Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Efficient Hybrid A/D Beamforming for Millimeter-Wave Systems Using Butler Matrices

Hybrid analog/digital (A/D) beamforming architectures are low complexity alternatives to fully digital designs in large antenna setups. Recent research efforts have been set out to find low-complexity algorithms, which have low implementation complexity in the analog domain. In this paper, we propose a two-stage hybrid precoding design assuming hardware constraints that avoid the use of adaptive phase-shifters (PSs) by introducing a novel combination of Butler matrices (BMs) to feed a uniform planar array (UPA). With several fixed beams, we propose an algorithm to design the analog precoding matrix in the first stage, while in the second stage, hybrid-beamforming (HBF)-weighted minimum mean square error (WMMSE) is proposed for baseband precoding by taking into account the analog precoding matrix designed in the first stage. The proposed algorithm shows fast convergence, thanks to the analog precoder design, which helps the HBF-WMMSE algorithm to converge within a few iterations. Compared with the classical matched filter (MF) and minimum mean square error (MMSE) solutions, HBF-WMMSE outperforms the latter in terms of sum-rate, especially in the low signal-to-noise-ratio (SNR) regime. Simulation results further show that the partially connected Butler matrices (PCBMS) approach implemented with fixed-PSs exhibit superior energy-efficiency while maintaining higher spectral-efficiency as compared to the partially connected analog phase shifting (PCAPS) network implemented with variable-PSs.
Patients’ medication reconciliation in a university hospital

Medication reconciliation is a strategy to minimize medication errors at the transition points of care. This study aimed to demonstrate the effectiveness of medication reconciliation in identifying and resolving drug discrepancies in the admission of adult patients to a university hospital. The study was carried out in a 300-bed large general public hospital, in which a reconciled list was created between drugs prescribed at admission and those used at pre-admission, adapting prescriptions from the pharmacotherapeutic guidelines of the hospital studied and the patients’ clinical conditions. One hundred seven patients were included, of which 67,3% were women, with a mean age of 56 years. Two hundred twenty-nine discrepancies were found in 92 patients; of these, 21.4% were unintentional in 31.8% of patients. The pharmacist performed 49 interventions, and 47 were accepted. Medication omission was the highest occurrence (63.2%), followed by a different dose (24.5%). Thirteen (26.5%) of the 49 unintentional discrepancies included high-alert medications according to ISMP Brazil classification. Medication reconciliation emerges as an important opportunity for the review of pharmacotherapy at transition points of care, based on the high number of unintentional discrepancies identified and resolved. During the drug reconciliation process, the interventions prevented the drugs from being misused or omitted during the patient’s hospitalization and possibly after discharge.
Cosmetics: What Do Bruneian Female Adults Believe?

Objectives: The study aimed to measure the level of attitudes and the current practices of the female community in Brunei Darussalam regarding the usage of cosmetics. Methods: An online survey was conducted using a non-probabilistic snowball sampling approach via the social media channels WhatsApp and Instagram. The inclusion criteria were female Bruneian citizens or permanent residents, aged between 18 and 65 years old, who can understand English or Malay, and use cosmetic products at least once a day. Results: A total of 445 participants responded to the online survey. Most of the participants agreed that the use of cosmetic products improves one’s physical appearance to the public (391, 87.8%) and also improves self-confidence (405, 91.1%). There were significant differences in monthly cosmetic product expenses and participants’ attitudes about safe cosmetic use (p = 0.001). No significant changes in the individuals’ attitudes based on their age or educational level were observed. Overall, the participants had a good level of cosmetic safety practice. Almost half of the participants use social media to obtain information regarding what cosmetics to use or purchase. Conclusion: There is a medium to high level of attitude and a high level of practice regarding the safe use of cosmetics among Bruneian female adults. Social media was the main source of information for the respondents, followed by friend circle and family members.
Dynamics of Dopamine and Other Monoamines Content in Rat Brain after Single Low-Dose Carbon Nuclei Irradiation

