Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Evaluation of Land Cover Dynamics and Landscape Fragmentation in Ijebu Ode, Nigeria

Landscape fragmentation has been found to be a major consequence of urbanization and of land use/cover (LULC) changes. Thus, this study analyzed the spatiotemporal land use/land cover changes of Ijebu Ode, Nigeria between 1986 and 2021. This is with a view to assessing the pattern of landscape fragmentation in the study area. The study used data obtained through Global Positioning System (GPS) receiver and satellite imageries (Landsat 5 MSS/TM, 1986; Landsat 7 ETM+, 2000 and 2014; and Landsat 8 OLI/TIR, 2021). Data were analyzed using spatial landscape metrics. Results indicated that Ijebu Ode has witnessed dramatic increase of built-up areas between 1986 and 2000 by 11.03%, 2000 to 2014 (65.24%), and 2014 to 2021 by 131.25%. Expansion of the built-up area was aided by reductions in bare land (1986 to 2000, 15.78%; 2014 to 2021, 98.27%), and the cultivated area by 47.74% between 1986 and 2014. Landscape metrics were estimated over the four epochs of study. Results revealed that most of the metrics suggest similar trends over the entire periods of study. However, Largest Patch Index (LPI), Landscape Shape Index (LSI) and Normalized Landscape Shape Index (NLSI) were useful in capturing the spatio-temporal variations in landscape transformation. Also, Class Area (CA) was useful to show the degree of land cover changes. The study concluded that location of spatial structures influenced the landscape patterns influence and urbanization processes in the study area. Hence, the study recommended for regular monitoring of the expansion of the built-up area to check the imminent urban sprawl in the study area.
of Fora Dakshi

The objectives of the present study were to determine the type and morphometric measurements of Foramen magnum (FM) in dry human skulls of Dakshina Kannada district of Southern India. Material and Methods : The present study included 50 adult human skulls of which 32 were males and 18 females. The type of foramen magnum observed macroscopically. Antero-posterior (APD) and transverse diameters (TD) were measured by using stainless steel electronic digital callipers. Foramen magnum Index (FMI) was calculated by using formula FMI= APD/TD. Results: Present study observed 4 types of shapes of foramen magnum, among them ovoid type was found higher frequency (48%). Antero-posterior diameter is a distance between Basion and Opisthion 34.95mm in males and 34.58mm in females out of 34.81mm. The transverse diameters28.66mm in males and 28.84mm in females out of 28.73mm. Foramen magnum index ≥ 1.2 was considered as ovoid and found in 56% of skulls. Conclusion: We believe that the present study provided additional information about the morphology and morphometric analysis of foramen magnum which is important to radiological, neurosurgical literatures.
Where does the dust deposited over the Sierra Nevada snow come from?

Abstract. Mineral dust contributes up to one-half of surface aerosol loading in spring over the southwestern United States, posing an environmental challenge that threatens human health and the ecosystem. Using self-organizing map (SOM) analysis with dust deposition and flux data from WRF-Chem and Modern-Era Retrospective analysis for Research and Applications, Version 2 (MERRA-2), we identify four typical dust transport patterns across the Sierra Nevada, associated with the mesoscale winds, Sierra barrier jet (SBJ), North Pacific High (NPH), and long-range cross-Pacific westerlies, respectively. We find that dust emitted from the Central Valley is persistently transported eastward, while dust from the Mojave Desert and Great Basin influences the Sierra Nevada during mesoscale transport occurring mostly in winter and early spring. Asian dust reaching the mountain range comes either from the west through straight isobars (cross-Pacific transport) or from the north in the presence of the NPH. Extensive dust depositions are found on the west slope of the mountain, contributed by Central Valley emissions and cross-Pacific remote transport. In particular, the SBJ-related transport produces deposition through landfalling atmospheric rivers, whose frequency might increase in a warming climate.
Effects of covid-19 pandemic on smoking behavior among Saudi postgraduate physicians

