Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Associations among Fish Length, Dam Passage History, and Survival to Adulthood in Two At-Risk Species of Pacific Salmon

Threatened or endangered salmon and steelhead originating in the Snake River basin must pass through a series of eight major hydroelectric dams during their seaward migration. Understanding the effects of specific dam passage routes on lifetime survival for these stocks is essential for successful management. Juvenile fish may pass these dams via three primary routes: 1) spillways; 2) turbines; or 3) juvenile bypass systems, which divert fish away from turbines and route them downstream. Bypass systems may expose fish to trauma, increased stress, or disease. However, numerous studies have indicated that direct survival through bypass systems is comparable to and often higher than that through spillways. Some researchers have suggested that route of dam passage affects mortality in the estuary or ocean, but this is complicated by studies finding fish size affects route of passage. We tested whether passage through bypass systems was associated with probability of adult return after accounting for fish length and other covariates for two species of concern. We also investigated the association between fish length and probability of bypass at dams, and how this relationship could lead to spurious conclusions regarding effects of bypass systems on survival if length was ignored. We found that: 1) larger fish had lower bypass probabilities at 6 of 7 dams; 2) larger fish had higher probability of surviving to adulthood; 3) bypass history had little association with adult return after accounting for length; and 4) simulations indicated spurious effects of bypass on survival may arise when no true bypass effect exists, especially in models without length. Our results suggest that after fish leave the hydropower system, bypass passage history has little effect on mortality. Our findings underscore the importance of accounting for fish size in studies of dam passage or survival.
A study on the relationship between Bacillus CalmetteGurin (BCG) vaccination and Covid-19 prevalence: Do other confounders warrant investigation?

The Covid-19 pandemic, which originated from Wuhan, Hubei province, China, and quickly spread to the rest of the globe is caused by SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus. Preliminary data suggest a relationship between the BCG vaccine and the prevalence of Covid-19. The vaccine is used in the prevention of tuberculosis, a disease that is most prevalent in developing countries. To determine the potential protective role of Bacillus Calmette-Guerin (BCG) vaccination, this study investigated the occurrence of Covid-19 and the relationship between the spread of Covid-19 in countries that offer BCG vaccination and those that do not. To determine if some SARS-CoV-2 strains were more prevalent than others, the study also performed a phylogenetic analysis of the strains from the representative countries. To achieve the objectives, the study utilized publicly available data on population size, vaccination coverage and Covid-19 cases. The study revealed a significant negative trend between countries that offer the BCG vaccine to the general population and the reported cases of Covid-19. The study proposes future molecular and immunological analyses to determine the potential role of BCG vaccination in protection against Covid-19. This will determine if BCG vaccine has antiviral properties, with the possibility of recommending it for widespread use if supported by scientific data. Key words: Bacillus Calmette-Guerin (BCG) vaccine, Covid-19, pandemic, phylogeographic analysis, vaccination.
Oriented distance regularized level set evolution for image segmentation

The conventional distance regularized level set evolution method has been very popular in image segmentation, but usually it cannot converge to the desired boundary when there are multiple and unwanted boundaries in the image. By observation, the gradient direction between the target boundaries and the unwanted boundaries are usually different in one image. The gradient direction information of the boundaries can guide the orientation of the level set function evolution. In this study, the authors improved the conventional distance regularized level set evolution method, introduced new edge indicator functions and proposed an oriented distance regularized level set evolution method for image segmentation. The experiment results show the proposed method has a better segmentation result in images with multiple boundaries. Moreover, alternately selecting the edge indicator functions we proposed during the level set evolution can lead the zero level set contour to converge to the desired boundaries in complicated images.
Antibiotic Sensitivity Pattern of Clinical Isolates of Pseudomonas aeruginosa at a Tertiary Care Hospital in Saudi Arabia

Among gram-negative microorganisms Pseudomonas aeruginosa is the most common bacteria identified in different clinical specimens of hospitalized patients. A few studies have been conducted in Saudi Arabia regarding antibiotic susceptibility pattern. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the current levels of antibiotic susceptibility and to assess the resistance pattern of antibiotics among the clinical isolates of P. aeruginosa in the King Khalid Hospital, Alkharj, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. This study was carried out during January, 2015 to May, 2015. A total of 180 different specimens such as sputum, urine, pus swabs, wound swabs etc. were collected from different patients admitted to the hospital. Thirty (30) clinical isolates of P. aeruginosa were isolated from different specimens of the patients suspected of having respiratory tract infection, urinary tract infection, wound infections, etc. The antibiotic susceptibility profiles of all the isolates were determined using Kirby-Bauer disk diffusion method. Piperacillin-tazobactam was found to be the most active antimicrobial agent with 96.7% susceptibility followed by cefepime (83.3%), ceftazidime (83.3%), and ciprofloxacin (76.7%). All isolates were resistant to ertapenem, cefuroxime, cefoxitin and nitrofurantoin. Anti-bacterial treatment strategies should focus on P. aeruginosa, for which the prevalence rates are increasing every year. The usage of piperacillin-tazobactam, cefepime, ceftazidime and ciprofloxacin must be reserved and only be given to the patients after susceptibility test to reduce the resistance of P. aeruginosa against these agents.
Quantifying Topographical Changes in Muscle Activation: A Statistical Parametric Mapping Approach

