Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Single-Channel EEG Features Reveal an Association With Cognitive Decline in Seniors Performing Auditory Cognitive Assessment

Background Cognitive decline remains highly underdiagnosed despite efforts to find novel cognitive biomarkers. Electroencephalography (EEG) features based on machine-learning (ML) may offer a non-invasive, low-cost approach for identifying cognitive decline. However, most studies use cumbersome multi-electrode systems. This study aims to evaluate the ability to assess cognitive states using machine learning (ML)-based EEG features extracted from a single-channel EEG with an auditory cognitive assessment. Methods This study included data collected from senior participants in different cognitive states (60) and healthy controls (22), performing an auditory cognitive assessment while being recorded with a single-channel EEG. Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE) scores were used to designate groups, with cutoff scores of 24 and 27. EEG data processing included wavelet-packet decomposition and ML to extract EEG features. Data analysis included Pearson correlations and generalized linear mixed-models on several EEG variables: Delta and Theta frequency-bands and three ML-based EEG features: VC9, ST4, and A0, previously extracted from a different dataset and showed association with cognitive load. Results MMSE scores significantly correlated with reaction times and EEG features A0 and ST4. The features also showed significant separation between study groups: A0 separated between the MMSE < 24 and MMSE ≥ 28 groups, in addition to separating between young participants and senior groups. ST4 differentiated between the MMSE < 24 group and all other groups (MMSE 24–27, MMSE ≥ 28 and healthy young groups), showing sensitivity to subtle changes in cognitive states. EEG features Theta, Delta, A0, and VC9 showed increased activity with higher cognitive load levels, present only in the healthy young group, indicating different activity patterns between young and senior participants in different cognitive states. Consisted with previous reports, this association was most prominent for VC9 which significantly separated between all level of cognitive load. Discussion This study successfully demonstrated the ability to assess cognitive states with an easy-to-use single-channel EEG using an auditory cognitive assessment. The short set-up time and novel ML features enable objective and easy assessment of cognitive states. Future studies should explore the potential usefulness of this tool for characterizing changes in EEG patterns of cognitive decline over time, for detection of cognitive decline on a large scale in every clinic to potentially allow early intervention. Trial Registration NIH Clinical Trials Registry [https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/results/NCT04386902], identifier [NCT04386902]; Israeli Ministry of Health registry [https://my.health. gov.il/CliniTrials/Pages/MOH_2019-10-07_007352. aspx], identifier [007352].
Health-Related Quality of Life in Colorectal Cancer Patients Treated With Liver Transplantation Compared to Chemotherapy

Liver transplantation (LT) for patients with non-resectable colorectal liver metastases (CRLM) offers improved survival and has gained increased interest internationally the last years. The aim of this study was to describe the health-related quality of life (HRQoL) in patients with non-resectable CRLM receiving LT and how baseline HRQoL factors affect overall survival (OS). HRQoL data in the SECA (SEcondary CAncer) LT cohort was compared to data obtained from colorectal cancer patients starting first-line chemotherapy for metastatic disease in a clinical trial and data from a Norwegian normal population. HRQoL data from the QLQ-C30 questionnaire used in the SECA LT study and the NORDIC- VII study were reported. The relationship between patient-reported symptom burden at baseline and OS was investigated. In the SECA study longitudinal HRQoL assessment was used to describe the time until definitive deterioration as well as mean values at different time points. Patients in the SECA and NORDIC-VII studies reported similar baseline HRQoL. The median time until definitive deterioration in the transplanted patients was estimated to 36 months. In the SECA study appetite loss and pain at baseline had negative impact on OS (25.3 versus 71.7 months, p = 0.002 and 39.7 versus 71.7 months, p = 0.038, respectively). Despite a relapse in most of the LT patients the Global Health Score (GHS) remained good. Pain, and especially appetite loss at time of transplantation is associated with poor outcome after LT. GRAPHICAL ABSTRACT
Dysbiosis and Restoration Dynamics of the Gut Microbiome Following Therapeutic Exposure to Florfenicol in Snubnose Pompano (Trachinotus blochii) to Aid in Sustainable Aquaculture Production Strategies

