Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
High-pressure synthesis and excellent thermoelectric performance of Ni/BiTeSe magnetic nanocomposites

The thermoelectric performance of BiTeSe alloys is very difficult to be enhanced using conventional approaches. Herein, a low-temperature and high-pressure sintering method was successfully developed to incorporate superparamagnetic Ni nanoparticles (Ni-NPs) into the Bi2Te2.7Se0. 3 matrix while suppressing deleterious chemical reactions at the Ni/Bi2Te2.7Se0. 3 heterointerface. The dimensionless thermoelectric figure of merit of Ni/Bi2Te2.7Se0. 3 nanocomposites is about 1.1 at 360 K, a remarkable 32% increase compared to the Bi2Te2.7Se0. 3 matrix. The cooling temperature difference of the single-leg device made with the nanocomposite reaches 4.2 K near room temperature, while it is only 2.6 K for the device made with the Bi2Te2.7Se0. 3 matrix. The excellent thermoelectric performance of the nanocomposite is attributed to its increased electrical conductivity due to charge transfer from Ni-NPs to the matrix, enhanced Seebeck coefficient from electron multiple scattering, and decreased lattice thermal conductivity from phonon scattering at the heterointerface. This work demonstrates that superparamagnetic metal nanoinclusions can enhance the thermoelectric and cooling performance of n-type BiTeSe alloys.
Training of Deep Convolutional Neural Networks to Identify Critical Liver Alterations in Histopathology Image Samples

Nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is responsible for a wide range of pathological disorders. It is characterized by the prevalence of steatosis, which results in excessive accumulation of triglyceride in the liver tissue. At high rates, it can lead to a partial or total occlusion of the organ. In contrast, nonalcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH) is a progressive form of NAFLD, with the inclusion of hepatocellular injury and inflammation histological diseases. Since there is no approved pharmacotherapeutic solution for both conditions, physicians and engineers are constantly in search for fast and accurate diagnostic methods. The proposed work introduces a fully automated classification approach, taking into consideration the high discrimination capability of four histological tissue alterations. The proposed work utilizes a deep supervised learning method, with a convolutional neural network (CNN) architecture achieving a classification accuracy of 95%. The classification capability of the new CNN model is compared with a pre-trained AlexNet model, a visual geometry group (VGG)-16 deep architecture and a conventional multilayer perceptron (MLP) artificial neural network. The results show that the constructed model can achieve better classification accuracy than VGG-16 (94%) and MLP (90.3%), while AlexNet emerges as the most efficient classifier (97%).
A 32 × 128 SPAD-257 TDC Receiver IC for Pulsed TOF Solid-State 3-D Imaging

A single-chip receiver for pulsed laser direct time-of-flight 3-D imaging applications has been realized in a 0.35-<inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\mu \text{m}$ </tex-math></inline-formula> HV CMOS technology. The chip includes a <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$32 \times 128$ </tex-math></inline-formula> single-photon avalanche diode (SPAD) array [35% fill factor (FF)] and 257 time-to-digital converters (TDCs) with a ~78-ps resolution. Two adjacent rows (<inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$2 \times 128$ </tex-math></inline-formula> SPADs) at a time can be selected for simultaneous measurement, i.e., 16 measurement cycles are needed to cover the whole array. SPADs are capable of operating in a gated mode in order to suppress dark and background light-induced detections. The IC was designed to be used in a solid-state 3-D imaging system with laser illumination concentrated in both time (short sub-ns pulses) and space (targeting only the active rows of the SPAD array). The performance of the receiver IC was characterized in a solid-state 3-D range imager with flood-pulsed illumination from a laser diode (LD)-based transmitter, which produced short [~150-ps full-width at half-maximum (FWHM)] high-energy (~3.8-nJ pulse/~14-W peak power) pulses at a pulsing rate of 250 kHz when operating at a wavelength of 810 nm. Two detector/TDC ICs formed an 8k pixel receiver, targeting a field-of-view of <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\sim 42^{\circ } \times 21^{\circ }$ </tex-math></inline-formula> by means of simple optics. Frame rates of up to 20 fps were demonstrated with a centimeter-level precision in the case of Lambertian targets within a range of 3.5 m.
The Structure of Academic Self-Concept in Higher Education: Multidimensionality, Hierarchy, and Change During the Initial Study Phase

