Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Psychometric properties of the Meaning in Life Questionnaire – Hausa version among internally displaced persons in Nigeria

Valid measurement of meaning in life (MIL) is crucial for cross-cultural understanding of the construct. The Meaning in Life Questionnaire (MLQ), a widely used measure of MIL, has yet to be translated into any indigenous African language. The current study presents a preliminary report of a Hausa language translation of the MLQ, the MLQ-Hausa version (MLQ-H), and its reliability and validity in a Nigerian sample. Participants were 809 internally displaced persons (IDPs) (50.7% males) in Kabusa IDP Centre in Abuja Municipal Area Council of the Federal Capital Territory of Nigeria. They completed Hausa versions of the MLQ, the Brief Personal Meaning Profile (PMP-B), and scales of the Symptoms Distress Checklist (SCL-90). Results of a confirmatory factor analysis supported the original two-factor model of the MLQ comprising presence of meaning (5 items) and search for meaning (5 items). The two factors had adequate reliability. Responses to the MLQ-H did not differ by sociodemographic factors. Concurrent validity of MLQ-H was suggested by significant correlations between MLQ-H and psychopathology symptom scales. Importantly, we found convergent validity through positive correlations of MLQ-H with the PMP-B. Results indicate that the MLQ-H is a psychometrically sound measure of MIL among Hausa IDPs and may be applied in research on meaning in life among other Hausa-speaking populations.
Characterization of 19 polymorphic SSR markers in Spirodela polyrhiza (Lemnaceae) and cross‐amplification in Lemna perpusilla

Premise of the Study Polymorphic microsatellite primers were developed for greater duckweed, Spirodela polyrhiza (Lemnaceae), to investigate genetic diversity and structure for application in a bioremediation program. Methods and Results A total of 401 publicly available S. polyrhiza whole‐genome shotgun sequences were searched for simple sequence repeat loci of two or more nucleotides. Of these, 60 primer pairs were selected to analyze 68 individuals of S. polyrhiza from three populations. Nineteen polymorphic microsatellite loci were developed. A total of 108 alleles were detected with an average of 5.7 alleles per locus. The levels of expected and observed heterozygosity were 0.0511–0.8669 and 0–0.8750, respectively. Ten loci also successfully amplified in 16 individuals of Lemna perpusilla. Conclusions The results demonstrate the broad utility of these microsatellite loci for studying population genetics in S. polyrhiza.
The Effect of Agomelatine Treatment on Diabetes-Induced Cognitive Impairments in Rats: Concomitant Alterations in the Hippocampal Neuron Numbers

Researches that are related to the central nervous system complications of diabetes have indicated higher incidence of cognitive disorders in patients. Since the variety of nootropic drugs used in clinics is limited and none of them consistently improves the outcomes, new and effective drug alternatives are needed for the treatment of diabetes-induced cognitive disorders. Based on the nootropic potential of agomelatine, the promising efficacy of this drug on cognitive impairments of diabetic rats was investigated in the current study. Experimental diabetes model was induced by streptozotocin. After development of diabetes-related cognitive impairments in rats, agomelatine (40 and 80 mg/kg) was administrated orally for two weeks. Cognitive performance was assessed by Morris water-maze and passive avoidance tests. Then, the total numbers of neurons in both dentate gyrus and Cornu Ammonis (CA) 1–3 subfields of the hippocampus were estimated by the optical fractionator method. Agomelatine treatment induced notable enhancement in the learning and memory performance of diabetic rats. Moreover, it reversed the neuronal loss in the hippocampal subregions of diabetic animals. Obtained results suggest that agomelatine has a significant potential for the treatment of diabetes-induced cognitive impairments. However, therapeutic efficacy of this drug in diabetic patients suffering from cognitive dysfunctions needs to be confirmed by further clinical trials.
A Real-Time Algorithm to Detect Falls in the Elderly

