Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Geo-referencing bird-window collisions for targeted mitigation

Bird collisions with windows are an important conservation concern. Efficient mitigation efforts should prioritize retrofitting sections of glass exhibiting the highest mortality of birds. Most collision studies, however, record location meta-data at a spatial scale too coarse (i.e., compass direction of facing façade) to be useful for large buildings with complex geometries. Through spatial analysis of three seasons of survey data at a large building at a university campus, we found that GPS data were able to identify collision hotspots while compass directions could not. To demonstrate the broad applicability and utility of this georeferencing approach, we identified collision hotspots at two additional urban areas in North America. The data for this latter exercise were collected via the citizen science database, iNaturalist, which we review for its potential to generate the georeferenced data necessary for directing building retrofits and mitigating a major source of anthropogenic bird mortality.
OCCUPATIONAL RADIATION PROFILE OF OIL AND GAS FACILITIES DURING PRODUCTION AND OFF- PRODUCTION PERIODS IN UGHELLI, NIGERIA UDC 551.463:665.62

The occupational ionization radiation profile of 30 locations of oil and gas facilities in Ughelli oil and gas industrial area, Nigeria, is investigated during both production and off-production periods using a Digilert Nuclear Radiation Monitor and a Geographical Positioning System (GPS). Mean radiation levels during production periods range from 15.50± 1. 65μR/h (0.026±0.003mSv/wk) to 19.14±3. 16μR/h (0.32±0.005mS/wk) and from 13.38±1. 69μR/h (0.023±0.003mSv/wk) to 16.29±2. 60μR/h (0.027±0.004mSv/wk) during the off-production periods. The highest level of 26.00±0.5. 1μR/h (0.044±0.009mSv/wk) was recorded at the Kokori oil field during production. It is therefore observed that the radiation levels of this oil and work environments are higher during production periods than during off-production periods. Furthermore, the values for both periods are all within the safe radiation limit of 0.02mSv/wk as recommended by the UNSCEAR, but the exposure rates are far above the standard background level of 13. 0μR/hr indicating a measure of radiation health hazard in these locations.
Comparison of programmable linear resistors based on quasi-floating gate MOSFETs

Programmable linear resistors are usually implemented using MOS transistors biased in the triode region. Recently a technique, based on quasi-floating-gate transistors, has been introduced to linearize the V-I characteristic of a MOS transistor operating in the ohmic region. In this paper an improved programmable linear resistor also based on quasi-floating gate techniques is presented, which provides a larger conductance than the conventional fixed gate- voltage implementation and features better performance in terms of linearity.
When IRBs disagree: waiving parental consent for sexual health research on adolescents.

Adolescents have unique health risks, and adolescent health is an important area of research, but one that raises notoriously difficult questions about informed consent. Adolescents' developing ability to understand the goals and risks of research motivate the requirement that adolescent participants assent to taking part in studies. Concurrent parental consent is normally required as a proxy for fully informed consent because of the wide variation in adolescent development. On the other hand, adolescents are developing as autonomous individuals with needs for privacy and confidentiality. Recognizing these needs as paramount in special cases, federal regulations 45 CFR 46.116(d) and 45 CFR 46.408(c) permit the waiver of the requirement of parental consent, thereby elevating the adolescent's assent to de facto consent on his or her own behalf. The emergence of sexual maturity, with its associated emotional, psychological, and social developments, deepens the concerns about privacy, autonomy, and parental authority. Research on adolescent sexuality and sexual health is thus fraught with moral ambiguities.
Observation and Interview-based Diurnal Sleepiness Inventory for measurement of sleepiness in older adults

