Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Reinforcement Learning for the Adaptive Scheduling of Educational Activities

Adaptive instruction for online education can increase learning gains and decrease the work required of learners, instructors, and course designers. Reinforcement Learning (RL) is a promising tool for developing instructional policies, as RL models can learn complex relationships between course activities, learner actions, and educational outcomes. This paper demonstrates the first RL model to schedule educational activities in real time for a large online course through active learning. Our model learns to assign a sequence of course activities while maximizing learning gains and minimizing the number of items assigned. Using a controlled experiment with over 1,000 learners, we investigate how this scheduling policy affects learning gains, dropout rates, and qualitative learner feedback. We show that our model produces better learning gains using fewer educational activities than a linear assignment condition, and produces similar learning gains to a self-directed condition using fewer educational activities and with lower dropout rates.
International Journal of Engineering

Speech Emotion Recognition (SER) is an important part of speech-based Human-Computer Interface (HCI) applications. Previous SER methods rely on the extraction of features and training an appropriate classifier. However, most of those features can be affected by emotionally irrelevant factors such as gender, speaking styles and environment. Here, an SER method has been proposed based on a concatenated Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) and a Recurrent Neural Network (RNN). The CNN can be used to learn local salient features from speech signals, images, and videos. Moreover, the RNNs have been used in many sequential data processing tasks in order to learn long-term dependencies between the local features. A combination of these two gives us the advantage of the strengths of both networks. In the proposed method, CNN has been applied directly to a scalogram of speech signals. Then, the attention-mechanism-based RNN model was used to learn long-term temporal relationships of the learned features. Experiments on various data such as RAVDESS, SAVEE, and Emo-DB demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed SER method.
Lung health diagnosis through cough sound analysis

This study investigates a simple and easily applied tool for TB screening based on the analysis of cough audio and objective clinical measurements. Tuberculosis is one of the most lethal diseases worldwide. There are various diagnosis methods for TB. However, in lower income areas, clinics lack funds to afford expensive equipment and employ the trained experts needed to interpret results. A database of cough audio recordings and clinical measurements was collected for this study. An automatic annotation system was developed using hidden Markov models (HMMs). The frame-accuracy of the annotation system is 87.16%. For audio based classification we considered logistic regression and Gaussian mixture models (GMMs). We found that filterbank energy features outperformed MFCC features when used for audio classification, which could indicate that cough audio contains information relevant to TB diagnosis that is not perceivable by the human auditory system. Feature selection was used to investigate the importance of different frequency bands for classification and, it was found that the optimal results were achieved when combining features from the human vowel range (below 1000Hz) with features from high frequency ranges. As the main metric of evaluation, we used the area under the receiver operator characteristic curve (AUC). This metric was chosen because it is not affected by class imbalance in the dataset. Our best reported AUC was 94.94%, with a standard deviation of 4.62%, which was obtained using a set of just 5 filterbank energies. We also showed that audio based classification obtains a higher AUC than classification on objective clinical measurements (meta data). Finally, we found that combining the audio and meta data classifier results using classifier fusion improved how well the model generalizes. By combining the best audio classifier with the best meta data classifier, we obtained a sensitivity, specificity, accuracy, AUC and kappa of 82.35%, 80.95%, 81.58%, 94.34% and 0.6867 respectively. 4 Stellenbosch University https://scholar.sun.ac.za
Intercultural Relations among Ukrainian Immigrants Living in Portugal

The purpose of this research was to test specific predictions based on three general hypotheses: the integration hypothesis, the contact hypothesis, and the multiculturalism hypothesis. The sample included 218 Ukrainian immigrants with an average of 39 years. The average length of time residing in Portugal was 10 years. As regards the integration hypothesis, psychological adaptation and intercultural adaptation were predicted by integration, while sociocultural adaptation was only predicted by marginalization. Thus, the integration hypothesis was partially supported for Ukrainian immigrants living in Portugal. The contact hypothesis tended to be supported, as intercultural contact was predicted by higher positive attitudes toward Portuguese, and assimilation. However, integration has not emerged as a significant predictor of intercultural contact. This sample displayed a relatively low level of perceived discrimination. In line with the multiculturalism hypothesis, perceived discrimination was negatively related to tolerance, attitude towards Portuguese, attitude towards other immigrants, and positively related to preference for separation and marginalization. Findings are discussed considering the existing literature.
Electronic Support System to Interpret Sign Language of Communication used by Deaf and Dumb Community