Information on unintended effects of therapeutic exposure of antibiotics on the fish gut microbiome is a vital prerequisite for ensuring fish and environmental health during sustainable aquaculture production strategies. The present study forms the first report on the impact of florfenicol (FFC), a recommended antibiotic for aquaculture, on the gut microbiome of snubnose pompano (Trachinotus blochii), a high-value marine aquaculture candidate. Both culture-dependent and independent techniques were applied to identify the possible dysbiosis and restoration dynamics, pointing out the probable risks to the host and environment health. The results revealed the critical transient dysbiotic events in the taxonomic and functional metagenomic profiles and significant reductions in the bacterial load and diversity measures. More importantly, there was a complete restoration of gut microbiome density, diversity, functional metagenomic profiles, and taxonomic composition (up to class level) within 10–15 days of antibiotic withdrawal, establishing the required period for applying proper management measures to ensure animal and environment health, following FFC treatment. The observed transient increase in the relative abundance of opportunistic pathogens suggested the need to apply proper stress management measures and probiotics during the period. Simultaneously, the results demonstrated the inhibitory potential of FFC against marine pathogens (vibrios) and ampicillin-resistant microbes. The study pointed out the possible microbial signatures of stress in fish and possible probiotic microbes (Serratia sp., Methanobrevibacter sp., Acinetobacter sp., and Bacillus sp.) that can be explored to design fish health improvisation strategies. Strikingly, the therapeutic exposure of FFC neither caused any irreversible increase in antibiotic resistance nor promoted the FFC resistant microbes in the gut. The significant transient increase in the numbers of kanamycin-resistant bacteria and abundance of two multidrug resistance encoding genes (K03327 and K03585) in the treated fish gut during the initial 10 days post-withdrawal suggested the need for implementing proper aquaculture effluent processing measures during the period, thus, helps to reduce the spillover of antibiotic-resistant microbes from the gut of the treated fish to the environment. In brief, the paper generates interesting and first-hand insights on the implications of FFC treatment in the gut microbiome of a marine aquaculture candidate targeting its safe and efficient application in unavoidable circumstances. Implementation of mitigation strategies against the identified risks during the initial 15 days of withdrawal period is warranted to ensure cleaner and sustainable aquaculture production from aquatic animal and ecosystem health perspectives.
A Comparison Study Between CNN-Based Deformed Planning CT and CycleGAN-Based Synthetic CT Methods for Improving iCBCT Image Quality

Purpose The aim of this study is to compare two methods for improving the image quality of the Varian Halcyon cone-beam CT (iCBCT) system through the deformed planning CT (dpCT) based on the convolutional neural network (CNN) and the synthetic CT (sCT) generation based on the cycle-consistent generative adversarial network (CycleGAN). Methods A total of 190 paired pelvic CT and iCBCT image datasets were included in the study, out of which 150 were used for model training and the remaining 40 were used for model testing. For the registration network, we proposed a 3D multi-stage registration network (MSnet) to deform planning CT images to agree with iCBCT images, and the contours from CT images were propagated to the corresponding iCBCT images through a deformation matrix. The overlap between the deformed contours (dpCT) and the fixed contours (iCBCT) was calculated for purposes of evaluating the registration accuracy. For the sCT generation, we trained the 2D CycleGAN using the deformation-registered CT-iCBCT slicers and generated the sCT with corresponding iCBCT image data. Then, on sCT images, physicians re-delineated the contours that were compared with contours of manually delineated iCBCT images. The organs for contour comparison included the bladder, spinal cord, femoral head left, femoral head right, and bone marrow. The dice similarity coefficient (DSC) was used to evaluate the accuracy of registration and the accuracy of sCT generation. Results The DSC values of the registration and sCT generation were found to be 0.769 and 0.884 for the bladder (p < 0.05), 0.765 and 0.850 for the spinal cord (p < 0.05), 0.918 and 0.923 for the femoral head left (p > 0.05), 0.916 and 0.921 for the femoral head right (p > 0.05), and 0.878 and 0.916 for the bone marrow (p < 0.05), respectively. When the bladder volume difference in planning CT and iCBCT scans was more than double, the accuracy of sCT generation was significantly better than that of registration (DSC of bladder: 0.859 vs. 0.596, p < 0.05). Conclusion The registration and sCT generation could both improve the iCBCT image quality effectively, and the sCT generation could achieve higher accuracy when the difference in planning CT and iCBCT was large.
Stochastic-HD: Leveraging Stochastic Computing on the Hyper-Dimensional Computing Pipeline

