Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Variation of pinitol content for domestic legume species in Korea.

This study was designed to investigate variation of pinitol content in different parts of seventeen legume species including silk tree (Albizia julibrissin). D-pinitol has been demonstrated to exert insulin-like and anti-inflammatory effects. These legumes were collected from Gyeongsangbuk-Do in Korea. Significant difference in pinitol content was observed among 17 different legume species. However, it was the highest in sericea lespedeza (Lespedeza cuneata). The highest pinitol content was observed in leaf followed by stem, pod shell, seed and root among plant parts. Legume plants which had higher pinitol content in leaves were chinese pea shrub, bastard indigo, wild cowpea and sericea lespedeza, having 59.9 mg/g, 62.2 mg/g, 69.6 mg/g and 65.4 mg/g, respectively. Stem of astragali radix showed the highest pinitol content among all leagumes, which was 34.0 mg/g. In case of root, kudzuvine showed the highest pinitol content followed by licorice and chinese pea shrub, which were 24.6 mg/g, 16.9 mg/g, and 16.5 mg/g, respectively. However, in the case of pod shell and seed, only lablab purpureus and sericea lespedeza showed the highest pinitol content 52.5 mg/g (for pod shell) and 24.9 mg/g (for seed), respectively. Concluding, the sericea lespedeza showed the highest total pinitol content of whole plant followed by chinese redbud, chinese pea shrub, bastard indigo and silk tree. Considering the pinitol content and harvesting yield, sericea lespedeza can be used as a practical medicinal herb.
Lipid Biomarkers of Suspended Particulate Organic Matter in Lake Bled (NW Slovenia)

The fatty acid, hydrocarbon and sterol composition were used to investigate the organic sources and compositional changes in particulate organic matter (POM) and trap material in the water column in the deepest part of Lake Bled (NW Slovenia) in October 2006. Fatty acids distribution of algal origin were abundant in particles and trap material in epilimnion, while in anoxic zone POM and trap material were enriched in bacterial fatty acids (e.g. 16:1n-7, 18:1n-7, 18:1n-9, iso-C14-C16 and anteiso-C15). The lowest δ13C value of −51.7‰ was observed in 18:1n-7 FA in trap material and was the only FA which could be linked to methanotrophic bacteria. In addition Zooplankton left a marked imprint on particulate lipids and trap material at 12 m by predominance of n-C18:0 over n-C16:0 FA, short-chain, even-carbon n-alkenols, the high proportion of cholest-5-en-3β-ol (44.8% of total sterol concentration (TST)), cholesterol/phytosterol ratio of 0.49 and δ15NPN values of 6.8 and 11.7‰. It was shown that lacustrine phytoplankton biosynthesize 24-ethylcholest-5-en-3β-ol which is often used as a marker of terrigenous organic matter. Phytoplankton represented an important source of cholest-5-en-3β-ol and 24-methylcholest-5,22(E)-dien-3β-ol, while 24-ethylcholesta-5,22E-dien-3β-ol and 24-methylcholest-5-en-3β-ol were of terrestrial origin. There was an evidence of microbial transformation of Δ5-stenols to 5α(H)-stanols in POM and trap material in hypolimnion.
The Era of Coronavirus: Knowledge, Attitude, Practices, and Barriers to Hand Hygiene Among Makerere University Students and Katanga Community Residents

Background The Novel Coronavirus was declared as a pandemic by the WHO at the end of 2019. Proper hand hygiene was identified as one of the simplest most cost-effective Covid-19 control and prevention measures. It is therefore very important to identify gaps in the knowledge, attitude, and practices, and barriers regarding hand hygiene in the community. Methods A descriptive cross-sectional study was conducted using a simple random sampling technique. An interviewer-guided questionnaire with questions on knowledge, attitude, practice, and barriers to hand hygiene was used in data collection. Collected data were analyzed using Microsoft office excel 2016 and STATA 15 software. A 95% confidence interval was used and statistical significance was P<0.05. Results Only 88 (24.5%) of the participants had adequate knowledge of hand hygiene. 32.8% of the university students had adequate knowledge compared to 6.3% of the Katanga residents. The majority of 336 (93.6%) participants had a good attitude towards hand hygiene. University students had a significantly better knowledge of hand hygiene while Katanga slum residents had a slightly better attitude towards hand hygiene. Only 19.6% accomplished all the seven steps of handwashing. 38.4% of the participants were still greeting by handshaking. Of the participants, 60.1% noted lack of soap as a barrier to hand hygiene and 62.9% reported having more than three barriers to hand hygiene. Participants who had been taught handwashing were more likely to have better hand hygiene knowledge and practice. Conclusion There was an overall high proportion of participants with a low level of hand hygiene knowledge. There is a need for optimizing hand-hygiene practices through addressing the barriers and promoting public health education.
GenVibe: Exploration of Interactive Generation of Personal Vibrotactile Patterns

