Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Response of the sea‐ice diatom Fragilariopsis cylindrus to simulated polar night darkness and return to light

Arctic photoautotrophic communities must survive through polar night darkness until light returns in spring. We tracked changes in the cellular resource allocations and functional capacities of a polar sea‐ice diatom, Fragilariopsis cylindrus, to understand acclimation processes in both darkness and during the subsequent return to light. We measured parameters at specific time‐points over 3 months of darkness, and then over 6 d after a return to light. Measured parameters included cell number and size, cellular carbon and nitrogen quotas, lipid and pigment contents, concentration of key proteins of the photosynthetic system, photosynthetic parameters based on both variable fluorescence and carbon assimilation, and the level of nonphotochemical quenching. A stable functional state was reached within a few days after the transition to dark and was then maintained throughout 3 months of darkness. The dark period resulted in a decrease of lipid droplet cell quota (−6%), chlorophyll a cell quota (−41%) and the maximum carbon fixation rate per cell (−98%). Return to light after 1.5 months of darkness resulted in a strong induction of nonphotochemical quenching of excitation and a fast recovery of the maximum carbon fixation rate within 1 d, followed by a rapid increase in the cell number. Return to light after 3 months of darkness showed an increase of mortality or a profound downregulation induced over longer periods of darkness.
Gloiopotes huttoni (Copepoda: Caligidae) parasitic on black marlin, Istiompax indica, from southern Japan, with a review of the hosts and distribution of G. huttoni

̶ The caligid copepod Gloiopotes huttoni (Thomson, 1890) was collected from the body surface of a black marlin, Istiompax indica (Cuvier, 1832), in the western North Pacific Ocean off Yonaguni-jima Island, the Ryukyu Islands, southern Japan. This represents the first record of G. huttoni from I. indica in Japanese waters. This copepod is known to use almost exclusively billfishes as its hosts, but due to the past confused billfish taxonomy, the billfish hosts have been recorded using various scientific names, most of which have recently been relegated to junior synonyms. Thus, based on the current taxonomy of billfishes and the literature published between 1890 and 2019, this paper also reviews the hosts and distribution of G. huttoni. Five species of billfishes in two families [black marlin; striped marlin, Kajikia audax (Philippi, 1887); blue marlin, Makaira nigricans Lacépède, 1802; sailfish, Istiophorus platypterus (Shaw, 1792) in the Istiophoridae; and swordfish, Xiphias gladius Linnaeus, 1758 in the Xiphiidae] serve as hosts for G. huttoni in the Pacific and Indian oceans, but four non-billfish species [bigeye tuna, Thunnus obesus (Lowe, 1839); yellowfin tuna, Thunnus albacares (Bonnaterre, 1788); wahoo, Acanthocybium solandri (Cuvier, 1832); and blue shark, Prionace glauca (Linnaeus, 1758)] are regarded as accidental hosts.
Sound Event Localization, Detection, and Tracking by Deep Neural Networks

In this thesis, we present novel sound representations and classification methods for the task of sound event localization, detection, and tracking (SELDT). The human auditory system has evolved to localize multiple sound events, recognize and further track their motion individually in an acoustic environment. This ability of humans makes them context-aware and enables them to interact with their surroundings naturally. Developing similar methods for machines will provide an automatic description of social and human activities around them and enable machines to be context-aware similar to humans. Such methods can be employed to assist the hearing impaired to visualize sounds, for robot navigation, and to monitor biodiversity, the home, and cities. A real-life acoustic scene is complex in nature, with multiple sound events that are temporally and spatially overlapping, including stationary and moving events with varying angular velocities. Additionally, each individual sound event class, for example, a car horn can have a lot of variabilities, i.e., different cars have different horns, and within the same model of the car, the duration and the temporal structure of the horn sound is driver dependent. Performing SELDT in such overlapping and dynamic sound scenes while being robust is challenging for machines. Hence we propose to investigate the SELDT task in this thesis and use a data-driven approach using deep neural networks (DNNs). The sound event detection (SED) task requires the detection of onset and offset time for individual sound events and their corresponding labels. In this regard, we propose to use spatial and perceptual features extracted from multichannel audio for SED using two different DNNs, recurrent neural networks (RNNs) and convolutional recurrent neural networks (CRNNs). We show that using multichannel audio features improves the SED performance for overlapping sound events in comparison to traditional single-channel audio features. The proposed novel features and methods produced state-of-the-art performance for the real-life SED task and won the IEEE AASP DCASE challenge consecutively in 2016 and 2017. Sound event localization is the task of spatially locating the position of individual sound events. Traditionally, this has been approached using parametric methods. In this thesis, we propose a CRNN for detecting the azimuth and elevation angles of multiple temporally overlapping sound events. This is the first DNN-based method performing localization in complete azimuth and elevation space. In comparison to parametric methods which require the information of the number of active sources, the proposed method learns this information directly from the input data and estimates their respective spatial locations. Further, the proposed CRNN is shown to be more robust than parametric methods in reverberant scenarios. Finally, the detection and localization tasks are performed jointly using a CRNN. This method additionally tracks the spatial location with time, thus producing the SELDT
An SDN approach to route massive data flows of sensor networks

