Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Youth Mortality by Forces of Nature

Abstract:This research note examines children's mortality resulting from forces of nature, including heat exposure, cold exposure, storms and flooding, lightning strikes, avalanches, earthquakes, and volcanic eruptions. Data indicate that in the United States, children's risk of death resulting from natural disasters is relatively low. However, differential risks exist depending on the type of hazard agent involved and between youth populations based on age, gender, and race. Specifically, analyses of mortality data show that risk of death by natural disaster among youth cohorts age 0–24 is highest for infants, the most fragile and dependent segment of our population. The death rate for male children is higher than the death rate for female children across all age cohorts. Data on race indicate that African American male children between the ages of 0–4 are most at risk for death by disaster, while white male children between the ages of 5–24 are most at risk. In terms of risk by age by hazard type, infants and very young children age 0–4 are most likely to die of exposure to extreme heat, 5–14 year-olds are most likely to die in cataclysmic storms and flood events, and youth age 15–24 are most likely to die of excessive cold. These findings have important implications for future research and policy decisions associated with protecting children and youth in disasters.
Compatibility of Trichoderma asperelloides with Fungicides Controlling Downy Mildew and Powdery Mildew in Grapes

The grape (Vitis vinifera) is an important horticultural crop which belongs to the family Vitaceae. Downy mildew (casual organism: Plasmopara viticola) and powdery mildew (casual organism: Uncinula necator) are two major diseases of grapevine which limit the production of grapes significantly. Both fungicides and bio control agents are used to manage diseases, but both have their own limitations. Integration of bio control agents along with fungicides in disease management helps in reduction of fungicide usage. To understand the effect of these fungicides with commonly used bio-control agents, a compatibility study was carried out under in-vitro condition at ICAR-NRC for Grapes, Pune. Registered fungicides against downy mildew and powdery mildew viz., Mancozeb 75% WP, Dimethomorph 50% WP, Fosetyl Al 80% WP, Amisulbrom 17.7% SC w/w (20% SC w/v), Copper oxychloride 50% WP, Kresoxim methyl 44.3% SC, Tetraconazole 3.8% EW, Metrafenone 50% SC, Cyflufenamid 5% EW and Azoxystrobin 11% + Tebuconazole 18.3% w/w were evaluated for compatibility with a potent bio-control agent viz. Trichoderma asperelloides. Trichoderma asperelloides was found to be fully compatible with Fosetyl Al 80% WP, Amisulbrom 17.7% SC w/w (20% SC w/v) and Cyflufenamid 5% EW and to some extent with Mancozeb 75% WP, Dimethomorph 50% WP at their recommended doses. Such compatibility studies help in understanding the gap between the application of synthetic chemicals and bio control agents.
Correlation of perceived stress with monthly cyclical changes in the female body

Background: Women are liable to stress-related disorders as female sex hormone, estrogen has been indicated to be protective against stress disorders. The hormone level varies with different phases of menstrual cycle. Moreover, postmenopausal women are at risk for stress-related disorders. So this study was done to correlate the different phases of menstrual cycle with the perceived stress in different phases of monthly cycle. Methods: This study was conducted in the Department of Physiology, Shri Guru Ram Rai Institute of Medical and Health Sciences (SGRRIMHS), Dehradun. Four hundred girls in the age group of 18–26 years were selected for the study. The Perceived Stress Scale (PSS) questionnaire was circulated via Google forms after briefing them about the study. Informed consent was also taken. The menstrual history of the subjects was enquired by one-to-one interaction. The participants completed the PSS questionnaire twice in the same cycle. Data collected were statistically analyzed, using Independent t-test and Chi-square test and point biserial correlation test. Result: The analysis showed strong statistical association of PSS with two phases of menstrual cycle. The PSS score was higher in the late luteal and menstrual phase, while it was less in the late follicular phase (P < 0.05). Conclusion: The decreased oestrogen levels in the late luteal & menstrual phase are strongly associated with perceived stress in our study. Hormonal changes in the monthly cycles are related with stress, behavioral shift and many other physical changes in females. This information to the family physicians would be beneficial in counseling the females regarding various changes occurring during the menstrual cycle.
Geology of the Entracque–Colle di Tenda area (Maritime Alps, NW Italy)

