Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
How well can inverse analyses of high-resolution satellite data resolve heterogeneous methane fluxes? Observing system simulation experiments with the GEOS-Chem adjoint model (v35)

Abstract. We perform observing system simulation experiments (OSSEs) with the GEOS-Chem adjoint model to test how well methane emissions over North America can be resolved using measurements from the TROPOspheric Monitoring Instrument (TROPOMI) and similar high-resolution satellite sensors. We focus analysis on the impacts of (i) spatial errors in the prior emissions and (ii) model transport errors. Along with a standard scale factor (SF) optimization we conduct a set of inversions using alternative formalisms that aim to overcome limitations in the SF-based approach that arise for missing sources. We show that 4D-Var analysis of the TROPOMI data can improve monthly emission estimates at 25 km even with a spatially biased prior or model transport errors (42 %–93 % domain-wide bias reduction; R increases from 0.51 up to 0.73). However, when both errors are present, no single inversion framework can successfully improve both the overall bias and spatial distribution of fluxes relative to the prior on the 25 km model grid. In that case, the ensemble-mean optimized fluxes have a domain-wide bias of 77 Gg d−1 (comparable to that in the prior), with spurious source adjustments compensating for the transport errors. Increasing observational coverage through longer-timeframe inversions does not significantly change this picture. An inversion formalism that optimizes emission enhancements rather than scale factors exhibits the best performance for identifying missing sources, while an approach combining a uniform background emission with the prior inventory yields the best performance in terms of overall spatial fidelity – even in the presence of model transport errors. However, the standard SF optimization outperforms both of these for the magnitude of the domain-wide flux. For the common scenario in which prior errors are non-random, approximate posterior error reduction calculations (derived via gradient-based randomization) for the inversions reflect the sensitivity to observations but have no spatial correlation with the actual emission improvements. This demonstrates that such information content analysis can be used for general observing system characterization but does not describe the spatial accuracy of the posterior emissions or of the actual emission improvements. Findings here highlight the need for careful evaluation of potential missing sources in prior emission datasets and for robust accounting of model transport errors in inverse analyses of the methane budget.
INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGY TRAINING NEEDS ASSESSMENT OF AGRICULTURAL EXTENSION OFFICERS IN KWARA STATE, NIGERIA

Department of Agricultural Extension and Rural Development Department of Agricultural Economics and Farm Management, University of Ilorin, Ilorin, Nigeria. Corresponding author email: kfomotesho@gmail.com The failure of many developing countries to appreciably harness the potentials of ICT has been largely attributed to poor technological know-how among other constraints. A training needs assessment is therefore necessary to ensure that training efforts are correctly channeled to create the optimum impact possible. The study assessed the (ICT) training needs of extension officers in Kwara State, Nigeria. Data for the study were collected from the extension officers of the Kwara State Agricultural Development Project (KWADP) with the use of a structured questionnaire. Data analysis involved the use of both descriptive and inferential statistical tools. The Borich’s need assessment model revealed that more than 70% of the respondents had training needs in internet browsing, word processing, electronic mail and use of ICT in presentations. Job status was the major determinant of training need in most of the selected ICT areas. The study therefore recommended continuous training of all extension officers of the KWADP particularly in the identified ICT application areas. It is also recommended that job status be considered in the planning and design of ICT training programs for extension officers of the KWADP.
Role of Cytokines on the Progression of Liver Fibrosis in Mice Infected with Echinococcus multilocularis