Falls in the elderly are a major health and economic problem. Hence, reliable fall detection is of great importance. Many fall detection systems have been developed but this topic is still under reach. In this work, a smart sensor based on a tri-axial digital accelerometer and a microcontroller Wi-Fi module are used to detect changes in acceleration that occur when a human being is falling. A novel real-time algorithm to distinguish between falls and daily activities is proposed. The prototype can easily connect to the internet of things thus expanding its applications. The experimental results have demonstrated high sensitivity and specificity on human fall detection.
SUBSAMPLING LEAST SQUARES AND ELEMENTAL ESTIMATION

In large-scale regression problems where the dimension of the predictors $p$ and number of observations n are large, subsampling is sometimes used to approximate least squares estimates. One approach to this is algorithmic leveraging, which draws a subsample of size $m$ ≪ $n$ from the observations where high leverage observations (according to the diagonals of the hat matrix) are sampled with higher probability; we can then estimate the regression parameter using either ordinary (unweighted) or weighted least squares using the sampled observations. In this paper, we will consider the properties of estimates based on subsampling by expressing these estimates as weighted averages of elemental estimates. In the case of algorithmic leveraging, this approach provides some theoretical justification to the empirical evidence that unweighted estimation outperforms weighted estimation in high leverage designs.
Development of 15 nuclear microsatellite markers in Deuterocohnia (Pitcairnioideae; Bromeliaceae) using 454 pyrosequencing

Premise of the Study Microsatellite markers were developed in Deuterocohnia longipetala (Bromeliaceae) to investigate species and subspecies boundaries within the genus and the genetic diversity of natural populations. Methods and Results We used 454 pyrosequencing to isolate 835 microsatellite loci in D. longipetala. Of 64 loci selected for primer design, 15 were polymorphic among 23 individuals of D. longipetala and 76 individuals of the heterologous subspecies D. meziana subsp. meziana and D. meziana subsp. carmineo‐viridiflora. Twelve and 13 of these loci were also polymorphic in one population each of D. brevispicata and D. seramisiana, respectively. Numbers of alleles per locus varied from two to 14 in D. longipetala, two to 12 in D. meziana, one to nine in D. brevispicata, and one to 10 in D. seramisiana. STRUCTURE analyses clearly separated the taxa from each other. Conclusions The 15 new microsatellite markers are promising tools for studying population genetics in Deuterocohnia species.
QSYM : A Practical Concolic Execution Engine Tailored for Hybrid Fuzzing

Recently, hybrid fuzzing has been proposed to address the limitations of fuzzing and concolic execution by combining both approaches. The hybrid approach has shown its effectiveness in various synthetic benchmarks such as DARPA Cyber Grand Challenge (CGC) binaries, but it still suffers from scaling to find bugs in complex, realworld software. We observed that the performance bottleneck of the existing concolic executor is the main limiting factor for its adoption beyond a small-scale study. To overcome this problem, we design a fast concolic execution engine, called QSYM, to support hybrid fuzzing. The key idea is to tightly integrate the symbolic emulation with the native execution using dynamic binary translation, making it possible to implement more fine-grained, so faster, instruction-level symbolic emulation. Additionally, QSYM loosens the strict soundness requirements of conventional concolic executors for better performance, yet takes advantage of a faster fuzzer for validation, providing unprecedented opportunities for performance optimizations, e.g., optimistically solving constraints and pruning uninteresting basic blocks. Our evaluation shows that QSYM does not just outperform state-of-the-art fuzzers (i.e., found 14× more bugs than VUzzer in the LAVA-M dataset, and outperformed Driller in 104 binaries out of 126), but also found 13 previously unknown security bugs in eight real-world programs like Dropbox Lepton, ffmpeg, and OpenJPEG, which have already been intensively tested by the state-of-the-art fuzzers, AFL and OSS-Fuzz.
Survey on various lane and driver detection techniques based on image processing for hilly terrain

