Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Diet Quality Scores and Cardiometabolic Risk Factors in Mexican Children and Adolescents: A Longitudinal Analysis

There is limited evidence for the effects of diet on cardiometabolic profiles during the pubertal transition. We collected repeated measures of diet quality and cardiometabolic risk factors among Mexican youth. This analysis included 574 offspring of the Early Life Exposure in Mexico to Environmental Toxicants (ELEMENT) birth cohort followed up to three time points. Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension (DASH), alternate Mediterranean Diet (aMedDiet), and Children’s Dietary Inflammatory Index (C-DIITM) scores were computed from food frequency questionnaires. Higher DASH and aMedDiet scores reflect a higher diet quality, and lower C-DII scores reflect an anti-inflammatory diet. Cardiometabolic risk factors were lipid profile, glucose homeostasis, blood pressure, and waist circumference. Linear mixed models were used between quartiles of each diet score and outcomes. Compared to the first quartile, the fourth DASH quartile was inversely associated with log serum insulin (μIU/mL) [β = −0.19, p = 0.0034] and log-Homeostatic Model Assessment of Insulin Resistance [β = −0.25, p = 0.0008]. Additionally, log serum triglycerides (mg/dL) was linearly associated with aMedDiet score [β = −0.03, p = 0.0022]. Boys in the highest aMedDiet quartile had higher serum high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (mg/dL) [β = 4.13, p = 0.0034] compared to the reference quartile. Higher diet quality was associated with a better cardiometabolic profile among Mexican youth.
The viability of high technology research and development in South Africa : a case study of Nortech.

This study focuses on the viability of locating a company that manufactures high-technology products in South Africa. A small electronics manufacturing company called Nortech is used as a case study, and the results of the case study analysis provide an insight into the state of the high-tech electronics industry in South Africa. The economic models of Heckscher and others regarding factors of production, and the value-chain model of Porter as it related to the strategy of location of business activities, was used as a theoretical basis for the study. A theoretical model was constructed using these classical theories, modified to suit modern Knowledge-based economies, and this was used as a framework with which to analyse the case study. The case study of Nortech is presented by means of a discussion of the company history, mission, and vision, and an analysis of the product offering, competitive environment, and Research and Development skills. The focus throughout the analysis is on the relative advantages obtained through location, and the contribution of innovation and technical skills to the overall product. The context of the company within South Africa is discussed, with reference to the effect of national policy and infrastructure. The case study is evaluated within the framework of the theoretical model developed, and the relevance to the different product lines within the company. It was found that there were significant locational advantages related to high technical skills levels, flexible production methods and efficient value-chain structures. The sustainability thereof, in the light of decreased levels of national spending on Research and Development, and the continued loss of skills to foreign countries, remains a concern.
Psychological Resilience as the Mediating Factor Between Stigma and Social Avoidance and Distress of Infertility Patients in China: A Structural Equation Modeling Analysis

Background Stigma, social avoidance and distress may seriously affect the quality of life of infertility patients. Psychological resilience has been proved to effectively combat psychological stress. This study aimed to explore the mediating role of psychological resilience between stigma and social avoidance and distress (SAD) in females with an unfulfilled wish for a child. Methods Stigma Scale, Social Avoidance and Distress Scale (SADS), and Psychological Resilience Scale were used to evaluate 266 females with infertility. Structural equation model was used to test the mediating effect of psychological resilience on the relationship between stigma and SAD. Results The SADS, stigma scores, and psychological resilience scores of 266 females with infertility were 13.36 ± 5.77, 77.84 ± 16.91, and 58.84 ± 12.24 points, respectively. The stigma scores were positively correlated with SADS, and negatively correlated with psychological resilience scores. The psychological resilience scores were negatively correlated with SADS. Psychological resilience played a partially mediating role between the stigma and SAD of infertility patients, and the mediating effect accounted for 25.5% of the total effect. Conclusion Psychological resilience had a partial mediating effect on the relationship between stigma and SAD, and could reduce the negative effect of stigma on the development of SADS. Therefore, positive psychological interventions improving psychological resilience might help to reduce stigma and improve SAD in infertility patients.
Research on Intrusion Detection Based on Neural Network Optimized by Genetic Algorithm