The COVID-19 pandemic has sparked global stress. This has altered people's coping mechanisms, with some turning to harmful smoking as an option. Smoking is highly prevalent among Saudi healthcare workers, particularly postgraduate physicians. Therefore, it is critical to comprehend the smoking factors among Saudi postgraduate physicians and how COVID-19 affects their smoking status. This cross-sectional study used a self-administered questionnaire to collect data from postgraduate physicians across Saudi Arabia. Data from questionnaires were collected and analyzed using descriptive statistics, Pearson Chi-square test, and multivariate and multinomial logistic regression. Of the 740 participants, 27.6% were smokers and 11.6% were former smokers. Cigarette smoking was the most prevalent type, followed by electronic cigarettes and Shisha (51.0%, 47.1%, and 37.3%, respectively). Smoking was found to be associated (P < 0.05) with age over 30, male gender, father and mother smoking, as well as smoking brothers, friends, and smokers' less educated mothers. Despite COVID-19, most smoking postgraduate physicians smoke at their average rates, followed by those who smoke more than their average. Educational and training programs should include appropriate, healthy coping techniques. Furthermore, the associated factors of smoking could help in developing appropriate tobacco-control programs to prevent smoking among postgraduate physicians.
Policy uncertainty and stock market volatility revisited: The predictive role of signal quality

This paper provides novel insight into the growing literature on the policy uncertainty‐stock market volatility nexus by examining the out‐of‐sample predictive ability of the quality of political signals over stock market volatility at various forecast horizons. Specifically, we examine whether or not accounting for the signal quality in forecasting models within a mixed frequency framework can improve forecast performance and help achieve economic gains for investors. Both in‐ and out‐of‐sample tests, based on a GARCH‐MIDAS framework, show that the quality of the policy signal matters regarding the predictive role of policy uncertainty over subsequent stock market volatility. While high economic policy uncertainty (EPU) predicts high volatility, particularly when the signal quality is high, the positive relationship between EPU and volatility breaks down when the signal quality is low. The improved out‐of‐sample volatility forecasts obtained from the models that account for the quality of policy signals also help typical mean–variance investors achieve improved economic outcomes captured by higher certainty equivalent returns and Sharpe ratios. Although our results indicate clear distinctions between the US and UK stock markets in terms of how market participants process policy signals, they highlight the role of the quality of policy signals as a driver of volatility forecasts with significant economic implications.
ECOLOGIA BALKANICA Macropterous Ground Beetles (Coleoptera: Carabidae) Prevail in European Oilseed Rape Fields

During a research conducted in oilseed rape ( Brassica napus L.) fields in four European countries (Bulgaria, Germany, Romania and Switzerland), species composition and ecological structure of the ground beetle (Coleoptera: Carabidae) fauna associated with the rape were studied. Field work was carried out in 2017 (2018 in Bulgaria). Pitfall traps (5 in each site) were set in each sampling site in each country. Captured beetles belonged to 179 species and 51 genera. The most diverse were genera Harpalus Latreille, 1802 and Amara Bonelli, 1810 (21 species each), followed by the genera Carabus Linnaeus, 1758 (15 species), Pterostichus Bonelli, 1810 (10 species), Microlestes Schmidt-Goebel, 1846 and Poecilus Bonelli, 1810 (9 species each), and Brachinus Weber, 1801 and Ophonus Dejean, 1821 (8 species each). In Bulgaria were found 107 species, in Germany – 68 species, in Romania – 71 species, in Switzerland – 45 species. Fourteen species were common in all countries. Macropterous species represented 65% (116 species) of all collected carabid species (in all countries). Pteridimorphic species were 20% of all (36 species), and brachypterous were only 12% (21 species). For 6 species (3%) there were no data about their wing morphology. The results were similar in each country. Macropterous species were 73% (78 species) in Bulgaria, 60% (41 species) in Germany, 68% (48 species) in Romania, and 69% (31 species) in Switzerland. Macropterous beetles prevailed in number of specimens too (79% of the specimens in all countries). The prevalence of the macropterous carabids reflects their higher
Employee Perceptions on Organisational Strategy Implementation in Covid 19 Era