Academic self-concepts of ability are key factors in promoting education and learning throughout students’ school career. Yet we know little about their structure and structural change when students leave high school to face novel academic tasks. The present study investigated the structure and structural change of first-year students’ study-related self-concepts of ability. Data stems from a longitudinal study with two measurement points covering the initial study phase (t1: N = 341; age: M = 21.6; SD = 3.56; 57.5% female). Self-concepts were assessed regarding the participants’ study program and four of its subordinate subjects. Confirmatory factor analyses and structural equation models were used to compare structural models and to investigate structural stability and directional effects. Results support the assumption of multidimensionality (i.e., distinct self-concepts for different subjects) and hierarchy with a generic field-of-study-specific selfconcept at the apex. Specifying generic field-of-study-specific self-concept as a method factor (i.e., indicated by both subject-specific and field-of-study-specific items) was most consistent with theoretical assumptions. The structural model was invariant over the first months at university. Generic field-of-study-specific self-concept and subject-specific self-concepts largely developed independently from one another. The results emphasize the recently suggested conceptualization of generic self-concept as a method factor to reflect self-concept hierarchy. Self-concepts were structurally stable over time. Several significant horizontal effects (i.e., stability within subjects) suggest that students align their self-concepts closely to the curriculum they encounter in educational contexts and, therefore, may benefit from ample feedback on their performance to develop appropriate subject-specific self-concepts.
Mechanisms for Color Convergence in a Mimetic Radiation of Poison Frogs

In animals, bright colors often evolve to mimic other species when a resemblance is selectively favored. Understanding the proximate mechanisms underlying such color mimicry can give insights into how mimicry evolves—for example, whether color convergence evolves from a shared set of mechanisms or through the evolution of novel color production mechanisms. We studied color production mechanisms in poison frogs (Dendrobatidae), focusing on the mimicry complex of Ranitomeya imitator. Using reflectance spectrometry, skin pigment analysis, electron microscopy, and color modeling, we found that the bright colors of these frogs, both within and outside the mimicry complex, are largely structural and produced by iridophores but that color production depends crucially on interactions with pigments. Color variation and mimicry are regulated predominantly by iridophore platelet thickness and, to a lesser extent, concentration of the red pteridine pigment drosopterin. Compared with each of the four morphs of model species that it resembles, R. imitator displays greater variation in both structural and pigmentary mechanisms, which may have facilitated phenotypic divergence in this species. Analyses of nonmimetic dendrobatids in other genera demonstrate that these mechanisms are widespread within the family and that poison frogs share a complex physiological “color palette” that can produce diverse and highly reflective colors.
The Competence-Oriented Teaching of Antennas, Propagation, and Wireless Communications: Enabling independent students

Competence-oriented education aims to teach individuals the cognitive skills required to solve specific problems and the readiness needed to apply such solutions in versatile situations. We find that competence-oriented teaching is a promising paradigm in applied courses for antennas, propagation, and wireless communications. Competenceoriented laboratory courses are easy to implement when the mechanical facilities and equipment from laboratory courses are already available at the institute. Amateur radio equipment is used so that students can work independently without risking damage to delicate equipment. In this article, we describe several methods used to modify lab courses toward competence-oriented academic teaching that we have found are popular with students and enhance their learning experience.
Autoimmune Epilepsy: New Development and Future Directions

In recent years, there has been accumulating evidence to support an autoimmune etiol- ogy for some patients with drug-resistant seizures, typically in the context of an anti-body-mediated encephalopathy; any seizure disorder that may be caused by pathogenic autoantibodies, are an example of autoimmune epilepsy. Autoimmunity is characterized by loss of immune tolerance that causes the destruction of cells and tissues. The largest complex histocompatibility system has had a strong association with autoimmune disease, although certain genes encoding cytokines and co-stimulatory molecules increase genetic susceptibility. In spite of having scientific advances in this research area, the conditions underlying mechanisms are unknown. Goal : this chapter aims to present in synthesized form, the genetic, immunological, and environmental factors role in the autoimmunity to epilepsy, as well as the therapeutic approach that has been used to control seizures, mainly where there is a suspected anti-neuronal-antibodies circulation. Methods : a review of the work achieved during the last years in patients with this con- dition provides information and experience in the diagnosis and treatment of this epilepsy type. For this, a systematic search of PUBMED is conducted using the search terms “autoimmune and epilepsy, auto antibodies and epilepsy, NMDA and epilepsy, AMPA and epilepsy, and GAD and epilepsy. ” The list of identified articles was complemented by additional searches for relevant articles in the reference section of the publications captured by the initial search.
Comparative study between Nalbuphine and Dexmedetomidine as an adjuvant to Ropivacaine for Caudal Block in children undergoing infra umbilical surgeries

