Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Wireless Subnanosecond RF Synchronization for Distributed Ultrawideband Software-Defined Radar Networks

In this article, we present a distributed and decentralized synchronization algorithm for wireless sensor networks (WSNs). The proposed method achieves subnanosecond synchronization using low-cost commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) Universal Software Radio Peripheral (USRP) software-defined radios (SDRs) and is implemented entirely in software without the need for custom hardware or atomic clocks. In an <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$N$ </tex-math></inline-formula> sensor network, the proposed protocol results in each sensor having full knowledge of baseband clock offsets, RF carrier phase offsets, and pairwise RF time of flight to subnanosecond precision for the entire network after <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$2N$ </tex-math></inline-formula> total transmissions, making this method efficiently extendible to larger sensor networks. The method is decentralized and does not rely on a hierarchical master–slave structure, making it robust to sensor dropout in contested or harsh environments. The proposed methodology is validated in simulation and tested in field experiments using a three-sensor network. This work has a wide range of applications, including transmit (TX) beamforming, distributed sensor localization, and coherent multistatic/multiple-input–multiple-output (MIMO) radar imaging for autonomous sensor swarms.
Low-level genetic diversity of opalinid morphotypes from the digestive tract of Hoplobatrachus rugulosus (Batrachia, Amphibia) in Thailand

Opaline is an unusual group of protists, characterized by the presence of flagella covering their whole body. They reside in the intestinal tracts of various animals, most notably amphibians. While there is a wealth of data regarding the morphological features of opalines, molecular data are extremely sparse. Consequently, the extent of diversity of this understudied group remains unknown. Here, we examine opalines from the intestinal tract of the amphibian Hoplobatrachus rugulosus in Thailand. We provide micrographs obtained from light and scanning electron microscopy of various opalinid morphotypes. Furthermore, we enrich the database of opaline sequences by providing new molecular data of the small subunit ribosomal DNA gene of these species. In our phylogenetic analyses, the newly derived sequences form a cluster sister to Protoopalina.
Reconfiguration of Hospital Outpatient Pharmacies by Adopting the Concept of Group Technology for Arrangement of Drugs on Shelves

Reconfiguration of hospital outpatient pharmacies is necessary to achieve several benefits, including improved workflows, reduction in the total distances travelled by pharmacy drug pickers, and reduction in patient waiting times, thereby increasing patient satisfaction. To achieve this purpose, this paper proposes the use of a methodology that involves application of group technology, a manufacturing concept, to the drug-shelving problem. To demonstrate its practicality, the proposed methodology is applied to an outpatient pharmacy in a public hospital, in which 21 drug groups, comprising 114 different drugs, are clustered into eight cells, where each cell consists of interrelated drug groups that are to be located in close proximity on the shelves. Unlike those proposed in the literature, the methodology described in this paper, in addition to its simplicity, has the advantage of retaining the arrangement of drugs in their groups while minimising the total distance that pharmacy drug pickers travel to fill prescriptions.
The Cost of Caring: An Arts-Based Phenomenological Analysis of Secondary Traumatic Stress in College Student Affairs

Abstract:Student affairs professionals are often called upon to act as first-responders to students experiencing trauma, leaving them exposed to secondary traumatic stress. In this study, I used phenomenological methods supported by an arts-based research exercise to explore the experiences and meaning making processes of student affairs professionals who have supported students through traumatic life events. The findings explore major themes, including the role of organizational influence on maladaptive views of student support, the impact of support work on personal wellness, self-efficacy in trauma support, and dimensions of social support. Implications for practice and further research are discussed.
Does the Percentage of Investment Grades Given by Rating Agencies Impact their Market Share?

