Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Health-Related Quality of Life and Its Socio-Demographic and Behavioural Correlates during the COVID-19 Pandemic in Estonia

The aim of the study was to analyse health-related quality of life (HRQoL) among the Estonian general population and its socio-demographic and behavioural correlates during the COVID-19 pandemic. Longitudinal data on 1781 individuals from an Estonian rapid-assessment survey on COVID-19 were used. HRQoL was assessed with the EQ-5D-3L in June 2020 (baseline) and in May 2021 (follow-up). The HRQoL index score and its socio-demographic and behavioural variations were analysed using paired t-tests and Tobit regression modelling. Statistically significant declines in mean EQ-5D index scores were observed for all socio-demographic and behavioural variables considered. Most of these changes were due to increased reporting of problems in the pain/discomfort and anxiety/depression health domains. Older age, being unemployed or economically non-active and having financial difficulties were significantly associated with lower HRQoL in both baseline and follow-up measurements. In the follow-up data, women had significantly lower HRQoL compared to men, whereas higher education proved to be the only protective factor regarding HRQoL. Unhealthy dietary habits and low physical activity had a negative impact on the HRQoL score in the follow-up data. These results indicate that the COVID-19 pandemic has had a substantial impact on HRQoL in the Estonian population.
Microwave photonics beamforming for 5G

This paper reviewed and summarized microwave photonics beamforming architecture which could directly apply in 5G communications in recent years. However, those research still have some limits. We investigated the connection of radio frequency (RF) links and antenna elements (AEs) at present 5G multi-antenna systems and propose a microwave photonics beamforming architecture with dynamic subarray by combing reconfigurable optical routing networks with independent optical true time delay units. Optical routing networks enable distributing signals to AEs which are any number and at any position, to accomplish the dynamic combinations of those AEs. Independent optical true-time delay units enable the array could transmit or receive the RF beams towards or from different directions simultaneously. We simulated the beam pattern of the proposed system in various communication situations to validate our concept can effectively expand the application field of microwave photonics beamforming systems and could bring the advantages of microwave photonics technology, such as large bandwidth, low loss, immunity to electromagnetic interference, and non-beam squint effect.
Testing exchangeability of multivariate distributions

Although there have been a number of available tests of bivariate exchangeability, i.e. bivariate symmetry for bivariate distributions, the literature is void of tests whether a multivariate distribution with more than two dimensions is exchangeable or not. In this paper, multivariate permutation tests of exchangeability of multivariate distributions are proposed, which are based on the non-parametric combination methodology, i.e. on combining non-parametric bivariate exchangeability tests. Numerical experiments on real as well as simulated multivariate data with more than two dimensions are presented here. The multivariate permutation test turns out to be typically more powerful than a bivariate exchangeability test performed only over a single pair of variables, and also more suitable compared to tests exploiting the approaches of Benjamini–Yekutieli or Bonferroni.
Mitigating Adversarial Attacks on Data-Driven Invariant Checkers for Cyber-Physical Systems

The use of invariants in developing security mechanisms has become an attractive research area because of their potential to both prevent attacks and detect attacks in Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS). In general, an invariant is a property that is expressed using design parameters along with Boolean operators and which always holds in normal operation of a system, in particular, a CPS. Invariants can be derived by analysing operational data of various design parameters in a running CPS, or by analysing the system's requirements/design documents, with both of the approaches demonstrating significant potential to detect and prevent cyber-attacks on a CPS. While data-driven invariant generation can be fully automated, design-driven invariant generation has a substantial manual intervention. In this paper, we aim to highlight the shortcomings in data-driven invariants by demonstrating a set of adversarial attacks on such invariants. We propose a solution strategy to detect such attacks by complementing them with design-driven invariants. We perform all our experiments on a real water treatment testbed. We shall demonstrate that our approach can significantly reduce false positives and achieve high accuracy in attack detection on CPSs.
Fate and transport of Cryptosporidium parvum oocysts in repacked soil columns: Influence of soil properties and surfactant

A series of laboratory experiments was performed to investigate the transport and retention of viable C. parvum oocysts in soil columns homogeneously packed with loamy sand soils (Lewiston and Greenson series) and sandy loam soils (Sparta and Gilford series), and under hydrologic conditions involving the presence of an anionic surfactant—Aerosol 22 in artificial rainfall. To characterize the effect of surfactant on the mobility of C. parvum oocysts in the soils used in this study, these results were compared with previous laboratory‐scale column experiments of a previous study using soils contaminated with oocysts, under conditions identical to those described here except for the absence of the surfactant in the percolating water. Quantitative polymerase chain reaction was used for the detection and quantification of C. parvum oocysts in soil leachates to assess their breakthrough and in soil matrices to characterize their spatial distribution. Alterations in the rate and extent of transport of C. parvum oocysts were discerned per the physicochemical parameters analyzed—soil types, soil chemistry, and surfactant—and resulted in either the enhancement or hinderance of C. parvum oocysts adsorption to surfaces, and their movement in soils. In the case of loamy sand soils, the transport of C. parvum oocysts through the soil matrices increased with the application of surfactant for Sparta series and remained at a similar level for Gilford series. Regarding sandy loam soils, the movement of C. parvum oocysts through the soil matrices increased for Greenson series and decreased for Lewiston series with the application of surfactant.
LAP-BFT: Lightweight Asynchronous Provable Byzantine Fault-Tolerant Consensus Mechanism for UAV Network Trusted Systems