— Communication is the best media used by the people to communicate with each other. The problem arises when normal people and deaf-dumb people want to communicate with each other. Sign Language is a language which is used for communication by the deaf and dumb people. This project is used to reduce the communication barrier between the deaf-dumb people and the normal people. The Sign language interpreter we are developed uses a hand glove fitted with flex sensors that can interpret the English letters and numbers in American Sign Language (ASL) & some one-handed letters in Indian sign language (ISL)
Trim Analysis of Box Wing Aircraft

Computational studies at the conceptual design level were performed to investigate the longitudinal trim of a Box wing aircraft. The analysis was intended to show the points in the envelope at which the aircraft could be trimmed longitudinally. A similar analysis was performed on an equivalent conventional cantilever aircraft. The results suggests that further optimization is required for the Box wing as its trimmable flight envelope is smaller than that of an equivalent conventional cantilever aircraft.
SIMULTANEOUS ESTIMATION OF LANSOPRAZOLE AND DOMPERIDONE IN TABLET DOSAGE FORM BY RP-HPLC

Domperidone chemically is 5-chloro-1-{1-[3-(2oxo-2, 3-dihydro-1H-1, 3-benzodiazol-1-yl) propyl] piperidin-4-yl}-2, 3-dihydro-1H-1, 3-benzodiazol-2one which is used as specific blocker of dopamine receptors. It speeds gastrointestinal peristalsis, causes prolactin release, and is used as antiemetic and tool in the study of dopaminergic mechanisms. Lansoprazole chemically is 2-({[3-methyl-4-(2, 2, 2-trifluoroethoxy) pyridin-2-yl] methane} sulfinyl)-1H-1, 3-benzodiazole and used as a proton pump inhibitor which prevents the stomach from producing acid [1-2]. Literature survey reveals that there are methods to analyse these drugs by spectroscopic methods [3-4], in tablet [5-16], in plasma [17-18]. There are no methods reported in tablets using Buffer and Acetonitrile as solvent which is cost effective.
Role of Prophylactic Antibiotics in Critical Care of Stroke Patients - A Preventive Approach to Post-stroke Infections?

Post-stroke complications are very common worldwide and the most common complication is infection. This contributes the most to the mortality rate in stroke patients. Among the infections, pneumonia and urinary tract infections are most common. Hyperthermia following stroke is associated with neuronal damage and worse outcomes. Post-stroke immunosuppression and activation of inflammatory mediators also cause infections. Based on the high mortality caused by post-stroke infections, various trials were done to seek the advantage that prophylactic antibiotics can give in the critical care of stroke patients. Antibiotics, including ceftriaxone (cephalosporin), levofloxacin (fluoroquinolone), penicillin, and minocycline (tetracycline), were used and the stroke patients were followed up to analyze the primary and secondary outcomes. It was concluded that early antibiotic therapy (mostly within 24 hours) leads to a reduced rate of post-stroke infections and reduced fever spikes, whereas follow-up for a longer period of time showed no better functional outcome. Furthermore, mortality and morbidity benefits were also not seen with prophylactic antibiotic therapy. This review helped us to put a nail in the coffin to the earlier thoughts that prophylactic antibiotics are necessary for the critical care of stroke patients.
Purification and Characterisation of Nisin P Produced by a 1 Strain of Streptococcus gallolyticus 2 3