With the development of 5G and the emergence of the COVID-19 epidemic, network traffic has surged, and network security has once again become a key concern. Intrusion detection system is an important means to protect network security. It can find abnormal conditions in the early stage of cyber attack. Intrusion detection is also a kind of abnormal detection in a broad sense. To improve the performance of the intrusion detection system, a cyber-attack detection method combining Borderline SMOTE and improved BP neural network (Back-Propagation neural network) is proposed. It mainly uses one-hot encoding, Borderline SMOTE data oversampling and other technologies to preprocess the data, and uses the BP neural network improved by genetic algorithm to predict cyber attacks. Finally, the model is compared with other traditional machine learning models through the core indicator recall and auxiliary indicators precision, roc curve, etc. The results show that the hybrid detection model proposed in this study has higher recall and lower running time, and performs better in intrusion detection.
Comparative analysis of gas–liquid flow in T-junction microchannels with different inlet orientations

In this study, a comparative analysis of two-phase flow in T-junction microchannels with different inlet orientations was carried out. Based on computational fluid dynamics and the volume-of-fluid model, bubble size, bubble velocities, and pressure distributions were analyzed. The numerical algorithm was validated with the experimental observations from former literatures; the results show that when the capillary number, Ca, is low, the length of gas and liquid slug in the symmetric T-junction is higher than that in the cross-flow T-junction. The effect of different forces acting on the slugs during the process of bubble formation was studied by investigating the velocity gradient and pressure distribution in the mixing zone. The result shows that the shear stress in cross-flow T-junction is over two times of that in T-junction with two symmetric inlets under the same operating conditions, which indicates that the size of bubble and liquid slug depends on the shear stress at low Ca number.
Protein Splicing of Inteins: A Powerful Tool in Synthetic Biology

Inteins are protein segments that are capable of enabling the ligation of flanking extein into a new protein, a process known as protein splicing. Since its discovery, inteins have become powerful biotechnological tools for applications such as protein engineering. In the last 10 years, the development in synthetic biology has further endowed inteins with enhanced functions and diverse utilizations. Here we review these efforts and discuss the future directions.
Perspective, Opportunities and Challenges in Using Fennel (Foeniculum vulgare) in Poultry Health and Production as an Eco-Friendly Alternative to Antibiotics: A Review

Following the European Union’s restriction on antibiotic growth promoters, research on enhancing gut health has been accelerated. As the poultry industry is facing issues that were previously managed by antimicrobial growth promoters, the hunt for the best remedies continues to find suitable alternatives. Simultaneously, social pressure is mounting to reduce the usage of antibiotics and replace them with other feed additives. Consumers believe a number of accessible options to be safe, with phytogenics playing a crucial role. This review describes how the use of fennel seeds could be beneficial for poultry. An overview of the broad chemical diversity of fennel is presented together with their physicochemical and biological properties. According to investigations, fennel seeds have a variety of biological effects in birds, including improved performance, higher immune cell proliferation, reduced oxidative stress, and boosted antibody titers against infectious diseases. The efficacy of poultry outcomes is determined by the stage and age of the plants, the extraction process, the geographical location, the chicken species, management techniques, and the concentrations administered. The present review focuses on the effects of fennel seeds as a feed additive on poultry growth, carcass quality, blood biochemistry, antioxidant activity, immunity, and microbiological aspects.
Methods for Aircraft State Estimation from Airport Surface Surveillance

Existing surveillance of aircraft on the airport surface includes significant errors that suggest infeasible vehicle motion. Current analysis of airport surface operations and automation systems based on this surveillance data frequently use the un-improved data with little regard for the effect of the noise on the analysis results or automation performance. This paper reports on an application of single and multiple-model filtering techniques to achieve improved state estimates for aircraft taxiing on an airport system. These state estimation methods demonstrated tremendous potential to provide more physically realistic aircraft state estimates and to significantly improve the performance of a threshold-based motion classification process. Our approach is suitable for either real-time or post-analysis applications.
Content analysis of farm information communicated through selected newspapers

Transfer of appropriate improved farm technologies from research station to the farmers’ field is the only way to enhance the production and productivity in order to feed the ever increasing human and animal population. There are many channels through which transfer of technologies are done. Newspaper is conceived as one of the important mass media for communication of farm information to the millions of farmers across the country. In the present context of the increasing importance of mass media for communication of farm information, what is expected is that an appropriate content, process, structure and system are pragmatically developed. Keeping this at the centre, the present study has been conducted. For that purpose, four widely circulated Bengali newspapers, namely, Aajkal, Ananda Bazar Patrika, Bartaman and Sambad Pratidin were considered. A detailed content analysis of the selected newspapers were done with the basic objective of ascertaining the relative importance given by different newspapers towards publication of farm information. The result of the study suggests that, all the newspapers are having differential importance towards publication of different categories and subcategories of farm information.
ECG Recurrence Plot-Based Arrhythmia Classification Using Two-Dimensional Deep Residual CNN Features