The credit ratings industry has controlled by three core credit ratings agencies; Fitch, Moody’s and S&P that are contributing to financial markets by providing reliable and transparent credit ratings information on which stakeholders can rely. These key players could manipulate this information by allocating high percentages of quality ratings just for the sake of increasing their market shares. This research is conducting to examine the impact for assigning the percentage of investment grades given by CRA’s on their market share. This research will attain following objectives: firstly, to identify quality ratings assigned for each set of top banks from UK & USA and categories them yearly; secondly, to examine their market share on the basis of percentage of IG grade given; thirdly, to access the modeling and impacts of financial crisis on market share of CRA’s; finally, to determine the relationship between CRA’s market share and percentage of IG given. This research gives a detailed analysis for percentage of IG assigned by CRA’s and their market share which consist on general analysis and econometric analysis. Moreover, the research methodology is quantitative method for achieving all research objectives. For general analysis, we make a comparative study to find the impacts of high-quality ratings against their market share and evaluated the growth rate in their market share. Whereas, for econometrics analysis, we regress market share of CRA’s against the percentage of investment grades given and use lagged variables to understand the changes in market share. Besides, this allows us to find the relationship between CRA’s and percentage of IG given. Hence, the results from both analyses have exposed that there is positive correlation between CRA’s market share and percentage of IG given. It is revealed that there is an increase in market share of CRA’s on assigning high percentage of IG given by CRA’s and a negative growth rate shown in market share for those years in which they allocate less number of quality ratings. However, due to financial crisis and adjustment in credit ratings standards, there is a general fall in number of ratings assigned by CRA’s which very influences their market share.
Training Memory: Exploring the Intersection of Plant Stress Signalling and DNA Methylation

Plants are sessile organisms living in a dynamic environment to which they must continually acclimatize in order to maximise their reproductive potential. This plasticity is achieved through many complex and intricate signalling pathways that allow for the continuous perception, response, and adjustments to new environmental stimuli. A growing body of evidence suggests that such pathways are not merely static but dynamic and can be primed following repeated activation, thus affecting enhanced responses to recurring stresses. Such examples of priming have led to a notion that plants have some capacity to form stress memories of past environmental perturbations. However, the full extent and nature of such memory, and the machinery involved to store and transmit these, remain enigmatic. One prospective mechanism is the involvement of heritable, yet rapid and reversible, chromatin marks that, theoretically, could be shaped by the environment to convey a regulatory effect on the expression of the underlying genotype, thus acting as an epigenetic layer of regulation. This thesis explores the potential intersection of stress signalling pathways and chromatin variation, specifically DNA methylation, to co-ordinate plant stress responses. First, mechanistic insights into the operation of a SAL1-PAP-XRN retrograde signalling pathway to fine-tune plant physiology under drought are presented. A key finding was that this pathway complements canonical ABA signalling to induce stomatal closure, thus minimising water-loss under water limited conditions. Furthermore, the SAL1-PAP-XRN pathway was found to effect chromatin patterns, specifically DNA methylation at short transposable elements. These observations implicate cross-talk with the RNA directed DNA methylation pathway, however, the exact mechanism for this interaction remains to be identified. Multiple investigations were performed to test for stress-induced changes in DNA methylation that could potentially regulate responses to recurring stress, thus conveying a memory. A transgenerational recurring drought stress experiment tested whether descendants of drought-exposed lineages displayed greater drought tolerance (transgenerational memory). For the majority of traits tested, including plant growth rate and drought survival, offspring from plant lineages exposed to successive generations of repeated drought stress performed comparably to those from control lineages. However, memory was demonstrated in the form of enhanced seed dormancy, in drought stressed lineages, that persisted at least one generation removed from stress. Whether this ca-
Considering DGs Voltage Protection in Optimal Coordination of Directional Overcurrent Relays to Minimize the Energy Not Supplied