Research about vibrotactile patterns is traditionally conducted with patterns handcrafted by experts which are then subsequently evaluated in general user studies. The current empirical approach to designing vibrotactile patterns mostly utilizes expert decisions and is notably not adapted to individual differences in the perception of vibration. This work describes GenVibe: a novel approach to designing vibrotactile patterns by examining the automatic generation of personal patterns. GenVibe adjusts patterns to the perception of an individual through the utilization of interactive generative models. An algorithm is described and tested with a dummy smartphone made from off-the-shelf electronic components. Afterward, a user study with 11 participants evaluates the outcome of GenVibe. Results show a significant increase in accuracy from 73.6% to 84.0% and a higher confidence ratings by the users.
PDMSkin: On-Skin Gestures with Printable Ultra-Stretchable Soft Electronic Second Skin

Innovative enabling technologies are key drivers of human augmentation. In this paper, we explore a new, conductive, and configurable material made from Polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) that is capillary doped with silver particles (Ag) using an immiscible secondary fluid to build ultra-stretchable, soft electronics. Bonding silver particles directly with PDMS enables inherently stretchable Ag-PDMS circuits. Compared to previous work, the reduced silver consumption creates significant advantages, e.g., better stretchability and lower costs. The secondary fluid ensures self-assembling conductivity networks. Sensors are 3D-printed ultra-thin (<100μm) onto a pure PDMS substrate in one step and only require a PDMS cover-layer. They exhibit almost stable electrical properties even for an intense stretching of >200%. Therefore, printed circuits can attach tightly onto the body. Due to biocompatibility, devices can be implanted (e.g., open wounds treatment). We present a proof of concept on-skin interface that uses the new material to provide six distinct input gestures. Our quantitative evaluation with ten participants shows that we can successfully classify the gestures with a low spatial-resolution circuit. With few training data and a gradient boosting classifier, we yield 83% overall accuracy. Our qualitative material study with twelve participants shows that usability and comfort are well perceived; however, the smooth but easy to adapt surface does not feel tissue-equivalent. For future work, the new material will likely serve to build robust and skin-like electronics.
Optimization of Protocol for Isolation of Genomic DNA from Leaves of Selaginella Species Suitable for RAPD Analysis and Study of their Genetic Variation

Abstract A simple and efficient protocol for isolating genomic DNA from leaves of Selaginella spp. (S. delicatula, S. repanda, S. bryopteris, S. plana, S. monospora) was developed, involving a modified CTAB protocol of Rogers and Benedich (1994). Increasing the incubation time with the precipitation buffer (1X CTAB) from 1–3 hours to 12–14 hours helped achieve higher quantity genomic DNA from the specimens, when compared with DNA extracted by protocols reported by Dellaporta et al. (1983), Murray and Thompson (1980) and Doyle and Doyle (1987). The DNA yield ranged from 846–1836 µg/ml from fresh and herbaria-preserved leaf samples. The DNA samples were found suitable for genetic diversity analysis with Random Amplified Polymorphic DNA (RAPD) markers. Nine random primers (OPA A17, OPB 4, OPB13, OPC 2, OPC 11, OPD 5, OPG 2, OPG 19 and OPK 10) were studied, of which two primers (OPD 5 and OPG 2) yielded reproducible amplification profile of polymorphic fragments.
Analysing Gender Bias in IT Job Postings: A Pre-Study Based on Samples from the German Job Market

