email: ftobar@dim.uchile.cl). We would like to acknowledge support for this project from ANID-Chile (Fondecyt 1210315) and the Advanced Center for Electrical and Electronic Engineering (Basal Project FB0008). January 3, 2022 DRAFT ar X iv :2 11 2. 15 23 8v 1 [ cs . L G ] 3 0 D ec 2 02 1