With the advent of the Internet of Things (IoT), more and more devices can establish a connection with local area networks and use routing protocols to forward all information to the sink. But these devices may not have enough resources to execute a complex routing protocol or to memorize all information about the network. With proactive routing protocols, each node calculates the best path, and it needs enough resources to memorize the network topology. With reactive routing protocols, each node has to broadcast the message to learn the right path that the packets must follow. In all cases, in large networks such as IoT, this is not an appropriate mechanism. This paper presents a new software‐defined network (SDN)–based network architecture to optimize the resource consumption of each IoT object while securing the exchange of messages between the embedded devices. In this architecture, the controller is in charge of all decisions, and objects only exchange messages and forward packets among themselves. In the case of large networks, the network is organized into clusters. Our proposed network architectures are tested with 1000 things grouped in five clusters and managed by one SDN controller. The tests using OpenDayLight and IoT embedded applications have been implemented on several scenarios providing the ability and the scalability from dynamic reorganization of the end‐devices. This approach explores the network performance issues using a virtualized SDN‐clustered environment which contributes to a new model for future network architectures.
Mapping the spatial variability of the field distribution of sterile Anastrepha ludens over a release area

The sterile insect technique (SIT) is an environmental‐friendly method used against Anastrepha ludens Loew (Diptera: Tephritidae) populations. This study aimed to perform an analysis of the spatial variability of the field distribution of sterile A. ludens using a geostatistical approach along with Geographic Information Systems (GIS). Field data on captures of sterile A. ludens during a Valencia orange season over a release area were analysed using spherical, exponential and Gaussian variograms. Such variograms were evaluated by criteria such as the mean absolute error, average standard error, root mean square error and the coefficient of determination. Results revealed a spatially structured distribution of sterile A. ludens across the release area. Interpolated models by Ordinary Kriging technique exhibited continuous surfaces evidencing spatial heterogeneity of the distribution of flies. Such a result evidenced that the spatial dynamics of flies significantly varied despite the planned uniform coverage of the release. The GIS led to integrating spatial information of the spatial dynamics through one single model. The release activity should be improved westward of the studied area, as the final model suggested that the ratio sterile: wild is lower than that in the east. This study provides insights into the spatial analysis of the distribution of sterile flies further than one single geographical point. Moreover, it highlights geostatistical techniques and GIS as useful tools for the assessment of the impact and quality of the release activity over fruit‐growing areas subjected to an area‐wide integrated pest management approach.
Lazy or diseased? Changing conceptions of beggars and vagrants in the Lithuanian discourse from the end of the nineteenth century to 1940

ABSTRACT Until the outbreak of World War I, vagrants and beggars were depicted as a group lacking the basic elements of morality, which the national elite considered its own identity-maker. Unwillingness to work, filth, drunkenness, ignorance, and contagious diseases were depicted as the visible features of moral indignity. Their condition remained redeemable through educational tools. In postwar Lithuania, the overall characterization of vagrants and beggars remained unchanged. Nevertheless, their sanitary stigmatization and the concept of heritability of social ‘diseases’ became dominant, making isolation and disciplining the only tools to protect the ‘healthy’ organism of society from social contagion.
Preliminary indications for diverging heat and drought sensitivities in Norway spruce and Scots pine in Central Europe

Abstract: Massive and increasing tree mortality is currently observed in the two conifer species Norway spruce and Scots pine in Central Europe. Consecutive dry years are made responsible for this phenomenon. Leaf trait measurements, in specific leaf osmotic potential (πosm) and leaf water potential at turgor loss (πtlp), indicate that the underlying mechanisms for tree mortality are most likely different between the two species. πtlp of spruce was highly negative, revealing a potentially high drought tolerance of the species. πtlp of Scots pine was less negative, suggesting a higher susceptibility to drought stress. I conclude that the mortality of Norway spruce might be caused by rising temperatures and that the summer temperatures in the past years were beyond the species thermal tolerance threshold. Overall, I want to highlight and enhance the discussion that the search for suitable species for a climate change adapted forest should go in both directions, i.e., species should be chosen to make the forest fit for both increasing drought and heat stress.
Cost-effective Analysis of Proton Pump Inhibitors in Long-term Management of Gastroesophageal Reflux Disease: A Narrative Review

