Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Effects of lattice orientation and defect degree on Si/Al solid interfacial structure and thermal resistance

ABSTRACT The effect of variation in the Si/Al interface structure on the thermal properties is explored with non-equilibrium molecular dynamics method in present work, and two distinct approaches are employed to manipulate the interface structure. The first is to change the arrangement of the atoms in the Al region by changing the orientation of the axis. The second one is to dig out several layers of atoms near the Al interface, so that the interface appears as a groove-like defect with different depths. Both methods exhibit a direct impact on atomic surface density. The high atomic surface density indicates a more compact atomic arrangement inside the structure, which improves the heat transport. In addition, the internal mechanism of thermal resistance change is probed from the aspects of Grain Boundary (GB) energy, vibrational density of states (VDOS) and the overlap of phonon spectrums parameter. It is found that structures with high atomic surface density correspond to smaller GB energies and larger overlap of phonon spectral parameters. Furthermore, by comparing the two ways of changing the interface structure, it is found that changing the degree of interface defects has a larger effect on the interfacial thermal resistance.
A framework for agricultural adaptation to climate change in Southern Nigeria

The agricultural sector which contributes between 20-50% of gross domestic product in Africa and employs about 60% of the population is greatly affected by climate change impacts. Agricultural productivity and food prices are expected to rise due to this impact thereby worsening the food insecurity and poor nutritional health conditions in the continent. Incidentally, the capacity in the continent to adapt is very low. Addressing these challenges will therefore require a holistic and integrated adaptation framework hence this study. A total of 360 respondents selected through a multi-stage random sampling technique participated in the study that took place in Southern Nigeria from 2008-2011. Results showed that majority of respondents (84%) were aware that some climate change characteristics such as uncertainties at the onset of farming season, extreme weather events including flooding and droughts, pests, diseases, weed infestation, and land degradation have all been on the increase. The most significant effects of climate change that manifested in the area were declining soil fertility and weed infestation. Some of the adaptation strategies adopted by farmers include increased weeding, changing the timing of farm operations, and processing of crops to reduce post-harvest losses. Although majority of respondents were aware of government policies aimed at protecting the environment, most of them agreed that these policies were not being effectively implemented. A mutually inclusive framework comprising of both indigenous and modern techniques, processes, practices and technologies was then developed from the study in order to guide farmers in adapting to climate change effects/impacts.
Professional Values and Self-Reported Clinical Competence of Acute Care Nurses in Saudi Arabia: A Cross-Sectional Study

Background: Professional values are the foundation of nursing practice. Current research evidence on the influence of professional values on clinical competence among acute care nurses in the clinical area is lacking. Purpose: The purpose of this study was to examine the professional values and self-reported clinical competence among acute care nurses. Methods: This quantitative study used a cross-sectional, correlational design. A convenience sample of 403 nurses was recruited to answer the survey utilizing the Nurses Professional Values Scale-3 and the Nurse Competence Scale. The Pearson correlation coefficient was computed to test the relationship between study variables, and a stepwise multiple regression analysis was then performed to investigate the predictors of nurses’ professional values and clinical competence. Results: The professional value of “caring” received the highest mean score, followed by “professionalism”, while the factor “activism” was rated the lowest. Education was a significant predictor of all three factors of professional values. For clinical competence, “managing situations” was rated as the highest dimension, while “ensuring quality” was rated as the lowest. Moderate positive correlations were revealed between the three factors of professional values and all dimensions of nurses’ clinical competence. Area of practice and “activism” were the only significant predictors of the nurses’ clinical competence. Conclusions: Nurses perceived all three factors of professional values with high importance in influencing their clinical competence. These findings can contribute to the development of educational interventions to improve and sustain professional values and clinical competence among acute care nurses.
3D Model Artificial Intelligence-Guided Automatic Augmented Reality Images during Robotic Partial Nephrectomy

More than ever, precision surgery is making its way into modern surgery for functional organ preservation. This is possible mainly due to the increasing number of technologies available, including 3D models, virtual reality, augmented reality, and artificial intelligence. Intraoperative surgical navigation represents an interesting application of these technologies, allowing to understand in detail the surgical anatomy, planning a patient-tailored approach. Automatic superimposition comes into this context to optimally perform surgery as accurately as possible. Through a dedicated software (the first version) called iKidney, it is possible to superimpose the images using 3D models and live endoscopic images during partial nephrectomy, targeting the renal mass only. The patient is 31 years old with a 28 mm totally endophytic right-sided renal mass, with a PADUA score of 9. Thanks to the automatic superimposition and selective clamping, an enucleoresection of the renal mass alone was performed with no major postoperative complication (i.e., Clavien–Dindo < 2). iKidney-guided partial nephrectomy is safe, feasible, and yields excellent results in terms of organ preservation and functional outcomes. Further validation studies are needed to improve the prototype software, particularly to improve the rotational axes and avoid human help. Furthermore, it is important to reduce the costs associated with these technologies to increase its use in smaller hospitals.
Campus Climate Survey