Introduction There is no established reference standard for subjective measures of sleepiness in older adults. Methods This study compares the Observation and Interview-based Diurnal Sleepiness Inventory (ODSI) with two existing instruments for measurement of sleepiness and daily functioning, the Epworth Sleepiness Scale (ESS) and Functional Outcomes of Sleep Questionnaire (FOSQ). Results A total of 125 study participants were included in this study and were administered the ODSI, ESS and FOSQ; subjects had a mean age of 70.9 ± 5.27 years, mean Apnea–Hypopnea Index of 31.9 ± 27.9 events/hour and normal cognitive functioning (Mini-Mental State Examination score > 24). The ODSI showed a significant association with the ESS (Spearman’s ρ: 0.67, P < 0.001) and with the FOSQ (Spearman’s ρ: −0.52, P < 0.001). The ODSI 1 item (assessing sleepiness in active situations) was borderline significantly correlated with the ESS (β = 0.14; 95% confidence interval [CI], −0.01 to 0.29; P = 0.069). ODSI 2 item (sleepiness in passive situations) was correlated with the ESS (β = 1.65; 95% CI, 1.32 to 1.98; P < 0.001). Both ODSI 1 (β = −0.15; 95% CI, −0.24 to −0.07; P < 0.001) and ODSI 2 (β = −0.35; 95% CI, −0.55 to 0.16; P < 0.001) were significantly correlated with the FOSQ. Conclusion The ODSI is a suitable measure of sleepiness and is appropriate for usage in clinical care in older adults.
[Accelerated tooth movement by alveolar corticotomy or piezocision].

The relatively recent introduction of corticotomies and piezocision has made it possible for orthodontists to accelerate tooth movement and thereby to shorten the length of orthodontic treatment. Specialists emphasizing a mechanistic concept have been debating the underlying basic biological mechanics of these new therapeutic tools with opposing specialists who support a biological conception. Our analysis of different publications on the subject suggests that the biological explanation, with its emphasis on the Regional Acceleratory Phenomenon (RAP), is correct. However, the majority of studies in this field are not based on the principle of evidence based medicine (EBM).
Self‐Powered Nanosensors and Nanosystems

Sensor networks are a key technological and economic driver for global industries in the near future, with applications in health care, environmental monitoring, infrastructure monitoring, national security, and more. Developing technologies for self‐powered nanosensors is vitally important. This paper gives a brief summary about recent progress in the area, describing nanogenerators that are capable of providing sustainable self‐sufficient micro/nanopower sources for future sensor networks.
Automatic transcription of Somali language

Most African countries follow an oral tradition system to transmit their cultural, scientiﬁc and historic heritage through generations. This ancestral knowledge accumulated during centuries is today threatened of disappearing. Automatic transcription and indexing tools seem potential solution to preserve it. This paper presents the ﬁrst steps of automatic speech recognition (ASR) of Djibouti languages in order to index the Djibouti cultural heritage. This work is dedicated to process Somali language, which represents half of the targeted Djiboutian audio archives. We describe the principal characteristics of audio (10 hours) and textual (3M words) training corpora collected and the ﬁrst ASR results of this language. Using the speciﬁcities of the Somali language, (words are composed of a concatenation of sub-words called “roots” in this paper), we improve the obtained results. We also discuss future ways of research like roots indexing of audio archives.
Multiresidue determination and uncertainty analysis of pesticides in soil by ultrafast liquid chromatography coupled to mass spectrometry

Este trabalho apresenta os resultados da validacao de um metodo simples, rapido e de baixo custo de preparacao de amostras para a determinacao de residuos de pesticidas em solo por cromatografia liquida ultrarrapida acoplada a espectrometria de massas com ionizacao por electrospray. O metodo se baseia na extracao com acetonitrila assistida por ultrassom, centrifugacao e evaporacao, sem etapa de purificacao adicional. As recuperacoes foram avaliadas a partir de dois tipos de solo, apresentando resultados na faixa de 70-110%, com desvio padrao relativo menor que 20%. Os coeficientes de correlacao para as curvas analiticas de calibracao foram maiores do que 0,99. Os residuos de pesticidas foram detectados em solos no intervalo de 1-62 ng g -1 , dependendo do composto. A incerteza do metodo foi estimada a partir de diferentes experimentos de adicao e recuperacao e materiais certificados. O processo de extracao foi identificado como a principal fonte de incerteza e as incertezas expandidas para cada pesticida, utilizando-se um fator de cobertura de 2, situaram-se entre 8,4 e 33%. O metodo proposto foi aplicado para a determinacao de pesticidas em amostras reais. This work presents the validation results of a simple, fast and low-cost sample preparation method for the determination of pesticide residues in soil by ultrafast liquid chromatography coupled to electrospray ionization mass spectrometry. The method uses acetonitrile ultrasound-assisted extraction, centrifugation and evaporation step, without further cleanup. Recovery studies were performed for two soil blanks, presenting results in the range of 70-110% with relative standard deviation lower than 20%. The correlation coefficients for analytical calibration curves were higher than 0.99. Pesticide residues were detected in soils in the range of 1-62 ng g -1 , depending on the compound. The uncertainty of the method was estimated from different addition-recovery experiments and calculations from certificates. The extraction process was identified as the main source of uncertainty, and the expanded uncertainties for each pesticide, using a coverage factor of two, were between 8.4 and 33%. The proposed method was applied to the determination of pesticides in real samples.
Design of miniaturized wireless power receivers for mm-sized implants