Background: Gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD) is a common gastrointestinal disorder that results from regurgitation of acid from the stomach into the esophagus. Treatment available for GERD includes lifestyle changes, antacids, histamine-2 receptor antagonists (H2RAs), proton pump inhibitors (PPIs), and anti-reflux surgery. Aim: The aim of this review is to assess the cost-effectiveness of the use of PPIs in the long-term management of patients with GERD. Method: We searched in PubMed to identify related original articles with close consideration based on inclusion and exclusion criteria to choose the best studies for this narrative review. The first section compares the cost-effectiveness of PPIs with H2RAs in long-term heartburn management. The other sections shall only discuss the cost-effectiveness of PPIs in 5 different strategies, namely, continuous (step-up, step-down, and maintenance), on-demand, and intermittent therapies. Results: Of 55 articles published, 10 studies published from 2000 to 2015 were included. Overall, PPIs are more effective in relieving heartburn in comparison with ranitidine. The use of PPIs in managing heartburn in long-term consumption of nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drug (NSAID) has higher cost compared with H2RA. However, if the decision-maker is willing to pay more than US$174 788.60 per extra quality-adjusted life year (QALY), then the optimal strategy is traditional NSAID (tNSAID) and PPIs. The probability of being cost-effective was also highest for NSAID and PPI co-therapy users. On-demand PPI treatment strategy showed dominant with an incremental cost-effectiveness ratio of US$2197 per QALY gained and was most effective and cost saving compared with all the other treatments. The average cost-effectiveness ratio was lower for rabeprazole therapy than for ranitidine therapy. Conclusion: Our review revealed that long-term treatment with PPIs is effective but costly. To achieve long-term cost-effective approach, we recommend on-demand approach to treat heartburn symptoms, but if the symptoms persist, treatment with continuous step-down therapy should be applied.
Customary system as ‘constraint’ or ‘enabler’ to peri-urban land development: Case of Kisumu city, Kenya

Scholarly research on land delivery processes and land tenure dynamics in the context of accelerated urbanization and massive rural-urban land use conversion in sub-Saharan African cities remains limited, especially in Kenya. Kisumu city, Kenya’s third largest urban agglomeration, is currently experiencing spontaneous growth and uncontrolled outward expansions of urban development from the urban centre. This is taking place in the peri-urban areas and rural hinterland, where urban-based actors, under the pressure and anticipation of urbanization, undertake land transactions, land tenure conversions, and land development. Making use of three case studies that represent contrasting phases of settlement formation (incipient, intermediate, and consolidated), this article attempts to provide knowledge, particularly on the relationship between the land delivery processes, land tenure dynamics, and the role of various actors involved in the context of land development. The results indicate that the current trend with regard to landholding in the case study areas was a gradual shift from community control to individualisation. There is a need to integrate both customary and public authority’s efforts towards orderly urban development. This study thus advocates for partnerships between the municipal authority and neo-customary/customary actors and, where appropriate, uses their creativity in solving problems to adapt municipal by-laws and procedures.
Demodulating AM Square Signals via a Digital Timer for Sensor Applications

This article evaluates theoretically and experimentally the performance of a timer-based demodulator applied to low-frequency amplitude-modulated (AM) square signals coming from sensor circuits. The demodulator extracts the amplitude of the AM square signal by measuring the period of a reference triangular signal that is altered by the AM signal itself, as already suggested in a previous article but for AM sinusoidal signals. The demodulation and digitization are carried out simultaneously via a digital timer and without requiring a rectifier, a mixer, a low-pass filter, or an analog-to-digital converter, thus resulting in a simple and low-cost design solution. Unlike the sinusoidal case, this article proposes to infer the amplitude of the AM square signal by measuring the bias of the period measurement with respect to the ideal (known) value. Experimental results show a nonlinearity error lower than 0.03% full-scale span and a resolution of 13.3 bits.
Literature Circles: Assisting Students in Understanding Pedagogical Knowledge

This case study reports the students' perception of pedagogical knowledge during joining literature circles of paragraph writing class. The data are derived from the students' interview after joining some sessions of writing class. The data were analysed with Shulman’s theory on technological pedagogical and content knowledge (2006) and Miles and Huberman’s theory (1994) which consists of data reduction, data display, and drawing a conclusion. Through ten interviews that recount the students’ perception in joining paragraph writing class, the paper demonstrates that by implementing literature circles, it assists the students in understanding the pedagogical knowledge. It can develop their autonomy in learning. Some steps of the literature circles can assist and inspire the students in developing and organizing their own learning.
A novel region-based iterative seed method for the detection of multiple lanes

