Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Nutritional composition of local ingredients used to prepare porridges for vulnerable people in Maroua (far- north region, Cameroon)

Protein, energy and micronutrient deficiency is a major problem in Cameroon, especially its HIV/AIDS population. Porridges formulation and consumption are an easy way to relieve part of this problem. Local porridges made from a proper selection of ingredients are acceptable and cheap. The present study analyses the nutritional composition of ingredients locally used to prepare porridges for the vulnerable population of Maroua. A survey was carried out on 100 households to determine the types of ingredients they use in the preparation of porridges for vulnerable people. All grains were sprouted except for rice and the proximate composition (moisture, ash, crude fibers, protein and fats) was determined by the Standard Association of Analytical Chemists (AOAC) methods. Minerals (Ca, Mg, K, Zn, Cu, Mn, Fe) were determined by Flame Atomic Absorption Spectrometry. Phosphorus and total carotenoid were determined colorimetrically. Results revealed that millet, maize and rice were the most used cereals to prepare porridge and ranges were: Millet 19% for sick, 41% for children; Maize 14% for pregnant women, 28% for sick and rice 15% for sick. The most used legumes to enrich porridges were peanuts, soybeans and white beans respectively. Proximate composition expressed in g/100g of sample ranges were 12.42 - 22.76 for moisture, 0.73 - 3.74 for ash, 7.82 - 53.78 for fats, 0.40 - 4.49 for fibers, 22.14 - 86.64 for carbohydrate and 427.7 - 659.46 Kcal/100g for energy. Minerals and total carotenoids expressed as mg/100g of sample ranges were: 7.6 - 482.5 for Ca, 42.6 - 278.75 for Mg, 149.5 - 1701.50 for K, 57.75 - 218.75 for P, 1.71 - 57.75 for Zn, 0.51 - 2.50 for Cu, 0.63 - 3.46 for Mn, 1.23 to 8.31 for Fe, 2.22 - 5.46 for Na and 0.28 - 0.81 for total carotenoids. This information could be exploited to formulate porridges to resolve the malnutrition problem observed vulnerable individuals.
The Number of Intraoperative Intestinal Venous Circulating Tumor Cells Is a Prognostic Factor for Colorectal Cancer Patients

Purpose To assess the association between intestinal venous blood (IVB) circulating tumor cells (CTCs) and clinicopathological parameters in stage I-III colorectal cancer (CRC) patients. Methods Participants were retrospectively retrieved, who were admitted to our hospital or took annual physical exams between December 1, 2015 and December 31, 2018. A negative enrichment-immunofluorescence in situ hybridization (NE-imFISH) technique was used to isolate and identify CTCs. Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves and Youden index values were used to determine the critical CTC cutoff value for the diagnosis of CRC. Kaplan-Meier and log-rank methods were used to conduct survival analyses, and multivariate Cox regression analyses were employed for multivariate corrections to comprehensively evaluate the value of CTCs in the diagnosis of CRC. Relationships between IVB CTCs, clinicopathological parameters, and prognosis were then analyzed based upon patient postoperative follow-up data. Results In total, we retrieved 282 patients including 48 healthy controls, 72 patients with benign colorectal tumors, and 162 CRC patients. CRC patients exhibited significantly higher numbers of CTCs relative to control patients or those with benign disease. CTC numbers in CRC patient peripheral blood (PB) and IVB were closely associated with tumor node metastasis (TNM) staging (P < 0.01), carbohydrate antigen-125 (CA-125) levels (P < 0.001), and KRAS (Kirsten rat sarcoma virus oncogene) mutation status (P < 0.001). The disease-free survival (DFS) of patients in the CTC-negative group was significantly longer than that of patients in the CTC-positive group (24.60 ± 13.31 months vs. 18.70 ± 10.19 months, P < 0.05), with the same being true with respect to their overall survival (OS) (30.60 ± 12.44 months vs. 35.25 ± 11.57 months, P < 0.05). A multivariate analysis revealed that the detection ≥2 CTCs/3.2 ml was independently associated with poorer DFS and OS. CTC counts were independently predictive of CRC patients TNM staging, CA-125, and KRAS mutation status in both univariate and multivariate Cox proportional hazards regression analyses. Conclusion CTCs are valuable biomarkers that can be monitored to predict CRC patient disease progression.
Robust Model Selection in Dynamic Models with an Application to Comparing Predictive Accuracy

