Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Comparison Between Menstrual Migraine and Menstrual-Unrelated Migraine in Women Attending Gynecology Clinics

Background Migraine is amongst the top 10 most disabling conditions, and the disease burden is highest in young and middle-aged women. Another variant of the migraine headache, menstrual migraine (MM) is experienced by this cohort of patients. Former studies have done comparisons between various demographic and clinical features of MM versus menstrual-unrelated migraine (MUM) in patients presenting to various clinics with the primary complaint of headaches. We aimed to compare symptoms of migraine in women attending gynecology outpatient clinics, regardless of their presenting complaint. This would help lessen the selection bias and produce more generalizable results. Methods and materials A cross-sectional study was conducted in the outpatient gynecology clinics at a tertiary care hospital over six months. The clinic attendees were screened for sufferers of a primary headache of the migraine type. The migraineurs were then stratified into groups A, MM patients, and group B, MUM patients, using the International Headache Society (HIS) criteria. They were then questioned for the presence of various symptoms associated with their migraine attacks for comparison. Results One-hundred eighty-one women (between 12 years to 55 years) were found to have primary headaches; amongst these, 126 patients met the inclusion criteria and consented to participate; from these, 62 (49.2%) patients had MM and 64 (50.8%) patients had MUM. The symptoms of nausea (p=0.00269), photophobia (p=0.000088), and phonophobia (p=0.0281) were statistically higher in MM patients while vomiting was not a significant feature. Both groups had a predominantly unilateral headache. The average days of the attack had a significant difference between the two groups (p=0.000019), where the duration was longer for MM patients. Conclusions It was observed that patients with MM tend to experience more features associated with migraine headaches, including a longer duration of attacks, and have a worse experience overall.
Static Source Properties of Slow and Fast Earthquakes

The source characteristics of slow and fast earthquakes provide a window into the mechanical properties of faults. In particular, the average stress drop controls the evolution of friction, fault slip, and event magnitude. However, this important source property is typically inferred from the analysis of seismic waves and is subject to many epistemic uncertainties. Here, we investigate the source properties of 53 earthquakes and 17 slow‐slip events on thrust and strike‐slip faults in various tectonic settings using slip distributions constrained by geodesy in combination with other data. We determine the width, potency, and potency density of slow and fast earthquake sources based on static slip distributions. The potency density, defined conceptually as the ratio of average slip to rupture radius, is a measure of anelastic deformation with limited bias from rigidity differences across depths and tectonic settings. Strike‐slip earthquakes have the highest potency density, varying from 20 to 500 microstrain. The potency density is on average lower on continental thrust faults and megathrusts, from 10 to 200 microstrain, with an algebraic decrease with centroid depth, indicative of systematic changes in dominant rupture processes with depth. Slow slip events represent an end‐member style of rupture with low potency density and large rupture width. Significant variability in potency density of slow‐slip events affects their moment‐duration scaling. The variations of source properties across tectonic settings, depth, and rupture styles can be used to better constrain numerical simulations of seismicity and to assess the source characteristics of future earthquakes and slow slip events.
The Effectiveness of Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy as Salvage Treatment for Sudden Sensorineural Hearing Loss: A Retrospective Study

Background Sudden sensorineural hearing loss (SSNHL) is a medical emergency; its etiology is unknown in most cases, The treatment, in turn, is empiric and usually consists of various pharmacological agents, mainly steroids. Hyperbaric oxygen (HBO) therapy is used routinely as salvage therapy for refractory SSNHL. While several studies have demonstrated the effectiveness of HBO therapy as salvage treatment for refractory SSNHL, its results have varied among studies, and its efficacy is still unclear. Aim We aimed to stratify the effect of HBO therapy as salvage treatment after the failure of steroid therapy for SSNHL. Method This is a retrospective case series that involved eight SSNHL patients in the past three years at King Faisal Specialist Hospital & Research Centre (KFSHRC) in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Patients' records were reviewed and statistical analysis was performed. Results Eight patients were included in this case series; six of them were males, and the mean age of all patients was 46.88 ±20.9 years. One patient had herpes zoster as the cause of SSNHL and seven patients' disease was of unknown etiology. The mean period for the onset of disease was 4.12 ±2.17 days. One patient was managed with intravenous dexamethasone and the other patients were managed with oral steroids, and all patients were then treated by HBO therapy. Of the patients, two showed significant improvement but the others did not. The cause of SSNHL, age of patients, HBO start and cessation, comorbidities, and disease onset did not affect the improvement in disease in patients (p: ˃0.05). Conclusion Moderate-to-severe cases of SSNHL can be improved by HBO treatment along with oral steroids, while this therapy was ineffective in severe and profound cases. No factors could be found to predict improvement in patients.
Cross-Sensor Periocular Biometrics for Partial Face Recognition in a Global Pandemic: Comparative Benchmark and Novel Multialgorithmic Approach.