Category Dec '07 Dec '08 Dec '09 Dec '10 Dec '11 Dec '12 Jan'14 Staff '14 Faculty '14 % Agree % Agree % Agree % Agree % Agree % Agree % Agree % Agree % Agree Collaboration People across areas share information and ideas 35.5% 39.1% 36.9% 41.0% 38.2% 54.1% 47.25% 47.91% 46.51% Pitt-Greensburg encourages solving problems through teamwork 41.1% 46.0% 40.4% 47.5% 41.2% 44.2% 48.35% 50.00% 46.51% Conflicts between departments are handled effectively 19.6% 27.9% 27.2% 24.8% 20.6% 26.2% 18.68% 25.00% 11.63% Members from the regional campuses and Oakland work well together 22.1% 29.9% 30.5% 35.3% 30.4% 34.4% 35.16% 41.67% 27.91%
Designation of Wetlands by Weighted Averages of Vegetation Data: a Preliminary Evaluation

: Weighted averages (WA) was investigated as a vegetation-based method for wetland designation, to be used in conjunction with the wetland indicator status of plants from Wetland Plants of the United States of America 1986 (Reed, 1986). Ecological indices were assigned to indicator groups and were used to compute weighted averages for quantitative data obtained from four studies of wetland vegetation conducted in various regions of the United States. Weighted averages of vegetation data proved to be a useful tool for assessing wetland status of the vegetation types included in our study: (1) rankings of vegetation stands or types by WA correlated well with their positions on environmental moisture gradients; and (2) the results of WA could be used, together with a wetland/upland break-point, to designate vegetation types as wetland or upland in a way that agreed well, in three of the four studies, with an alternative classification of wetland habitats. The variation of weighted averages among the sampling units representing a vegetation type was generally small relative to the range of ecological indices assigned. However, designations based on weighted average scores close to the break-point should be considered provisional and must be verified with supplementary data on soils and hydrology.
Soil erosion prediction based on land cover dynamics at the Semenyih watershed in Malaysia using LTM and USLE models

Abstract This study attempts to identify and forecast future land cover (LC) by using the Land Transformation Model (LTM), which considers pixel changes in the past and makes predictions using influential spatial features. LTM applies the Artificial Neural Networks algorithm) in conducting the analysis. In line with these objectives, two satellite images (Spot 5 acquired in 2004 and 2010) were classified using the Maximum Likelihood method for the change detection analysis. Consequently, LC maps from 2004 to 2010 with six classes (forest, agriculture, oil palm cultivations, open area, urban, and water bodies) were generated from the test area. A prediction was made on the actual soil erosion and the soil erosion rate using the Universal Soil Loss Equation (USLE) combined with remote sensing and GIS in the Semenyih watershed for 2004 and 2010 and projected to 2016. Actual and potential soil erosion maps from 2004 to 2010 and projected to 2016 were eventually generated. The results of the LC change detections indicated that three major changes were predicted from 2004 to 2016 (a period of 12 years): (1) forest cover and open area significantly decreased at rates of almost 30 and 8 km2, respectively; (2) cultivated land and oil palm have shown an increment in sizes at rates of 25.02 and 5.77 km2, respectively; and, (3) settlement and Urbanization has intensified also by almost 5 km2. Soil erosion risk analysis results also showed that the Semenyih basin exhibited an average annual soil erosion between 143.35 ton ha−1 year−1 in 2004 and 151 in 2010, followed by the expected 162.24 ton ha−1 year−1. These results indicated that Semenyih is prone to water erosion by 2016. The wide range of erosion classes were estimated at a very low level (0–1 t/ha/year) and mainly located on steep lands and forest areas. This study has shown that using both LTM and USLE in combination with remote sensing and GIS is a suitable method for forecasting LC and accurately measuring the amount of soil losses in the future.
Responses of Soil Microbial Survival Strategies and Functional Changes to Wet–Dry Cycle Events