As vehicular traffic continues to grow traffic management and prevention of accidents has become a major concern. This problem only gets magnified when travel on the mountainous roads are considered. This study is especially focused toward Himalayan mountains as they pose a greater risk because of their rugged natural setting. This study investigates crucial problems faced on the hilly roads and the challenges in translating existing driver-assistance systems to such roads. The survey probes every lane detection algorithms, image processing techniques and various assistance features for applicability to hilly roads discussing the pros and cons for each of them. Conclusions are drawn as to deduce the more suitable methods that can be improvised and re-tuned to adapt them for mountainous roads.
Experimental Validation of an Equivalent LET Approach for Correlating Heavy-Ion and Laser-Induced Charge Deposition

Using a laser-equivalent linear energy transfer (LET) approach, strong correlation is found for collected charge following heavy-ion and pulsed-laser excitation in a bulk diode device. By significantly modifying the size of the charge distribution generated by one- and two-photon absorption compared to the depth of the sensitive region, charge deposition in a large variety of device technologies is mimicked. Nearly one-to-one correlation is found with heavy-ion charge collection, independent of the laser focusing geometry or magnitude of LET. Finally, this approach is applied to the previous studies where empirical laser-ion correlations on highly scaled technologies were proposed. These correlations are reproduced through direct calculation of the laser-equivalent LET, and outstanding observations are explained despite the sensitive areas of these devices being up to 1000 times smaller than the laser-deposited charge profile. In total, these studies suggest that this quantitative methodology for laser-ion correlation is broadly applicable for a range of complex device technologies.
Tongan students'achievement and motivation following a mathematics cognitive acceleration program

This paper presents the implementation and evaluation of a Cognitive Acceleration in Mathematics Education (CAME) program in a sample of Tongan secondary schools in regards to students’ achievements,motivation and self-regulation. The program materials were adapted to the Tongan educational context and participating teachers were supported for eight months. This study employed a mixed-methods and quasi-experimental design with 219 Year 8 students as the experimental group and 119 Year 8 students as the comparison group. There were statistically significant differences in the mean scores between the pre-test and post-test of both achievement and learning engagement instruments with the CAME students, but not with the comparison students who studied the same mathematics content with their regular Tongan program. These results indicate that learning mathematics under the CAME program had a positive effect on levels of students’ mathematics achievement, motivation and self-regulation. Students also reported changes to the ways they learned mathematics.
Oscillatory dynamics of perceptual to conceptual transformations in the ventral visual pathway

Object recognition requires dynamic transformations of low-level visual inputs to complex semantic representations. While this process depends on the ventral visual pathway (VVP), we lack an incremental account from low-level inputs to semantic representations, and the mechanistic details of these dynamics. Here we combine computational models of vision with semantics, and test the output of the incremental model against patterns of neural oscillations recorded with MEG in humans. Representational Similarity Analysis showed visual information was represented in alpha activity throughout the VVP, and semantic information was represented in theta activity. Furthermore, informational connectivity showed visual information travels through feedforward connections, while visual information is transformed into semantic representations through feedforward and feedback activity, centered on the anterior temporal lobe. Our research highlights that the complex transformations between visual and semantic information is driven by feedforward and recurrent dynamics resulting in object-specific semantics.
Background selection and biased gene conversion affect more than 95% of the human genome and bias demographic inferences

Disentangling the effect on genomic diversity of natural selection from that of demography is notoriously difficult, but necessary to properly reconstruct the history of species. Here, we use high-quality human genomic data to show that purifying selection at linked sites (i.e. background selection, BGS) and GC-biased gene conversion (gBGC) together affect as much as 95% of the variants of our genome. We find that the magnitude and relative importance of BGS and gBGC are largely determined by variation in recombination rate and base composition. Importantly, synonymous sites and non-transcribed regions are also affected, albeit to different degrees. Their use for demographic inference can lead to strong biases. However, by conditioning on genomic regions with recombination rates above 1.5 cM/Mb and mutation types (C↔G, A↔T), we identify a set of SNPs that is mostly unaffected by BGS or gBGC, and that avoids these biases in the reconstruction of human history.
Off-Path TCP Exploit: How Wireless Routers Can Jeopardize Your Secrets