The massive availability of cameras results in a wide variability of imaging conditions, producing large intra-class variations and a significant performance drop if heterogeneous images are compared for person recognition. However, as biometrics is deployed, it is common to replace damaged or obsolete hardware, or to exchange information between heterogeneous applications. Variations in spectral bands can also occur. For example, surveillance face images (typically acquired in the visible spectrum, VIS) may need to be compared against a legacy iris database (typically acquired in near-infrared, NIR). Here, we propose a multialgorithmic approach to cope with periocular images from different sensors. With face masks in the front line against COVID-19, periocular recognition is regaining popularity since it is the only face region that remains visible. We integrate different comparators with a fusion scheme based on linear logistic regression, in which scores are represented by log-likelihood ratios. This allows easy interpretation of scores and the use of Bayes thresholds for optimal decision-making, since scores from different comparators are in the same probabilistic range. We evaluate our approach in the context of the Cross-Eyed Competition, whose aim was to compare recognition approaches when NIR and VIS periocular images are matched. Our approach achieves EER=0.2% and FRR of just 0.47% at FAR=0.01%, representing the best overall approach of the competition. Experiments are also reported with a database of VIS images from different smartphones. We also discuss the impact of template size and computation times, with the most computationally heavy comparator playing an important role in the results. Lastly, the proposed method is shown to outperform other popular fusion approaches, such as the average of scores, SVMs or Random Forest.
A Study on Public Adoption of Robo-Taxis in China

Autonomous vehicles (AVs) have been reported to improve road safety, reduce traffic congestion, and increase urban mobility. However, the high price of AVs is currently a challenge for most consumers. Robo-taxi services, with ride-sharing services and AVs, are regarded as a good approach to solving this problem. As some companies have started testing Robo-taxis on the actual road, it has become important to investigate public adoption of Robo-taxi services before they are more widely introduced to the market. This study aims to explain and predict users’ acceptance of Robo-taxis by extending the Technology Acceptance Model by including the construct of social influence. Data were collected from an online survey in China and analyzed using linear regression models. The results indicate that perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, and social influence have significant positive correlations with people’s behavior intentions to use Robo-taxis. Perceived ease of use further has an indirect effect on intention to use via perceived usefulness. The results of this study can serve as good references for policymakers, operators, and future transport researchers.
TRAIL: A novel approach for studying the aerodynamics of ice particles

A novel experimental approach for studying the aerodynamics of ice particles is presented. The Trajectory Reconstruction Algorithm implemented through Image anaLysis (TRAIL) produces digital reconstructions of the trajectory and orientation of 3D‐printed analogues of ice particles that fall through a quiescent viscous liquid. Data extracted from this analysis can be used to test fall speed parametrisations and investigate the preferred orientation of analogues with complex irregular geometries. Experiments using thin circular discs are used to validate this approach. Measurements from a case study in which an analogue of an aggregate ice particle is used are also reported. Data extracted from the analysis clearly demonstrate important, but poorly understood, aspects of the aerodynamics of atmospheric ice particles. For example, the orientation that the analogue adopts in free fall is shown to depend not only on the geometric shape of the particle, but also on the Reynolds number at which it falls. In addition, measurements of the drag coefficient indicate that the accuracy of fall speed parametrisations reduces at high Reynolds number due to the onset of unsteady motions.
Development of Agaricus bisporus hybrids and their evaluation for higher yield

Agaricus bisporus (Lange) Imbach, the white button mushroom, is the major edible mushroom species cultivated throughout the world. Despite its economic potential, only a few genetic studies have been carried out concerning A. bisporus, due to its peculiar life cycle. Button mushroom is a secondary homothallic fungi and breeding is difficult as most of the spores are heterokaryotic in nature. Therefore, the present investigation as undertaken to develop the hybrid(s) of A. bisporus and their evaluation for higher yield. One thousand six hundred forty two single spore isolates were raised from parental strains, namely, A-15, S 11, S140 and U3 of A. bisporus. Out of these only 36 single spore isolates were homokaryons. ISSR studies revealed homokaryons lacking amplification products at multiple loci. Out of the 253 crosses, only seven crosses between the parents were compatible. The yield studies showed that that newly developed hybrid Hb4 produced highest average yield (26.94 kg/100 kg compost) and also exhibited better qualities as compared to other isolates. Percentage of polymorphism by RAPD markers were 60.00 per cent. All the isolates exhibited identical ITS length of approximately near about 650 bp. The ITS region showed single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) at six nucleotide positions of 281, 290, 291,292, 293, 295 and 300 base pair in the ITS region of the best developed hybrids (Hb1, Hb4) and parent strains, namely, A-15 and U3 of A. bisporus.
A vessel segmentation technique for retinal images