The 1:25,000 geological map of the Entracque–Colle di Tenda area covers an area of about 130 km2 in the Italian Maritime Alps, between the Gesso and Vermenagna valleys. The map area is of great relevance since the Alpine units of this region sampled a geological nodal point in the Mesozoic, at the transition between two different sedimentation domains of the Alpine Tethys European palaeomargin (the Dauphinois basin to the NW and the Provençal platform to the SE). During the Cenozoic, this palaeogeographic hinge was progressively incorporated along multiple shear zone systems developed at the southern termination of the Western Alps arc.
Open Problems in Computational Historical Linguistics

Problems constitute the starting point of all scientific research. The essay reflects on the different kinds of problems that scientists address in their research and discusses a list of 10 problems for the field of computational historical linguistics, that was proposed throughout 2019 in a series of blog posts. In contrast to problems identified in different contexts, these problems were considered to be solvable, but no solution could be proposed back then. By discussing the problems in the light of developments that have been made in the field during the past five years, a modified list is proposed that takes new insights into account but also finds that the majority of the problems has not yet been solved.
DAT: Leveraging Device-Specific Noise for Efficient and Robust AI Training in ReRAM-based Systems

The increasing interest in artificial intelligence (AI) and the limitations of general-purpose graphics processing units (GPUs) have prompted the exploration of neuromorphic devices, such as resistive random-access memory (ReRAM), for AI computation. However, ReRAM devices exhibit various sources of variability that impact their performance and reliability. In this paper, we propose Device-Aware Training (DAT), a robust training method that accounts for device-specific noise and resilience against inherent variability in ReRAM devices. To address the significant computational costs of noise-robust training, DAT employs sharpness-aware minimization and a low-rank approximation of the device-specific noise covariance matrix. This leads to efficient computation and reduced training time while maintaining versatility across various model architectures and tasks. We evaluate our method on CIFAR-10 and CIFAR-100 datasets, achieving a 38.2% increase in test accuracy in the presence of analog noise and a 5.9x faster training time compared to using a full-rank covariance matrix. From a loss landscape perspective, we provide insights into addressing noise-induced challenges in the weight space. DAT contributes to the development of reliable and high-performing neuromorphic AI systems based on ReRAM technology.
Scale-Aware Graph Convolutional Network with Part-Level Refinement for Skeleton-Based Human Action Recognition

—Graph Convolutional Networks (GCNs) have been widely used in skeleton-based human action recognition and have achieved promising results. However, current GCN-based methods are limited by their inability to reﬁne semantic-guided joint relations and perform adaptive multi-scale analysis. These limitations impair their performance, particularly for analogical actions involving the interaction of the same body parts (e.g., drinking water and eating) as well as deﬁcient actions with limited spatial-temporal information (e.g., subtle action writing and transient action sneezing). To solve these problems, we propose Part-level Reﬁned Spatial Graph Convolution (PR-SGC) and Scale-aware Temporal Graph Convolution (Sa-TGC) for optimal action representation. The PR-SGC divides the skeleton into body parts and embeds this high-level semantics to reﬁne the physical adjacency matrix. The Sa-TGC leverages the dynamic scale-aware mechanism to extract context-dependent multi-scale features. On this basis, we develop a novel Scale-aware Graph Convolutional Network with Part-level Reﬁnement (SaPR-GCN), which is on par with state-of-the-art benchmarks on NTU RGB+D 60, NTU RGB+D 120, and NW-UCLA datasets.
Flora and vegetation of banded iron formations of the Yilgarn Craton: Mount Gibson and surrounding area

A total of 243 taxa, 233 native and 10 weeds, were recorded from study of the flora and plant communities of the Mount Gibson Range and surrounding ironstone ranges on the Ninghan pastoral lease, 60 km southeast of Paynes Find. Seven priority flora, one declared rare flora and one new species were identified during the study. Fifty quadrats were established to cover the geomorphology, floristic variation and geographical variation across the ranges. Data from these quadrats were used to define seven community types. Geography and landscape morphology separated the communities, with four communities found only on the Mount Gibson Range. Of these four, two had restricted distributions within the range. None of the ranges are currently reserved in the conservation estate.
A Comparison of TRMM Microwave Techniques for Detecting the Diurnal Rainfall Cycle