Background Liver fibrosis is a significant pathological change of Echinococcus multilocularis (E. multilocularis) infection. This study aimed to explore the role of cytokines on the progression of liver fibrosis in mice infected with E. multilocularis. Methods Liver histopathological features at 2, 8, 30, 90 and 180 d were quantified by inflammatory severity score. The expression levels of inflammatory cytokines, fibrosis-related cytokines and hepatic cell apoptosis were measured using qRT-PCR and immunohistochemistry. Results At the early stage of infection, parasite stimulation triggers the rapid recruitment of immune cells, such as macrophages and neutrophils. These infiltrated immune cells then produce a large number of cytokines, such as iNOS (inducible nitric oxide synthase), a pro-inflammatory cytokine; TGF-β (transforming growth factor) activated HSCs (hepatic stellate cells) to promote the proliferation of fibroblasts and secretion of ECM (extracellular matrix); MMP9 (matrix metalloproteinase 9) degraded basal ECM and facilitated its replacement by a highly dense interstitial matrix. At the middle and late stages of infection, the expression of IL-10 (interleukin-10) with general inhibitory effect was increased. The imbalance of fiber formation and degradation aggravated liver fibrosis. Meanwhile, the whole process of E. multilocularis infection was accompanied by the necrosis and apoptosis of hepatic cells. Conclusion Along with the expansion of parasitic infection, dynamic changes in cytokine expression were observed on the liver fibrosis progression, which is helpful to provide some new ideas for the prevention and treatment of liver fibrosis in mice infected with E. multilocularis.
Expression of Proton-Sensitive GPR31, GPR151, TASK1 and TASK3 in Common Skin Tumors

TWIK-related acid-sensitive potassium channels TASK1 and TASK3, as well as the G-protein-coupled receptors GPR31 and GPR151, are proton-sensitive membrane proteins. They can be activated or inhibited by low extracellular pH (pHe), which is a hallmark of the tumor microenvironment in solid tumors. However, the role of these channels in the development of skin tumors is still unclear. In this study, we investigated the expression profiles of TASK1, TASK3, GPR31 and GPR151 in squamous cell carcinomas (SCCs), basal cell carcinomas (BCCs), nevus cell nevi (NCN), and malignant melanomas (MMs). We performed immunohistochemistry using paraffin-embedded tissue samples from patients and found that most skin tumors express TASK1/3 and GPR31/151. The results show that BCCs are often negative for GPR31/151 as well as for TASK1/3, while nearly all SCCs express these markers. MMs and NCN show similar expression patterns. However, some tumors show a decreasing TASK1/3 expression in deeper dermal tumor tissue, while GPCRs were expressed more evenly. The lower frequency of GPR31/151 and TSAK1/3 expression in BCCs when compared to SCCs is a novel histological feature distinguishing these two entities. Moreover, BCCs also show lower expression of GPR31/151 and TASK1/3 as compared to NCN and MMs.
Depriving Mice of Sleep also Deprives of Food

Both sleep-wake behavior and circadian rhythms are tightly coupled to energy metabolism and food intake. Altered feeding times in mice are known to entrain clock-gene rhythms in brain and liver and sleep-deprived humans tend to eat more and gain weight. Previous observations in mice showing that sleep deprivation (SD) changes clock-gene expression might thus relate to altered food intake and not to the loss of sleep per se. Whether SD affects food intake in the mouse and how this might affect clock-gene expression is, however, unknown. We therefore quantified i) the cortical expression of the clock genes Per1, Per2, Dbp, and Cry1 in mice that had access to food or not during a 6h SD, and ii) food intake during baseline, SD, and recovery sleep. We found that food deprivation did not modify the SD-incurred clock-gene changes in the cortex. Moreover, we discovered that although food intake during SD did not differ from baseline, mice lost weight and increased food intake during subsequent recovery. We conclude that SD is associated with food deprivation and that the resulting energy deficit might contribute to the effects of SD that are commonly interpreted as a response to sleep loss.
Review of Optimal Solutions to the Robustness Problem in Observer-Based Fault Detection

The paper presents a unified approach and general solution of the robustness problem in fault detection and isolation concepts. The ultimate objective is the design of an unknown input fault-detection observer providing a perfect decoupling between unknown inputs and faults. If this is not possible because certain prerequisites are not fulfilled, two optimal compromises in the time domain and in the frequency domain are described. The basic definitions concerning robustness and unknown input fault detectability are given, and the design techniques for the proposed approaches are outlined. The cross-connections to other methods are discussed and a practical example is given.
Toxicity of diatomaceous earth on seed weevil, Sitophilus oryzae L. and its effect on agro-morphological characters of maize seeds

