Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Computers in Biology and Medicine

Corona virus disease (COVID-19) has been emerged as pandemic infectious disease. The recent epidemiological data suggest that the smokers are more vulnerable to infection with COVID-19; however, the influence of smoking (SMK) on the COVID-19 infected patients and the mortality is not known yet. In this study, we aimed to discern the influence of SMK on COVID-19 infected patients utilizing the transcriptomics data of COVID-19 infected lung epithelial cells and transcriptomics data smoking matched with controls from lung epithelial cells. The bioinformatics based analysis revealed the molecular insights into the level of transcriptional changes and pathways which are important to identify the impact of smoking on COVID-19 infection and prevalence. We compared differentially expressed genes (DEGs) between COVID-19 and SMK and 59 DEGs were identified as consistently dysregulated at transcriptomics levels. The correlation network analyses were constructed for these common genes using WGCNA R package to see the relationship among these genes. Integration of DEGs with network analysis (protein–protein interaction) showed the presence of 9 hub proteins as key so called "candidate hub proteins" overlapped between COVID-19 patients and SMK. The Gene Ontology and pathways analysis demonstrated the enrichment of inflammatory pathway such as IL-17 signaling pathway, Interleukin-6 signaling, TNF signaling pathway and MAPK1/MAPK3 signaling pathways that might be the therapeutic targets in COVID-19 for smoking persons. The identified genes, pathways, hubs genes, and their regulators might be considered for establishment of key genes and drug targets for SMK and COVID-19.
Minimax nonparametric classification - Part I: Rates of convergence

This paper studies minimax aspects of nonparametric classification. We first study minimax estimation of the conditional probability of a class label, given the feature variable. This function, say f, is assumed to be in a general nonparametric class. We show the minimax rate of convergence under square L/sub 2/ loss is determined by the massiveness of the class as measured by metric entropy. The second part of the paper studies minimax classification. The loss of interest is the difference between the probability of misclassification of a classifier and that of the Bayes decision. As is well known, an upper bound on risk for estimating f gives an upper bound on the risk for classification, but the rate is known to be suboptimal for the class of monotone functions. This suggests that one does not have to estimate f well in order to classify well. However, we show that the two problems are in fact of the same difficulty in terms of rates of convergence under a sufficient condition, which is satisfied by many function classes including Besov (Sobolev), Lipschitz, and bounded variation. This is somewhat surprising in view of a result of Devroye, Gorfi, and Lugosi (see A Probabilistic Theory of Pattern Recognition, New York: Springer-Verlag, 1996).
Middle to Late Pleistocene stability of the central East Antarctic Ice Sheet at the head of Law Glacier

Past behavior of outlet glaciers draining the East Antarctic Ice Sheet (EAIS) remains unresolved prior to Marine Isotope Stage 2 (MIS2). Study of blue ice moraines provides a relatively untapped approach to understand former EAIS activity. We focus on a blue ice moraine near Mount Achernar in the central Transantarctic Mountains, at the edge of the polar plateau. The well-preserved moraine consists of quasi-continuous or hummocky sediment ridges that form on top of upward-lowing, sublimating ice along the margin of Law Glacier. Be, Al, and He cosmogenic nuclide ages on boulders from the ridges are coherent and in general are progressively older with distance from the relatively clean ice of the Law Glacier margin. Moraines closest to the Law Glacier margin postdate MIS2; farther away, they date to the last glacial cycle, and with more distance they are hundreds of thousands of years old. We conclude that cosmogenic dating of some blue ice moraines can provide age limits for changes at the heads of outlet glaciers that drain the central East Antarctic Ice Sheet, including prior to MIS2. Furthermore, the geomorphological, cosmogenic nuclide, and sedimentological evidence imply that the East Antarctic polar plateau adjacent to the central Transantarctic Mountains has been relatively stable for at least 200 k.y.
A sauropod-dominated tracksite from Rubha nam Brathairean (Brothers’ Point), Isle of Skye, Scotland