In this paper, an effective electrocardiogram (ECG) recurrence plot (RP)-based arrhythmia classification algorithm that can be implemented in portable devices is presented. Public databases from PhysioNet were used to conduct this study including the MIT-BIH Atrial Fibrillation Database, the MIT-BIH Arrhythmia Database, the MIT-BIH Malignant Ventricular Ectopy Database, and the Creighton University Ventricular Tachyarrhythmia Database. ECG time series were segmented and converted using an RP, and two-dimensional images were used as inputs to the CNN classifiers. In this study, two-stage classification is proposed to improve the accuracy. The ResNet-18 architecture was applied to detect ventricular fibrillation (VF) and noise during the first stage, whereas normal, atrial fibrillation, premature atrial contraction, and premature ventricular contractions were detected using ResNet-50 in the second stage. The method was evaluated using 5-fold cross-validation which improved the results when compared to previous studies, achieving first and second stage average accuracies of 97.21% and 98.36%, sensitivities of 96.49% and 97.92%, positive predictive values of 95.54% and 98.20%, and F1-scores of 95.96% and 98.05%, respectively. Furthermore, a 5-fold improvement in the memory requirement was achieved when compared with a previous study, making this classifier feasible for use in resource-constricted environments such as portable devices. Even though the method is successful, first stage training requires combining four different arrhythmia types into one label (other), which generates more data for the other category than for VF and noise, thus creating a data imbalance that affects the first stage performance.
Methodology

1900-2012 in overlap years ( i.e. those years both these sets of experts and the full time period experts coded). More speciﬁcally, we determine the conﬁdence-weighted average score of the full-time period experts for a speciﬁc country in the overlap years, and subtract the equivalent average for new experts of the same country from this value. We then add this diﬀerence to the new experts’ scores for a given country for when computing the prior (restricting the resulting values such that they cannot exceed the range of the ordinal data). We use the same procedure for historical experts ( i.e. we compute oﬀsets for new and historical experts separately). The purpose of these oﬀsets is as follows. Experts who code diﬀerent time periods may have diﬀerent cognitive reference points for levels of the ordinal scale, and thus provide diﬀerent values for the same latent construct due to DIF. The oﬀsets ameliorate this problem by ﬁxing the prior for a given country-year to a consistent reference point, i.e. the scores of those experts for whom we have the most data (those experts who coded the full time period). As a further nuance, new experts for surveys starting in v10 coded a sequence of years prior to 2005 (the ﬁrst year of their coding task). Preliminary analyses indicate that this sequential coding brings these coders’ scores closer to the 1900-2012 coders. We thus do not weight the new (v10 and after) coders’ scores when computing the empirical priors.
High-Speed/Hypersonic Test and Evaluation Infrastructure Capabilities Study

The United States Department of Defense (DoD) has designated Hypersonics a transformational technology. This study is focused on the systems development test and evaluation (T&E) of air-breathing high-speed and hypersonic (HS/H) war fighting capabilities. The study includes consideration of T&E capability requirements for modeling and simulation (M&S), ground test, and flight test and addresses potential T&E science and technologies required to support future T&E requirements. The study also focuses on defining the HS/H weapon systems development capability requirements, where airbreathing propulsion is employed, necessary over the next 15 years to successfully develop and sustain weapon system and access to space capabilities currently emerging from HS/H technologies. In 2004 the National Aerospace Initiative (NAI) refocused Service and DARPA HS/H Science and Technology (S&T) spending to mature HS/H expendable and reusable weapons and space technologies at targeted “off-ramps” in 2010, 2015, and 2020. There is enough confidence in the potential of HS/H technology that mission applications ascribed to the NAI HS/H technologies clearly indicate HS/H weapon systems are emerging as viable and attractive solutions to a number of DoD capability requirements. The U. S. Office of the Secretary of Defense, Director of Operational Test and Evaluation (OSD, DOT&E), directed that a study be performed (1) to reexamine the ability of existing DoD and NASA infrastructure to support required engineering and systems development of HS/H technologies into weapon systems and (2) to produce an HS/H T&E capability requirements roadmap to guide investments in M&S, ground-test, and flight-test capabilities and related facilities studies/research needed. Not surprisingly, this study has reaffirmed the conclusions of scientists and engineers in numerous previous studies. The current U. S. national Research Development Test and Evaluation (RDT&E) infrastructure is inadequate to effectively and efficiently transform most emerging HS/H technologies into military flight systems capabilities. The modeling and simulation, ground, and flight evaluation infrastructure must be upgraded so that the products of S&T can be applied to the development of advanced weapon systems.
THE EFFECT OF INNOVATION AND ENTREPRENEURIAL INTENTION TO FIRM PERFORMANCE