: The un expected onslaught of the COVID 19 pandemic has brought the need for change to organisations. This change is in terms of how they do their business. Strategy implementation process by a firm is one of the critical activities firms carry out. The success of this process is determined by the perception of the workers. This research paper is abou t how employee’s p erception impacts the process of strategy implementation. A descriptive research design was adopted by the researcher. The sample size was 500 individuals from different countries working in different organizations within the United Arab Emirates. A pilot study of 15 respondents in similar firms and levels of operations was conducted to test the research instrument. The research instrument was a semi structured questionnaire which had been divided into two categories, which were the demographics and the study variables concurrently. Regression analysis was used to test the null hypothesis of the study. The null hypothesis was rejected since the study established that, employee perception has a significant influence on the strategy implementation. The results of the regression model summary showed that the adjusted r square was 0.265, indicating that the overall model accounted for only 26.5 percent of the predictor variables. In conclusion, it is evident that the way employees perceive affected the process strategy implementation during the COVID 19 pandemic.
The utility of divergent and convergent thinking in the problem construction processes during creative problem-solving.

The process of problem construction is known to be a critical influence on creative problem-solving. The current study assessed the utility of different problem construction methods used to maximize creativity during the creative process. An experimental design was used to explore the interplay between convergent and divergent thinking processes. Participants were asked to creatively solve an ill-defined problem under four conditions that varied in their combinations of instruction to engage in divergent and convergent thinking. Findings indicated that following divergent thinking methods with a method that facilitates convergent thinking in problem construction results in more creative solutions than using only methods associated with divergent thinking. Theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed.
KIMERA: Injecting Domain Knowledge into Vacant Transformer Heads

Training transformer language models requires vast amounts of text and computational resources. This drastically limits the usage of these models in niche domains for which they are not optimized, or where domain-specific training data is scarce. We focus here on the clinical domain because of its limited access to training data in common tasks, while structured ontological data is often readily available. Recent observations in model compression of transformer models show optimization potential in improving the representation capacity of attention heads. We propose KIMERA (Knowledge Injection via Mask Enforced Retraining of Attention) for detecting, retraining and instilling attention heads with complementary structured domain knowledge. Our novel multi-task training scheme effectively identifies and targets individual attention heads that are least useful for a given downstream task and optimizes their representation with information from structured data. KIMERA generalizes well, thereby building the basis for an efficient fine-tuning. KIMERA achieves significant performance boosts on seven datasets in the medical domain in Information Retrieval and Clinical Outcome Prediction settings. We apply KIMERA to BERT-base to evaluate the extent of the domain transfer and also improve on the already strong results of BioBERT in the clinical domain.
An Update on Medication Related Osteonecrosis of the Jaw: 18 years of Experience

Medication related osteonecrosis of the jaw (MRONJ) is a well-known phenomenon first described by Robert Marx (2003) and Salvatore Ruggiero (2004). Together, Marx and Ruggiero described a total 99 cases of presumed MRONJ associated with intravenous and oral bisphosphonates (Pamidronate, Zoledronate, Alendronate, Risedronate). Since the first descriptions of MRONJ, several case reports and series have been released documenting similar cases of osteonecrosis. The American Association of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgeons (AAOMS) has published numerous iterations of a position paper on MRONJ, with the most recent version published in 2014. The guideline paper uses the following criteria for diagnosis:
Topological Characterization of Cycloparaphenylene Series