Brain-inspired Hyper-dimensional(HD) computing is a novel and efficient computing paradigm. However, highly parallel architectures such as Processing-in-Memory(PIM) are bottle-necked by reduction operations required such as accumulation. To reduce this bottle-neck of HD computing in PIM, we present Stochastic-HD that combines the simplicity of operations in Stochastic Computing (SC) with the complex task solving capabilities of the latest HD computing algorithms. Stochastic-HD leverages deterministic SC, which enables all of HD operations to be done as highly parallel bitwise operations and removes all reduction operations, thus improving the throughput of PIM. To this end, we propose an in-memory hardware design for Stochastic-HD that exploits its high level of parallelism and robustness to approximation. Our hardware uses in-memory bitwise operations along with associative memory-like operations to enable a fast and energy-efficient implementation. With Stochastic-HD, we were able to reach a comparable accuracy with the Baseline-HD. Furthermore, by proposing an integrated Stochastic-HD retraining approach Stochastic-HD is able to reduce the accuracy loss to just 0.3%. We additionally accelerate the retraining process in our hardware design to create an end-to-end accelerator for Stochastic-HD. Finally, we also add support for HD Clustering to Stochastic-HD, which is the first to map the HD Clustering operations to the stochastic domain. As compared to the best PIM design for HD, Stochastic-HD is also 4.4% more accurate and 43.1× more energy-efficient.
Analyzing the Explanatory Power of Bionic Systems With the Minimal Cognitive Grid

In this article, I argue that the artificial components of hybrid bionic systems do not play a direct explanatory role, i.e., in simulative terms, in the overall context of the systems in which they are embedded in. More precisely, I claim that the internal procedures determining the output of such artificial devices, replacing biological tissues and connected to other biological tissues, cannot be used to directly explain the corresponding mechanisms of the biological component(s) they substitute (and therefore cannot be used to explain the local mechanisms determining an overall biological or cognitive function replicated by such bionic models). I ground this analysis on the use of the Minimal Cognitive Grid (MCG), a novel framework proposed in Lieto (Cognitive design for artificial minds, 2021) to rank the epistemological and explanatory status of biologically and cognitively inspred artificial systems. Despite the lack of such a direct mechanistic explanation from the artificial component, however, I also argue that the hybrid bionic systems can have an indirect explanatory role similar to the one played by some AI systems built by using an overall structural design approach (but including the partial adoption of functional components). In particular, the artificial replacement of part(s) of a biological system can provide i) a local functional account of that part(s) in the context of the overall functioning of the hybrid biological–artificial system and ii) global insights about the structural mechanisms of the biological elements connected to such artificial devices.
Comparison of Methods for Individual Killing of Broiler Chickens: A Matter of Animal Welfare and On-Farm Feasibility

