Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Chemical Ecology of Aphid-Transmitted Plant Viruses

Most described plant viruses require vectors for transmission between host plants. The epidemiology of such viruses is therefore largely dependent upon the population dynamics, longand short-range dispersal, and host-selection and feeding behaviors of the vectors. This dependency sets the stage for complex direct and indirect interactions involving the plant, virus, and vector. Thus, the ecology and evolution of virus, vector, and host plant are closely intertwined. To varying degrees, these three-way interactions can be mediated by chemistry; i.e., they can fall within the realm of chemical ecology, broadly defined to include ecological interactions mediated by biogenic organic compounds, whether the effects are primarily behavioral or physiological (Jones, 1988). Since plant viruses cannot produce or respond to metabolites directly, a chemical ecology of vector-transmitted plant viruses must be indirect, resulting from the effects of virus infection on the host plants and the responses to these changes by vectors and other organisms in the ecological community. Examination of the chemical ecology of vector-transmitted plant viruses is just beginning. Most of the published literature concerns aphid-transmitted viruses, which reflects their predominance; aphids are vectors for 35% of all described plant viruses (Gray and Banerjee, 1999) and 50% of all insect-transmitted viruses (Nault, 1997; Ng and Perry, 2004). In this chapter, we review this literature and identify emerging themes and needs for continuing research in this area. Chemically mediated interactions among other insect-transmitted plant pathogens and their hosts and vectors—e.g., Tomato spotted wilt virus (Tospovirus: Bunyaviridae) and thrips (Belliure et al., 2005, 2008); phytoplasma and psyllids (Mayer et al., 2008); Dutch elm disease and bark beetles (McLeod et al., 2005; and Chapter 5, this volume)—are beyond the scope of this chapter, but some principles we examine may apply to them as part of a broader field of the chemical ecology of vector-transmitted pathogens. Effects of Virus-Infected Hosts on Aphid Performance and Behavior
Interactions among UMTS microcells and macrocells supporting data traffic in a real airport scenario

This paper analyses a solution to provide UMTS coverage in a real airport scenario by reusing the existing GSM infrastructure. In this case, macrocell and microcell layers are highly decoupled in terms of interference, so it is shown that CPICH power adjustment does not play a significant role in interlayer traffic distribution. On the other hand, with respect to in-building coverage, it has been observed that by reducing the number of repeaters per microcell an increase in capacity can be obtained.
Flytxt_NTNU at SemEval-2018 Task 8: Identifying and Classifying Malware Text Using Conditional Random Fields and Naïve Bayes Classifiers

Cybersecurity risks such as malware threaten the personal safety of users, but to identify malware text is a major challenge. The paper proposes a supervised learning approach to identifying malware sentences given a document (subTask1 of SemEval 2018, Task 8), as well as to classifying malware tokens in the sentences (subTask2). The approach achieved good results, ranking second of twelve participants for both subtasks, with F-scores of 57% for subTask1 and 28% for subTask2.
Segmentation of ulcerated plaque: evaluation and optimization of a semiautomatic method for tracking the progression of carotid atherosclerosis

A semi-automatic method for segmenting carotid lumen and plaque from three-dimensional vascular ultrasound (US) images has been developed. We examine its ability to distinguish changes in carotid vessel and plaque surface morphology, such as those caused by plaque ulceration. Two stenosed vessel phantoms were imaged using a 3D US imaging system. The phantoms were identical except for the inclusion of a hemispherical cut in the side of one of the vessels, in order to simulate the development of an ulceration. Ultrasound images of the phantoms were segmented using our algorithm, then the resulting surfaces were registered to one another using a rigid-body iterative closest point (ICP) algorithm. The volume of ulceration was determined by finding the difference between the two segmented surfaces in a region of interest surrounding the ulceration. Since the true volume of the ulceration was known a priori, an optimization strategy was used to tune the deformable model to better segment the ulceration. Analysis of ulceration volume as a function of the deformable model's parameters show that 1) large ulcerations are easily identified in our test case, and 2) the model is well behaved with respect to its parameters, suggesting that an automatic strategy for volumetric optimization is feasible.
Avoiding instabilities in power electronic systems: Toward an on-chip implementation

The available controller chips for power electronic systems are used for specific transient and steady-state performances. In such systems, the parameter ranges for stable operation are delimited by slow-timescale as well as fast-timescale instabilities. The usual practice is to design the control loop based on the state-space averaging technique, which cannot predict the fast-timescale instabilities. In this study, the first attempt has been made to propose a new design of the controller chip that can suppress these instabilities, thus extending the stable operating range in the parameter space. For this, the authors make use of the Filippov method which can effectively predict both types of instabilities. In this approach, the stability of the system is obtained in terms of the state transition matrices across each subsystem and saltation matrices across each switching event. The basic idea is to exercise control over the saltation matrices to increase the stability margin of the periodic orbit. Since in the Filippov approach an increase in the number of switching events in a cycle does not increase the complexity of the analysis, the proposed controller chip will be particularly useful in complex power electronic systems such as interconnected converters, multi-input multi-output converters, resonant converters, micro-grids and so on.
A Handy Preterm Infant Incubator for Providing Intensive Care: Simulation, 3D Printed Prototype, and Evaluation