Carbon nanorings are novel macrocyclic aromatic hydrocarbons that represent the segments of carbon nanotubes and have received a lot of attention in the ﬁeld of nanoscience because of their excellent nanoelectronic and photophysical capabilities. The design and synthesis of these macrocyclic architec-tures continues to claim their own recognition for many decades, as they represent signiﬁcant progress in the study of synthetic chemistry and nanoscience. The distinctive design and fascinating features of cycloparaphenylene, a carbon nanoring with a ring-like structure comprising of only benzene units, have piqued the theoretical, synthetic, and supramolecular researchers. Furthermore, the carbon nanoring structures bearing polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons such as hexabenzocoronene and pyrene molecules are also found to exhibit exciting characteristics and applications. This in turn evolves a wide range of novel chemical structures whose behaviour and attributes are to be studied and explored. Molecular descriptors help us to study such novel nanostructures by providing a greater understanding of their unique properties, whereas such characterization remains challenging due to their ring-shaped arrangement. As can be seen, algorithms for calculating the Wiener index of cycloparaphenylene alone have been developed in [Basu et al., Molecular Physics, 106 (21-23) (2008) 2507–2513 and a large number of molecular descriptors have recently been computed using the standard cut method approach in [Prabhu Polycyclic Aromatic Compounds, Unfortunately, the later paper’s results were all wrong due to technical ﬂaws, thus we here show that the cycloparaphenylenes and their related nanorings are not members of the partial cube family and we derive the exact analytic expressions of descriptors via strength-weighted graphs.
Coconut Shell Ash as Cementitious Material in Concrete: A Review

In recent years, there has been great concern about introducing new supplementary cementitious materials (SCM) in place of ordinary Portland cement (OPC) in concrete. The aim of this study is to check the behavior of coconut shell ash (CSA) with various proportions in concrete. Coconut shell is available in abundant quantity in local agricultural fields and considered as waste product. On the other hand, cement production emits a lot of toxic gases in the atmosphere which causes environmental pollution and greenhouse gases. Thus, CSA might be utilized as a cementitious material in concrete for sustainable development. This review article provides a detailed overview of the fresh and mechanical properties of various research studies. It is found that by incorporating the 10% of CSA into concrete results in the improvement of mechanical properties of concrete such as compressive, split tensile strength and flexural strength of concrete after every curing day respectively. Moreover, the modulus of elasticity enhanced while using 10% of CSA in concrete and the workability of fresh concrete was declined as the percentage of CSA increases. In addition to that, the use of CSA in concrete can reduce the total carbon foot print while reducing the overall cost of concrete manufacturing.
Alexithymia’s Epiphenomenality as a Mediator Between Unsupportive Emotion Socialization and Later Psychopathology

In accord with its conceptualization as a deficit, alexithymia has often been theorized and tested as a mediator of the association between childhood risk factors and later psychopathology. However, this is questioned by recent research which conceptualizes alexithymia as the result of negative perceptions of emotions, which by themselves could act as the real mediator of this association between childhood risk factors and later psychopathology. Cross-sectional data were collected through self-report questionnaires,from 193 undergraduate students. Results suggest that, in non-clinical samples, the association between an unsupportive emotion socialization alexithymia is completely mediated by avoidance-related negative attitudes towards sadness. Also, the association between emotion socialization and later psychopathology is not (in the case of borderline personality traits) or only minimally (in the case of depressive symptoms) mediated by alexithymia when these avoidance-related negative attitudes towards sadness are also included as a mediator. Theoretical and clinical implications are discussed.
Incentivizing Equity? The Effects of Performance-Based Funding on Race-Based Gaps in College Completion

ABSTRACT Performance-based funding models for higher education, which tie state support for institutions to performance on student outcomes, have proliferated in recent decades. Some states now tie most of their higher education appropriations to completion outcomes and include bonus payments for historically underrepresented groups to address equity gaps in postsecondary attainment. Using a Synthetic Control Method research design, we examine the heterogenous impact of these funding regimes in Tennessee and Ohio on completion outcomes for racially minoritized students and students from historically overrepresented racial groups. Across both states, we generally estimate null or negative effects on credentials conferred to racially minoritized students and null or positive effects on credentials conferred to students from historically overrepresented racial groups. As a result, we find that performance-based funding policies widened the racial gap in certificate completion in Tennessee and in baccalaureate degree completion in Ohio. Across both states, the estimated impacts on associate degree outcomes are also directionally consistent with performance-based funding exacerbating racial inequities in associate degree attainment.
RSLDE at NTCIR-16 DialEval-2 Task