The purpose of this research is to measure the effect of entrepreneurial orientation and the types of innovation (product, process, marketing) to the firm performance. Little attention, however, has been given to the possible impact of various dimensions of innovation on firm performance. To achieve this purpose, the authors evaluate the impact of entrepreneurial orientation and the types of innovation on the performance of small and medium enterprises (SMEs). This study applied a quantitative design. The questionnaires were distributed manually and digitally to 236 workers who work in the smalland medium enterprises (SME) in Jababeka,Cikarangarea–Indonesia. The data were analyzed using a hierarchical regression analysis. The findings confirmed the hypothesis that entrepreneurial orientation and type of innovation influenced firm performance significantly.Keywords: Innovation, entrepreneurial orientation, firm performance, SMEs, Indonesia.
Archaea, the unseen kingdom in the gut microbiome of Anastrepha obliqua

The fruit fly Anastrepha obliqua is an economically important pest. The sterile insect technique is used to control this pest; it involves mass production and release of sterile flies to reduce the reproduction of the wild population. As noted in different tephritidae, the performance of sterile males may be affected by the assimilation of nutrients under mass-rearing conditions. In the wild, the fly’s life cycle suggests the acquisition of different organisms that could modulate its fitness and physiology. For A. obliqua, there is no information regarding microorganisms other than bacteria. This study analyzed bacteria, fungi, and archaea communities in the A. obliqua gut through denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis (DGGE) profiles of 16S (using different set of primers for bacteria and archaea) and 18S ribosomal DNA markers. We found that wild flies presented higher microbial diversity than laboratory samples related to fructose assimilation. In contrast, laboratory microbial species suggest that microorganisms have led to a specialized metabolism to process nutrients associated to an artificial diet. We showed that by employing different primer sets aimed at the same molecular marker but targeting diverse hypervariable regions of bacteria and archaea 16S rDNA, it was possible to identify species that have not been previously described in this fruit fly. Here, the archaea kingdom is suggested as an important player in fly metabolism. This report of the intestinal microbial (bacteria, archaea, and fungi) composition of A. obliqua, contributes to our understanding of the role of microorganisms in the development and physiology of the flies.
A Poset-Based Approach to Curvature of Hypergraphs

In this contribution, we represent hypergraphs as partially ordered sets or posets, and provide a geometric framework based on posets to compute the Forman–Ricci curvature of vertices as well as hyperedges in hypergraphs. Specifically, we first provide a canonical method to construct a two-dimensional simplicial complex associated with a hypergraph, such that the vertices of the simplicial complex represent the vertices and hyperedges of the original hypergraph. We then define the Forman–Ricci curvature of the vertices and the hyperedges as the scalar curvature of the associated vertices in the simplicial complex. Remarkably, Forman–Ricci curvature has a simple combinatorial expression and it can effectively capture the variation in symmetry or asymmetry over a hypergraph. Finally, we perform an empirical study involving computation and analysis of the Forman–Ricci curvature of hyperedges in several real-world hypergraphs. We find that Forman–Ricci curvature shows a moderate to high absolute correlation with standard hypergraph measures such as eigenvector centrality and cardinality. Our results suggest that the notion of Forman–Ricci curvature extended to hypergraphs in this work can be used to gain novel insights on the organization of higher-order interactions in real-world hypernetworks.
Optimization of a cruciform specimen for fatigue crack growth under in and out-of-phase in-plane biaxial loading conditions

Abstract Mixed-mode loading conditions are present in different mechanical components. Understanding the influence of in-plane biaxial loading paths parameters allows for fatigue crack growth (FCG) prediction and component fatigue life assessment. Cruciform specimens are used to simulate these conditions, but large specimen dimensions are required in order to keep crack propagation unaffected by specimen geometry. This article describes the procedure used to optimize a new cruciform specimen geometry, with small dimensions. Having identified the specimen arms fillet as a major source of crack growth interference, this effect was kept to a minimum, while using arm slots with different widths and lengths. Individual slot dimensions were optimized using a Direct MultiSearch (DMS) algorithm, minimizing the stress intensity factor (SIF) difference between the optimal specimen and an infinite plate. FCG on the optimized specimen was simulated under in and out-of-phase loading conditions. Due to crack closure effects, fatigue propagation under fully out-of-phase loading is less sensitive to specimen geometry. Therefore, the final geometry was chosen considering the required biaxial loading ratio under in-phase loading. Highlights A new and optimized cruciform specimen was obtained using Direct MultiSearch (DMS). The notched specimen uses six different width and length slots per arm. The optimal specimen geometry provides accurate initial fatigue crack propagation angles. The optimal specimen can predict fatigue crack growth under in and out-of-phase loading conditions.