In Germany, as in many other industrial nations, there is currently a shortage of skilled workers in the IT sector, also known as the "war for talents". It is becoming increasingly difficult for companies to find suitable personnel using traditional recruiting instruments. Against this background, but also due to legal requirements, it is becoming more and more important that job postings are formulated in such a way that they have the greatest possible impact and no group of suitable applicants feels excluded. This study presents an approach that can be used to measure the gender bias in job postings in particular. A respective tool could provide recruiters with an instrument to identify and prevent unwanted gender bias. In our study, the prototype of such a tool will be developed and initially applied to analyse job postings in the IT sector of the German job market in comparison to samples from the automotive and health care sectors. We present some key statistics of this analysis and an outlook on future work.
Cytological and molecular consequences of wheat grain exposure to microwave radiations

Radiofrequency radiations (RFR) are electromagnetic frequencies (EMFs) that encompass frequencies below that of visible light and above that of extremely low frequency fields. Typical man-made sources of RFR include broadcast AM/FM/TV, mobile phones and base stations, microwave ovens and radar. In this investigation, the cytological and molecular effects of RF-EMFs at 2.45 GHz, the frequency commonly used in telecommunication and microwave ovens, have been investigated in dividing root cells of five wheat cultivars following grain exposure to very short times ranging from one second to one minute. Enhanced mitotic activity and increased proportion of chromosomal abnormalities were scored in root cells as the exposure time increased. Most abnormalities are comprised of cmetaphase configurations, unoriented chromosomes at metaphase, laggards and multipolar ana-telophases indicating an action on the mitotic apparatus as well as chromosomal bridges and the formation of micronuclei indicating true clastogenic .
WhiteHaul: an efficient spectrum aggregation system for low-cost and high capacity backhaul over white spaces

We address the challenge of backhaul connectivity for rural and developing regions, which is essential for universal fixed/mobile Internet access. To this end, we propose to exploit the TV white space (TVWS) spectrum for its attractive properties: low cost, abundance in under-served regions and favorable propagation characteristics. Specifically, we propose a system called WhiteHaul for the efficient aggregation of the TVWS spectrum tailored for the backhaul use case. At the core of WhiteHaul are two key innovations: (i) a TVWS conversion substrate that can efficiently handle multiple non-contiguous chunks of TVWS spectrum using multiple low cost 802.11n/ac cards but with a single antenna; (ii) novel use of MPTCP as a link-level tunnel abstraction and its use for efficiently aggregating multiple chunks of the TVWS spectrum via a novel uncoupled, cross-layer congestion control algorithm. Through extensive evaluations using a prototype implementation of WhiteHaul, we show that: (a) WhiteHaul can aggregate almost the whole of TV band with 3 interfaces and achieve nearly 600Mbps TCP throughput; (b) the WhiteHaul MPTCP congestion control algorithm provides an order of magnitude improvement over state of the art algorithms for typical TVWS backhaul links. We also present additional measurement and simulation based results to evaluate other aspects of the WhiteHaul design.
Breaking Uniculm Growth Habit of Spring Cereals at High Latitudes by Crop Management. II. Tillering, Grain yield and Yield Components

Long days at high latitudes inhibit tillering of cereals and hence seeding rates of 500-700 seeds m -2 are commonly used for spring wheat, barley and oats in Finland. Costs could be reduced by using a lower seeding rate in combination with crop management to produce more head-bearing tillers m -2 . This study was designed to assess possibilities of breaking the uniculm growth habit of spring cereals by (1) lowering the seeding rate from 600 to 300 seeds m -2 and (2) manipulating tiller growth with early mechanical treatments to the crop (rolling, cutting) or chemical applications (foliar urea, CCC and GA). A low seeding rate and early application of foliar CCC at high latitudes, under good moisture conditions prior to heading, promoted 20% more head-bearing tillers and 6% higher grain yield than standard management practices. However, cultivars differed in their response to CCC. The advantageous effects of CCC at a low seeding rate were attributed to increase, over the controls, in contribution of head-bearing tillers to grain yield in wheat (cultivar Heta), but more grains per head in oats (cultivar Veli). Varietal recommendations for use of low seeding rate in combination with early CCC spraying should be examined further.
Low Resource Call of FFT Circuit Design