Space radiation, presented primarily by high-charge and -energy particles (HZEs), has a substantial impact on the central nervous system (CNS) of astronauts. This impact, surprisingly, has not only negative but also positive effects on CNS functions. Despite the fact that the mechanisms of this effect have not yet been elucidated, several studies indicate a key role for monoaminergic networks underlying these effects. Here, we investigated the effects of acute irradiation with 450 MeV/n carbon (12C) nuclei at a dose of 0.14 Gy on Wistar rats; a state of anxiety was accessed using a light–dark box, spatial memory in a Morris water maze, and the dynamics of monoamine metabolism in several brain morphological structures using HPLC. No behavioral changes were observed. Irradiation led to the immediate suppression of dopamine turnover in the prefrontal cortex, hypothalamus, and striatum, while a decrease in the level of norepinephrine was detected in the amygdala. However, these effects were transient. The deferred effect of dopamine turnover increase was found in the hippocampus. These data underscore the ability of even low-dose 12C irradiation to affect monoaminergic networks. However, this impact is transient and is not accompanied by behavioral alterations.
Analytical Model of a Single Link of Elastic Optical Networks

This article discusses and evaluates a model of resources to which multiservice traffic is offered. The initial assumption for the model is that calls of particular traffic classes are always serviced in neighboring allocation units of the resources under investigation. An elastic optical network, in which an allocation management mechanism that allocates an appropriate number of neighboring spectrum units depending on the required bitrate related to a given service class is employed, is chosen as a good example of this type of resource. The article proposes new occupancy distributions for these resources, both at the so-called microstate and macrostate levels, with particular attention given to the way the transitions between neighboring states of the Markov process that approximates the service process in the systems under investigation are modeled. The presented model is an approximate model, therefore the analytical results of the modeling are validated and verified on the basis of comparisons with the results of the simulations of a number of selected network systems.
Financial Inclusion and Inclusive Growth in Nigeria Between 1981 and 2017

The paper examines the long-run relationship between financial inclusion and growth in Nigeria for the period 1981-2017.Using data from the Central Bank of Nigeria statistical bulletin 2018 and the World Development Indicator 2018, the study applies econometrics to examine effects of credit to private sector, money supply, Interest rate and Government Expenditure on Per capita Gross Domestic Product. The results of the ARDL show that financial inclusion increases inclusive growth and makes easy access to loan for investment. The study also validates the finance led growth hypothesis and establishes that finance causes growth in Nigeria. Given the findings, policy makers need to focus more on long run financial policies that can enhance the effectiveness of the financial sector (both money and capital markets) in promoting growth. Additionally, the government should work to provide an enabling environment and create awareness to enhance public trust in the country’s financial system. JEL Classification: O40
Calprotectin and N-telopeptide of Type I Collagen (NTx) as Gingival Crevicular Fluid (GCF) Biomarker in Peri-Implantitis Patients

Introduction: Formulation of various preventive and therapeutic strategies is possible only by a better understanding of the immune-inflammatory profile of peri-implant diseases. For understanding the changes and turnover of bone, various markers have been used in the past literature, out of which, N-telopeptide of Type I Collagen (NTx) is acknowledged to be the most reliable marker. Aims and objectives: Assessment of calprotectin and NTx concentration in gingival crevicular fluid (GCF) around the implant sites in subjects suffering from peri-implantitis. Materials and methods: In total, 70 healthy individuals were included in the present study. These patients had opted for dental implants within the last decade. After collecting the peri-implant crevicular fluid (PICF) and GCF, various examinations were carried out. PICF samples were obtained with the help of sterile paper available in the form of strips. The enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) technique was used for measuring the calprotectin and NTx. All the readings were obtained in nanograms per microliter of PICF. All the results were recorded and analyzed. Results: The overall mean calprotectin and NTx values were observed to be in a significantly higher range within the sites suffering from peri-implantitis when compared with healthy locations. The calprotectin values and NTx levels were positively correlated with the mean values of periodontal parameters observed clinically. Conclusion: Both calprotectin and NTx could be used as a biomarker signifying the presence of inflammation as well as bone resorption in patients suffering from peri-implantitis.
Thermal Resistance Of A Liquid-Solid Interface on Curved Smooth and Rough Walls