In this paper, we report the work of the RSLDE team at the dialogue evaluation (DialEval-2) task of NTCIR-16, including the Chinese and English dialogue quality (DQ) and nugget detection (ND) sub-tasks. We implemented two sentence-level baselines that fine-tune BERT and XLNet along with a linear layer for the ND subtask. In addition, we propose a model based on BERT to capture the structure and context information of a customer-helpdesk dialogue. This dialogue-level model modifies the input and embeddings of BERT. We add a Transformer encoder layer over this model as our third model for the ND subtask and first model for the DQ subtask. The second model for the DQ subtask is the same dialogue-level model but without the Transformer encoder layer. Our XLNet model generated the best run for both English and Chinese ND subtasks. Our dialogue-level model outperformed the baselines for the Chinese DQ subtask but not for the English DQ subtask.
The Wakening of America: Tracking US Intolerances through the World Values Survey (1995-2014)

Intolerance is broadly recognized as the refusal to permit, or even consider, opinions or beliefs contrary to our own. Despite millennial political progress and increased advocacy for minorities, intolerance still persists in explicit forms, such as travel bans, border walls, and restrictive abortion laws. To track changes of intolerance in the US, we analyzed four waves of data from the World Values Survey between 1995- 2014. Intolerance toward minority groups was determined by binary logistic regression to be generally higher among older, male participants (43-100 years), however, in conjunction with our hypothesis relating to the Cohort theory, intolerance among this cohort decreased over the years. Younger participants (18-42 years) held relatively tolerant views, particularly of both unwed couples and people living with AIDS, but grew increasingly intolerant toward immigrants and foreign workers over the years. Directions for future research along with implications for America’s management of intolerance are discussed.
Guiding Automated Test Case Generation for Transaction-Reverting Statements in Smart Contracts

Transaction-reverting statements are key constructs within Solidity that are extensively used for authority and validity checks. Current state-of-the-art search-based testing and fuzzing approaches do not explicitly handle these statements and therefore can not effectively detect security vulnerabilities. In this paper, we argue that it is critical to directly handle and test these statements to assess that they correctly protect the contracts against invalid requests. To this aim, we propose a new approach that improves the search guidance for these transaction-reverting statements based on interprocedural control dependency analysis, in addition to the traditional coverage criteria. We assess the benefits of our approach by performing an empirical study on 100 smart contracts w.r. t. transaction-reverting statement coverage and vulnerability detection capability. Our results show that the proposed approach can improve the performance of Dy-naMOSA, the state-of-the-art algorithm for test case generation. On average, we improve transaction-reverting statement coverage by 14 % (up to 35 %), line coverage by 8 % (up to 32 %), and vulnerability-detection capability by 17 % (up to 50 %).
ChemSpacE: Toward Steerable and Interpretable Chemical Space Exploration

Discovering new structures in the chemical space is a long-standing challenge and has important applications to various fields such as chemistry, material science, and drug discovery. Deep generative models have been used in de novo molecule design to embed molecules in a meaningful latent space and then sample new molecules from it. However, the steerability and interpretability of the learned latent space remain much less explored. In this paper, we introduce a new task named molecule manipulation , which aims to align the molecular properties of the generated molecule and its latent activation in order to achieve interactive molecule editing. Then we develop a method called Chem ical Spac e E xplorer (ChemSpacE), which identifies and traverses interpretable directions in the latent space that align with molecular structures and property changes. Specifically, ChemSpacE leverages the properties of the learned latent space by generative models and utilizes linear models to identify such directions and thus is highly efficient in terms of training/inference time, data, and the number of oracle calls. Experiments show that ChemSpacE can efficiently steer the latent spaces of multiple state-of-the-art molecule generative models for interactive molecule discovery.