Regional changes in muscle activation occur at different contraction intensities. These changes can be observed with activity maps created with high-density electromyography (HDEMG). When quantifying these changes, statistical parametric mapping (SPM) is a neuroimaging technique that may be used to perform statistical analyses with high sensitivity and spatial resolution. The aim of this study was to identify regional changes in muscle activation at different contraction intensities, comparing SPM and the HDEMG barycenter (centroid). Twelve participants performed plantar flexion isometric contractions at 20%, 40%, and 60% of the maximal voluntary contraction (MVC), while HDEMG was recorded from the medial gastrocnemius. An SPM repeated measures ANOVA design revealed specific mediolateral and cephalocaudal changes in muscle activation with increasing contraction intensities, which were not clearly detected by the variation in the barycenter coordinates. Only SPM revealed statistically significant nonuniform changes in EMG amplitude between all increasing levels of muscle activation.
Biodentine Versus MTA as Pulpotomy Agents in Primary Molars: Clinical and Radiographic Study.

ABSTRACT Objective: to compare the clinical and radiographic success rate of” Biodentine” to that of “mineral trioxide aggregates” (MTA) when used as “pulpotomy agents” in primary molars of children. Study design: This split-mouth controlled randomized clinical study was performed on 10 healthy children age ranged from 2-6 years indicated for complete oral rehabilitation under general anaesthesia, with at least two carious primary molar indicated for pulpotomy. A total of thirty primary molars were treated, teeth were randomly assigned into two groups: Group A “Biodentine” group and Group B “MTA” group. All teeth were restored with “stainless steel crowns”. Follow up was done after 6 and 12 months for clinical and radiographic assessment. Results: clinical success rate was 100% in both group after12 months follow up period. Both groups showed internal root resorption (IRR) either at 6 or 12 months follow up. In the “Biodentine” group four teeth out of 15 showed internal root resorption (IRR) in the whole period of the study. In the “MTA” group two teeth showed IRR in the whole period of study. The radiographic success rate of Biodentine to MTA was 73.3% and 86.6% respectively, with no statistically significant difference between the two groups (P=0.65). Conclusion: Using “Biodentine” and “MTA” as pulpotomy agent in primary teeth showed excellent clinical results. Radiographically, IRR was a finding in both groups. “Biodentine” showed more number of teeth with IRR but the difference was not statistically significant.
Experimental and Numerical study Behaviors on Single Cement Flyash Gravel pile under the combined effect of axial compression and Lateral load

A CFG Cement, Fly-ash and Gravel piles are one of the most popular approaches in geotechnical engineering for load transfer in soft soil and ground improvement in railway, road embankment, high rise building. Its behaviors are like as semi-rigid types of the pile. The analysis and computation of ultimate axial compression load and lateral load in soft soil experiments were conducted in a laboratory to obtaining the response of a single CFG pile. The experimental model of CFG pile is made up of cement fly ash and gravel cast in situ types ascertained using physical scaling fundamental, based on material size, properties, a grade of Mix and prototype of pile foundation. Moreover, the in-situ bored CFG piles have been cast in 70 mm and 100 mm external diameters for Laboratory tests. Hence the different CFG pile lengths are considered for variable L/D ratios. All the experiments were performed on soft clay under independent axial compression and lateral load test; it is also to investigate the combined effect of axial compression and lateral load. It has been observed that the behavior of CFG piles under independent individual loading is significantly different when compared with combined loading. It also derives the relationship between the ultimate load in axial compression and lateral loading as well as in the combined effect of loading. It observed that the ratio of ultimate lateral load and axial load in individual to combined loading are significantly increasing. However, the CFG pile vertical deflection/Lateral displacement at considering with its safe factor of lateral load/axial compression was increasing effectively. In addition to determining the safe axial load / lateral load that has been considering in the present study may be required for design limiting displacement/deflection failure criteria of the CFG pile effectively under combined load. It is noted that the CFG pile imposition with combined loading can substantially improve the soil properties and can lead to the economy in the design of foundations.
Synthesis and Experimental-Computational Characterization of a Copper/Vanadium Compound with Potential Anticancer Activity