The humane killing of individual broiler chickens on-farm requires a minimum of suffering. In this regard, rapid and irreversible loss of consciousness are important determinants. This can be verified by cerebral and spinal reflexes. Also, on-farm feasibility determines whether producers will apply the method. The aim of the study was to compare the effectiveness and animal welfare impact of two different methods for killing individual broilers of varying ages (2, 4, and 6 weeks): manual cervical dislocation (CD) and captive bolt (CB). The evaluation of CD and CB was based on effectiveness and on time to onset (convulsions) or cessation (pain response, pupillary light reflex, convulsions, heartbeat) of non-invasive indicators. In addition, a pilot study was conducted on-farm to assess the feasibility of two alternative methods, CB and nitrogen gasification (N2), and to survey farmers’ opinions on them. The onset of convulsions was almost immediate for both methods in the first study. No differences between CD and CB were observed for the cessation of pain response for chickens at age of 2 weeks (5.0 and 7.5 s, respectively) and 6 weeks (14.0 and 14.1 s, respectively). However, at 4 weeks a longer pain response was measured after CD (11.3 s) than after CB (4.7 s). For the three age categories, the pupillary light reflex disappeared later after CD (54.9 - 80.7 s) compared to CB (8.3 - 13.7 s). The same was observed for cessation of convulsions in 2- and 6-week-old chickens (185.3 and 172.0 s for CD and 79.0 and 82.9 s for CB). This suggests that brain death occurred faster after CB compared to CD. No difference between the methods was found for the cessation of the heartbeat. After the pilot study, the producers preferred N2 over CB in terms of animal-friendliness, time-efficiency, ease of use, and effectiveness. However, both methods were found rather expensive and required some experience. CB and N2 are good killing alternatives to CD due to rapid and irreversible insensibility. However, more information and support for chicken producers will be needed for these to become routine killing methods.
Jurnal Pendidikan MIPA

: Educators have been striving to bring to reality learning through playing and fun. It is real obvious that the use of game has brought positive changes to instruction. Therefore, this study investigates the acquisition of graphic skill through creative sorting game among the junior secondary schools. The study employed experimental of pre and post test from quasi, samplings consisted of 69 students of which are 34 male and 35 female students, based on simple random sampling. Two hypotheses were raised and tested with ANOVA and t-test statistical analysis. Findings revealed that creative sorting game was positive in the context of teaching creative arts and it was recommended that the use of creative sorting game should be encouraged in learning among the junior secondary schools in Nigeria.
Islamic microfinance: A review of the current literature Bussecon Review of Finance & Banking

The purpose of this paper is to provide a review on Islamic Microfinance and its application as a tool for poverty reduction especially in developing countries. This system of financing serves as an alternative to the interest-base loans from conventional Banks as well as conventional microfinance Institutions to the poor yet Islamic conscious millions of Muslims. This paper takes a descriptive approach and relied upon the available literature on Islamic Microfinance to highlight the different approaches used in different parts of the world. The conclusion from the review showed Islamic microfinance as doing well in poverty reduction, women empowerment, and being efficient in its operations. This paper provides a review of the present literature on Islamic Microfinance. The sections covered under this review are: Islamic Microfinance and Poverty Reduction, Islamic Microfinance and Women Empowerment, and Are Islamic Microfinance Institutions Efficient in their Operations?
Stabilization Of Marine Clay Using Biomass Silica-Rubber Chips Mixture

Marine clay is found widely along the coastal area and had caused expensive solutions in the construction of coastal highways. Hence, soil stabilization was suggested by some consultant to increase the strength of this soil in order to meet the highway construction requirement and also to achieve the specification for the development. Biomass Silica (BS), particularly the SH85 as a non-traditional stabilisation method, has been gaining more interest from the engineers recently. Rubber chips (RC), derived from waste rubber tyres, are considered ‘green’ element and had been used previously in some geotechnical engineering works. This paper presents the effect of using BS and RC as a mixture (BS-RC mixture), to increase the strength of marine clay for highway construction. Samples of marine clay, obtained from the West Coast Expressway project at Teluk Intan, Perak, were oven dried and grind to fine-grained sized. The marine clay was mixed with 9 % by weight proportion of BS- RC; that were 8%-l% and 7%-2%, respectively. For comparison purposes the result of BS-RC was compared to the result of stabilization by using 9% BS only. Laboratory tests were then carried out to determine the Atterberg limits and compaction characteristics of the untreated and treated marine clay. The Unconfined Compressive Strength (UCS) of the untreated and treated marine clays, compacted at the optimum moisture content was later obtained. The treated marine clay was tested at 0, 3 and 7 days curing periods. The results show that the Plasticity Index of BS-RC treated marine clay was lower than the untreated marine clay. From the UCS test results, it is shown that BS-RC mixtures had significantly improved the strength of marine clay. With the same percentage of 9% BS-RC, the increased of BS from 7% to 8% increased the UCS further to about six times more than untreated marine clay soils in 7 days curing period. The strength gained by using BS-RC at 8%-1% is slightly below the strength by using 9% BS only. From the experimental results, it is shown that BS, in the form of SH85, admixed with rubber chips could significantly improve the strength of marine clay soils.
Dynamic performance of bridges and vehicles under strong wind