Mission-oriented UAV networks operate in nonsecure, complex environments with time-varying network partitioning and node trustworthiness. UAV networks are thus essentially asynchronous distributed systems with the Byzantine General problem, whose availability depends on the tolerance of progressively more erroneous nodes in the course of a mission. To address the resource-limited nature of UAV networks, this paper proposes a lightweight asynchronous provable Byzantine fault-tolerant consensus method. The consensus method reduces the communication overhead by splitting the set of local trusted state transactions and then dispersing the reliable broadcast control transmission (DRBC), introduces vector commitments to achieve multivalue Byzantine consensus (PMVBA) for identity and data in a provable manner and reduces the computational complexity, and the data stored on the chain is only the consensus result (global trustworthiness information of the drone nodes), avoiding the blockchain’s “storage inflation” problem. This makes the consensus process lighter in terms of bandwidth, computation and storage, ensuring the longevity and overall performance of the UAV network during the mission. Through QualNet simulation platform, existing practical asynchronous consensus algorithms are compared, and the proposed method performs better in terms of throughput, consensus latency and energy consumption rate.
Do Kinematic Study Assessments Improve Accuracy & Precision in Golf Putting? A Comparison between Elite and Amateur Golfers: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

Introduction: The purpose of this study was to evaluate whether kinematic assessments help to improve golf putting accuracy and precision, and increase the success rate of golf putts. Specifically, this study also investigated the differences in club head velocity and putter face angle at impact (°) between elite and amateur golfers. Methods: A total of 25 articles were used in this review. An initial, broad search of electronic databases including PubMed, SPORT discus, Scopus, Science Direct and Google Scholar was conducted for literature using the keywords “biomechanics” AND “golf putting”. The total number of studies screened for this review was n = 897. Among these articles, only n = 63 were assessed for eligibility. The number of articles were reduced further to n = 25 and included in the qualitative and quantitative synthesis. Results: Out of the initial n = 897, n = 834 records were excluded. After the articles were assessed for eligibility, n
Variation of 14C concentrations of single-yr tree rings at the rapid change in 2600-yrBP

We have measured the C concentrations of old tree rings with the measurement accuracy 0.2% to search an ancient cosmic ray intensity fluctuation. The C concentrations of single-yr tree rings using the Choukai Jindai cedar in 2650 to 2600 yr BP showed a rapid change with the decreasing rate of 11‰ for 7 years.
Criticality and Mott glass phase in a disordered two-dimensional quantum spin system

We use quantum Monte Carlo simulations to study a disordered S=1/2 Heisenberg quantum spin model with three different nearest-neighbor interactions, J1<=J2<=J3, on the square lattice. We consider the regime in which J1 represents weak bonds, and J2 and J3 correspond to two kinds of stronger bonds (dimers) which are randomly distributed on columns forming coupled 2-leg ladders. When increasing the average intra-dimer coupling (J2+J3)/2, the system undergoes a Neel to quantum glass transition of the ground state and later a second transition into a quantum paramagnet. The quantum glass phase is of the gapless Mott glass type (i.e., in boson language it is incompressible at temperature T = 0), and we find that the temperature dependence of the uniform magnetic susceptibility follows the stretched exponential form x~exp(-b/T^alpha) with 0 < alpha < 1. At the Neel-glass transition we observe the standard O(3) critical exponents, which implies that the Harris criterion for the relevance of the disorder is violated in this system.
Elements of Asymptotic Geometry

Asymptotic geometry is the study of metric spaces from a large scale point of view, where the local geometry does not come into play. An important class of model spaces are the hyperbolic spaces (in the sense of Gromov), for which the asymptotic geometry is nicely encoded in the boundary at infinity. In the first part of this book, in analogy with the concepts of classical hyperbolic geometry, the authors provide a systematic account of the basic theory of Gromov hyperbolic spaces. These spaces have been studied extensively in the last twenty years, and have found applications in group theory, geometric topology, Kleinian groups, as well as dynamics and rigidity theory. In the second part of the book, various aspects of the asymptotic geometry of arbitrary metric spaces are considered. It turns out that the boundary at infinity approach is not appropriate in the general case, but dimension theory proves useful for finding interesting results and applications. The text leads concisely to some central aspects of the theory. Each chapter concludes with a separate section containing supplementary results and bibliographical notes. Here the theory is also illustrated with numerous examples as well as relations to the neighboring fields of comparison geometry and geometric group theory. The book is based on lectures the authors presented at the Steklov Institute in St. Petersburg and the University of Zurich. It addressed to graduate students and researchers working in geometry, topology, and geometric group theory.
Some square graceful graphs