Extended Abstract The breakdown of the momentum transfer at a fluid-solid contact has been known in micro/nanofluidics for many years. Influence of the surface shape (i.e. convex/concave) has been investigated in gas-phase flows [1-2]. On the other hand, thermal boundary resistance is a known phenomenon, which reduces the heat transfer between heterogeneous materials and affects overall thermal performance, has not been investigated sufficiently well at curved interfaces. The present study runs non-equilibrium molecular dynamics (NEMD) simulations and considers a thin heated cylindrical shell, which is located in the middle of the gap between two coaxial stationary cylinders, in order to investigate the thermal boundary resistance. In contrast to previous molecular dynamics simulations [3-4], realistic walls are created to examine the interfacial heat transfer related to the surface curvature over rough and smooth surfaces. The results show the existence of the opposing effect of curvature. This effect demonstrates itself by increasing heat transfer from a hot concave surface to the fluid with curvature, while, in contrast, by decreasing heat transfer from a hot convex surface. At identical curvature and surface area, the present results show that the thermal resistance between a hot convex silver surface and liquid argon is larger than the thermal resistance between a hot concave silver surface and liquid argon. In addition,
A Retrospective Study of the Impact of COVID-19 Pandemic Related Administrative Restrictions on Spine Surgery Practice and Outcomes in an Urban Healthcare System

The study objective is to characterize the impact of COVID-19 related hospital administrative restrictions on patient demographics, surgical care, logistics, and patient outcomes in spine surgery. This was a retrospective study of 331 spine surgery patients at UCSD conducted during 1 March 2019–31 May 2019 (pre-COVID-19) and 1 March 2020–31 May 2020 (first COVID-19 surge). All variables were collected through RedCap and compared between pre- and during-COVID groups. There were no significant differences in patient demographics, operating room duration, and skin-to-skin time. However, length of stay was 4.7 days shorter during COVID-19 (p = 0.03) and more cases were classified as ‘urgent’ (p = 0.04). Preoperative pain scores did not differ between groups (p = 0.51). However, pain levels at discharge were significantly higher during COVID (p = 0.04) and trended towards remaining higher in the short- (p = 0.05) but not long-term (p = 0.17) after surgery. There was no significant difference in the number of post-operative complications, but there was an increase in the use of the emergency room and telemedicine to address complications when they arose. Overall, the pandemic resulted in a greater proportion of ‘urgent’ spine surgery cases and shorter length of hospital stay. Pain levels upon discharge and at short-term timepoints were higher following surgery but did not persist in the long term.
Exploring Relationships between Experience Realms and Satisfaction of Visitors within Festival Event