Advances in free-floating miniature medical implants promise to offer greater effectiveness, safety, endurance, and robustness than today's prevailing medical implants. Wireless power transfer (WPT) is key to miniaturized implants by eliminating the need for bulky batteries. This paper reviews design strategies for WPT with mm-sized implants focusing on resonant electromagnetic and ultrasonic transmission. While ultrasonic WPT offers shorter wavelengths for sub-mm implants, electromagnetic WPT above 100 MHz offers superior power transfer and conversion efficiency owing to better impedance matching through inhomogeneous tissue. Electromagnetic WPT also allows for fully integrating the entire wireless power receiver system with an on-chip coil. Attaining high power transfer efficiency requires careful design of the integrated coil geometry for high quality factor as well as loop-free power and signal distribution routing to avoid eddy currents. Regulating rectifiers have improved power and voltage conversion efficiency by combining the two RF to DC conversion steps into a single process. Example designs of regulating rectifiers for fully integrated wireless power receivers are presented.
biRte: Bayesian inference of context-specific regulator activities and transcriptional networks

UNLABELLED In the last years there has been an increasing effort to computationally model and predict the influence of regulators (transcription factors, miRNAs) on gene expression. Here we introduce biRte as a computationally attractive approach combining Bayesian inference of regulator activities with network reverse engineering. biRte integrates target gene predictions with different omics data entities (e.g. miRNA and mRNA data) into a joint probabilistic framework. The utility of our method is tested in extensive simulation studies and demonstrated with applications from prostate cancer and Escherichia coli growth control. The resulting regulatory networks generally show a good agreement with the biological literature. AVAILABILITY AND IMPLEMENTATION biRte is available on Bioconductor (http://bioconductor.org). CONTACT frohlich@bit.uni-bonn.de SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online.
A temporal error concealment method for H.264/AVC using motion vector recovery

Recently H.264/AVC is rapidly deployed in the mobile multimedia market, such as terrestrial and satellite DMB (digital multimedia broadcasting), and Internet multimedia streaming systems. To provide the better quality under the unreliable communication environments, we propose a motion vector (MV) recovery method for the temporal error concealment. The H.264/AVC adopts the various block sizes for the motion estimation and compensation, ranging from 16times16 to 4times4 block sizes. To increase the accuracy in the temporal error concealment, the 4times4 block size is used as the MV recovery unit. Flexible MB ordering (FMO) option, by which the neighboring MBs can be transmitted in the different packets, is used. The MVs of the lost MBs are recovered based on the MV tendency which is derived from the neighboring MVs. The simulation results show that the proposed method improves video quality up to 2.95dB and 2.45dB, compared with the H.264/AVC test model and Lagrange interpolation method, respectively.
Possible involvement of pertussis toxin‐sensitive G protein in hepatocyte growth factor‐induced signal transduction in cultured rat hepatocytes: Pertussis toxin treatment inhibits activation of phospholipid signaling, calcium oscillation, and mitogen‐activated protein kinase