A graph is said to be a square graceful graph if there exists an injection such that the induced mapping by is a bijection. The function f is called a square graceful labeling of G. In this paper, we prove the graph obtained by the subdivision of the edges of stars of bistar , the graph obtained by the subdivision of the edges of bistar , the graph obtained by the subdivision of the edges of the path in a comb , , and are square graceful graph.
Comparative Study on The Remineralizing and Antimicrobial Effect of Naturally and Synthetically based Agents

Purpose : This study aimed to evaluate and compare the remineralizing and antimicrobial effect of chitosan-based agent and Flavonoid. Materials and methods: This study was carried out in two phases; remineralization phase and antimicrobial phase. Ninety (90) bovine mandibular incisors were used in the study with forty-five (45) teeth in each phase. Teeth were prepared and randomized into three groups according to treatment material (n=15 samples) as follows; group I; control group (being immersed in artificial saliva), group II; treated with flavonoid and finally group III; treated with chitosan-based agent. Each agent was applied for 10 minutes six times/day. In phase (1) remineralizing effect was measured through recording radiodenisty (by using digital radiography) at baseline, after creation of lesion and after treatment. In phase (2) antimicrobial effect was measured (by using colony forming unit test and lactic acid production test) at baseline and after treatment. Data were obtained and the differences between groups were estimated by ANOVA test followed by Tukey’s post hoc test. Results : Statistical analysis by ANOVA test revealed that there was high statistically significant difference between the study groups. Dentin blocks treated by chitosan-based agent showed greater remineralizing effect than flavonoid. Dentin blocks with 1,4 and 7 days biofilms treated with Flavonoids showed greater inhibition of Lactic acid production and Colony forming unit. Conclusion :- Chitosan-based agent can be used as remineralizing agent while flavonoid can be used as antimicrobial agent against S.mutans by inhibiting colony forming unit and lactic acid production.
Automated generation of concentric circles metro maps using mixed-integer optimization

Abstract The concentric circles (CC) map design is an alternative approach for schematically representing metro systems. Compared with traditional octo-linear maps, CC maps can effectively simplify the perception of a network by visually accenting circular line patterns. This design offers new insights into the schematic drawing of metro systems that can improve map readability and engagement. Automated mapping studies in the literature have mostly applied the traditional octo-linear design using optimization methods, where design criteria are modeled as constraints and/or objective functions in a constrained mixed-integer optimization program, whereas the automated CC map drawing approach has received less attention. In this article, we develop an automatic CC map drawing method by adopting map design criteria as a mixed-integer programming problem. Numerical experiments are conducted using (a) a simple network to illustrate the model procedure in detail, (b) two real-world metro networks in Vienna and Montréal to analyze the effects of the selected map center and parameter settings and (c) the Beijing subway to analyze the applicability of the proposed approach to large-scale metro networks.
Alternative Route-Based Attacks in Metropolitan Traffic Systems

With the growing reliance on driving direction applications that dynamically account for live traffic updates, drivers are much more likely to act optimally, by taking the shortest path to their destination, and therefore more predictably. As city networks transition into being made up of connected and autonomous vehicles, autonomous driving pilots are even more likely to act optimally and predictably. The predictability that comes from acting optimally allows motivated attackers to manipulate driver(s) to travel chosen slower alternative routes by causing disruptions on road segments that are part of faster routes. A motivated attacker could use this method to cause a number of different harms such as forcing specific vehicles to take unnecessarily long routes, forcing all vehicles traveling between popular locations to follow a chosen route, or making vehicles travel specific road segments that the attacker chose, such as toll roads. In this work, we show the feasibility and practicality of conducting such attacks on several real traffic networks of major North American cities. We analyze several attack objectives under different attacker constraints and we demonstrated that an attacker could find an attack strategy in a matter of seconds.
Parasitoids affect plant responses through their host Pieris brassicae, but not for the benefit of their own performance