Existing studies mainly focus on parallel structures and FFT circuit designs with a large sample sizes, and circuits will consume a lot of resources. To compensate for the abovementioned deficiencies, this paper proposed a new FFT circuit design method to reach the low-resource call goal of the FFT circuit. Under the framework of decimation-in-time (DIT) butterfly plot of 8,192 sampling points, the block operation scheme of recursive structure was adopted, and Euler's formula was used to optimize rotation factors in the butterfly plot. Results show that the proposed FFT design method in this paper can save register (REG) quantity by about 96.87% and look-up-table (LUT) quantity by an average of about 98.75% under the same quantity of sampling points, thus, resource call is reduced by a large margin. The study scheme can provide a reference for low resource call design of the FFT circuit.
Exploring the Roles and Contributions of Participants as Designers in Projects Utilising Augmented Reality: Doctoral Consortium Abstract

At a time of increased technological literacy and innovation, it can be difficult to consolidate people’s imaginations with their practical understanding of technology, especially in the case of ambiguous technologies such as augmented reality (AR). With this confusion about capability and purpose, we face a scenario very similar to that of the 1970s adoption of computers into the workplace [2]. When the relationship between the technology and the task is unclear or ambiguous, it becomes important to engage with users to ensure solutions are designed to help, rather than hinder. This is where Participatory Design (PD) becomes relevant the goal of PD is to ensure the needs of the user are met by having them participate in the design process as an active and willing member of the team [3]. However, AR and similar mixed reality technologies (VR, MR, XR etc.) present an additional challenge, as designers (whether professionals or participants) are tasked with defining an experience [5], rather than just an application. My candidature will explore how people understand AR, and how understanding influences contributions and outcomes of design sessions.
Effect of pruning intensity on light penetration and leaf physiology in Amrapali mango trees under high‐density planting

Amrapali mango trees established at high-density were pruned by tipping or by removal of 4, 8 or 12 inches from the apex of each branch. The light penetration and rate of photosynthesis were increased with the extent of pruning, but the specific leaf weight was not affected. The leaf chlorophyll contents were higher in unpruned and tipped trees than in pruned. The rate of photosynthesis and leaf chlorophyll contents were greater in leaves that developed on the southeast side of the tree canopy than on the other sides. The same applied to leaves further from the crotch than those nearer to it. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd
PERCEIVE: deep learning-based cellular uplink prediction using real-time scheduling patterns

As video calls and personal broadcasting become popular, the demand for mobile live streaming over cellular uplink channels is growing fast. However, current live streaming solutions are known to suffer from frequent uplink throughput fluctuations causing unnecessary video stalls and quality drops. As a remedy to this problem, we propose PERCEIVE, a deep learning-based uplink throughput prediction framework. PERCEIVE exploits a 2-stage LSTM (Long Short Term Memory) design and makes throughput predictions for the next 100ms. Our extensive evaluations show that PERCEIVE, trained with LTE network traces from three major operators in the U.S., achieves high accuracy in the uplink throughput prediction with only 7.67% mean absolute error and outperforms existing prediction techniques. We integrate PERCEIVE with WebRTC, a popular video streaming platform from Google, as a rate adaptation module. Our implementation on the Android phone demonstrates that it can improve PSNR by up to 6dB (4x) over the default WebRTC while providing less streaming latency.
A new marine diatom, Cocconeis shikinensis sp. nov. (Bacillariophyceae) from Japan

A new species of Cocconeis has been found growing on the green seaweed Caulerpa racemosa (Forsskål) J. Agardh var. laete‐virens (Montagne) Weber van Bosse from Shikine Island in the Izu Islands on the Pacific coast of Japan; we propose the name Cocconeis shiki‐nensis Hid. Suzuki and describe the species by light microscopy (LM) and electron microscopy (EM). This taxon was also collected from the plastic plates used for rearing in seed production systems of the abalone Nordotis discus hannai Ino and the horned turban Turbo cornutus Solander in the Toyama Prefectural Fisheries Research Institute facing the Sea of Japan. The main morphological features of C. shikinensis are as follows. The valves are elliptic. The valve face of the raphid valve (RV) is slightly concave and that of the araphid valve (AV) is complementary to the RV and convex. The single plastid is flat, C‐shaped and elaborately lobed. The raphe on the RV is straight. The each terminal area expands to both sides along the valve margin, forming an arrowhead‐shaped, thickened hyaline area. The striae consist of small, round areolae and are radiate and uniseriate. On the AV, the striae consist of several alveoli. Each alveolus opens internally by means of a circular foramen. The valvocopula of each valve is fimbriate and open. The cingulum attached to the AV consists of three girdle bands; a valvocopula and two bands (copula and pleura), which are open and have ligulae. The relationship between C. shikinensis and similar members of the genus Cocconeis is discussed.
On the Taxonomic Significance of Tectum Sculpture Characters in Alpine Pinus Species