Segmentation of the human eye retinal image is an essential step for proper examination and diagnosis by the ophthalmologists or eye care specialists. A technique for vessel segmentation of retinal images is proposed. Retinal images are mostly low‐light images, which are first processed for enhancement of light as well as for detail amplification. Illumination of low‐light images is enhanced, and details are amplified using content‐adaptive filters. For extraction of vessels from retinal images, after low‐light and detail enhancement, the B‐cosfire filter is modified by including extraction of details and small elements, which may otherwise be ignored. A modified B‐cosfire filter is used to extract vessels while minimizing false edges and halo artifacts. The morphological opening is performed to crop vessels that are falsely segmented. The technique is contrasted with other existing methods in terms of accuracy using publicly available datasets. The proposed technique is tested on STARE, CHASE‐DB1, and DRIVE databases. The outcome of the proposed procedure has better accuracy, preserved edges, minimum noise, and artifacts than the state‐of‐the‐art techniques.
Graph-based Regularization on Embedding Layers for Recommendation

Neural networks have been extensively used in recommender systems. Embedding layers are not only necessary but also crucial for neural models in recommendation as a typical discrete task. In this article, we argue that the widely used l2 regularization for normal neural layers (e.g., fully connected layers) is not ideal for embedding layers from the perspective of regularization theory in Reproducing Kernel Hilbert Space. More specifically, the l2 regularization corresponds to the inner product and the distance in the Euclidean space where correlations between discrete objects (e.g., items) are not well captured. Inspired by this observation, we propose a graph-based regularization approach to serve as a counterpart of the l2 regularization for embedding layers. The proposed regularization incurs almost no extra computational overhead especially when being trained with mini-batches. We also discuss its relationships to other approaches (namely, data augmentation, graph convolution, and joint learning) theoretically. We conducted extensive experiments on five publicly available datasets from various domains with two state-of-the-art recommendation models. Results show that given a kNN (k-nearest neighbor) graph constructed directly from training data without external information, the proposed approach significantly outperforms the l2 regularization on all the datasets and achieves more notable improvements for long-tail users and items.
Interaction Effects of Planting Date or/and Clove Weight on Growth, Yield, Storability and Severity of Downy Mildew Disease on Two Garlic Cultivars.

An experiment was conducted in the Research Farm of Sids. Beni Suef governorate - Egypt in 2015/2016 and 2016/2017 seasons. The obtained results showed that Planting date on 5th Nov. with the two cultivars Balady and Sids-40, recorded the highest emergence percentage after 3 weeks from planting in both seasons whereas the early planting date 25th Sep. gave the lowest emergence percentage. Light cloves weight significantly increased emergence after three weeks from planting, compared with the plants which were planted by heavy cloves weight and medium cloves weight for Balady and Sids-40 cultivars respectively in both seasons. Early planting date (Sep.25 and Oct.15) with medium and heavy cloves weight gave the highest plant height and number of leaves. Also, recorded higher mean values of bulb yield and its components, of the two tested garlic cultivars than the late planting date (Nov.5) in both seasons. Downy mildew severity was increased on Sids-40 cultivar more than Balay cultivar. The early planting in September revealed the lowest disease severity compared with November planting date, in both cultivars. No significant differences observed for the effect of clove size on disease severity, in both cultivars. The population of leaves microorganism such fungi or bacteria play a meaningful role of increasing or decreasing downy mildew severity, whereas the earliest planting increasing of the microbial population which effected on the reduced of downy mildew severity. Also, in both growing seasons, an inverse relationship between garlic clove size and disease severity of downy mildew was found.
Tax Loss Amortization of Companies in Slovakia