In this study, we discover a subtle yet serious timing side channel that exists in all generations of half-duplex IEEE 802.11 or Wi-Fi technology. Previous TCP injection attacks stem from software vulnerabilities which can be easily eliminated via software update, but the side channel we report is rooted in the fundamental design of IEEE 802.11 protocols. This design flaw means it is impossible to eliminate the side channel without substantial changes to the specification. By studying the TCP stacks of modern operating systems and their potential interactions with the side channel, we can construct reliable and practical off-path TCP injection attacks against the latest versions of all three major operating systems (macOS, Windows, and Linux). Our attack only requires a device connected to the Internet via a wireless router, and be reachable from an attack server (e.g., indirectly so by accessing to a malicious website). Among possible attacks scenarios, such as inferring the presence of connections and counting exchanged bytes, we demonstrate a particular threat where an off-path attacker can poison the web cache of an unsuspecting user within minutes (as fast as 30 seconds) under realistic network conditions.
Fossil snakes (Squamata, Serpentes) from the tar pits of Venezuela: taxonomic, palaeoenvironmental, and palaeobiogeographical implications for the North of South America during the Cenozoic/Quaternary boundary

Background Tar seep deposits in South America historically are well-known for their rich record of fossil mammals, contrasting with only a few formal reports of reptile remains. Here we report a new snake fauna recovered from two tar pits from Venezuela. The fossil remains come from two localities: (a) El Breal de Orocual, which comprises an inactive tar seep estimated to be Plio/Pleistocene in age; and (b) Mene de Inciarte, an active surface asphalt deposit with an absolute age dating to the late Pleistocene. Methods The taxonomic identity of all specimens was assessed via consultation of the relevant literature and comparison with extant specimens. The taxonomic assignments are supported by detailed anatomical description. Results The Mene de Inciarte snake fauna comprises vertebral remains identified as the genus Epicrates sp. (Boidae), indeterminate viperids, and several isolated vertebrae attributable to “Colubridae” (Colubroidea, sensu Zaher et al., 2009). Amongst the vertebral assemblage at El Breal de Orocual, one specimen is assigned to the genus Corallus sp. (Boidae), another to cf. Micrurus (Elapidae), and several others to “Colubrids” (Colubroides, sensu Zaher et al., 2009) and the Viperidae family. Conclusions These new records provide valuable insight into the diversity of snakes in the north of South America during the Neogene/Quaternary boundary. The snake fauna of El Breal de Orocual and Mene de Inciarte demonstrates the presence of Boidae, Viperidae, “colubrids”, and the oldest South American record of Elapidae. The presence of Corallus, Epicrates, and viperids corroborates the mosaic palaeoenvironmental conditions of El Breal de Orocual. The presence of Colubroides within both deposits sheds light on the palaeobiogeographical pattern of caenophidians snake colonization of South America and is consistent with the hypothesis of two episodes of dispersion of Colubroides to the continent.
Proceedings of the 20 th International Conference on Big Data Analytics and Knowledge Discovery ( DaWaK ) , Regensburg , Germany , 2018 Community Detection in Who-calls-Whom Social Networks

Mobile phone service providers collect large volumes of data all over the globe. Taking into account that significant information is recorded in these datasets, there is a great potential for knowledge discovery. Since the processing pipeline contains several important steps, like data preparation, transformation, knowledge discovery, a holistic approach is required in order to avoid costly ETL operations across different heterogeneous systems. In this work, we present a design and implementation of knowledge discovery from CDR mobile phone data, using the Apache Spark distributed engine. We focus on the community detection problem which is extremely challenging and it has many practical applications. We have used Apache Spark with the Louvain community detection algorithm using a cluster of machines, to study the scalability and efficiency of the proposed methodology. The experimental evaluation is based on real-world mobile phone data.
Are Innovation Barriers Really Hampering Innovation?: The Ability to Recognize Barriers as a Driver of Survival for Innovative Firms