A model selection procedure based on a general criterion function, with an example of the Kullback-Leibler Information Criterion (KLIC) using quasi-likelihood functions, is considered for dynamic non-nested models. We propose a robust test which generalizes Lien and Vuong's (1987) test with a Heteroscadasticity/Autocorrelation Consistent (HAC) variance estimator. We use the fixed-b asymptotics developed in Kiefer and Vogelsang (2005) to improve the asymptotic approximation to the sampling distribution of the test statistic. The fixed-b approach is compared with a bootstrap method and the standard normal approximation in Monte Carlo simulations. The fixed-b asymptotics and the bootstrap method are found to be markedly superior to the standard normal approximation. An empirical application for foreign exchange rate forecasting models is presented.
The salience of choice reduces social responsibility: evidence from lab experiments and compliance with COVID-19 stay-at-home orders

Abstract The tension between self-interest and the collective good is fundamental to human societies. We propose that the idea of choice is a key lever that nudges people to act in a self-interested manner because it leads people to value independence. Making one inconsequential choice at the beginning of an incentive-compatible lab experiment made people 41% more likely to choose a monetary allocation that maximized their own payoff while minimizing the total payoff of their group (Studies 1A and 1B). The next two studies featured seven-participant experimental markets in which sellers decided whether to produce conventional goods (which imposed costs on others) or socially responsible goods (which did not impose any costs), and buyers decided which goods to purchase. In markets in which members made a single inconsequential choice, the market share of the socially responsible good was reduced by a factor of 34% (Studies 2A and 2B). In the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, framing socially responsible actions as choices increased people’s willingness to hoard and violate social distancing rules (Study 3). Highlighting the idea of choice reduced people’s desire to engage in corporate social responsibility, and this effect was mediated by an increased emphasis on independence (Study 4). Finally, using cell phone location data, an archival study found that in states in which people were more likely to search for choice-related words on the internet in 2019, residents were more likely to leave their homes following a stay-at-home order, after controlling for state-level income, education, diversity, population density, and political orientation (Study 5).
3D-Printed Gelatin-Alginate Hydrogel Dressings for Burn Wound Healing: A Comprehensive Study

Burn wound treatment is still a clinical challenge due to the severity of tissue damage and dehydration. Among various wound dressings, hydrogel materials have gained significant attention for burn wound treatment in clinical practice due to their soothing and moisturizing activity. In this study, 3D-printed dressings were fabricated using clinically relevant hydrogels for deep partial-thickness burn (PTB) wounds. Different ratios of gelatin and alginate mixture were 3D-printed and examined in terms of rheological behavior, shear thinning behavior, mechanical properties, degradation rate, and hydration activity to tune the hydrogel composition for best functionality. The cell-laden dressings were bioprinted to evaluate the effect of the gelatin: alginate ratio on the proliferation and growth of human dermal fibroblasts. The present findings confirm that the higher alginate content is associated with higher viscosity and Young’s modulus, while higher gelatin content is associated with faster degradation and higher cell viability. Together, the 3D-printed dressing with 75% gelatin and 25% alginate showed the best tradeoff between mechanical properties, hydration activity, and in vitro biological response. Findings from in vivo test using the most effective dressing showed the positive effect of 3D-printed porous pattern on wound healing, including faster wound closure, regenerated hair follicles, and non-traumatic dressing removal compared to the non-printed hydrogel with the same composition and the standard of care. Results from this research showed that 3D-printed dressings with an adequate gelatin: alginate ratio enhanced wound healing activity for up to 7 days of moisture retention on deep PTB wounds.
Experimental/Numerical Investigation Airfoil with Flow Control by Synthetic Jets (CD) (paper ICAS 2012-3.7.5)