The purpose of this article is to research how companies optimize income tax with the ambition to maintain the achieved sales and profits at the highest possible level. Its purpose is to find out whether companies in Slovakia compensate for higher tax liability by tax loss amortization to reduce their income tax payable. Based on the review of literature from the field of legislation concerning the tax loss amortization by using the descriptive statistics of selected corporate and tax indicators, the companies are monitored in order to capture their behavior in paying income tax. The methods of deduction and synthesis are used in this article. The observed corporate and tax indicators are focusing on the relationship between the tax liability arising from corporate income tax, amortized tax losses, and the amount of tax payable in Slovakia in the period from 2015 to 2018. Tax loss can be considered as a tool for tax optimization, which is used by companies in all countries of the European Union, while the scope of its applicability is often limited by a time horizon. The amortization of tax losses has an impact on the amount of tax levied and the subsequent income tax payable, while the possibility to use this tool of tax optimization is influenced by the changing legislation in the period under review.
Revisiting Motivations for a Public Service Career (MPSC): The Case of China

Motivations for choosing a public service career have long been a core issue in public administration research. This study focuses on China. Using the self-determination theory (SDT) as the basic framework, we revise Chen et al.’s scale which captures multiple motivations for a public service career (MPSC). We then validate the revised scale with responses from a questionnaire. The results show five distinct dimensions of MPSC, and all of them are associated with work-related attitudes and perceptions in different ways. In the conclusion, we discuss the theoretical and practical contributions of this study.
Interaction Strength Analysis to Model Retweet Cascade Graphs

Tracking information diffusion is a non-trivial task and it has been widely studied across different domains and platforms. The advent of social media has led to even more challenges, given the higher speed of information propagation and the growing impact of social bots and anomalous accounts. Nevertheless, it is crucial to derive a trustworthy information diffusion graph that is capable of highlighting the importance of specific nodes in spreading the original message. The paper introduces the interaction strength, a novel metric to model retweet cascade graphs by exploring users’ interactions. Initial findings showed the soundness of the approaches based on this new metric with respect to the state-of-the-art model, and its ability to generate a denser graph, revealing crucial nodes that participated in the retweet propagation. Reliable retweet graph generation will enable a better understanding of the diffusion path of a specific tweet.
Ionospheric Current Variations Induced by the Solar Flares of 6 and 10 September 2017

We examine the global ionospheric current in relation to X9.33 disk and X8.28 limb flares, which had significant differences in their solar X‐ray and extreme ultraviolet (EUV) fluxes using the ground‐based magnetometer data. At the peak of X9.33 flare, when X‐ray and EUV radiations were significantly enhanced, the northern current vortex was situated at (40°N, 12 LT), while the southern current vortex was found at (30°S, 13LT). In comparison to the X8.28 flare, the northern current vortex was seen at (16°N, 12LT), while the southern current vortex was situated at (35°S, 14LT), which was 2 hr earlier in local time compared to those observed in the X9.33 flare. The changes in the total current intensity of the X9.33 flare is about 16% less than that of the X8.28 flare, thus revealing that the current variations relative to both flares are due to solar flux and universal time variations. The daytime X9.33 flare northern current vortex is stronger, while the southern vortex is less intense than the corresponding vortex of X8.28 flare. Even though both flares happened in equinox, the current vortices are nearly symmetric. There were significant hemispheric changes in the focus position leading to the hemispheric asymmetry. Our results indicated that both the enhanced X‐ray and EUV fluxes during flares could have impacts on the ionospheric electric field and current, but their relative contributions and the underlying physics need further investigations.
Roosting behaviour is related to reproductive strategy in brood parasitic cowbirds

Shiny Cowbirds Molothrus bonariensis and Screaming Cowbirds Molothrus rufoaxillaris are closely related brood parasites but the former is socially polygynous or promiscuous and an extreme host generalist, whereas the latter is socially monogamous and parasitizes almost exclusively one host. Females of both species lay in relative darkness, before dawn, relying for host nest location on previous days’ prospecting activity, or possibly on following better‐informed roost associates. We studied the temporal and spatial patterns of roosting behaviour in these species to test the hypothesis that roosting behaviour of cowbirds is related to their breeding strategy (brood parasitism) and reflects differences in strategies between species. We recorded fidelity to a roost, location fidelity within a roost, inter‐individual spatial associations and timing of roost departures and parasitic events, using tagged individuals. Female Shiny Cowbirds and both sexes of Screaming Cowbirds showed marked fidelity in roosting location, and roost departures occurred both during and after the known time window for parasitism, with earlier departures probably corresponding to laying days. Screaming Cowbird females and males that were trapped together and showed high levels of association during the day, also showed high levels of association in the roost. We describe the spatial and temporal patterns of a relatively poorly known aspect of avian ecology in general and the behaviour of brood parasites in particular.