Soil microbial taxa have different functional ecological characteristics that influence the direction and intensity of plant–soil feedback responses to changes in the soil environment. However, the responses of soil microbial survival strategies to wet and dry events are poorly understood. In this study, soil physicochemical properties, enzyme activity, and high–throughput sequencing results were comprehensively anal0079zed in the irrigated cropland ecological zone of the northern plains of the Yellow River floodplain of China, where Oryza sativa was grown for a long period of time, converted to Zea mays after a year, and then Glycine max was planted. The results showed that different plant cultivations in a paddy–dryland rotation system affected soil physicochemical properties and enzyme activity, and G. max field cultivation resulted in higher total carbon, total nitrogen, soil total organic carbon, and available nitrogen content while significantly increasing α–glucosidase, β–glucosidase, and alkaline phosphatase activities in the soil. In addition, crop rotation altered the r/K–strategist bacteria, and the soil environment was the main factor affecting the community structure of r/K–strategist bacteria. The co–occurrence network revealed the inter–relationship between r/K–strategist bacteria and fungi, and with the succession of land rotation, the G. max sample plot exhibited more stable network relationships. Random forest analysis further indicated the importance of soil electrical conductivity, total carbon, total nitrogen, soil total organic carbon, available nitrogen, and α–glucosidase in the composition of soil microbial communities under wet–dry events and revealed significant correlations with r/K–strategist bacteria. Based on the functional predictions of microorganisms, wet–dry conversion altered the functions of bacteria and fungi and led to a more significant correlation between soil nutrient cycling taxa and environmental changes. This study contributes to a deeper understanding of microbial functional groups while helping to further our understanding of the potential functions of soil microbial functional groups in soil ecosystems.
A nodal discontinuous Galerkin method for site effects assessment in viscoelastic media—verification and validation in the Nice basin

We present a discontinuous Galerkin method for site effects assessment. The P-SV seismic wave propagation is studied in 2-D space heterogeneous media. The first-order velocity-stress system is obtained by assuming that the medium is linear, isotropic and viscoelastic, thus considering intrinsic attenuation. The associated stress-strain relation in the time domain being a convolution, which is numerically intractable, we consider the rheology of a generalized Maxwell body replacing the convolution by a set of differential equations. This results in a velocity-stress system which contains additional equations for the anelastic functions expressing the strain history of the material. Our numerical method, suitable for complex triangular unstructured meshes, is based on centred numerical fluxes and a leap-frog time-discretization. The method is validated through numerical simulations including comparisons with a finite-difference scheme. We study the influence of the geological structures of the Nice basin on the surface ground motion through the comparison of 1-D and 2-D soil response in homogeneous and heterogeneous soil. At last, we compare numerical results with real recording data. The computed multiple-sediment basin response allows to reproduce the shape of the recorded amplification in the basin. This highlights the importance of knowing the lithological structures of a basin, layers properties and interface geometry.
The effect of basal channels on oceanic ice‐shelf melting

[1] The presence of ice-shelf basal channels has been noted in a number of Antarctic and Greenland ice shelves, but their impact on basal melting is not fully understood. Here we use the Massachusetts Institute of Technology general circulation model to investigate the effect of ice-shelf basal channels on oceanic melt rate for an idealized ice shelf resembling the floating tongue of Petermann Glacier in Greenland. The introduction of basal channels prevents the formation of a single geostrophically balanced boundary current; instead the flow is diverted up the right-hand (Coriolis-favored) side of each channel, with a return flow in the opposite direction on the left-hand side. As the prescribed number of basal channels is increased the mean basal melt rate decreases, in agreement with previous studies. For a small number of relatively wide channels the subice flow is found to be a largely geostrophic horizontal circulation. The reduction in melt rate is then caused by an increase in the relative contribution of weakly melting channel crests and keels. For a larger number of relatively narrow channels, the subice flow changes to a vertical overturning circulation. This change in circulation results in a weaker sensitivity of melt rates to channel size. The transition between the two regimes is governed by the Rossby radius of deformation. Our results explain why basal channels play an important role in regulating basal melting, increasing the stability of ice shelves.
Correlative Study on Association Between Meteorological Factors and Incidence of Scarlet Fever in Beijing

Objective To analyze the association between meteorological factors and incidence of scarlet fever. Methods The incidence of scarlet fever from 1996 to 2005 in Beijing was analyzed by descriptive study method. Analysis of association between incidence of scarlet fever and meteorological factors, including temperature, atmospheric pressure, wind speed,sunshine time, and rainfall was done by unifactorial correlation and multiple stepwise regression analysis. Results There was a significant positive correlation between incidence of scarlet fever and wind speed and sunshine time respectively. Conclusion Meteorological factors are important in occurrence and prediction of scarlet fever.
Burnout and its determinants among anaesthesia care providers in Switzerland: a multicentre cross‐sectional study