Innovative firms are likely to face barriers when taking new offerings to market. In line with previous research, we confirm that more innovative firms face more barriers. Using novel survey data coupled with register data, we extend previous models of innovation barriers by showing that the likelihood of firms experiencing barriers increases with novelty of the innovation. The effect appears to be driven by increased external orientation in the form of external search, market analysis and application for external funding. We show that the more barriers firms report to have experienced during the introduction of their most recent innovation, the less likely to survive. Our research adds to the literature on barriers to innovation and provide insight for managers in showing that the ability to identify and acknowledge the importance of the barriers to innovation is a significant driver firm performance. For policy makers, this study indicates that the barriers firms report are not an indication of impediments to be removed through policies, rather firms should be supported in recognizing the barriers in their environment in order deal with and learn from them.
Sinus Membrane Elevation with Heterologous Cortical Lamina: A Randomized Study of a New Surgical Technique for Maxillary Sinus Floor Augmentation without Bone Graft

Background: The aim of this randomized controlled clinical trial was to compare the efficacy of two different techniques for maxillary sinus augmentation using a lateral window approach: Heterologous cortical lamina without any grafting material versus 100% collagenated granular collagen porcine bone. Methods: Twenty-three healthy patients with not relevant past medical history (14 women and 9 men, non-smokers, mean age 52 years, range 48–65 years) were included. In Group I, the sinus was filled with collagen porcine bone (Geno-os, OsteoBiol, Turin, Italy) and a collagen membrane (Evolution, OsteoBiol, Turin, Italy) was used to close the lateral window of the sinus. In Group II, the sinus was treated with heterologous cortical lamina only (Lamina, OsteoBiol, Turin, Italy). Results: There was a statistically significant difference in the surgical time required to complete the augmentation procedures: 18.3 ± 2.1 min for lamina treated sites versus 12.5 ± 3.1 min for porcine bone treated sites. In Group I, the mean volume of the graft was 3101 ± 321 mm3 in the immediate postoperative examination (5–7 days), while after a six-month healing period it was 2716.7 ± 432 mm3. Conclusion: This study demonstrates that the use of heterologous cortical lamina is a valid technique for the mechanical support of sinus membranes resulting in only bone tissue formation and not mixed with the graft. The graft material was biocompatible and not completely resorbed after six months, although the remains were integrated into the bone.
Dual-Band Optical Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing with Adaptive Cyclic Prefix

Nowadays, optical fiber communication technology plays an important role in data center networks. Among them, optical orthogonal frequency division multiplexing technology (OOFDM) becomes a promising solution for enabling a highspeed and cost-effective transceiver in data center networks, due to its salient advantages. In this paper, a dual-band adaptively modulated OOFDM (AMOOFDM) with adaptive cyclic prefix is proposed by introducing subcarrier modulation (SCM) and adaptive cyclic prefix into the conventional AMOOFDM system. The advantages of this technique are that: it can fully exploit the frequency response of the transmission links by adopting SCM and has better flexibility and robustness with the use of adaptive cyclic prefix. Theoretical analysis and numerical simulations of the proposed system are undertaken in MMF-based transmission links.
Catheter-based closure of aortic and mitral paravalvular leaks: existing techniques and new frontiers

ABSTRACT Introduction: Significant paravalvular leak (PVL) complicates between 6% and 15% of valve replacements and can result in heart failure and hemolysis. Paravalvular leak can be effectively treated with repeat surgery; however, these procedures are associated with significant operative morbidity. Percutaneous PVL closure is increasingly being utilized as the first line therapy for symptomatic patients, but efficacy may be limited by the lack of dedicated closure devices. Areas covered: This article will review the etiology and prevalence of PVL, discuss outcomes with surgical closure, describe the mounting data supporting percutaneous interventions, and highlight areas for future research emphasizing the need for new dedicated closure devices. Expert commentary: Percutaneous PVL closure can be safely accomplished in the majority of patients with PVL thereby avoiding the risks associated with repeat surgical intervention. However, percutaneous interventions are associated with higher rates of persistent leakage in part due to off-label use of devices intended for other applications. Efforts to develop devices specifically intended for PVL closure are needed to further improve outcomes for percutaneous PVL closure.