So far, the overall operation time of relays has been used as the objective function in all directional overcurrent relays (DOCRs) optimal coordination problems. However, it cannot guarantee that in an optimal coordination of DOCRs at presence of distributed generations (DGs), the reliability indices will reach the minimum value. The reason is the existence of DGs voltage protection at their connection point to the network. This protection plays a key role in determining participation of DGs in improving network reliability during fault conditions. However, in the previous studies in which the overall operation time of relays is considered as the objective function, the voltage protection of DGs is not taken into account. In this article, coordination between DOCRs and their interactions with the DGs voltage protection is considered in calculation of the energy not supplied (ENS). Also, instead of the overall operation time of the DOCRs, the ENS value is considered as the optimization objective function. A probabilistic hourly seasonal model has been used to model the renewable DGs and the network loads. Various scenarios have been simulated to demonstrate the efficiency of the proposed method over a standard 33-bus radial distribution network.
Salinity shock in Jatropha curcas leaves is more pronounced during recovery than during stress time

To verify the possible morphological and ultrastructural differences in the Jatropha curcas leaves, in response to high-intensity salt stress, three genotypes were evaluated (CNPAE183, JCAL171 and CNPAE218). In all the genotypes, 750mM NaCl, added to the nutrient solution, was applied to test its salt tolerance. For the analysis, the leaves were collected at three time points: (i) before stress (time 0 hour); (ii) during stress time (time 50 hours); and (iii) in the recovery period (time 914 hours) when the stressed plants recovered and demonstrated measurements of net photosynthetic with values similar to those demonstrated by the control plants. We showed that regardless of the genotype, saline shock caused an increase in the thickness of the mesophyll, and after the removal of NaCl, the thicker mesophyll remained in the JCAL171 and CNPAE218 genotypes, while the values observed in the CNPAE183 genotype were similar to those before stress. Scanning electron microscopy indicated that the stomata of CNPAE183 are smaller and have a stomatal index higher than the values demonstrated in JCAL171 and CNPAE218. Therefore, among the genotypes analysed, CNPAE183 demonstrates that it could be considered a promising genotype for future studies of genetic improvement that seek elite genotypes tolerant to salinity. Highlights This manuscript present the following highlights: The mesophyll thickness contributes to provide a smaller path for the CO2 to Rubisco J. curcas may reduce mesophyll air spaces as a strategy to mitigate low gas exchange Leaves modulate the expansion of stomata differently than other epidermal cells Smaller stomata with greater pore aperture are more abundant on the abaxial surface CNPAE183 is a candidate for studies in search of elite genotypes tolerant to salinity
True Origin of Gate Ringing in Superjunction MOSFETs: Device View

As superjunction devices are scaled down to smaller dimensions, the gate ringing becomes more prominent in dynamic switching. The exact origin of superjunction <sc>MOSFET</sc>'s gate ringing has not been so far identified as the conventional three-terminal measurement method cannot capture the dynamic behavior of the device, in particular the redistribution of charge between the different internal capacitive components in the superjunction structure. In this article, it is found that the gate ringing is highly related to the input capacitance. Specifically, by employing a TCAD model with a split gate method, the gate-to-source (<italic>C<sub>GS</sub></italic>) and gate-to-drain (<italic>C<sub>GD</sub></italic>) current are investigated during the dynamic transitions. The gate ringing is highly dependent on sum of the input capacitances (<italic>C<sub>G</sub><sub>S</sub></italic> + <italic>C<sub>GD</sub></italic>) for the turn-<sc>on</sc>. In the case of the turn-<sc>off</sc>, however, the gate ringing is affected by the ratio of the input capacitances (<italic>C<sub>GD</sub></italic>/<italic>C<sub>GS</sub></italic>) and a lower <italic>C<sub>GS</sub></italic> is desirable for a low gate oscillation.
Distributed Direct Position Determination