Festivals and special events are unique experiential products that able to produce ranges of sensations, imaginations, emotions, and involvement within visitors . Experiential concept is useful for the event organization to measure achievement or effectiveness of the outcome of their events and further understand the nature of visitor experiences within festival settings. Hence, this st udy attempts to explore the visitors’ experiences in Bazaar Ramadhan or known as street food fiesta, a one-month festive event that is held only in the month of Ramadhan in celebration of the fasting month for the Muslims. Bazaar Ramadhan is place where Muslims and non-Muslims flock to these places for iftar food. Five experiential dimensions which comprises of entertainment, educational, esthetic, escapist, and festivity experience were used to engage visitors at event. A total of 132 responses were collected from visitors that visits bazaar Ramadhan and from visitors that had experience visiting the bazaar. Correlation and regression analysis were performed to test the relationship between the variables. Based on the results, there were positive associations between the five realms of event experience and visitors’ satisfaction. The findings showed each realm intermingled with each other forming a visitor’s unique, memorable and desirable personal event experience onsite of bazaar. The findings of this study assist event operators in providing the best experiences for visitors’ satisfaction from the aspects of entertainment, educational, esthetic, escapist, and festivity experiences. 0.754, p < 0.01), esthetic and entertainment (r = 0.755, p < 0.01), and between festivity and entertainment (r = 0.784, p < 0.01). The result of this study also show moderate associations between satisfaction and educational (r = 0.444, p < 0.01), satisfaction and esthetic (r = 0.604, p < 0.01), satisfaction and escapism (r = 0.445, p < 0.01), satisfaction and festivity (r = 0.575, p < 0.01), satisfaction and entertainment (r = 0.610, p < 0.01), educational and esthetic (r = 0.627, p < 0.01), educational and escapism (r = 0.560, p < 0.01), educational and festivity (r = 0.531, p < 0.01), educational and entertainment (r = 0.575, p < 0.01), esthetic and escapism (r = 0.631, p < 0.01), escapism and festivity (r = 0.684, p < 0.01), escapism and entertainment (r = 0.488, p < 0.01). The results between the dependent variables and the independent variable can be concluded as having positive relationships.
Main Clinical and Laboratory Features of Children with Bacterial Meningitis: Experience from a Tertiary Paediatric Centre in Central Vietnam

Objective Our study aimed to summarize symptoms and laboratory findings of bacterial meningitis at a Vietnam tertiary care hospital. Methods We performed a retrospective study and enrolled 33 children diagnosed with bacterial meningitis admitted at the Pediatric Center, Hue Central Hospital, between January 2019 and July 2021. Results Only 24.2% (8 out of 33) cases can determine etiology of bacterial meningitis. Streptococcus pneumonia was the most common pathogen. The mortality in this study was 12.1%. The most commn symptoms were fever (93.9%) and vomiting (60.6%). Loss of consciousness and poor appetite were predominant among patients who died (75%); seizures and local paralysis accounted for a half. For cerebrospinal fluid (CSF), the cloudy or turbid color was the most common in bacterial meningitis (54.5%), CSF leucocytes in a half of patients were greater than 500 cells/mm3 (48.5%). CSF white blood cells count was higher among children who died. Conclusion Streptococcus pneumonia was the most common pathogen. Fever, vomiting, loss of consciousness, local paralysis, and increased leucocytes, neutrophils of CSF were more common in severe cases.
Content loss and conditional space relationship in conditional generative adversarial networks

: In the machine learning community, generative models, especially generative adversarial networks (GANs) continue to be an attractive yet challenging research topic. Right after the invention of GAN, many GAN models have been proposed by the researchers with the same goal: creating better images. The first and foremost feature that a GAN model should have is that creating realistic images that cannot be distinguished from genuine ones. A large portion of the GAN models proposed to this end have a common approach which can be defined as factoring the image generation process into multiple states for decomposing the diﬀicult task into several more manageable sub tasks. This can be realized by using sequential conditional/unconditional generators. Although images generated by sequential generators experimentally prove the effectiveness of this approach, visually inspecting the generated images are far away of being objective and it is not yet quantitatively showed in an objective manner. In this paper, we quantitatively show the effectiveness of shrinking the conditional space by using the sequential generators instead of utilizing single but large generator. At the light of the content loss we demonstrate that in sequential designs, each generator helps to shrink the conditional space, and therefore reduces the loss and the uncertainties at the generated images. In order to quantitatively validate this approach, we tried different combinations of connecting generators sequentially and/or increasing the capacity of generators and using single or multiple discriminators under four different scenarios applied to image-to-image translation tasks. Scenario-1 uses the conventional pix2pix GAN model which serves as the based line model for the rest of the scenarios. In Scenario-2, we utilized two generators connected sequentially. Each generator is identical to the one used in Scenario-1. Another possibility is just doubling the size of a single generator which is evaluated in the Scenario-3. In the last scenario, we used two different discriminators in order to train two sequentially connected generators. Our quantitative results support that simply increasing the capacity of one generator, instead of using sequential generators, does not help a lot to reduce the content loss which is used in addition to adversarial loss and hence does not create better images.
Prediction of walking kinematics and muscle activities under idealized lower limb exoskeleton assistances