The paper deals with the investigation of active aero-fluidic load control for wings. For load control, it is required to adjust the aerodynamic characteristics over a wide range of angles of attack. This can be achieved by adjusting the circulation of the airfoil by introducing synthetic jets with the exit normal to the surface at a location near the trailing edge. The wing investigated numerically and experimentally is an unswept, two-dimensional wing with a NACA0018 section with spanwise slits at x/c = 0.88. Different turbulator tapes have been employed in order to remove the laminar separation bubble which appears for the Reynolds number considered in the present study (Re = 88,000 − 550,000). The resulting measured pressure distributions have been interpreted with the help of results from XFOIL. In general, the results have shown a satisfactory agreement. A parametric study with flow control by synthetic jets has been carried out for α = 0 and for α = 8 deg. , for which at Re = 165,000 cl/cd is maximal. The study has been performed in the low-frequency regime, i.e. the dimensionless frequency F + = O(1). The effectiveness of flow control is investigated for different frequencies and outflow velocities. For the current configuration, the most distinct effect is at low actuation frequency and at high jet strength. The effectiveness of the synthetic jet actuation is observed in a wide range of angles of attack with a minimum drag penalty. Measured Cp distributions have been compared with numerically simulated Cp distributions. The numerical simulation reveals details of the actuation in modifying the trailing edge flow giving insight in the induced effect by synthetic jets. Overall, the jet effectiveness is a function the jet strength, actuation frequency and the angle of attack
L‐band scintillation activity and space‐time structure of low‐latitude UHF scintillations

Spatial correlation function of intensity scintillation patterns produced by the propagation of a UHF signal through irregularities in the nighttime low‐latitude ionosphere is deduced from an analysis of spaced receiver records of such scintillations. This analysis requires that random temporal variations of the irregularity drift speed be taken into account. It is seen from the results that the occurrence of strong scintillations on an L‐band signal requires the presence of short (∼20 m) coherence scale lengths in the UHF scintillation pattern obtained in the plane of the receiver. This condition is satisfied near the crest of the equatorial ionization anomaly (EIA) region, but not near the dip equator. In the decay phase of L‐band scintillations recorded near the crest of the EIA region, the maximum strength of these scintillations at any point in time is found to be correlated with the magnetic eastward drift speed of the pattern of intensity scintillations on an UHF signal recorded in this region, which is determined mainly by the magnetic eastward drift velocity of the ionospheric irregularites. Dependence of the corresponding strength of UHF scintillations on the drift speed indicates that toward the end of the decay phase of L‐band scintillations, the irregularity power spectrum steepens, and the large scale irregularities that remain can cause the UHF signal to be focused in the plane of the receiver, yielding UHF S4‐indices greater than one, while focusing of the UHF signal is less evident at earlier times when there is focusing of the L‐band signal.
Radiomics approach based on biphasic CT images well differentiate “early stage” of adrenal metastases from lipid-poor adenomas: A STARD compliant article

The aim of the study was to develop an optimal radiomics model based on abdominal contrast-enhanced computed tomography (CECT) for pre-operative differentiation of “early stage” adrenal metastases from lipid-poor adenomas (LPAs). This retrospective study included 188 patients who underwent abdominal CECT (training cohort: LPAs, 68; metastases, 64; validation cohort: LPAs, 29; metastases, 27). Abdominal CECT included plain, arterial, portal, and venous imaging. Clinical and CECT radiological features were assessed and significant features were selected. Radiomic features of the adrenal lesions were extracted from four-phase CECT images. Significant radiomics features were selected using the least absolute shrinkage and selection operator (LASSO) and multivariable logistic regression. The clinical-radiological, unenhanced radiomics, arterial radiomics, portal radiomics, venous radiomics, combined radiomics, and clinical-radiological-radiomics models were established using a support vector machine (SVM). The DeLong test was used to compare the areas under the receiver operating characteristic curves (AUCs) of all models. The AUCs of the unenhanced (0.913), arterial (0.845), portal (0.803), and venous (0.905) radiomics models were all higher than those of the clinical-radiological model (0.788) in the testing dataset. The AUC of the combined radiomics model (incorporating plain and venous radiomics features) was further improved to 0.953, which was significantly higher than portal radiomics model (P = .033) and clinical-radiological model (P = .009), with the highest accuracy (89.13%) and a relatively stable sensitivity (91.67%) and specificity (86.36%). As the optimal model, the combined radiomics model based on biphasic CT images is effective enough to differentiate “early stage” adrenal metastases from LPAs by reducing the radiation dose.
Linewidth of an optically injected semiconductor laser