ABSTRACT Most of the global automotive companies have been paid great efforts for reducing the accidents by developing an Advanced Driver Assistance System (ADAS) as well as autonomous vehicles. Lane detection is essential for both autonomous driving and ADAS because the vehicles must follow the lane. Detection of the lane is very challenging because of the varying road conditions. Lane detection has attracted the attention of the computer vision community for several decades. Essentially, lane detection is a multi-feature detection problem that has become a real challenge for computer vision and machine learning techniques. This paper presents a region-based segmentation based on iterative seed method for multi-lane detection. Here, the detection of multi-lanes is done after the segmentation, which is highly efficient and improves the computing speed. In the proposed region-based segmentation method, the segmentation of lanes from the roads is carried out by selecting the target grids, after partitioning the input image into grids. Then, based on the distance measure, the optimal segments are chosen by an iterative procedure. The performance of the proposed region-based iterative seed method is evaluated using detection accuracy, sensitivity, and specificity, where it has the maximum detection accuracy of 98.89%.
Evaluating the Sensitivity of Residential Water Demand Estimation to Model Specification and Instrument Choices

There is a substantial body of work that estimates residential water demand as a function of price, household characteristics, and weather. While most results suggest demand is inelastic, researchers have found qualitatively different estimates of price elasticity—both elastic (>1) and inelastic (<1). Inconsistency in the choice of the price signal, its instruments, and appropriate weather variables across studies makes it difficult to determine if the differences in elasticity estimates are real—due to location characteristics—or an artifice of model specification. Predicting accurate demand responses to price changes enables water utilities to stabilize and anticipate future revenue while meeting conservation goals. However, specifying residential water demand with the appropriate model (under block rate structure) is challenging for three reasons: (1) uncertainty around the appropriate price signal, (2) a lack of theoretical motivation for determining which (and how) weather variables affect demand, and (3) simultaneity issues in estimation require the use of instruments, which vary across studies. Therefore, to elucidate the effects of model choices on elasticity, we use a single location and systematically vary the specification of price, instruments, and weather variables across a suite of models. We reaffirm past results that households respond to the average price. We find reasonably stable and robust estimates of price elasticity across different weather and price instrument specification—with some notable exceptions—implying that low‐cost information like average temperature is sufficient to accurately reflect the data‐generating process, reducing costs and allowing for a parsimonious model.
Novel Kidney Injury Biomarkers Among Anabolic Androgenic Steroids Users - Evidence of Subclinical Kidney Disease

Background: Kidney injury associated with the use of anabolic androgenic steroids (AAS) has been described. The aim of the study was to investigate new kidney injury biomarkers among bodybuilders using anabolic androgenic steroids (AAS). Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted with a group of AAS users (n = 28) and a group of non-users (n = 29). Blood and urine samples were collected for analysis, including kidney injury molecule-1 (KIM-1), monocyte chemoattractant protein-1 (MCP-1), creatinine and cystatin. Results: Laboratory tests evidenced a higher creatinine level in AAS users (1.04±0.17 mg/dL) in comparison to non-users (0.88±0.14 mg/dL), P < 0.001. Median levels of MCP-1 pg/mg-creatinine were higher in AAS users (50.66 pg/mg-creatinine, range 31.99 255.25 pg/mg-creatinine vs. 33.26 pg/mg-creatinine, range 22.82 102.98 pg/mg-creatinine, P = 0.039). KIM-1 levels were not significantly different between the two groups (0.47 ± 0.34 ng/mg-creatinine vs. 0.69 ± 0.47 ng/mg-creatinine, P = 0.065). Cystatin C levels showed a tendency to be higher in AAS users (0.64 ± 0.46 mg/L vs. 0.43 ± 0.36 mg/L, P = 0.059). Conclusions: There is subclinical kidney injury among AAS users, evidenced by MCP-1 increase. Continuous renal function monitoring and early detection of kidney injury is very important for AAS users, and more important is patient counseling to avoid these substances use, unless otherwise prescribed for treatment of some medical condition.
Africa Radiation Oncology Network (AFRONET): an IAEA Telemedicine Pilot Project

In developing countries, many centres work in relative isolation with limited access to up-to-date published literature, international meetings, and expert opinion. Methods: The International Atomic Energy Agency established the AFrica Radiation Oncology NETwork (AFRONET) as a pilot project for African countries. Through videoconferencing, cancer professionals discussed and reviewed challenging cancer cases. Monthly virtual meetings took place among radiotherapy centres in Africa. During these meetings, individual cases were presented and discussed, and a consensus recommendation for treatment was reached. The platform was also used for regularly scheduled webinars. Results: 64 monthly meetings were held and 154 cases have been discussed. The average number of participating centres was 9 per session. Central nervous system tumours were the most common and 5.2% of patients were HIV positive. The profile of diseases and comorbidities represents a window into the typical patient population of radiotherapy centres in Africa. Videoconferencing discussions strengthened clinical decision making for oncology patients. Both the case discussions and the webinars contributed to resident education in participating centres. Conclusions: This pilot experience has shown that it is feasible to use available telemedicine tools to establish a network for case discussions and education in radiation oncology in African countries.