The escalating epidemic of burnout in healthcare professionals affects provider well‐being, patient care and sustainability of healthcare systems. The objective of this study was to determine the prevalence of burnout among anaesthesia care providers (consultants, trainees or nurse anaesthetists) in Switzerland and identify risk factors to develop strategies for prevention. This multicentre cross‐sectional study was conducted at 22 anaesthesia departments in the German‐speaking part of Switzerland, using an online questionnaire. Burnout assessment was performed using the Maslach Burnout Inventory. Additionally, the questionnaire included questions on workplace and personal risk factors. Of 1630 anaesthesia care providers contacted, 688 (42%) completed the survey. Among respondents who specified their work positions (n = 676), 52% (149/287) of nurses and 59% (229/389) of physicians were at high risk of burnout; and 9% (26/287) of nurses and 18% (70/389) of physicians met the criteria for burnout syndrome. Logistic regression analysis found significant associations between burnout and perceived lack of support at work among physicians (odds ratio (95%CI) 2.66 (1.40–5.24), p = 0.004); being a trainee in the 1st and 2nd year of training (2.91 (1.14–7.41), p = 0.024); being a trainee with > 5 years of experience (2.78 (1.08–6.98), p = 0.031); and male gender among nurses (4.13 (1.62–11.2), p = 0.004) and physicians (2.32 (1.22–4.47), p = 0.011). Work‐related errors due to high workload or fatigue were reported by 65% (444/688) and consideration of leaving the profession due to working conditions was expressed by 46% (319/688) of respondents. Anaesthetic care providers in German‐speaking Switzerland experience a considerable prevalence of burnout, influenced mainly by workplace factors.
Effect of Snow Cover on the Active‐Layer Thermal Regime – A Case Study from James Ross Island, Antarctic Peninsula

The response of active‐layer thickness and the ground thermal regime to climatic conditions on the Ulu Peninsula (James Ross Island, northeastern Antarctic Peninsula) in 2011–13 is presented. The mean air temperature over this period was –8.0°C and ground temperature at 5 cm depth varied from –6.4°C (2011–12) to –6.7°C (2012–13). The active‐layer thickness ranged between 58 cm (January 2012) and 52 cm (February 2013). Correlation analyses indicate that air temperature affects ground temperature more significantly on snow‐free days (R2 = 0.82) than on snow cover days (R2 = 0.53). Although the effect of snow cover on the daily amplitude of ground temperature was observable to 20 cm depth, the overall influence of snow depth on ground temperature was negligible (freezing n‐factor of 0.95–0.97). Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Gut microbiome dysbiosis in men who have sex with men increases HIV infection risk through immunity homeostasis alteration

Objectives Recent studies pointed out that gut microbiome dysbiosis in HIV infection was possibly confounded in men who have sex with men (MSM), but there is a lack of evidence. It also remained unclear how MSM-associated gut microbiome dysbiosis affected human health. This study aimed to compare the differences in gut microbiome changes between HIV and MSM and reveal the potential impacts of MSM-associated gut microbiome dysbiosis on the immune system. Methods We searched available studies based on the PubMed database, and all gut microbiome changes associated with HIV infection and MSM were extracted from the enrolled studies. The gutMgene database was used to identify the target genes and metabolites of the gut microbiome. Bioinformatic technology and single-cell RNA sequencing data analysis were utilized to explore the impacts of these gut microbiome changes on human immunity. Results The results showed significant overlaps between the gut microbiome associated with HIV and that of MSM. Moreover, bioinformatic analysis revealed that gut microbiome dysbiosis in MSM had an impact on several pathways related to immunity, including the IL-17 signaling pathway and Th17 cell differentiation. Additionally, target genes of MSM-associated gut microbiome were found to be highly expressed in monocytes and lymphocytes, suggesting their potential regulatory role in immune cells. Furthermore, we found that MSM-associated gut microbiome could produce acetate and butyrate which were reported to increase the level of inflammatory factors. Conclusion In conclusion, this study highlighted that MSM-associated gut microbiome dysbiosis might increase the risk of HIV acquisition by activating the immune system. Further studies are expected to elucidate the mechanism by which gut microbiome dysbiosis in MSM modulates HIV susceptibility.
On the adversarial robustness of full integer quantized TinyML models at the edge

The recent surge in deploying machine learning (ML) models at the edge has revolutionized various industries by enabling real-time decision-making on resource-constrained devices, such as TinyML models on microcontrollers. However, this trend brings forth a critical concern - the vulnerability of these models to adversarial examples. ML at the edge offers tremendous potential but demands heightened vigilance in the realm of cybersecurity. Our research has shown that any adversarial robustness attained in standard TensorFlow models through adversarial training can be completely nullified during post-training full integer quantization to address resource constraints of edge devices. This finding raises crucial questions about the adversarial robustness of TinyML models on microcontrollers limited to integer-only operations. As edge computing continues to proliferate, addressing these vulnerabilities and developing lightweight defenses tailored to resource-constrained environments becomes imperative for ensuring the security and trustworthiness of edge-deployed ML models.
Migration selectivity from rural areas: evidences from Kerala.

The author investigates migrant selectivity from rural areas of Kerala India to the Middle East. "The paper argues that the emigrants are more likely to be from the lower and middle class rather than the poorest or the very affluent section of the society.The paper further argues that kinship connections and previous migration experiences of the families have a decisive role in migration selectivity. " (EXCERPT)