Preterm infants encounter an abrupt delivery before their complete maturity during the third trimester of pregnancy. Polls anticipate an increase in the rates of preterm infants for 2025, especially in middle- and low-income countries. Despite the abundance of intensive care methods for preterm infants, such as, but not limited to, commercial, transport, embrace warmer, radiant warmer, and Kangaroo Mother Care methods, they are either expensive, lack the most essential requirements or specifications, or lack the maternal-preterm bond. This drove us to carry this original research and innovative idea of developing a new 3D printed prototype of a Handy preterm infant incubator. We aim to provide the most indispensable intensive care with the lowest cost, to bestow low-income countries with the Handy incubator's care, preserve the maternal -preterm's bond, and diminish the rate of mortality. Biomedical features, electronics, and biocompatible materials were utilized. The design was simulated, the prototype was 3D printed, and the outcomes were tested and evaluated. Simulation results showed the best fit for the Handy incubator's components. Experimental results showed the 3D-printed prototype and the time elapsed to obtain it. Evaluation results revealed that the overall performance of Kangaroo Mother Care and the embrace warmer was 75 ± 1.4% and 66.7 ± 1.5%, respectively, while the overall performance of our Handy incubator was 91.7 ± 1.6%, thereby our cost-effective Handy incubator surpassed existing intensive care methods. The future step is associating the Handy incubator with more specifications and advancements.
Seed bio-priming withTrichoderma asperellumeffectively modulate plant growth promotion in pea

Seed biopriming is an advance technique of seed treatment that involves application of beneficial microorganism on seed surface followed by seed hydration. Seed bioprimig is a ecological to control the many seed and soil-borne pathogens which provide an alternative to chemical treatment. Seed biopriming enhance the initial step of plant development by increased seed germination and provide protection before seedling emergence. Trichoderma spp. is widely used for biocontrol agent that enhance plant growth as well as inhibits phytopathogen. In the present study, effectiveness of biopriming with T. asperellum BHUT8 evaluated for plant growth promotion effect in pea. The results showed enhancement in plant growth in the treated plants as compared to control. There was increase in shoot length, root length, number of leaves, shoot fresh weight, root fresh weight, shoot dry weight and root dry weight by 35.29, 96.49, 28.13, 36.10, 146.26, 30.17 and 77.20%, respectively, as compared to the control.
Stretchable Optomechanical Fiber Sensors for Pressure Determination in Compressive Medical Textiles

Medical textiles are widely used to exert pressure on human tissues during treatment of post‐surgical hematoma, burn‐related wounds, chronic venous ulceration, and other maladies. However, the inability to dynamically sense and adjust the applied pressure often leads to suboptimal pressure application, prolonging treatment or resulting in poor patient outcomes. Here, a simple strategy for measuring sub‐bandage pressure by integrating stretchable optomechanical fibers into elastic bandages is demonstrated. Specifically, these fibers possess an elastomeric photonic multilayer cladding that surrounds an extruded stretchable core filament. They can sustain repetitive strains of over 100%, and respond to deformation with a predictable and reversible color variation. Integrated into elastic textiles, which apply pressure as a function of their strain, these fibers can provide instantaneous and localized pressure feedback. These colorimetric fiber sensors are well suited for medical textiles, athletic apparel, and other smart wearable technologies, especially when repetitive, large deformations are required.
Reduced ripple current three phase parallel loaded resonant converter for LED lighting

In this paper, a three phase full-bridge parallel loaded LC resonance converter based DC-DC LED driver is proposed for LED lighting applications. This converter reduces the ripple content to a very low value such that filter capacitor can be eliminated. This increases the lifespan of the LED driver. The filter inductor used is very small as the ripple content is reduced and ripple frequency is increased. ZVS is achieved in the proposed converter using parallel loaded LC resonance by which switching losses are minimized and efficiency of the converter is increased. Dimming is also employed in the proposed converter. LED current is controlled by varying switching frequency of the converter for supply voltage variations. The detailed description, circuit analysis and simulation results of the proposed converter are presented.
A mathematical model of a criminal-prone society