Treatment of primary cultured rat hepatocytes with hepatocyte growth factor (HGF) gives rise to inositol phosphate formation, cytosolic calcium oscillation, activation of mitogen‐activated protein (MAP) kinase and phospholipase D (PLD), and arachidonic acid release, leading to DNA synthesis. Pretreatment of cultured hepatocytes with pertussis toxin (PT), which is known to adenosine diphosphate‐ribosylate Gi and Go guanine nucleotide ‐binding proteins and to inhibit their functions, partially inhibited HGF‐induced [3H]thymidine incorporation in a concentration‐dependent manner. These results suggest that HGF‐mediated DNA synthesis of hepatocytes is partly regulated via PT‐sensitive guanine nucleotide‐binding protein. Therefore, the effects of PT treatment on HGF‐induced signal‐transduction pathways were investigated. HGF‐induced MAP kinase activation and arachidonic acid release were decreased by PT treatment, whereas PLD activation was diminished by PT to the level of unstimulated control. PT also interfered with HGF‐induced inositol phosphate formation and cytosolic calcium oscillation. These results suggest that both PT‐sensitive and PT‐insensitive pathways are involved in HGF‐induced signaling.
Grounded Language Learning in a Simulated 3D World

We are increasingly surrounded by artificially intelligent technology that takes decisions and executes actions on our behalf. This creates a pressing need for general means to communicate with, instruct and guide artificial agents, with human language the most compelling means for such communication. To achieve this in a scalable fashion, agents must be able to relate language to the world and to actions; that is, their understanding of language must be grounded and embodied. However, learning grounded language is a notoriously challenging problem in artificial intelligence research. Here we present an agent that learns to interpret language in a simulated 3D environment where it is rewarded for the successful execution of written instructions. Trained via a combination of reinforcement and unsupervised learning, and beginning with minimal prior knowledge, the agent learns to relate linguistic symbols to emergent perceptual representations of its physical surroundings and to pertinent sequences of actions. The agent's comprehension of language extends beyond its prior experience, enabling it to apply familiar language to unfamiliar situations and to interpret entirely novel instructions. Moreover, the speed with which this agent learns new words increases as its semantic knowledge grows. This facility for generalising and bootstrapping semantic knowledge indicates the potential of the present approach for reconciling ambiguous natural language with the complexity of the physical world.
Hello Pepper, May I Tickle You?: Children's and Adults' Responses to an Entertainment Robot at a Shopping Mall

We took a social robot Pepper to a shopping mall for one day to see what kind of initial responses it draws from people. We observed that the robot was quickly surrounded by children when there were others-especially adults-interacting with it. The children seemed to especially enjoy the activity-related applications, such as tickling the robot or giving a high-five. Adults were interested in hearing about useful applications and tended to talk to the robot as if it were any machine capable of speech recognition. These observations will help to design more interactive and entertaining applications for shopping mall robots.
STAT1 mediated long non-coding RNA LINC00504 influences radio-sensitivity of breast cancer via binding to TAF15 and stabilizing CPEB2 expression

ABSTRACT Radiotherapy plays important roles in the treatment of breast cancer (BC), which develops from malignant cells in the breast. Long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) have been reported to be implicated in radio-resistance or radio-sensitivity of human cancer, which includes breast cancer. Nevertheless, long intergenic non-protein coding RNA 0504 (LINC00504) has not been investigated in BC. In our study, from RT-qPCR analysis, LINC00504 was found to be up-regulated in BC cells. By conducting in vitro assays, it was confirmed that the knockdown of LINC00504 could enhance the radio-sensitivity of BC cells. The regulatory mechanism of LINC00504 in BC was also verified by chromatin immunoprecipitation (ChIP), RNA immunoprecipitation (RIP) and luciferase reporter assays. From the experimental results, we knew that the up-regulation of LINC00504 was mediated by signal transducer and activator of transcription 1 (STAT1). Moreover, LINC00504 stabilized the expression of cytoplasmic polyadenylation element-binding protein 2 (CPEB2) via binding to TATA-box binding protein associated factor 15 (TAF15). Furthermore, rescue assays validated that LINC00504 participated in regulating the radio-sensitivity of BC cells via up-regulating CPEB2. In summary, our study disclosed that STAT1 could mediate LINC00504 and weaken the radio-sensitivity of BC cells via binding to TAF15 and stabilizing CPEB2 expression.
Does She Speak RTT? Towards an Earlier Identification of Rett Syndrome Through Intelligent Pre-Linguistic Vocalisation Analysis