Middle Jurassic dinosaur fossils are exceedingly rare, but new discoveries from the Isle of Skye, Scotland, are beginning to fill this gap. We here describe a new dinosaur tracksite found in the Lealt Shale Formation (Bathonian) of the Great Estuarine Group at Rubha nam Brathairean (Brothers' Point) on Skye. The site preserves an abundance of small sauropod manus and pes prints and several isolated and broken medium-to-large tridactyl footprints. The main site occurs on a single horizon of shaley limestone that formed in a lagoonal environment. The sauropod tracks are tentatively assigned to the ichnotaxon Breviparopus due to the narrow gauge of the trackways, the digital characteristics of the pes, and the ratio of heteropody observed between the manus and the pes. A theropod trackmaker is inferred for some of the tridactyl impressions with several indicative of the ichnotaxon Eubrontes. This new site strengthens the inference, originally based on a previously discovered locality near Duntulm Castle (Duntulm Formation) in northern Skye, that sauropods habitually spent time in lagoons during the Middle Jurassic. Supplementary material: The photogrammetric model of track BP2_40 and associated metadata and photographs are available at https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare. c.4046390
A Real-TimeWavelet-Domain Video Denoising Implementation in FPGA

The use of field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs) for digital signal processing (DSP) has increased with the introduction of dedicated multipliers, which allow the implementation of complex algorithms. This architecture is especially effective for dataintensive applications with extremes in data throughput. Recent studies prove that the FPGAs offer better solutions for real-time multiresolution video processing than any available processor, DSP or general-purpose. FPGA design of critically sampled discrete wavelet transforms has been thoroughly studied in literature over recent years. Much less research was done towards FPGA design of overcomplete wavelet transforms and advanced wavelet-domain video processing algorithms. This paper describes the parallel implementation of an advanced wavelet-domain noise filtering algorithm, which uses a nondecimated wavelet transform and spatially adaptive Bayesian wavelet shrinkage. The implemented arithmetic is decentralized and distributed over two FPGAs. The standard composite television video stream is digitalized and used as a source for real-time video sequences. The results demonstrate the effectiveness of the developed scheme for real-time video processing.
An Areal Assessment of Subseafloor Carbon Cycling in Cold Seeps and Hydrate-Bearing Areas in the Northern South China Sea

Gas hydrates, acting as a dynamic methane reservoir, store methane in the form of a solid phase under high-pressure and low-temperature conditions and release methane through the sediment column into seawater when they are decomposed. The seepage of methane-rich fluid (i.e., cold hydrocarbon seeps) fuels the chemosynthetic biota-inhabited surface sediments and represents the major pathway to transfer carbon from sediments to the water column. Generally, the major biogeochemical reactions related to carbon cycling in the anoxic marine sediments include organic matter degradation via sulfate reduction (OSR), anaerobic oxidation of methane (AOM), methanogenesis (ME), and carbonate precipitation (CP). In order to better understand the carbon turnover in the cold seeps and gas hydrate-bearing areas of the northern South China Sea (SCS), we collected geochemical data of 358 cores from published literatures and retrieved 37 cores and corresponding pore water samples from three areas of interest (i.e., Xisha, Dongsha, and Shenhu areas). Reaction-transport simulations indicate that the rates of organic matter degradation and carbonate precipitation are comparable in the three areas, while the rates of AOM vary over several orders of magnitude (AOM: 8.3-37.5 mmol·m-2·yr-1 in Dongsha, AOM: 12.4-170.6 mmol·m-2·yr-1 in Xisha, and AOM: 9.4-30.5 mmol·m-2·yr-1 in Shenhu). Both the arithmetical mean and interpolation mean of the biogeochemical processes were calculated in each area. Averaging these two mean values suggested that the rates of organic matter degradation in Dongsha (25.7 mmol·m-2·yr-1) and Xisha (25.1 mmol·m-2·yr-1) are higher than that in Shenhu (12 mmol·m-2·yr-1) and the AOM rate in Xisha (135.2 mmol·m-2·yr-1) is greater than those in Dongsha (27.8 mmol·m-2·yr-1) and Shenhu (17.5 mmol·m-2·yr-1). In addition, the rate of carbonate precipitation (32.3 mmol·m-2·yr-1) in Xisha is far higher than those of the other two regions (5.3 mmol·m-2·yr-1 in Dongsha, 5.8 mmol·m-2·yr-1 in Shenhu) due to intense AOM sustained by gas dissolution. In comparison with other cold seeps around the world, the biogeochemical rates in the northern SCS are generally lower than those in active continental margins and special environments (e.g., the Black sea) but are comparable with those in passive continental margins. Collectively, ~2.8 Gmol organic matter was buried and at least ~0.82 Gmol dissolved organic and inorganic carbon was diffused out of sediments annually. This may, to some extent, have an impact on the long-term deep ocean carbon cycle in the northern SCS.
Rigorous Learning Curve Bounds from Statistical