Criminals are common to all societies. To fight against them the community takes different security measures as, for example, to bring about a police. Thus, crime causes a depletion of the common wealth not only by criminal acts but also because the cost of hiring a police force. In this paper, we present a mathematical model of a criminal-prone self-protected society that is divided into socio-economical classes. We study the effect of a non-null crime rate on a free-of-criminals society which is taken as a reference system. As a consequence, we define a criminal-prone society as one whose free-of-criminals steady state is unstable under small perturbations of a certain socio-economical context. Finally, we compare two alternative strategies to control crime: (i) enhancing police efficiency, either by enlarging its size or by updating its technology, against (ii) either reducing criminal appealing or promoting social classes at risk.
Mining Alternative Actions from Community Q&A Corpus

Web searchers often use a Web search engine to find a way or means to achieve his/her goal. For example, a user intending to solve his/her sleeping problem, the query “sleeping pills” may be used. However, there may be another solution to achieve the same goal, such as “have a cup of hot milk” or “stroll before bedtime. ” The problem is that the user may not be aware that these solutions exist. Thus, he/she will probably choose to take a sleeping pill without considering these solutions. In this study, we define and tackle the alternative action mining problem. In particular, we attempt to develop a method for mining alternative actions for a given query. We define alternative actions as actions which share the same goal and define the alternative action mining problem as similar in the search result diversification. To tackle the problem, we propose leveraging a community Q&A (cQA) corpus for mining alternative actions. The cQA corpus can be seen as an archival dataset comprising dialogues between questioners, who want to know the solutions to their problem, and respondents, who suggest different solutions. We propose a method to compute how well two actions can be alternative actions by using a question-answer structure in a cQA corpus. Our method builds a question-action bipartite graph and recursively computes how well two actions can be alternative actions. We conducted experiments to investigate the effectiveness of our method using two newly built test collections, each containing 50 queries. The experimental results indicated that, for Japanese test collection, our proposed method significantly outperformed two types of baselines, one used the conventional query suggestions and the other extracted alternative-actions from the Web documents, in terms of D#-nDCG@8. Also, for English test collection, our method significantly outperformed the baseline using the conventional query suggestions in terms of D#-nDCG@8.
Risk Factors, Depression, and Drugs Influencing Sexual Activity in Individuals With and Without Stroke.

PURPOSE The aim of the study was to analyze factors affecting sexual activity in individuals with and without stroke, ages 40-59 years, in a national, cross-sectional, population-based sample derived from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES). DESIGN Descriptive, cross-sectional survey. METHODS Data were obtained from the NHANES (2011-2012) data set from individuals (N = 3,649) completing items related to cardiovascular risk factors, drugs, and sexual activity. Data were analyzed using chi-square, t tests, and logistic regression. FINDINGS Overall, number of drugs, smoking, and depression significantly predicted sexual activity. When comparing sexually active to not sexually active, those with stroke had significantly less sexual activity (t = 2.822, p = .005) and reduced sexual activity per week or month (χ = 16.275, p = .005, df = 4). Those taking angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitors and statins had reduced sexual activity. CONCLUSIONS/CLINICAL RELEVANCE Findings illustrate the importance of risk factor modification and nurses engaging in sexual assessment, education, and counseling to support sexual quality of life in younger individuals with stroke.
Pathway analysis of genetic variants in folate‐mediated one‐carbon metabolism‐related genes and survival in a prospectively followed cohort of colorectal cancer patients

Folate‐mediated one‐carbon metabolism (FOCM) is a key pathway essential for nucleotide synthesis, DNA methylation, and repair. This pathway is a critical target for 5‐fluorouracil (5‐FU), which is predominantly used for colorectal cancer (CRC) treatment. A comprehensive assessment of polymorphisms in FOCM‐related genes and their association with prognosis has not yet been performed. Within 1,739 CRC cases aged ≥30 years diagnosed from 2003 to 2007 (DACHS study), we investigated 397 single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) and 50 candidates in 48 FOCM‐related genes for associations with overall‐ (OS) and disease‐free survival (DFS) using multiple Cox regression (adjusted for age, sex, stage, grade, BMI, and alcohol). We investigated effect modification by 5‐FU‐based chemotherapy and assessed pathway‐specific effects. Correction for multiple testing was performed using false discovery rates (FDR). After a median follow‐up time of 5.0 years, 585 patients were deceased. For one candidate SNP in MTHFR and two in TYMS, we observed significant inverse associations with OS (MTHFR: rs1801133, C677T: HRhet = 0.81, 95% CI: 0.67–0.97; TYMS: rs1001761: HRhet = 0.82, 95% CI: 0.68–0.99 and rs2847149: HRhet = 0.82, 95% CI: 0.68–0.99). After FDR correction, one polymorphism in paraoxonase 1 (PON1; rs3917538) was significantly associated with OS (HRhet = 1.28, 95% CI: 1.07–1.53; HRhzv = 2.02, 95% CI:1.46–2.80; HRlogAdd = 1.31, pFDR = 0.01). Adjusted pathway analyses showed significant associations for pyrimidine biosynthesis (P = 0.04) and fluorouracil drug metabolism (P < 0.01) with significant gene–chemotherapy interactions, including PON1 rs3917538. This study supports the concept that FOCM‐related genes could be associated with CRC survival and may modify effects of 5‐FU‐based chemotherapy in genes in pyrimidine and fluorouracil metabolism, which are relevant targets for therapeutic response and prognosis in CRC. These results require confirmation in additional clinical studies.
LT3 at SemEval-2018 Task 1: A classifier chain to detect emotions in tweets