This study examines the biomechanical effects of idealized multi-joint exoskeleton assistances on hip, knee, and ankle joints. We conducted predictive simulations of walking without assistance and with seven different assistance cases including assistance to each joint, assistance to any two joints, and assistance to all three joints. A 2D musculoskeletal model with 10 degrees of freedom and 18 muscles was used and the OpenSim Moco optimal control solver was employed for all predictive simulations, which aimed to minimize the weighted sum of several objectives including metabolic cost, muscle activation, joint coordinate acceleration, motion tracking, and whole-body center of mass (COM) acceleration. The results showed that all assistance cases changed the joint kinematics of the walking motion to different degrees and for most cases the exoskeleton assistance reduced muscle effort substantially. By comparing with the unassisted case, we found that the two cases with assistance to all three joints and to the hip-ankle joints both provided more than 50% reduction in metabolic cost of transport (COT), followed by assistance to hip-knee and knee-ankle joints with less than 40% reduction. As for the single joint assistance cases, assistance to the hip joint appeared to be the most effective with around 34% reduction in COT, followed by the assistance to the ankle joint with around 22% reduction, whereas the assistance to the knee joint was much less effective (with less than 10%).
Efficacy and safety of preoperative versus postoperative NSAIDs on pain relief in patients undergoing hip arthroscopy surgery: A multicentre, randomized, controlled trial

Postoperative pain relief is a critical issue for hip arthroscopy surgery (HAS). This study aimed to investigate the effect of preemptive non‐steroidal anti‐inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) for postoperative analgesia in femoroacetabular impingement (FAI) patients receiving HAS.
Generation and pointing stabilization of multi-GeV electron beams from a laser plasma accelerator driven in a pre-formed plasma waveguidea)

Laser pulses with peak power 0.3 PW were used to generate electron beams with energy >4 GeV within a 9 cm-long capillary discharge waveguide operated with a plasma density of ≈7×1017 cm−3. Simulations showed that the super-Gaussian near-field laser profile that is typical of high-power femtosecond laser systems reduces the efficacy of guiding in parabolic plasma channels compared with the Gaussian laser pulses that are typically simulated. In the experiments, this was mitigated by increasing the plasma density and hence the contribution of self-guiding. This allowed for the generation of multi-GeV electron beams, but these had angular fluctuation ≳2 mrad rms. Mitigation of capillary damage and more accurate alignment allowed for stable beams to be produced with energy 2.7±0.1 GeV. The pointing fluctuation was 0.6 mrad rms, which was less than the beam divergence of ≲1 mrad full-width-half-maximum.
Mapped Chebyshev Pseudospectral Method for Unsteady Flow Analysis

A mapped Chebyshev pseudospectral method is developed as an accurate and yet efficient approach to solve unsteady flows. Preserving the conservation laws, the method discretizes a spatial-derivative term implicitly, whereas a time-derivative term is treated explicitly using the mapped Chebyshev collocation operator. Because standard Chebyshev points make the corresponding spectral derivative matrix ill-conditioned due to uneven distribution of the Chebyshev points clustered heavily toward the ends of the interval, an inverse sine mapping function is applied to the Chebyshev collocation operator so that the point distribution becomes more uniform in a time domain and mitigates numerical instabilities correspondingly. Computations of unsteady flows, including the one-dimensional Burgers’ equation and two-dimensional airfoil flows under oscillation and plunging motions, are carried out. Numerical results of the present study are compared with those of the conventional time-marching solution method and the ha.