This work addresses the linewidth properties of a distributed-feedback semiconductor laser submitted to optical injection. Experimentally, we first verify that under frequency-locking conditions, the slave laser has the same linewidth as the master. It can be smaller or larger than that of the free-slave laser. For lasers tuned on the same central frequency when the injected power decreases or when the master linewidth increases, we observe a partial linewidth transfer (progressive phase locking). These effects are well described theoretically by the Airy function generalized to the laser.
The vascular flora of damp meadows and mires in W Rhodopi (NE Greece)

Charalampidou, C. , Eleftheriadou, E. & Theodoropoulos, K. : The vascular flora of damp meadows and mires in W Rhodopi (NE Greece). — Fl. Medit. 32: 79-98. 2022. — ISSN: 1120-4052 printed, 2240-4538 online. The plant diversity of damp meadows and mires occurring in the Greek part of Rhodopi Mountain Range, at an elevation of above 1000 m, was investigated. The vascular flora of the investigated area consists of 340 taxa, which belong to 175 genera and 58 families. Seven taxa of vascular plants were recorded for the first time for the floristic region of North-East Greece. The most species-rich families are Poaceae , Rosaceae , Asteraceae , Cyperaceae , Lamiaceae , Fabaceae and Juncaceae , whereas 20 families contribute with only one taxon. The most species-rich genera are Carex , Juncus and Ranunculus , and 103 genera have only one taxon. Most of them are hemicryptophytes (203 taxa), followed by therophytes (51 taxa), geophytes (45 taxa), phanerophytes (27 taxa) and chamaephytes (14 taxa). The high percentage of hemicryptophytes reflects the continental character of the flora. The majority of the taxa (228 taxa) are Widespread (76 taxa Europaean-SW Asian, 53 taxa Euro-Siberian, 37 taxa European etc.), followed by the Mediterranean unit with 57 taxa (24 taxa Mediterranean, 22 taxa Mediterranean-European, etc.) and the Balkan unit with 53 taxa (31 taxa Balkan, 17 taxa Balkan-Anatolian, etc.).
Gait Recognition with Self-Supervised Learning of Gait Features Based on Vision Transformers

Gait is a unique biometric trait with several useful properties. It can be recognized remotely and without the cooperation of the individual, with low-resolution cameras, and it is difficult to obscure. Therefore, it is suitable for crime investigation, surveillance, and access control. Existing approaches for gait recognition generally belong to the supervised learning domain, where all samples in the dataset are annotated. In the real world, annotation is often expensive and time-consuming. Moreover, convolutional neural networks (CNNs) have dominated the field of gait recognition for many years and have been extensively researched, while other recent methods such as vision transformer (ViT) remain unexplored. In this manuscript, we propose a self-supervised learning (SSL) approach for pretraining the feature extractor using the DINO model to automatically learn useful gait features with the vision transformer architecture. The feature extractor is then used for extracting gait features on which the fully connected neural network classifier is trained using the supervised approach. Experiments on CASIA-B and OU-MVLP gait datasets show the effectiveness of the proposed approach.
Completeness and Consistency of Epidemiological Variables from Hospital-Based Cancer Registries in a Brazilian State