This paper uses rainfall estimates retrieved from active and passive microwave data to investigate how spatially and temporally dependent algorithm biases affect the monitoring of the diurnal rainfall cycle. Microwave estimates used in this study are from the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) and include the precipitation radar (PR) near-surface (2A25), Goddard Profiling (GPROF) (2A12), and PR– TRMM Microwave Imager (TMI) (2B31) rain rates from the version 5 (v5) 3G68 product. A rainfall maximum is observed early evening over land, while oceans generally show a minimum in rainfall during the morning. Comparisons of annual and seasonal mean hourly rain rates and harmonics at both global and regional scales show significant differences between the algorithms. Relative and absolute biases over land vary according to the time of day. Clearly, these retrieval biases need accounting for, either in the physics of the algorithm or through the provision of accurate error estimates, to avoid erroneous climatic signals and the discrediting of satellite rainfall estimations.
A Deep Reinforcement Learning Framework to Evade Black-Box Machine Learning Based IoT Malware Detectors Using GAN-Generated Influential Features

In the internet of things (IoT) networks, machine learning (ML) is significantly used for malware and adversary detection. Recently, research has shown that adversarial attacks have put ML-based models at risk. This problem is exacerbated in an IoT environment because of the absence of adequate security measures. Consequently, it is crucial to evaluate the strength of such malware detectors using powerful adversarial samples. The existing adversarial sample generation strategies either rely on high-level image features or an unfiltered feature set, making it challenging to determine which feature modifications are crucial in evading malware detection systems, without compromising the malware functionality. This encourages us to propose an evasion framework named IF-MalEvade, based on Generative Adversarial Network (GAN) and Deep Reinforcement Learning (DRL) that effectively generates fully-working, malware samples with several effective perturbations such as header Section manipulation and benign bytes insertion. The DRL framework selects a few suitable action sequences to change malicious samples, thus allowing our malware samples to bypass various black-box ML based malware detectors and the detection search engines of VirusTotal, while maintaining the executability and malicious behavior of the original malware samples. The neural networks of GAN take in the unfiltered feature set of malware dataset and using minimax objective function yields a set of useful features that are subsequently used by the DRL agent to make effective changes. Experimental results illustrated that by utilizing the influential features in sequence of transformations, the adversarial samples generated by our model outperformed the state-of-the-art evasion models with an impressive evasion rate. Additionally, the detection rate of well-known machine learning models was also brought down to up to 97%. Furthermore, when the machine learning models were retrained using adversarial samples, a 35% increase in detection accuracy was observed.
Further records of fossil calcareous algae from the Middle East

"New records of calcareous algae are given for the Permian, Jurassic, Cretaceous, Paleocene, and Eocene of the Middle East. New genera described are Lithocodium (Codiaceae) and Pagodaporella (Dasycladaceae); new species of Epimastopora and Terquemella are also described. "
The Effect of Gender Diversity and Board Independence on Firms Performance

: The occurrence of high-profile firm collapses and corporate scandals serves as evidence of deficient corporate governance, which renders institutions brittle and susceptible to long-term negative impacts on firm performance. Therefore, the introduction of the Malaysian Code on Corporate Governance (MCCG) aimed to enhance the corporate governance practises of listed companies and therefore enhance their overall performance. Given the uncertainty on the causal relationship, it remains relevant to undertake further research on the potential impact of good corporate governance on firm performance. The objective of the study is to examine the effect of internal corporate governance namely: (i)gender diversity and (ii)board independence on Malaysian firm’s perform ance, relying on both agency theory and resource dependency theory. For the purpose of to examine the relationship between gender diversity and board independence while controlling for firm size, leverage, and market capitalization, a panel data approach will be used with the top 100 companies listed on Bursa Malaysia. This approach will use various performance measures (Return on Asset, Return on Equity, and Tobin's Q). Our research will contribute to additional literature and insights to policymakers on the sufficiency of existing regulations relating to internal mechanisms of corporate governance specifically on the restriction to number of board members as well as empowering women on board, and consequently contribute to the benefit of stakeholders at large.
Risk factors for central lymph node metastasis in patients with papillary thyroid carcinoma: a retrospective study