44 Introduction: Against the backdrop of increasing resistance to conventional antibiotics, 45 bacteriocins represent an attractive alternative, given their potent activity, novel modes of 46 action and perceived lack of issues with resistance. 47 Aim: In this study, the nature of the antibacterial activity of a clinical isolate of 48 Streptococcus gallolyticus was investigated. 49 Methods: Optimisation of the production of an inhibitor from strain AB39 was performed 50 using different broth media and supplements. Purification was carried out using size 51 exclusion, ion exchange and high-pressure liquid chromatography (HPLC). Gel diffusion 52 agar overlay, MS/MS, de-novo peptide sequencing and genome mining were utilised in a 53 proteogenomic approach to facilitate identification of the genetic basis for production of the 54 inhibitor. 55 Results: Strain AB39 was identified as Streptococcus gallolyticus subsp pasteurianus and 56 the successful production and purification of the AB39 peptide, named nisin P, with a mass 57 of 3,133.78 Da, was achieved using BHI broth with 10% serum. Nisin P showed anti58 bacterial activity towards clinical isolates of drug resistant bacteria, including MRSA, VRE 59 and penicillin resistant Streptococcus pneumoniae. In addition, the peptide exhibited 60 significant stability towards high temperature, wide pH and certain proteolytic enzymes and 61 displayed very low toxicity towards sheep red blood cells and Vero cells. 62 Conclusion: To the best of our knowledge, this is the first production, purification and 63 characterisation of nisin P. Further study of nisin P may reveal its potential for treating or 64 preventing infections caused by antibiotic resistant Gram positive bacteria, or those 65 evading vaccination regimens. 66
Effect of topical steroid therapy of bullous erosive lichen planus on serum and salivary levels of advanced glyacation end products

Introduction: Lichen planus is a relatively common chronic inflammatory disease. The bullous erosive type is characterized by the high risk of developing squamous cell carcinoma. AGEs are believed to generate chronic inflammation.Methodology: The study was carried on thirty participants; they were divided into two groups. Group (1): included 15 healthy participants free of any systemic diseases. Group (2): included 15 patients of bullous erosive oral lichen planus and free of any other diseases. Serum and salivary samples were taken from all participants at initial visit and after complete resolution of the lesions in the OLP patients using topical application of 0.1% or 0.05% betamethasone valerate gel. Results: In serum, whether before or after treatment, OLP group showed statistical significantly higher mean AGE levels than the control group. In saliva, before treatment, OLP group showed statistical significantly higher mean AGE levels than the control group. After treatment, there was a statistically significant decrease in AGE level. Conclusion: Both salivary and serum levels of AGE are valuable biomarkers in diagnosis and prognosis of OLP. Detection of AGE level in saliva can be considered as a valuable non-invasive method for diagnosis and prognosis of OLP.
Pocketsize plus and massive minus. Explaining the asymmetry between reward and punishment in economic voting

The effect of the economy on voting is well-established: incumbent governments are electorally rewarded for economic growth and electorally punished for economic decline. Generally, this relation is implicitly assumed to be symmetric, but case studies are increasingly discovering its asymmetry: the reward for economic success is dwarfed by the punishment for economic malaise, and assuming linearity leads to false conclusions. In addition to corroborating the findings of asymmetry in a cross-country analysis of 22 European countries, this study investigates macro and micro mechanisms explaining why the difference between punishment and reward is greater in some situations than in others. For this purpose, this study uses multilevel logistic regression and instrumental variables probit models to estimate robust results. Three approaches are tested to account for this variation. First, the effects of economic growth, unemployment and inflation are modeled separately instead of assumed to be merely different aspects of the same concept of ‘the economy’; this way, differential effects of economic trends are explored. The results tentatively indicate that the asymmetry between punishment and reward is greater for inflation than for growth and unemployment, but a lack of country level variance prevents proper testing. Second, the salience of these issues varies between and within countries, and more salient issues may generate a greater difference between punishment and reward. Modeling salience of inflation, unemployment and economic growth separately yields no results, but greater economic salience in general does increase the difference, although results are not particularly robust. Third, greater political affinity not only increases the strength of economic voting, but also reduces the difference. Lower scores on indicators of news consumption, political interest and education contribute to a greater asymmetry. In conclusion, economic voting is on average asymmetrical, but the greater one’s political affinity, the more strongly the omnipresent punishment is complemented by rewards for
MICROLEAKAGE PATTERN AT TOOTH-ADHESIVE INTERFACE UNDER METAL-BRACKETS BONDED WITH CONVENTIONAL OR FLOWABLE NANO-ADHESIVE SYSTEMS