The direct position determination (DPD) algorithms have been shown to outperform conventional two-step methods in localization accuracy under poor observation conditions (e.g., low signal-to-noise ratios or short signal observation durations). In this paper, we consider the distributed DPD of a static source in large-scale sensor networks. Different from the centralized DPD (CDPD) algorithms where all the raw signal samples are transmitted globally to a fusion center to solve for the source position, in our method the signal samples are only exchanged locally between neighboring sensors, and the source position is estimated using the proposed DPD algorithm distributively. The problem-specific cost function, which is different from the cost function of CDPD, is first derived. To obtain the cost function at each sensor, we propose to transmit the low-dimensional sufficient statistics across the sensor networks instead of the original high-dimensional raw signal samples, and to reconstruct the cost function via simple interpolations. Simplification of cost function evaluation is also developed to further reduce complexity. Finally, source position is estimated at each sensor efficiently via the importance sampling algorithm. Simulation results demonstrate the superior performance of the proposed method over existing adaptive distributed DPD as well as the two-step algorithms under poor observation conditions, and its computational efficiency is significantly improved compared with the CDPD.
Temperature-dependent control of flowering time in barley ( Hordeum vulgare L.) by the gibberellin signaling pathway

VRN1 is the major flowering promoting loci in barley. It is the orthologue of AP1 from Arabidopsis, which overexpression causes early flowering. Gibberellins (GAs) have a strong role in promoting flowering, through the stimulation of DELLA degradation. In barley this process is poorly known. This work shows that the late flowering time of barley plants grown in cold temperature is due to an enhanced GA catabolism and a decreased VRN1 levels. This delay is rescued by increased VRN1 expression levels and GA treatments, which promote DELLA degradation, GA production and VRN1 expression.
Cactus Pear: a Weed of Dry-Lands for Supplementing Food Security Under Changing Climate

ABSTRACT: Climate change characterized by global warming and frequent occurrence of prolonged drought spells has necessitated the cultivation of multi-purpose crops which are temperature and drought hardy. This paper evaluates the production potential of cactus pear [Opuntia ficus indica (L.) Mill. ] as an alternate and low-cost forage crop along with the recent advancements in its cultivation and utilization as food crop for supplementing the food security of rapidly increasing populace. The botanical, ecological and physiological traits enabling cactus pear to survive under harsh agro-climatic conditions have been objectively elaborated. A variety of impediments hampering its wide-scale cultivation and future breeding needs for improving the biomass production and nutritional quality have also been identified. The potential of cactus pear to reduce desertification along with imparting sustainability to modern, commercial and profitable agriculture in dry-lands makes it an exceptional plant. Its annual biomass (stems called cladodes) yield of 40-50 t ha-1 with an appropriate agronomic management may sustain 5-6 adult cows supporting a family of 12-16 people. However, its slow growth, less fruit yield, poor nutritional quality of forage and the fear of cactus pear becoming a noxious weed restricts its popularized cultivation and thus demands a comprehensive genetic improvement and agronomic technology package.
Drug reformulation for a neglected disease. The NANOHAT project to develop a safer more effective sleeping sickness drug

Human African trypanosomiasis (HAT or sleeping sickness) is caused by the parasite Trypanosoma brucei sspp. The disease has two stages, a haemolymphatic stage after the bite of an infected tsetse fly, followed by a central nervous system stage where the parasite penetrates the brain, causing death if untreated. Treatment is stage-specific, due to the blood-brain barrier, with less toxic drugs such as pentamidine used to treat stage 1. The primary objective of our research programme was to develop an intravenous formulation of pentamidine which increases CNS exposure by some 10-100 fold, leading to efficacy against a model of stage 2 HAT. This target candidate profile is in line with drugs for neglected diseases inititative (DNDi) recommendations. To do this, we evaluated the physicochemical and structural characteristics of Pluronic-pentamidine formulations, selected appropriate candidates for efficacy and toxicity evaluation in vitro, quantified pentamidine CNS delivery of a sub-set of formulations in vitro and in vivo, and progressed one pentamidine-Pluronic formulation for further evaluation using an in vivo single dose brain penetration study. Screening pentamidine against 40 CNS targets did not reveal any major neurotoxicity concerns, however, pentamidine had a high affinity for the imidazoline2 receptor. The observed reduction in insulin secretion with pentamidine in MIN6 β-cells maybe secondary to pentamidine-mediated activation of β-cell imidazoline receptors and impairment of cell viability. F68 (0.01%w/v)-pentamidine formulation had a similar inhibitory effect on insulin secretion as pentamidine alone and an additive trypanocidal effect in vitro. However, all Pluronics tested (P85, P105 and F68) did not significantly enhance brain exposure of pentamidine. We therefore closed the study before progressing to in vivo efficacy and toxicity studies. Importantly, this MRC DPFS funded study has resulted in the generation of a set of results which are relevant to further developing block-copolymers as nanocarriers, improving BBB drug penetration and understanding the side effects of pentamidine.
Two new species from the Hygrobates nigromaculatus-complex (Acariformes, Hydrachnidia, Hygrobatidae), based on morphological and molecular evidence