Introduction Thyroid cancer is the most prevalent endocrine malignancy, with its global incidence increasing annually in recent years. Papillary carcinoma is the most common subtype, frequently accompanied by cervical lymph node metastasis early on. Central lymph node metastasis (CLNM) is particularly the common metastasis form in this subtype, and the presence of lymph node metastasis correlates strongly with tumor recurrence. However, effective preoperative assessment methods for CLNM in patients with papillary thyroid carcinoma (PTC) remain lacking. Methods Data from 400 patients diagnosed with PTC between January 1, 2018, and January 1, 2022, at the Shandong Provincial Hospital were retrospectively analyzed. This data included clinicopathological information of the patients, such as thyroid function, BRAF V600E mutation, whether complicated with Hashimoto’s thyroiditis, and the presence of capsular invasion. Univariate and multivariate logistic regression analyses were performed to assess the risk factors associated with cervical CLNM in patients with PTC. Subsequently, a clinical prediction model was constructed, and prognostic risk factors were identified based on univariate and multivariate Cox regression analyses. Results Univariate and multivariate analyses identified that age >45 years (P=0.014), body mass index ≥25 (P=0.008), tumor size ≥1 cm (P=0.001), capsular invasion (P=0.001), and the presence of BRAF V600E mutation (P<0.001) were significantly associated with an increased risk of CLNM. Integrating these factors into the nomogram revealed an area-under-the-curve of 0.791 (95% confidence interval 0.735–0.846) and 0.765 (95% confidence interval: 0.677–0.852) for the training and validation sets, respectively, indicating strong discriminative abilities. Subgroup analysis further confirmed that patients with papillary thyroid microcarcinoma and BRAF V600E mutations who underwent therapeutic central compartment neck dissection had significantly better 3-year disease-free survival than those who had prophylactic central compartment neck dissection (P<0.001). Conclusion The study revealed that age >45 years, body mass index ≥25, tumor size ≥1 cm, BRAF V600E mutation, and capsular invasion are the related risk factors for CLNM in patients with PTC. For patients with clinically nodal-negative (cN0) papillary thyroid microcarcinoma, accurately identifying the BRAF V600E mutation is essential for guiding the central lymph node dissection approach and subsequent treatments.
PATTERNS OF CALIBRATION AGE SENSITIVITY WITH QUARTET DATING METHODS

Abstract Because more than one calibration is used, quartet dating (a molecular dating method) is thought to reduce error that might arise from a single calibration point. Within crocodylians, there is a strong correlation between calibration age and divergence estimate for five mitochondrial genes and one nuclear gene—estimates based on two Neogene calibrations are all younger than those based on two Paleogene calibrations, and estimates based on one Neogene and one Paleogene calibration are of intermediate age. Confidence limits on the youngest estimates exclude the oldest estimates, and in several cases they exclude known minimum divergences from fossil occurrences. Addition of time to the calibrations improves among-quartet and stratigraphic consistency, but not all kinds of modifications have the same impact; addition of uniform blocks of time to all calibrations efficiently increases among-quartet consistency, but with range extensions that more than double some of the Neogene calibrations. Modest increases in calibration age disproportionately impact divergence estimates based on later calibrations. Some among-quartet disparity might reflect calibration error, especially among caimans, but some range extensions necessary to improve consistency are unreasonably long. Quartet dating appears to systematically undercompensate branch length error with late calibrations and overcompensate it with early calibrations, but in all cases very reasonable results—alligatorid-crocodylid divergence in the Late Cretaceous and Alligator-caiman divergence at or near the Cretaceous-Tertiary boundary—are obtained when both a Neogene and a Paleogene calibration is used. This suggests that, given current likelihood models, the use of calibrations sampling different parts of a clade's history is the best strategy when using quartet dating.
Evolution of Katabatic Flow on the Island of Hawaii on 10 August 1990