Cancer represents a major worldwide public health problem. While significant advances in different fronts are being made to combat the disease, the development of new metal-based drugs with cytotoxic capabilities is of high relevance. This work presents a heterobimetallic molecule comprising two moieties with a structure similar to Casiopeina II-gly. One of them has a cyclotetravanadate anion that functions as an inorganic bridge coordinating two Cu (II) atoms resulting in a hexanuclear [Cu(phen)(Gly)-µ2-V4O12-Cu(phen)(Gly)]2− complex, which is counterbalanced by two isolated [Cu(phen)(Gly)(H2O)]1+ cations. Ten water molecules arranged in two sets of five-member chains also play an essential role in the 3D supramolecular structure of the compound. The molecule was designed to provide Cu and V, two metals with proven anticancer capabilities in the same molecular structure. The compound was synthesized and characterized by elemental analysis; visible, FTIR, and Raman spectroscopies; 51V Nuclear Magnetic Resonance; cyclic voltammetry; and monocrystalline X-ray diffraction. The structural, spectroscopic, and electronic properties of the compound were calculated through the density functional theory (DFT) using the Minnesota functional M06-2X and the Def2TZVP/LANL2TZ(f) basis sets with an effective core potential (ECP) for metals. Noncovalent interactions were analyzed using a natural population analysis (NPA) and Hirshfeld surfaces. The compound upon dissociation provides two metals that can interact with important biological targets in a variety of cancer cell models.
Real-time contextual feedback for close-loop control of navigation

Objective. Close-loop control of brain and behavior will benefit from real-time detection of behavioral events to enable low-latency communication with peripheral devices. In animal experiments, this is typically achieved by using sparsely distributed (embedded) sensors that detect animal presence in select regions of interest. High-speed cameras provide high-density sampling across large arenas, capturing the richness of animal behavior, however, the image processing bottleneck prohibits real-time feedback in the context of rapidly evolving behaviors. Approach. Here we developed an open-source software, named PolyTouch, to track animal behavior in large arenas and provide rapid close-loop feedback in ~5.7 ms, ie. average latency from the detection of an event to analog stimulus delivery, e.g. auditory tone, TTL pulse, when tracking a single body. This stand-alone software is written in JAVA. The included wrapper for MATLAB provides experimental flexibility for data acquisition, analysis and visualization. Main results. As a proof-of-principle application we deployed the PolyTouch for place awareness training. A user-defined portion of the arena was used as a virtual target; visit (or approach) to the target triggered auditory feedback. We show that mice develop awareness to virtual spaces, tend to stay shorter and move faster when they reside in the virtual target zone if their visits are coupled to relatively high stimulus intensity (⩾49 dB). Thus, close-loop presentation of perceived aversive feedback is sufficient to condition mice to avoid virtual targets within the span of a single session (~20 min). Significance. Neuromodulation techniques now allow control of neural activity in a cell-type specific manner in spiking resolution. Using animal behavior to drive closed-loop control of neural activity would help to address the neural basis of behavioral state and environmental context-dependent information processing in the brain.
Spatial Dependence Modeling of Flood Risk Using Max-Stable Processes: The Example of Austria

We propose a new approach to model the dependence structure for aggregating the risk of flood damages from a local level to larger areas, which is based on the structure of the river network of a country and can be calibrated with publicly available data of river discharges. Building upon a suitable adaptation of max-stable processes for a flood-relevant geometry as recently introduced in the literature, this enables the assessment of flood risk without the need for a hydrological model, and can easily be adapted for different countries. We illustrate its use for the particular case of Austria. We first develop marginal flood models for individual municipalities by intertwining available HORA risk maps with the actual location of buildings. As a second alternative for the marginal modeling, we advocate an approach based on suitably normalized historical damage data of municipalities together with techniques from extreme value statistics. We implement and compare the two alternatives and apply the calibrated dependence structure to each of them, leading to estimates for average flood damage as well as its extreme quantiles on the municipality, state, and country level. This also allows us to quantify the diversification potential for flood risk on each of these levels, a topic of considerable importance in view of the natural and strong spatial dependence of this particular natural peril.
Adapting guided inquiry learning worksheets for emergency remote learning