Sitophilus oryzae L. (Curculionidae; Coleoptera) is considered to be a serious internal feeder of stored cereals. The use of insecticides results in the development of resistance among the pests and residues in the produce. Diatomaceous Earth (DE) is from a natural source, environment-friendly, safe to humans and natural enemies. In addition, it is highly effective against a wide range of stored pest species and has no toxic residues on the treated seeds. The promising alternative to synthetic insecticides is the application of DE in storage pest management under physical control. With this background, the present study was aimed to find the efficacy of DE against rice weevil, S. oryzae L. and their effect on the agro-morphological characters of maize (Zea mays L.) seeds. Contact toxicity bioassays were carried out with different concentrations of DE against S. oryzae. The results of the bioassay studies revealed LD50 at the concentration of 1.27 mg/100 gm of maize seeds. Further, 100 per cent mortality was achieved at the dose of 15 mg/100 gm of maize seeds within six days of exposure. The effect of DE on the germination provided a significant increase in germinability of maize seeds (LD50= 94%, LD95= 98% and control= 96%). DE at the concentration of LD95 had a beneficial effect on the seedling parameters, especially germination% (98%) and seedling length (53.02 cm) of maize. The present study concluded that DE could be effectively utilised as an alternative management tool to chemical insecticides in the management of rice weevil under storage conditions.
Extending the Benchmark Cable-Stayed Bridge for Transverse Response under Seismic Loading

AbstractAn updated version of the ASCE benchmark on controlled cable-stayed bridges has been recently developed in the ANSYS framework. It includes new aspects in the relative transversal motion of the main girder with respect to the towers in the simulation of the stay cable dynamics with respect to the coupled motion of the main girder in the soil-structure interaction and the numerical formulation by assuming full geometric nonlinearities. Analyses are carried out in a multiple support framework in a time domain by using the earthquake records as collected from the benchmark original statement. The original benchmark configuration considered earthquake restrainers in the transverse direction. The proposed updated bridge model first reproduces this kinematic arrangement, and a new configuration with transversal releases is subsequently implemented. The control strategies consist of passive and decentralized semiactive systems working in the horizontal plane and are also those studied in a previous inves.
Similar Sports Play Retrieval With Deep Reinforcement Learning

With the proliferation of commercial tracking systems, sports data is being generated at an unprecedented speed and the interest in sports play retrieval has grown dramatically as well, where a play corresponds to a fragment of a game. Existing solutions for similar play retrieval usually assume that a database of plays are materialized, which, however, is not well aligned with the practice that data is stored in units of game. In this paper, we propose to search for similar plays directly from a database of games. We tackle three challenges of the task, namely (1) how to measure the similarity between two plays, (2) how to efficiently find a similar play to a query play within a game, and (3) how to efficiently find a similar play within a database of many games. For the first challenge, we propose a deep learning approach called play2vec to learn the representations of sports plays. play2vec is robust against noise and runs in linear time. For the second challenge, we develop a suite of algorithms including two based on reinforcement learning, which use learned policies for deciding where to split a game to generate candidate plays. For the third challenge, we develop a method called ScoreSearch based on deep metric learning, which is able to prune games from being searched for better efficiency. We conduct experiments on real-world soccer match data to evaluate the techniques developed in this paper.
Sensing gourmetization and gastronomy as organizing practices

ABSTRACT This article aims to understand the role of ‘senses in action’ and how they become forms of organizing gourmetization and gastronomy in a texture of practices based on the ‘Festa Junina’ in Campina Grande, Paraíba State (Brazil). The ‘Festa Junina’ is the largest Saint John’s Festival in the world. Drawing on the perspective of practice theories, we present how the gourmet culture influences gastronomy practice in the festival, focusing on aesthetic judgments and sensible knowledge. We performed sensory ethnography during two years of the festival (2017 and 2018). Our results show that gourmetization and gastronomy practices involve sensing: (a) the artisanal, (b) the enactment of quality in dish preparation, (c) materiality, and (d) taste-making. We conclude that gourmetization is an emerging phenomenon in gastronomy practice, highlighting the role of the senses in contemporary forms of organizing and culture.
Nurse Caring Behavior on Patient Satisfaction in Hospitals