This paper presents an emotion classification system for English tweets, submitted for the SemEval shared task on Affect in Tweets, subtask 5: Detecting Emotions. The system combines lexicon, n-gram, style, syntactic and semantic features. For this multi-class multi-label problem, we created a classifier chain. This is an ensemble of eleven binary classifiers, one for each possible emotion category, where each model gets the predictions of the preceding models as additional features. The predicted labels are combined to get a multi-label representation of the predictions. Our system was ranked eleventh among thirty five participating teams, with a Jaccard accuracy of 52.0% and macro- and micro-average F1-scores of 49.3% and 64.0%, respectively.
Green Neighborhoods, Food Retail and Childhood Overweight: Differences by Population Density

Purpose. This study examines relationships between overweight in children and two environmental factors—amount of vegetation surrounding a child's place of residence and proximity of the child's residence to various types of food retail locations. We hypothesize that living in greener neighborhoods, farther from fast food restaurants, and closer to supermarkets would be associated with lower risk of overweight. Design. Cross-sectional study. Setting. Network of primary care pediatric clinics in Marion County, Indiana. Subjects. We acquired data for 7334 subjects, ages 3 to 18 years, presenting for routine well-child care. Measures. Neighborhood vegetation and proximity to food retail were calculated using geographic information systems for each subject using circular and network buffers. Child weight status was defined using body mass index percentiles. Analysis. We used cumulative logit models to examine associations between an index of overweight, neighborhood vegetation, and food retail environment. Results. After controlling for individual socio-demographics and neighborhood socioeconomic status, measures of vegetation and food retail significantly predicted overweight in children. Increased neighborhood vegetation was associated with decreased risk for overweight, but only for subjects residing in higher population density regions. Increased distance between a subject's residence and the nearest large brand name supermarkets was associated with increased risk of overweight, but only for subjects residing in lower population density regions. Conclusions. This research suggests that aspects of the built environment are determinants of child weight status, ostensibly by influencing physical activity and dietary behaviors.
Looking Inside and Outside the System: Examining the Factors Influencing Distance Learners Satisfaction in Learning Management System

In the last few years, the use of educational technology, particularly the concept of Learning Management System (LMS), has increased rapidly. With this fast development, the question arises as how to manage the LMS to obtain success and efficiency in online courses. One of the important factors that have received many citations in literature studies (and has a special position in information system research) is the user satisfaction. It is a crucial factor that can predict the success or failure of any LMS. In relation, this research examined the success factors that affect the user satisfaction and outcomes of LMS. This paper discusses the conceptual User Satisfaction Evaluation Model (USEM) employed to measures LMS success. In particular, it seeks to examine “the relationship between: Service quality, system quality, ease of use, perceived usefulness, information quality and students satisfaction, as well as to measure the outcomes of the LMS. ” Results from the data analysis indicate that all proposed factors have a positive effect on student satisfaction. The result also concludes that a higher rate of user satisfaction will lead to greater benefits for the students.
Methodology for systematic literature review applied to engineering and education

A systematic review of the scientific literature in a specific area is important for identifying research questions, as well as for justifying future research in said area. This process is complex for beginners in scientific research, especially if you have not developed skills for searching and filtering information, and do not know which high-level databases are relevant in their field of study. The method proposed leads the researcher from "My" to "The" current state of the problem; we propose an adaptation of the method by Kitchenham and Bacca, which divides the process into three sub-parts: planning, conducting and reporting results. From the approach of the research problem in the preliminary phase research questions (recommended between 3 to 5) and "mentefacto conceptual" is drawn; this last one gives originality to the method and facilitates the development of the thesaurus for searches and inclusion and exclusion criteria. Early research requires doing a basic systematic study to identify work done to review the literature in the area and, if any is found, to verify if those results yield an answer to our research questions. As part of planning the search process, general and specific inclusion and exclusion criteria were defined, along with some complementary inclusion and exclusion parameters. The method followed with rigor, returns to the researcher a list of impact journals in the study area, and a detail of articles that are related to each category of the research questions. A study case has been considered as a guide to expose each of the phases of the methodology in a practical way, with results that support the proposal.