In this paper we introduce and investigate a mathematically rigorous theory of learning curves that is based on ideas from statistical mechanics. The advantage of our theory over the well-established Vapnik-Chervonenkis theory is that our bounds can be considerably tighter in many cases, and are also more reeective of the true behavior (functional form) of learning curves. This behavior can often exhibit dramatic properties such as phase transitions, as well as power law asymptotics not explained by the VC theory. The disadvantages of our theory are that its application requires knowledge of the input distribution, and it is limited so far to nite cardinality function classes. We illustrate our results with many concrete examples of learning curve bounds derived from our theory.
Forcipomyia (Synthyridomyia) murina (Winnertz, 1852) in South America. Synonymy and redescription (Diptera: Ceratopogonidae)

Se redescriben ambos sexos de la hasta ahora especie Holártica, Afrotropical y Oriental, Forcipomyia (Synthyridomyia) murina (Winnertz, 1852), y la especie se registra por primera vez en Argentina (provincias de Salta, La Rioja, Santiago del Estero, Córdoba, Corrientes, Buenos Aires y Río Negro). Forcipomyia (S.) calchaqui Spinelli & Marino, 1997 y Forcipomyia (S.) soibelzoni Marino & Spinelli, 2001 se reconocen como sinónimos menores. Se presenta una clave para la identificación de las cuatro especies del subgénero que habitan la región Neotropical, y se compara a F. murina con las especies más similares del Viejo Mundo.
Intelligent Cruise Control Systems and Tra c Flow Stability

In analogy to the ow of uids, it is expected that the aggregate density and the velocity of vehicles in a section of a freeway adequately describe the tra c ow dynamics. The conservation of mass equation together with the aggregation of the vehicle following dynamics of controlled vehicles describes the evolution of the tra c density and the aggregate speed of a tra c ow. There are two kinds of stability associated with tra c ow problems string stability (or car-following stability) and tra c ow stability. We make a clear distinction between tra c ow stability and string stability, and such a distinction has not been recognized in the literature, thus far. String stability is stability with respect to intervehicular spacing; intuitively, it ensures the knowledge of the position and velocity of every vehicle in the tra c, within reasonable bounds of error, from the knowledge of the position and velocity of a vehicle in the tra c. String stability is analyzed without adding vehicles to or removing vehicles from the tra c. On the other hand, tra c ow stability deals with the evolution of tra c velocity and density in response to the addition and/or removal of vehicles from the ow. Tra c ow stability can be guaranteed only if the velocity and density solutions of the coupled set of equations is stable, i.e., only if stability with respect to automatic vehicle following and stability with respect to density evolution is guaranteed. Therefore, the ow stability and critical capacity of any section of a highway is dependent not only on the vehicle following control laws and the information used in their synthesis, but also on the spacing policy employed by the control system. Such a dependence has practical consequences in the choice of a spacing policy for adaptive cruise control laws and on the stability of the tra c ow consisting of vehicles equipped with adaptive cruise control features on the existing and future highways. This critical dependence is the subject of investigation in this paper. This problem is analyzed in two steps: The rst step is to understand the e ect of spacing policy employed by the Intelligent Cruise Control (ICC) systems on tra c ow stability. The second step is to understand how the dynamics of ICC system a ects tra c ow stability. Using such an analysis, it is shown that cruise control systems that employ a constant time headway policy lead to unacceptable characteristics for the tra c ows.
Bilan de l'ozone troposphérique en Afrique : Apport du programme AMMA-Chimie