Abstract The data collected on 10 August 1990 from the Hawaiian Rainband Project were analyzed to study the evolution of katabatic flow. Results from this study show that for a relatively dry case thermal forcing is important to account for the onset, evolution, depth, and offshore extension of the katabatic flow on the windward side of the island of Hawaii where the mean winds are weak because of island blocking. During the evening transition, the initiation of katabatic flow on the windward slopes was mainly driven by the diurnal heating cycle. At the windward coast, the wind shift was caused by the arrival of the drainage front from the windward lowlands. After the arrival of the drainage front at Hilo, slopewise instability was generated because of rain showers along the coast and diminishing orographic clouds and showers on the slopes. Along the coast, because of the reduced radiative cooling due to cloud cover and vertical mixing associated with rains, a warm period was observed at Hilo. On the slop.
Avaceratops lammersi: A New Ceratopsid from the Judith River Formation of Montana

A recently discovered dinosaur bonebed in the Upper Cretaceous (Campanian) sedi- ments of south central Montana constitutes the southern-most concentration of dinosaurs in the Judith River Formation, and also the richest dinosaur discovery ever made in this formation in Montana. The fauna includes disarticulated remains of young juvenile dinosaurs of several kinds. The most impor- tant specimen in the quarry is that of a young ceratopsid whose length is estimated at 2.3 m. Preserved material includes much of the skull, most of the appendicular skeleton, and representative vertebrae and ribs. The specimen is described as a new genus and species, Avaceratops lammersi. It is a short- squamosaled ceratopsid, but the form of the parietal and of the squamosal contrast sharply with other Judithian short-squamosaled ceratopsids: Monoclonius, Centrosaurus, and Styracosaurus. Although it has the limb proportions of ceratopsids five or ten m long, early fusion of the occipital condyle and a tapering shape of the unguals suggest it may have reached a smaller adult size than that of typical Judithian ceratopsids. (Avaceratops, Campanian, Ceratopsidae, dinosaur, Judith River Formation, Montana, Ornithischia, systematics, Upper Cretaceous)
The impacts of electronic cigarette health warning labels on use intentions and perceptions: A cross-sectional study of US and Israeli adults who use tobacco

Background: Health warning labels (HWLs) are evidence-based tobacco control strategies; however, their application to e-cigarettes and related impacts (e.g. on perceived risk), including across countries with different regulations, are understudied. Design and Methods: Using 2021 survey data from 927 US and Israeli adults reporting past-month tobacco use, multivariate analyses examined: (1) sociodemographics in relation to self-reported impact of e-cigarette HWLs (i.e. more concerned about e-cigarette use, reassured, no effect) among those who noticed e-cigarette HWLs (multinomial regressions); and (2) HWL impacts in relation to use intentions and perceived addictiveness and harm (linear regressions). Results: Among those who noticed HWLs (n = 835, 90.1%), 34.1% reported HWLs resulted in greater concern about e-cigarette use, 45.5% no effect, and 20.4% reassurance. Factors associated with greater concern (vs no effect) included e-cigarette non-use (vs use; aOR = 1.69, 95% CI:1.22, 2.38), US (vs Israel) resident (aOR = 1.65, 95% CI:1.16, 2.34), age 18–25 (vs 36–45; aOR = 1.72, 95% CI:1.11, 2.67), and more education (aOR = 1.85, 95% CI:1.30, 2.63). Factors associated with being reassured (vs no effect) included use of cigarettes (aOR = 1.71, 95% CI:1.06, 2.75), e-cigarettes (aOR = 2.64, 95% CI:1.77, 3.94), and other tobacco (aOR = 2.11, 95% CI:1.39, 3.21), and Israeli resident (aOR = 2.33, 95% CI:1.47, 3.70). Not noticing HWLs (vs no effect) correlated with lower intentions (β = −0.44, 95% CI:−0.87, −0.01), perceived addictiveness (β = −0.61, 95% CI:−1.05, −0.18), and harm (β = −0.56, 95% CI:−0.95, −0.18); reassurance correlated with greater use intentions (β = 0.48, 95% CI:0.12, 0.83); and greater concern was unassociated with use intentions or perceived risk. Conclusion: Effects of differing e-cigarette HWLs in distinct subpopulations warrant research. Despite being noticed, they may have no effect or encourage e-cigarette use.