Abstract SEM investigation of pollen grain surfaces of four alpine Pinus species, P. sylvestris, P. mugo, P. uncinata and P. cembra leads to the conclusion that tectum surface characters are less variable and more specific than other exine layers and pollen grain features in Pinus. Nexine features appear more significant for higher taxonomic levels, like subgenera or genera.
HEXAGONAL ARRAY OF SUBUNITS IN INTERCELLULAR JUNCTIONS OF THE MOUSE HEART AND LIVER

Hexagonally packed subunits have previously been observed on the surface of plasma membranes in at least two different systems. They were first described by Robertson (1) in electrical synapses of the Mauthner cells after permanganate and osmium-tetroxide fixation. Benedetti and Emmelot (2) have illustrated almost identical patterns in isolated liver plasma membrane fractions which had been negatively stained. We report here a new technique, based on the observations of Doggenweiler and Frenks (3), wMch has allowed us to demonstrate the presence of similar structures in sections of mouse heart and of mouse liver. When tissue bloqks are treated before dehydration and embedding with a preparation of lanthanum salts, the extracellular space becomes filled with an essentially amorphous electronopaque material. After such t rea tment hexagonally packed structures are clearly delineated in specialized intercellular junctions of the heart and liver (4, 5).
An Adaptive Integral Sliding Mode Tracking Control for Robotic Manipulators

This paper proposes an adaptive integral sliding mode tracking control for robotic manipulators. Our proposed control method is developed based on the benefits of both integral sliding mode control and adaptive control, such as high robustness, high accuracy, and estimation ability. In this paper, an integral sliding mode controller is designed with the elimination of the reaching stage to provide better trajectory tracking accuracy and to stabilize the closed-loop system. To reduce the computation complexity, an adaptive controller with only one simple adaptive law is used to estimate the upper-bound values of the lumped model uncertainties. As a result, the requirement of their prior knowledge is eliminated and then decrease the computation cost. Consequently, this controller provides better tracking accuracy and handles the dynamic uncertainties and external disturbances more strongly. The system global stability of the controller is guaranteed by using Lyapunov criteria. Finally, the effectiveness of the proposed control method is tested by computer simulation for a PUMA560 robotic manipulator.
A marriage of pointer- and epoch-based reclamation

All pointer-based nonblocking concurrent data structures should deal with the problem of safe memory reclamation: before reclaiming a memory block, a thread should ensure no other threads hold a local pointer to the block that may later be dereferenced. Various safe memory reclamation schemes have been proposed in the literature, but none of them satisfy the following desired properties at the same time: (i) robust: a non-cooperative thread does not prevent the other threads from reclaiming an unbounded number of blocks; (ii) fast: it does not incur significant time overhead; (iii) compact: it does not incur significant space overhead; (iv) self-contained: it neither relies on special hardware/OS supports nor intrusively affects execution environments; and (v) widely applicable: it supports many data structures. We introduce PEBR, which we believe is the first scheme that satisfies all the properties above. PEBR is inspired by Snowflake’s hybrid design of pointer- and epoch-based reclamation schemes (PBR and EBR, resp.) that is mostly robust, fast, and compact but neither self-contained nor widely applicable. To achieve self-containedness, we design algorithms using only the standard C/C++ concurrency features and process-wide memory fence. To achieve wide applicability, we characterize PEBR’s requirement for safe reclamation that is satisfied by a variety of data structures, including Harris’s and Harris-Herlihy-Shavit’s lists that are not supported by PBR. We experimentally evaluate whether PEBR is fast and robust using microbenchmarks, for which PEBR performs comparably to the state-of-the-art schemes.