La these s'est inscrite dans le cadre du programme international AMMA (Analyses Multidisciplinaires de la Mousson Africaine) qui vise a mieux renseigner, comprendre et prevoir la mousson de l'Afrique de l'Ouest et ses variabilites. La distribution de l'ozone dans un plan altitude-latitude a ete simulee a l'aide d'un modele meso-echelle bidimensionnel afin d'evaluer les processus participant a la formation des gradients meridiens d'ozone tels qu'ils sont observes en haute et basse troposphere grâce aux mesures aeroportees des programmes MOZAIC et AMMA. Une seconde partie est consacree a l'analyse des donnees de radiosondages ozone effectues a Cotonou, Benin. Les variations saisonnieres et interannuelles de la distribution verticale de l'ozone en Afrique de l'Ouest sont soulignees. Le transport inter-hemispherique des emissions des feux de biomasse pendant l'ete boreal est demontre avec l'aide de modeles numeriques (chimie-transport et dispersion lagrangienne de traceur passif).
MINIMIZATION OF L1 OVER L2 FOR SPARSE SIGNAL RECOVERY WITH CONVERGENCE GUARANTEE∗

The ratio of the L1 and L2 norms, denoted by L1/L2, becomes attractive due to its scale-invariant property when approximating the L0 norm to promote sparsity. In this paper, we incorporate the L1/L2 formalism into an unconstrained model in order to deal with both noiseless and noisy observations. To design an efficient algorithm, we derive an analytical solution for the proximal operator of the L1/L2 functional. Since the analytical solution depends on the sparsity of an unknown signal, we develop a bisection search method to find the desired sparsity and the corresponding solution to the proximal operator of L1/L2. With the new-developed solver of the proximal operator, we propose a specific variable-splitting scheme for the alternating direction method of multipliers method (ADMM) so that we can establish its subsequential and global convergence under mild assumptions. Experimentally, we conduct extensive numerical simulations to demonstrate the efficiency of the proposed approach over the state-of-the-art methods in sparse signal recovery with and without noise.
Field‐Aligned Currents Originating From the Magnetic Reconnection Region: Conjugate MMS‐ARTEMIS Observations

Near‐Earth magnetic reconnection reconfigures the magnetotail and produces strong plasma flows that transport plasma sheet particles and electromagnetic energy to the inner magnetosphere. An essential element of such a reconfiguration is strong, transient field‐aligned currents. These currents, believed to be generated within the plasma sheet and closed at the ionosphere, are responsible for magnetosphere‐ionosphere coupling during substorms. We use conjugate measurements from Magnetospheric Multiscale (MMS) at the plasma sheet boundary (around x ∼− 10RE) and Acceleration, Reconnection, Turbulence and Electrodynamics of the Moon's Interaction with the Sun (ARTEMIS) at the equator (around x ∼− 60RE) to explore the potential generation region of these currents. We find a clear correlation between the field‐aligned current intensity measured by MMS and the tailward plasma sheet flows measured by ARTEMIS. To better understand the origin of this correlation, we compare spacecraft observations with results from 3‐D particle‐in‐cell simulations of magnetotail reconnection. The comparison reveals that field‐aligned currents and plasma flows start, wax, and wane due to the development of a reconnection region between MMS (near‐Earth) and ARTEMIS (at lunar distance). A weak correlation between the field‐aligned current intensity at MMS and earthward flow magnitudes at ARTEMIS suggests that distant magnetotail reconnection does not significantly contribute to the generation of the observed near‐Earth currents. Our findings support the idea that the dominant role of the near‐Earth magnetotail reconnection in the field‐aligned current generation is likely responsible for their transient nature, whereas more steady distant tail reconnection would support long‐term field‐aligned current system.
Making Sense of MOOCs : Musings in a Maze of Myth , Paradox and Possibility Author :

MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses) are the educational buzzword of 2012. Media frenzy surrounds them and commercial interests have moved in. Sober analysis is overwhelmed by apocalyptic predictions that ignore the history of earlier educational technology fads. The paper describes the short history of MOOCs and sets them in the wider context of the evolution of educational technology and open/distance learning. While the hype about MOOCs presaging a revolution in higher education has focussed on their scale, the real revolution is that universities with scarcity at the heart of their business models are embracing openness. We explore the paradoxes that permeate the MOOCs movement and explode some myths enlisted in its support. The competition inherent in the gadarene rush to offer MOOCs will create a sea change by obliging participating institutions to revisit their missions and focus on teaching quality and students as never before. It could also create a welcome deflationary trend in the costs of higher education. Explanatory Note During my time as a Fellow at the Korea National Open University (KNOU) in September 2012 media and web coverage of Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) was intense. Since one of the requirements of the fellowship was a research paper, exploring the phenomenon of MOOCs seemed an appropriate topic. This essay had to be submitted to KNOU on 25 September 2012 but the MOOCs story is still evolving rapidly. I shall continue to follow it. 'What is new is not true, and what is true is not new'. Hans Eysenck on Freudianism This paper is published by JIME following its first release as a paper produced as part of a fellowship at the Korea National Open University (KNOU). Both the original and this republication are available non-exclusively under Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY). Apart from this note and minor editorial adjustments the paper is unchanged.
Removal of Inclusions from Liquid Aluminium using Electromagnetically Modified Filtration

In the present study classical induction design tools are applied to the problem of heating nonmagnetic metal billets, using 50 Hz AC. As an example of great practical industrial interest, the induction heating of aluminum billets is addressed specifically. The predicted work piece power is compared with the measured work piece power for a long and a short coil, using well established methods, such as those of Burch and Davis, introduced in 1926/28, Dwight and Bagai in 1935, Baker in 1944/57, Vaughan and Williamson in 1945, and by Tudbury in 1960. A calculation methodology based on a combination of the available tools is also introduced and discussed. The method has proven to give an error of <10% of the actual work piece power. An equation for Tudbury's work piece shortness correction factor is disclosed for the first time.
AIS Electronic

This research aims to investigate the effects of website elements, visual appeal and ease of use, as central factors in website trust formation and subsequent behaviors. Drawing on existing theories and empirical findings in psychology, information systems, and human-computer interaction literature, a research model is developed and proposed to explain the relationships among website visual appeal and its ease of use with trust, perceived usefulness, and intention to purchase. To gather data, an online experiment was conducted to test the proposed model and hypotheses. The findings of the study reveal that even though both website visual appeal and ease of use are significant determinants for website trust, visual appeal produces a much stronger impact.
Perception of gamification strategies in Italian secondary school

Gamification is projected as a challenge for innovation in educational contexts. In recent years, ga-mified didactic proposals have been developed to support the acquisition of the curricular contents of the subjects. This research aims to make a diagnosis of the level of application of gamification as a didactic strategy in the area of mathematics, based on the perception of teachers and students of se-condary schools in Italy. A multi-case study is chosen, which combines quantitative and qualitative techniques, with an exploratory-correlational scope. The data was collected through the questionnai-re, completed by 4,845 students, and in-depth interviews with 12 teachers. It was found that the stu-dents hardly perceived the use of games, analogue or digital, by the teaching staff. The teachers indi-cate that they have knowledge of games to facilitate the learning of mathematical concepts. Students do not perceive that gamification didactic strategies are applied consciously. The teaching team claims to use incentives, prizes, and rewards. At the same time, they claim to have little knowledge about gamification and its possibilities. Gamification is attractive as a didactic approach to teaching mathematics. In this sense, the need to offer solid training that establishes the foundations of the ga-me, gamification and the opportunities it offers for the design of learning experiences and game sce-narios is highlighted.
I: Interactive Real-Time Visualization for Streaming Data

Developing scalable real-time data analysis programs is a challenging task. Developers need insights from the data to define meaningful analysis flows, which often makes the development a trial and error process. Data visualization techniques can provide insights to aid the development, but the sheer amount of available data frequently makes it impossible to visualize all data points at the same time. We present I, an interactive development environment that coordinates running cluster applications and corresponding visualizations such that only the currently depicted data points are processed and transferred. To this end, we present an algorithm for the real-time visualization of time series, which is proven to be correct and minimal in terms of transferred data. Moreover, we show how cluster programs can adapt to changed visualization properties at runtime to allow interactive data exploration on data streams.