Background and Aims: The quality of caudal blocks can be improved by adding adjuvants to the local anaesthetic. Adjuvants prolong analgesia and decrease the adverse effects encountered with single high dose local anaesthetic. The objective of this study was to compare caudal nalbuphine and dexmedetomidine combined with ropivacaine to provide postoperative analgesia in children undergoing infra-umbilical surgeries.Material and Methods: This was a randomised, prospective double blinded study. A total of 60 children aged 1-12 years were randomly allocated into 2 groups: Group A received caudal block with 0.2% ropivacaine 1ml/kg with 0.2mg/kg nalbuphine and Group B received caudal block with 0.2% ropivacaine 1ml/kg with dexmedetomidine 2 µg/kg. Duration of analgesia, haemodynamic changes and adverse effects were compared. Percentage analysis and independent sample t-test were used. Chi square analysis was used for categorical variables. Results: Group A recorded duration of analgesia of 5.8± 0.88 hours, compared to 9.1 ±0.89 hours in group B and this was statistically significant. All 30 patients in group B had lower pain scores at 4th, 5th and 9th hours.Conclusion: caudal ropivacaine 0.2% (1ml/kg) with dexmedetomidine 2 µg/kg resulted in prolongation of duration of analgesia and better quality of analgesia compared with ropivacaine 0.2% (1ml/kg) with nalbuphine 0.2mg/kg without any significant difference in the haemodynamic parameters.
Electronic health information systems for public health care in South Africa: a review of current operational systems

Background and Purpose : The South African eHealth Strategy was published in 2012 and acknowledges that health information systems should be used to strengthen the public health care system in the country. While the benefit of electronic health information systems has been documented in the literature, the implementation of these systems in public health care in South Africa remains limited. Currently, patient data is still manually recorded in the patient’s file, while data required for monitoring and evaluation purposes is hand written by the nurses in registers, aggregated and only the results entered into electronic health information systems for analysis. Methods : The objective of the paper is to review existing electronic health information systems in public health care in South Africa in terms of their role and focus on health care. A qualitative approach was undertaken to identify the role of health information systems that are most prevalent in public health care in South Africa. Results : The results indicate that the most common role of health information systems include support for clinical care, e.g. radiology and pathology, as well as monitoring, evaluation and administration purposes. While some systems do capture limited clinical information, there seems to be few systems that support patient centred clinical care. Conclusions : The recommendation of the paper is that the role of health information systems should be expanded to support direct patient care and improve health outcomes for individuals.
Multi-Layered Perceptual Model for Haptic Perception of Compliance

Haptic rendering of compliance is widely used in human–computer haptic interaction. Haptic impressions of virtual objects are usually controlled through rendering algorithms and devices. However, subjective feelings of compliance are easily affected by physical properties of objects, interactive modes, and so on. So it is important to ascertain the mapping relations between controlled physical parameters and subjective perceptual feelings. In this paper, a multi-layered perceptual model was built based on psychophysical experiments to discuss these relationships in a simplified scene. Interactive signals of physical stimuli are collected by the physical receptor layer, handled by the subjective classifier layer and finally generate the evaluation results of compliance. The physical perceptual layer is used to extract useful interaction features affecting perceptual results. The subjective classifier layer is used to analyze the perceptual dimensionality of the compliance perception. The final aim of the model is to determine the mapping relationships between interaction features and dimensions of perception space. Interactive features are extracted from the interaction data collected during the exploring process, perceptual dimensionality of the compliance perception was analyzed by the factor analysis method, and relations between hierarchical layers were obtained by multi-linear regression analysis. A verification test was performed to show whether the proposed model can predict the perceptual result of new samples well. The results indicate that the model was reliable to estimate the perceptual results of compliance with an accuracy of approximately 90%. This paper may contribute a lot to the design and improvement of human-computer interaction and intelligent sensing system.
A Systematic Mapping Study of Cloud-native Application Design and Engineering

Cloud computing is a desirable paradigm that is providing services to users in a convenient manner and ensuring that Cloud service providers have value for their infrastructure. Applications designed to run explicitly on the Cloud are usually referred to as Cloud-native applications. Determining a research focus in a particular field of study is sometimes challenging. A systematic mapping study gives an insight into the research level that is being conducted in any field of interest. The results generated from such study are presented using a map. The method used in this study was analyzing three facets categories namely, topics, research and contribution. Topics were retrieved from primary studies, while type of research such as evaluation and contribution such as tool, were used in the analysis. The objective of this study is to conduct a systematic mapping study of Cloud-native applications designs and engineering. This will provide an insight into the frequency of work that has been done in cloud-native applications area. The results showed that from publications relating to security in the field of metric (1.94%), more articles in the topic of application in terms of tool (13.59%), more work done on architecture in terms of model (15.53%), more papers published on Cloud migration in the area of method (10.68%). Furthermore, 11.82% publications were identified on applications in terms of evaluation research, more publication on implementation in the area of validation research (1.82%), more publications on implementation in solution research (6.36%), more publications on security and application with respect to philosophical research (1.82%) and more work done on applications in terms of experience research (6.36%). From the study, several gaps were identified which would be beneficial to researchers, practitioners and providers.
Fixation of choice for diagonally fractures of medial malleolus of ankle