Objective: To evaluate the completeness and consistency of data from hospital-based cancer registries (HCRs) in a Brazilian state. Methods: This retrospective descriptive study was based on secondary data from an HCR in the state of Espírito Santo (ES) between 2010 and 2017. The data were collected between August and November 2020 by the ES State Health Department (SESA/ES). Cancer data were obtained from the HCR of ES using the tumor registration form of the Brazilian Hospital Cancer Registry Integrator and complete databases within the SESA/ES. The incompleteness of the data was classified as excellent (<5%), good (between 5% and 10%), regular (between 10% and 20%), poor (between 20% and 50%), and very poor (>50%), according to the percentage of the absence of information. Descriptive statistical analyses were performed using Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS® Inc., Chicago, IL, USA) version 20.0. Results: Complete data were observed for the variables of sex, date of the first hospital visit, and histological type of the primary tumor; that is, there were no missing data. Most epidemiological variables, including age, origin, date of first tumor diagnosis, previous diagnosis and treatment, location of the primary tumor, first treatment received at the hospital, date of death of the patient, and probable location of the primary tumor, were classified as having excellent completeness throughout the study period. However, the variables schooling, smoking, alcohol consumption, occupation, family history of cancer, and clinical staging of the tumor were classified as poor. Conclusion: Most epidemiological variables from the HCR in the state of ES, Brazil, showed excellent completeness. It is essential to elucidate the sociodemographic and clinical variables of epidemiological importance for a better understanding of the health-disease process.
Properties of intermittent transport in the Mega Ampere Spherical Tokamak

This thesis investigates the properties of intermittent transport on the Mega Amp Spher- ical Tokamak (MAST) both through dedicated experiment and numerical modelling. A ball pen probe (BPP) diagnostic has been operated on MAST to make a direct mea- surement of the plasma potential at the plasma boundary. By combining the BPP measurement with the floating potential from a Langmuir probe (LP) a measurement of the electron temperature is obtained, which is compared to the Thomson scattering diagnostic allowing for the accuracy of the BPP measurement of plasma potential to be assessed. From the measurement of the plasma potential the profile of the radial elec- tric field is extracted. Using a third LP on the probe face fluctuation statistics of the ion-saturation current are determined. The skewness of the Isat fluctuations is shown cross zero at the point where the radial electric field gradient maximizes. This suggests that intermittency in the plasma edge of MAST is produced at the centre of the radial shear layer, with negative skewness inside and positive skewness outside the centre of the shear layer. The intermittent transport in the scrape-off layer (SOL) can be approximated as the result of successive discrete transport events arising from the motion of individual fil- aments. The BOUT++ framework has been used to model the motion of individual filaments in a geometry representative of the SOL of MAST. The SOL geometry gives rise to gradients in the filament parallel to the magnetic field through two mechanisms; enhanced diffusion in the divertor region and resistive ballooning. Parallel gradients cause a departure of the filament dynamics from 2D predictions due to the presence of the Boltzmann response in 3D. This provides a mechanism for poloidal motion of the filament alongside a breakdown into resistive drift-wave turbulence with the turbulent scale-length determined by the level of diffusion present in the system. The motion of the filament in the direction normal and bi-normal to the magnetic field line is shown to be approximately decoupled. The velocity of the filament in the normal direction displays a scaling with temperature and filament size congruent with the resistive bal- looning or ideal interchange regimes of 2D blob dynamics whilst the bi-normal velocity of the filament adheres to a scaling based on the Boltzmann response. An increase in temperature is shown to provide a slight increase in the net radial transport of particles due to the motion of the filament at the outboard midplane, however an increase in filament width provides a far stronger increase in particle transport. This suggests that for MAST the filament with is the main parameter determining the level of intermittent particle transport in the SOL.
Coaxial Mach–Zehnder Digital Strain Sensor Made from a Tapered Depressed Cladding Fiber

An in-line digital optical sensor was proposed. It was built from a tapered depressed-cladding single-mode fiber and modeled as a coaxial Mach–Zehnder interferometer. The principle of operation of the optical digital sensor is based on the computation of the number of optical power transfer turning points (PTTP) from the transmission data of the component. Biconic tapers with high values of PTTP, high spectral resolution, high extinction ratio, and low insertion loss were modeled, fabricated, and characterized. As a proof of concept, an in-line digital strain sensor was fabricated and characterized. It presents a free spectral range of 1.3 nm, and produced 96 PTTP, at λ0 = 1.55 μm, under stretch of ΔL = 707 µm, therefore producing a digital resolution of 7.4 µm/PTTP. The sensor also produced a quasi-symmetric response to stretch and compression.