Received December 04, 2019 Accepted February 12, 2020 Published June 05, 2020 The caring behavior of the nursing staff is important in fulfilling patient satisfaction, the behavior is an indicator of service quality at the hospital. This study aims to determine the relationship of nurses caring behavior with patient satisfaction, to identify the description of nurses caring behavior, and to identify the description of hospital patient satisfaction. The sampling technique used in this study was purposive sampling with a total sample of 136 patients. The instruments used to measure the variables in this study were the patient satisfaction questionnaire (PSQ) and caring behavior inventory (CBI). The data obtained were analyzed by the Spearman correlation test. After analyzing the data, r = 0.615 (p <0.05) is obtained, proving that there is a significant relationship between nurses caring behavior with patient satisfaction values. In this study also produced a description of nurses caring behavior and patient satisfaction which was categorized into four, namely 54.4% good, 34.5% enough, 10.3% less, and 0.7% bad for nurses caring behavior. While the picture of patient satisfaction is categorized as very satisfied amounting to 13.2%, satisfied 65.5%, dissatisfied 20.6% and very dissatisfied 0.7%. Based on the results of the study obtained it can be concluded that the caring behavior of nurses is directly proportional to the sense of patient satisfaction. Keyword:
Assessment of MOCVD- and MBE-growth GaAs for high-efficiency solar cell applications

A critical assessment of the photovoltaic quality of epitaxial GaAs grown by metal-organic chemical vapor deposition (MOCVD) and by molecular-beam epitaxy (MBE) is reported. Epitaxial films of nominally identical structure were grown by the two techniques and were fabricated into p-n heteroface solar cells. The 0.5-cm by 0.5-cm cells were then characterized and compared. The MOCVD-grown films produced independently verified record efficiency cells of 24.8% under 1-sun AM1.5 global conditions while the MB-grown films produced similarly high efficiencies of 23.8%. The material qualities of the two films in terms of minority-carrier diffusion lengths and surface recombination velocities were quite comparable. These results demonstrate that the quality of MBE-grown films can be quite comparable to the best MOCVD-grown films and that they are suitable for high-efficiency solar cells. >
Molecular Analysis of Hepatitis B Virus Reverse Transcriptase Domain for Mutations Associated with Viral Resistance in Pakistani Patients

Objectives: Current study was designed to screen out the resistant mutations in reverse transcriptase (RT) domain of hepatitis B virus (HBV) genome from non-responder Pakistani patients. Materials and Methods: A total of 22 patients, receiving different nucleot(s)ide analogues were included in the study. RT domain of the virus from samples of non-responder patients was amplified and sequenced. Sequences were aligned and analyzed for RT domain mutations. Results: After 18 months, 18 patients were responder and 4 were non-responder. Mean alanine aminotransferase (ALT) and viral load of responder patients decreased significantly as compared to those of non-responder patients. Two of the 4 samples from nonresponders were successfully sequenced. Mutations rtY135S, rtI169P, rtV173P, rtL180I, rtA181V, rtT184Y and rtM204V were identified from the sample of patient 1, while rtL80V/rtL80G and rtY135S were identified from the sample of patient 2. Conclusion: Mutations rtY135S, rtI169P, rtV173P, rtL180I, rtA181V, rtT184Y, rtM204V, rtL80V/rtL80G, and rtY135S are present in genome of HBV circulating in Pakistani patients. These mutations give resistance to virus against lamivudine, telbivudine, adefovir, and partially resistance against entecavir. However, no mutation was found to be associated with the viral resistance against tenofovir.
Improving the accuracy and robustness of RRAM-based in-memory computing against RRAM hardware noise and adversarial attacks