Upon parasitism, many parasitoids inject symbiotic viruses and venom into their host. Thereby, they modify the hosts physiology including its saliva composition and, in turn, plant perception of herbivory. It has been hypothesised that parasitoids manipulate plant responses to increase their host performance and maximise their own fitness. However, it is still unclear whether parasitoids are under selective pressure to increase plant quality or whether indirect changes in plants due to parasitism are a by‐product of the physiological changes induced in their host. We tested whether the parasitoids Hyposoter ebeninus and Cotesia glomerata manipulate induced plant responses through the host Pieris brassicae caterpillars to increase their own performance. During their entire lifespan, parasitised herbivores were fed with leaf material of Brassica oleracea plants that were left untreated or continuously exposed to feeding by either unparasitised, conspecific or heterospecific parasitised caterpillars. We measured the development time, weight, clutch size and mortality of parasitoids that emerged from caterpillars as proxy for their performance. Both parasitoid species did not perform significantly better when their host was fed with leaves from plants continuously induced by a conspecific parasitoid relative to unparasitised caterpillars. However, parasitoid species asymmetrically affected each other's performance through plant‐mediated interactions. Our results do not support the hypothesis of parasitoids manipulating plant responses for their own benefit, suggesting that indirect plant‐mediated interactions among parasitoids may be a by‐product of host manipulation. However, our work confirms the significance of parasitoid‐induced plant‐mediated interactions in insect communities that to date are still understudied.
Automated Map Comparison using Non-invariant Fourier Descriptors

In this paper, we use non-invariant Fourier descriptors to derive transformation variables which allow us to optimally localize and reorient robot-generated maps based on the map shapes in order to determine, in an automated way, the accuracy of the generated maps. Our method uses only 4 simple calculations for alignment, therefore is extremely fast and gives a very good optimization for data maps that contain consistent, high frequency noise. A drawback to this method is occlusions in the map which affect the low frequency Fourier descriptors and cause localization and orientation errors. Preprocessing and optimization can help minimize these drawbacks. This application can be easily adapted to other areas such as image comparison or fault detection.
Design of a 22-kW Transformerless EV Charger With V2G Capabilities and Peak 99.5% Efficiency

This article outlines the design process of a high-efficiency (99.5% peak) transformerless dc electric vehicle fast charger in conjunction with relevant standards on conducted harmonics and leakage current. The topology is a nonisolated transformerless design which allows for the elimination of the additional transformer volume and losses that are present in galvanically isolated topologies. Methods for calculating optimal switching frequency and inductance to minimize loss as a function of chosen switching device and power level are provided. Filter sizing and component values are chosen in conjunction with the previously determined optimal switching frequency and inductance. Heatsink design rationale are then derived. Experimental efficiency, switching waveforms, and output voltage and current quality results are provided. Industrial topology feasibility is shown through experimental adherence to relevant underwriters laboratories (UL), international electrotechnical commission (IEC), institution of engineering and technology (IET), and institute of electrical and electronics engineers (IEEE) standards.
Joint Modeling of Incidence of Unfavorable Outcomes and Change in Viral Load Over Time Among Adult HIV/AIDS Patients on Second-Line Anti-Retroviral Therapy, in Selected Public Hospitals of Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

Background In Ethiopia, second-line anti-retroviral therapy (ART) for HIV/AIDS patients was started some years ago; however, few studies have reported the unfavorable outcomes of second-line ART. Therefore, this study aimed to assess the incidence and predictors of unfavorable outcomes and their association with change in viral load among adult HIV/AIDS patients on second-line treatment at selected public hospitals in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Methods A retrospective follow-up study was conducted at selected public hospitals in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, on 421 HIV/AIDS patients on second-line ART from 2016 to 2021. Cox proportional hazard models with a linear mixed effect model were jointly modeled using the JM package of R software with time-dependent lagged parameterizations, and a 95% confidence interval was used to select significant variables. Results Overall, 89 HIV/AIDS patients developed unfavorable outcomes. The incidence density was 7.48/100 person-years (95% CI: 6.08, 9.2). Secondary and tertiary educational level (AHR=0.47, 95% CI: 0.25, 0.89, and AHR=0.27, 95% CI: 0.1, 0.72), CD4 count less than 100 cells/mm3 (AHR=2.15, 95% CI: 1.21, 3.83), poor adherence (AHR=3.59, 95% CI: 1.73, 7.49), and TB comorbidity (AHR=2.23, 95% CI: 1.21, 4.14) at the start of second-line ART were significant predictors of incidence of unfavorable outcome. Time-dependent lagged value viral load was significantly associated with the risk of unfavorable outcome (AHR=1.28, 95% CI: 1.01, 1.63). Conclusion In the study area, the incidence of an unfavorable outcome of second-line ART was high. Secondary and tertiary educational level, CD4 count less than 100 cells/mm3, poor adherence, and TB comorbidity at the start of second-line ART were significant predictors of incidence of unfavorable outcomes. Thus, strengthening routine viral load measurement, increase patient adherence, intensive counseling, and strong TB screening are needed in the study setting.