PurposeProcess-oriented guided inquiry learning (POGIL) is a series of learning activities building on student prior knowledge guiding them to construct their own understanding of new concepts in collaborative roles. This paper aims to illustrate how POGIL worksheets can be adapted for low bandwidth and low-computing environments to accommodate the largest swathe of learners in higher education, as was the case during the switch to emergency remote learning in 2020.Design/methodology/approachThe POGIL worksheets in this paper scaffold the discovery of new concepts while providing sample computer program output, guiding students to make predictions about the connection between program input and program output. Answers are provided to these questions after completion so that students may check their understanding or look to the answers as worked examples. These POGIL worksheets were used for the past two years in an in-person classroom situation with minimal computing resources, replacing 4/5 of a classroom lecture doing POGILs collaboratively. In the midst of emergency remote learning, these worksheets were adapted to complement asynchronous lecture videos, and also serve as lecture replacement as needed.FindingsThis paper discusses an approach to adapting POGIL worksheets for introduction to computer science for students who may not have the necessary digital tools (programing software, bandwidth for streaming video, etc.). While the context for this paper is computer science, POGIL has a deep history in chemistry education and other natural sciences, suggesting an approach that may be adapted for situations where hands-on laboratory experiments may not be possible.Originality/valueCS-POGIL has many materials available for computer science, but this paper discusses 23 new worksheets and how to adapt them to the novel situation of emergency remote teaching.
Anomaly Based Unknown Intrusion Detection in Endpoint Environments

According to a study by Cybersecurity Ventures, cybercrime is expected to cost $6 trillion annually by 2021. Most cybersecurity threats access internal networks through infected endpoints. Recently, various endpoint environments such as smartphones, tablets, and Internet of things (IoT) devices have been configured, and security issues caused by malware targeting them are intensifying. Event logs-based detection technology for endpoint security is detected using rules or patterns. Therefore, known attacks can respond, but unknown attacks can be difficult to respond to immediately. To solve this problem, in this paper, local outlier factor (LOF) and Autoencoder detect suspicious behavior that deviates from normal behavior. It also detects threats and shows the corresponding threats when suspicious events corresponding to the rules created through the attack profile are constantly occurring. Experimental results detected eight new suspicious processes that were not previously detected, and four malicious processes and one suspicious process were judged using Hybrid Analysis and VirusTotal. Based on the experiment results, it is expected that the use of operational policies such as allowlists in the proposed model will significantly improve performance by minimizing false positives.
Imposing Application of Nano Cellulose Based Bio Sensor to Produce Test Kit of COVID: 19 Disease

This article reflects that probable application of Nano cellulose to invent test kit of COVID: 19 diseases. It is recognized that COVID: 19 is a pandemic disease. Novel Corona virus is a mRNA virus which is enveloped by protein molecules. In the structure of corona virus, it contains protein spikes. In this conceptual article, the author predicts that Nano cellulose based test kit can detect corona virus positive in the human body. Cellulose is one of the most abundant biomass in the world. In the structure of cellulose there are lots of hydroxyl ion remain. Hydroxyl ion can give reaction with the amino acid. Authors wanted to develop a process model to make the test kit of COVID: 19 diseases. Wood is the best source of cellulose. Besides its, textile materials like cotton, flax etc are another good source of cellulose. In this article, the source of cellulose cannot play a vital role . The method of processing cellulose Nano device & reaction mechanism between hydroxyl ion & amino acid will play a significant role. acid of spike protein & hydroxyl group of Nanocellulsoe. Here amino acid is existed in a negative ion employing electrophoresis. Electrophoresis is composed of morsel of moistened filter paper on a microscopic slide. A drop of amino acid solution is located in the centre of the paper.
Genetic diversity analysis of Thai indigenous pig population using microsatellite markers

Objective European pigs have been imported to improve the economically important traits of Thai pigs by crossbreeding and was finally completely replaced. Currently Thai indigenous pigs are particularly kept in a small population. Therefore, indigenous pigs risk losing their genetic diversity and identity. Thus, this study was conducted to perform large-scale genetic diversity and phylogenetic analyses on the many pig breeds available in Thailand. Methods Genetic diversity and phylogenetics analyses of 222 pigs belonging to Thai native pigs (TNP), Thai wild boars (TWB), European commercial pigs, commercial crossbred pigs, and Chinese indigenous pigs were investigated by genotyping using 26 microsatellite markers. Results The results showed that Thai pig populations had a high genetic diversity with mean total and effective (Ne) number of alleles of 14.59 and 3.71, respectively, and expected heterozygosity (He) across loci (0.710). The polymorphic information content per locus ranged between 0.651 and 0.914 leading to an average value above all loci of 0.789, and private alleles were found in six populations. The higher He compared to observed heterozygosity (Ho) in TNP, TWB, and the commercial pigs indicated some inbreeding within a population. The Nei’s genetic distance, mean F ST estimates, neighbour-joining tree of populations and individual, as well as multidimensional analysis indicated close genetic relationship between Thai indigenous pigs and some Chinese pigs, and they are distinctly different from European pigs. Conclusion Our study reveals a close genetic relationship between TNP and Chinese pigs. The genetic introgression from European breeds is found in some TNP populations, and signs of genetic erosion are shown. Private alleles found in this study should be taken into consideration for the breeding program. The genetic information from this study will be a benefit for both conservation and utilization of Thai pig genetic resources.