We present a novel deep neural network (DNN) training scheme and resistive RAM (RRAM) in-memory computing (IMC) hardware evaluation towards achieving high accuracy against RRAM device/array variations and enhanced robustness against adversarial input attacks. We present improved IMC inference accuracy results evaluated on state-of-the-art DNNs including ResNet-18, AlexNet, and VGG with binary, 2-bit, and 4-bit activation/weight precision for the CIFAR-10 dataset. These DNNs are evaluated with measured noise data obtained from three different RRAM-based IMC prototype chips. Across these various DNNs and IMC chip measurements, we show that our proposed hardware noise-aware DNN training consistently improves DNN inference accuracy for actual IMC hardware, up to 8% accuracy improvement for the CIFAR-10 dataset. We also analyze the impact of our proposed noise injection scheme on the adversarial robustness of ResNet-18 DNNs with 1-bit, 2-bit, and 4-bit activation/weight precision. Our results show up to 6% improvement in the robustness to black-box adversarial input attacks.
The adoption of advanced manufacturing technologies: human resource management implications

Studies hypothesize that the adoption of advanced manufacturing technology (AMT) leads to changes in the composition of the labor force in favor of workers with higher skill levels. Furthermore, employee development and empowerment strategies are enacted to promote these changes. Some of this literature also suggests that when examining these effects, it is important to distinguish between linked AMT and integrated AMT. The purpose of this study is to examine these issues using a comprehensive, firm-level survey of technology adoption and human resource management strategies. The nature of these data enables us to examine compositional and empowerment changes that occur in the aftermath of technological change. Our findings indicate that AMT adoption is associated with an overall downsizing of the firm and a shift in labor composition in favor of workers with higher skill levels. It appears that "skill upgrading" of the workforce occurs after new technologies are implemented on the factory floor. We also find that human resource strategies that accompany these changes vary by category of technology adoption. Linked AMT appears to be associated with a greater emphasis on employee empowerment. Conversely, compositional shifts toward managerial, technical, and R&D personnel are greater for integrated AMT. The implications of these findings for workforce and human resource strategies are discussed.
Environmental friendly exploration of cinnamon bark (Cinnamomum verum) based yellow natural dye for green coloration of bio‐mordanted wool fabric

In the era of the industrial revolution with the increased demand for sustainable products, the use of natural products particularly herbal‐based bio‐colorants in every walk of life is increasing. In the current study, cinnamon as a source of natural dye for wool has been explored under the influence of microwave radiations and the application of sustainable bio‐mordants has been done under mild conditions. Microwave radiations for 1–6 min have been used to increase the extraction yield and 1–10 g/100 ml of sustainable chemical and bio‐mordants have been employed to get excellent color characteristics. The utilization of reduced amounts of herbal nature‐based bio‐mordants in comparison with chemical anchors after microwave irradiation of extract and the woolen fabric has not only produced new shades but also improved the color characteristics from good to excellent. It is concluded that the use of microwave treatment as the sustainable tool has excellent potential to isolate the colorant from cinnamon bark under mild conditions; whereas the addition of bio‐mordants has valorized the coloring process greener and more valuable.
Observer-Based PD Controller for a Class of High Order Linear Unstable Delayed Systems

In this paper it is considered the stabilization and control of a class of high order linear systems that are subject to constant time delay at the input-output channel. In particular, systems with two unstable poles and any number of real or complex conjugate stable poles are studied. To improve the solutions existing in the literature, a new proposal for the solution of the considered problem is taken into account consisting in the design of an observer and a ProportionalDerivative PD controller to assure stable closedloop performance, establishing by means of a frequency analysis necessary and sufficient conditions for the proposed control strategy. The proposal novelty is the inclusion of the PD control action in the observer that allows to estimate internal signals used in the solution. This configuration offers advantages in the time delay size that can be handled and on the control performance of the closed loop system. A practical design procedure is presented to determine the value of the controller gains. Numerical simulations examples are presented to show the operation of the proposal.