Background: Fixation of alternative for diagonally fractures of medial malleolus was invariably been as debate a most of the days the fragment is simple too little to attain placement of two screw heads. Absolute stability of the medial malleolus fragment with one screw is troublesome in comminuted and osteoporotic fragments. Materials and Methods: this is often a prospective study conducted in our centre from Gregorian calendar April month 2014 to January 2018 in thirty five cases. Results: There was a failure of two cases of fixation with single screw out of sixteen cases of primary fixation with single screw, tributary to 11.77% of cases of failure with primary single screw fixation. Conclusion: we tend to advise to mend two screws of 4.0mm cannulated cancellated screws crossing the fracture site if the fragment is giant enough to support screw heads. If the fragments area unit little we tend to choose to do a tension band wiring with two K-wires and a diagonally screw that we tend to had exhausted 52.80% of cases as a primary procedure. All two failure cases in our series achieved union with tension band wiring.
A Comparative Study between Popplet Notes and Conventional Notes for Learning Pathology

Aim and Objective: This study was done to compare the conventional notes and popplet notes for learning pathology among II year BDS students in Saveetha Dental College. Background: New methods are used to improve the standard of education. Pathology is a versatile subject and the concepts are hard to understand. Popplet helps in effective education and teaching. It interprets concepts in a better way, facilitates learning and improves the performance. Materials and Method: A total of 27 students were given conventional notes to learn and test was conducted and assessed. The same students were given popplet notes to learn and test was conducted and assessed. The results were compared to find the efficacy of two methods. Result: 70.3% of the students passed the test when they used conventional notes while 88.8% of the students passed the test when they used popplet notes for learning. Conclusion: Popplet notes simplifies the content, has the ability to insert images and the app can be installed free of cost. Students showed keen interest on using popplet notes than conventional notes. Using popplet notes is more effective than conventional notes.
The effect of pulmonary rehabilitation on dyspnea and factors related to dyspnea in lung transplantation candidates

Objectives: Lung transplantation is the last treatment option when conservative treatment is not effective in individuals with terminal stage lung disease. Dyspnea is the primary symptom affecting quality of life in these patients. In our study, the effects of Pulmonary Rehabilitation (PR) on dyspnea and factors related with dyspnea were investigated in lung transplant candidates. Methods: Patients who were in the lung transplant waiting list and completed the 3-month PR program were included in the study. Study result measurements: 6-minute walk test distance (6MWD), lung functions (FEV1, FVC), respiratory muscle strength (MIP, MEP), quadriceps femoris muscle strength as measured by digital dynanometer, hand grip force measured by hand dinanometer (HG) and modified Modified Medical Research Council (mMRC) dyspnea scale. Results: A total of 47 patients were included in the study. After PR, 6MWD ( p 0.05). Conclusions: According to the results of our study, PR has a positive effect on exercise capacity, peripheral and respiratory muscle strength and dyspnea in lung transplant candidates. But there was no relationship between these positive developments and dyspnea. There is a need for studies investigating the effects of different clinical features on rehabilitation outcomes.
Probabilistic design of wind turbine concrete components subject to fatigue

Wind turbines contribute significantly to the production of renewable energy. In order to minimize the Levelized Cost of Energy (LCOE) the cost of the wind turbine incl. tower and the foundation should be as low as possible but at the same time have a sufficient reliability. In this paper, focus is on wind turbine components which may be made of concrete such as tower and foundation. In traditional deterministic design based on design standards, partial safety factors are applied to obtain the design values. Improved design with a consistent reliability level for all components can be obtained by use of probabilistic design methods with explicit consideration of uncertainties connected to loads, strengths and numerical models / calculation methods. Wind turbines are basically designed based on IEC 61400-1:2019 which indicates a target reliability level that can be used for probabilistic design. In this paper, probabilistic fatigue models for concrete are presented based on the fatigue models in fib Model Code 2010, but extended within a stochastic modelling using a large dataset of fatigue tests. Generic uncertainty models for the fatigue load are applied. It is illustrated how reliability analyses can be performed within a probabilistic design framework.