Objective: This in vitro study aimed to assess the microleakage at the tooth-adhesive interface underneath metal-brackets, either bonded with a conventional or a nano-adhesive system. Materials and Methods: Dye penetration method was used to evaluate microleakage at the enamel-bracket interface. Twenty freshly-extracted human maxillary and mandibular premolars (average age: 15.47 ± 2.18 years) were randomly divided into two groups (n = 10/group/type of bonding composite). Group 1: metal-brackets bonded with conventional light-cured Transbond XT (3M-Unitek); Group 2: metal-brackets bonded with the light-cured flowable nano-hybrid composite Grandio SO Flow (Voco-Germany) used in combination with a one-step self-etch dual-cured adhesive, Futurabond DC (Voco-Germany). Specimens were thermocycled, immersed in Fuchsin dye, sectioned longitudinally, and evaluated for microleakage. Microleakage was recorded at the adhesive-enamel interface on both occlusal and gingival margins. Statistical analysis was performed using t-test as well as the paired t-tests. Results: Both groups demonstrated microleakage at the adhesive-enamel interface, yet the metal-brackets bonded with the nano-composite Grandio SO Flow (G2) exhibited significantly higher microleakage values at the adhesive-enamel interface compared to brackets bonded with the conventional composite material (p < 0.05). Conclusions: Flowable nano-composites may still not be the adhesive of choice for bracket bonding due to their remarkable microleakage at the enamel-adhesive interface in comparison to conventional light-cured Transbond XT (3M-Unitek).
Proceedings of the 43rd Annual Meeting on Association for Computational Linguistics

Exciting research in computational linguistics is being pursued vigorously all over the world. This year, we received a record number of 423 submissions. The program committee accepted 77 papers, for an acceptance rate of 18%, continuing the tradition of the annual ACL conference as being one of the most competitive and selective conferences. Of the accepted papers, 42 are from North America, 18 from Europe and the Middle East, and 17 from Asia and Australia.
Reliability of the Foot Posture Index (FPI-6) for Assessment of Stroke Patients

Korea Purpose: This study attempted to determine intra-rater reliability and inter-rater reliability for measurement of foot form using the FPI-6 (Foot Posture Index) in patients with hemiplegia caused by stroke. Methods: Twenty two stroke patients were recruited into the research and their foot posture was evaluated using the FPI. Two raters as-sessed 6 items sequentially in accordance with the FPI-6 manual. This procedure involved asking the subject to take several steps in-place, prior to settling into a comfortable stance position with double limb support. Subjects were instructed to stand still with their arms by their sides and look straight ahead. FPI-6 values ranged from -2 to +2 for each of the six criteria and from -12 to +12 for the total score, indi-cating a position for each foot either along the supinated (negative score) to pronated (more than +6) continuum of foot posture. Results: The results showed that intra-rater reliability and inter-rater reliability for a total FPI-6 score was high: 0.807-0.888. An almost perfect agreement between the two raters was identified in the foot’s morphological classification (Somer’s D=0.712; p<0.05). Intra-percentage agreement was high (88.6%). Conclusion: The FPI-6 is a quick, simple, and reliable clinical tool with demonstrated good to excellent intra-rater reliability and good in-ter-rater reliability when used in assessment of the stroke patient’s
EFFECTIVENESS OF CONVENTIONAL THERAPY VERSUS CONDUCTIVE EDUCATION ON IMPROVING MOTOR SKILLS AMONG THE CEREBRAL PALSY SUBJECTS-COMPARATIVE STUDY A project submitted in partial fulfillment Of the requirement for the degree of MASTER OF PHYSIOTHERAPY

BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY: Cerebral Palsy is a movement impairment and organ condition, which is caused by trauma or malfunction of brain regions responsible for motor control [1]. Cerebral palsy children suffer difficulty in motor function (coordination and control). It is found that 10% of the global population has some form of disability from different causes; in India, it is 3.8% of the population. Nearly 15-20% of physically disabled children are affected by Cerebral Palsy. In India, the estimated incidence is around 3/1000 live births. Cerebral palsy is the most common motor disability in childhood. METHODOLOGY: 30 subjects were selected for this study. Subjects were divided into 2 groups. Group A consisting of 15 subjects and Group B Consisting of 15 subjects. Subjects in group A receives conventional therapy and group B receives conductive education. Both the group received intervention for 45 minutes per session, 5 days in a week for 1 month. RESULT: The group A pre-test mean score value of functional activity was 148.20 and post-test mean score value of functional activity was 163.33. The group B pre-test mean score value of functional activity was 148.00 and post-test mean score value of functional activity was 172.53. CONCLUSION: The study concluded that there was statistical improvement in gross motor function after the application of conductive educational therapy for cerebral palsy subjects.
USING BROCCOLI PLANT WASTES IN SHEEP RATIONS

he objective of this work was to determine the effect of inclusion different levels of broccoli wastes in lamb rations on their productive performance, nutrient digestibility, feeding value, physiological and hematological parameters, rumen fermentation and also the economical efficiency. Twenty four growing male crossbred lambs (50% Finland+50% Rahmani) aged 3 months after weaning with averaged live body weight (LBW) 16.80 ±0.82 kg were randomly assigned into three similar groups (8 lambs each) using randomized complete block design. Three experimental diets were formulated as the first group was served as (control) (R0) and fed the concentrate feed mixture (CFM) according to recommendations of NRC (1989) plus the rouphage portion that consisted of 50% berssem hay and 50% wheat straw, while the diets of the second (R1) and third (R2) groups were including broccoli waste at 20 or 40% levels in replacing to berssem hay, respectively. Results of digestibility coefficients, showed no significant effect due to experimental treatments was noticed for digestion coefficients of DM, OM, CF and EE. The digestibility of CP and NFE and subsequently feeding values in terms of TDN and DCP were almostly significant higher with tested rations than control one. Final live body weight and daily weight gain were increased (P<0.05) significantly with increasing broccoli by-product levels. Lambs fed diets containing broccoli by-product rations led to an increases (P<0.05) significantly the TDNI compared with those fed the control diet. However, the best (P<0.05) feed conversion expressed as (DMI) and (TDNI) was occurred with R2, while the poorest one was found with the control one (R0). Lambs in R2 showed significantly the highest (P<0.05) concentrations of total protein, albumin and Triglyceride, and those in R1 recorded the highest globulin, creatinine and cholesterol, while those in R1 and R2 had the highest AST and ALT activity compared with the (control) one R0. The concentration of urea was not significantly affected by treatments. Rumen pH value and Total volatile fatty acids (TVFAs) concentration were increased (P<0.05) and concentration of NH3-N was decreased (P<0.05) with increasing broccoli by-product. Lambs in R2 showed the highest value of price of daily gain, economical efficiency and relative economic efficiency as well as the lowest value of average daily feed cost compared with R0 (control) one. Haematological characteristics including RBCs, WBCs and others were also investigated.
Analyzing The Functional Dimensions Of Service Quality

Service quality of hospitals is recognized as an important antecedent on exploring the overall service experience of patients globally. The present study analyzes the perception of the patients regarding implementation of a new service and its effect on quality of care. It investigates patients‘ perceptions of the government introduced programme -VIBGYOR which uses colored bed-sheets under a weekly color coded scheme in hospitals in North India. The study also analyzed the various gaps in the perceptions and expectations of service quality by patients in the district hospitals. The study was carried out at district hospital of Panchkula, Haryana. A longitudinal study was devised for this purpose. Data was collected through area sampling and a total of 137 respondents were approached for the study. The results indicate that there was a strong positive correlation between Tangibility and Assurance (.890), Empathy and Assurance (.866) and also between Empathy and Responsiveness (.822). This study redirects that several factors of service quality act as major antecedents to create satisfied patients and reinforce positive behavioral perceptions among them. Thus, Hospitals should allocate their resources, rationally regarding the attributes of service quality based on their effective perception by the patients. These attributes should also contribute to patients‘ satisfaction and hence increase overall patient satisfaction.