We analyse the taxonomic structure of the Hygrobates nigromaculatus-complex from the Balkan Peninsula. We describe two new species: Hygrobates lacrima Pešić sp. nov. (Montenegro) and H. limnocrenicus Pešić sp. nov. (Montenegro, North Macedonia). Although both species are morphologically similar, the average K2P-distance between DNA-barcode sequences from H. limnocrenicus sp. nov. and its closest relative H. setosus was 12.43% (SD = 1.47), and between H. lacrima sp. nov. and its closest relative H. nigromaculatus 15.87% (SD = 1.74). The new species exhibit distinct differences in terms of habitat preference: H. lacrima sp. nov. inhabits pools and shallow eddies along faster flowing waters, whereas H. limnocrenicus sp. nov. prefers deeper, fast flowing water, typically found in the outflow of a limnocrenic springs or lake outlets. The finding of these two new species suggests that efforts to investigate mites of the H. nigromaculatus-complex in the Balkans should be intensified.
Stable Task Assignment for Mobile Crowdsensing With Budget Constraint

In mobile crowdsensing, it is a challenge to assign tasks to appropriate smartphones. Existing task allocation mechanisms mainly aim at optimizing the global system performance, while ignoring the personal preferences of individual crowdsensing tasks and smartphone users. Nevertheless, in an open crowdsensing system, a task assignment is prone to be unstable if smartphone users or tasks have incentives to deviate from the global assignment, and seek for alternative choices to improve their own utilities. Besides that, during task competition, the rational smartphone users might choose to adjust their payments after the first few failures, which however, brings new challenges in achieving the stability. To address these issues, this paper constructs a distributed many-to-many matching model to capture the interaction between crowdsensing tasks and smartphone users, taking into account the budget constraints of tasks. Then, we design a stable matching algorithm to allocate the tasks to the users, and determine their payments. We prove that the proposed algorithm achieves several desirable properties including individual rationality, stability, and convergency. It is also proved that the proposed scheme achieves at least half of the optimal system efficiency when each smartphone provides homogeneous service quality. Finally, simulation results confirm the effectiveness of the proposed scheme.
Food Waste Knowledge, Attitudes, and Behavioral Intentions among University Students

After policy change, educational programming has been cited as one of the most powerful tools for improving food systems and decreasing food waste. University students represent a population in which emerging habits, skills, and identity may be targeted easily and changed through on-campus educational programming. To understand how to best implement programming on impacts of food, food waste, and related issues, the factors that underlie students’ behaviors related to food waste must be understood. We analyzed factors that influence food waste–related behaviors within a university student population to understand the potential for improving targeted, school-based food waste diversion programming. Four hundred and ninety-five students were surveyed to: (1) identify self-reported knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors a * Corresponding author: Manar A. Alattar, Department of Environmental Science & Management, Portland State University; P.O. Box 751; Portland, OR 97207 USA; manaraalattar@gmail.com Alattar’s present addresses are Department of Biology, Portland Community College; 12000 SW 49th Ave.; Portland, OR 97219 USA; and Environmental Studies Department, University of Portland; 5000 N. Willamette Blvd.; Portland,