vi CHAPTER 1.INTRODUCTION . 1 1.1 Wind Hazard . 1 1.2 Bridge Aerodynamics . 3 1.3 Vehicle Dynamic Performance on the Bridge under Wind.5 1.4 Structural Control on Wind-induced Vibration of Bridges.7 1.5 Present Research.8 CHAPTER 2. MODAL COUPLING ASSESSMENTS AND APPROXIMATED PREDICTION OF COUPLED MULTIMODE WIND VIBRATION OF LONG-SPAN BRIDGES. 10 2.
Strategies and prospects for territorial mobility of environmental graduates with higher education

The article presents the results of a study of the strategy and prospects of territorial mobility of young people who have received higher education in the field of ecology at a regional university. A review of scientific literature and a statistical analysis of the opinions and judgments of environmental students of the last year of study at the bachelor's program at the Agricultural University confirm the relevance of the research topic. They allow you to look at the prospects for the territorial mobility of environmental graduates, both from the point of view of their own targets, and from the point of view of their importance for the south of Russia and the capital regions of Russia. The study found that the vector of territorial mobility of environmental graduates is aimed at the capital regions of Russia and abroad. The expectations of young people are associated with higher job prospects on better conditions (high-paying and interesting work with real career opportunities) outside the Stavropol Territory and southern Russia.
Balancing product design and theoretical insights

In this chapter the authors discuss the problem of balancing theory and artifact production in design research projects. Like other authors in this book, we believe that basic educational research benefits by being framed as a problem oriented research process, where design experiments and theoretical investigations go hand in hand. How this can be achieved and the challenges it creates is expressed in an ‘osmotic model’, showing the give and take of focusing simultaneously on product designs and theoretical insights. The authors offer some guiding principles by which researchers can navigate in such a methodological setting. The principles are based on experiences from three research and development projects at Learning Lab Denmark and illustrate the multitude of challenges to be faced, when balancing the processes of product development and the generation theoretical insights.
Faculty Perceptions of Chinese Graduate Students’ Communication Challenges in the Science and Engineering Disciplines

This paper reports the findings of in-depth interviews with six science and engineering faculty members at a major Canadian university regarding their experiences with and perceptions of Mainland Chinese ESL graduate students’ challenges in using English in the disciplines. Results suggest great cultural and linguistic challenges of the students; however, helpful guidance and interactive feedback-based conferencing could lead to student progress. Nevertheless, the faculty longed for English and technical writing courses for ESL graduate students. The faculty did not perceive plagiarism to be a major issue among Chinese ESL graduate students and adopted an educational approach toward sporadic inappropriate textual borrowing. Abstract Cet article expose les résultats obtenus lors d’entrevues avec six professeurs de science et d’ingénierie dans une université canadienne. Les entrevues se centraient sur leurs expériences et leurs perceptions sur les étudiants chinois de troisième cycle et les défis que ces derniers rencontraient en utilisant l’anglais dans les différentes disciplines. Les résultats montrent en effet de gros défis linguistiques et culturels à surmonter mais qu’un service de conseils et d’aide interactive pourrait aider les étudiants à progresser. Le département a néanmoins choisi des cours d’écriture technique en anglais pour les étudiants de troisième cycle. Cependant, les professeurs ne perçoivent pas que le plagiat est un problème majeur chez les étudiants chinois en cours d’anglais et ont de ce fait adopté une approche éducative envers des emprunts textuels sporadiques inappropriés.