For many years, an apparently normal early development has been regarded as a main characteristic of Rett syndrome (RTT), a severe progressive neurodevelopmental disorder almost exclusively affecting girls/females. The speech-language domain represents a key domain for the clinical diagnosis of RTT, which usually happens around three years of age. Recent studies have built upon the assumption that this domain is already affected in the prodromal period. Aiming to ﬁnd RTT-speciﬁc speech-language atypicalities on signal level as early acoustic markers, we analysed more than 16 hours of home video recordings of 4 girls later diagnosed with RTT and 4 typically developing girls aged 6 to 12 months. We segmented a total of 4678 pre-linguistic vocalisations. A comprehensive set of acoustic features was extracted from the vocalisations as basis for the classiﬁcation paradigm RTT versus typical development. A promising mean unweighted recognition accuracy of 76.5% was achieved using linear kernel support vector machines and 4-fold leave-one-speaker-pair-out cross-validation. To the best of our knowledge, this is the ﬁrst approach to automatically identify infants later diagnosed with RTT based on acoustic characteristics of pre-linguistic vocalisations. Our ﬁndings may build the basis for facilitating earlier identiﬁcation and thus an avenue for an earlier entry into intervention.
Aetiological patterns and management outcome of paediatric head trauma: one-year prospective study.

BACKGROUND Trauma is the most common cause ofpaediatric deaths. In 75% ofpaediatric trauma deaths, head injury is responsible, and most are from falls. Recent reports from Nigeria, however, appear to indicate a predominance of road traffic accidents, instead of falls. OBJECTIVE To evaluate the aetiology of paediatric head trauma, management protocols and outcome from our Centre, in order to acquire a baseline data base and recommend measures to reduce childhood trauma. PATIENTS AND METHODS A prospective study of all paediatric head trauma cases presenting to Nnamdi Azikiwe University Teaching Hospital, Nnewi, for 12months from April 21, 2006 to April 20, 2007, was done and collated data subsequently analyzed. The paediatric age group was taken as = 15 years, and grading of head injury was with the Glasgow Coma Scale (3-15) and the modified scale for non-verbal children; while outcome was measured with the Glasgow Outcome Scale (1-5). RESULTS Out of 334 patients treated within the period of study, 210 were head trauma cases. Of these, 52 were paediatric head trauma, representing 24.8% of all head trauma cases; and 19.2% (10 of 52) of them were aged 0-2 years. About 62% (32 of 52) were males. Falls and RTA were each responsible in 25 (48.1%) cases. Mild head injury occurred in 31 (59.6%), and 49 (94.2%) patients were evaluated by plain radiography. Treatment was conservative in 39 (75%) cases; with satisfactory outcome in 36 (69.2%), and a mortality rate of 15.4%. CONCLUSIONS Road traffic injury, mostly from motorcycles, has become the major cause of morbidity and mortality amongst the paediatric age group, especially the male gender, and outcome from management is mostly satisfactory.
Tagger: BeCalm API for rapid named entity recognition

Most BioCreative tasks to date have focused on assessing the quality of text-mining annotations in terms of precision of recall. Interoperability, speed, and stability are, however, other important factors to consider for practical applications of text mining. The new BioCreative/BeCalm TIPS task focuses purely on these. To participate in this task, I implemented a BeCalm API within the real-time tagging server also used by the Reflect and EXTRACT tools. In addition to retrieval of patent abstracts, PubMed abstracts, and Pub-Med Central open-access articles as required in the TIPS task, the BeCalm API implementation facilitates retrieval of documents from other sources specified as custom request parameters. As in earlier tests, the tagger proved to be both highly efficient and stable, being able to consistently process requests of 5000 abstracts in less than half a minute including retrieval of the document text.