Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Fetal Electrocardiogram Extraction using Moth Flame Optimization (MFO)-Based Adaptive Filter

A R T I C L E I N F O A B S T R A C T Article history: Received: 04 November, 2020 Accepted: 23 February, 2021 Online: 17 March, 2021 Effective Fetal Electrocardiogram (FECG) Extraction provides medical workers with precise knowledge for monitoring fetal health condition during gestational age. However, Fetal ECG Extraction still remains a challenge as the signal is weak and contaminated with noises of different kinds, more significantly maternal ECG. In this work, a new Moth Flame optimization algorithm (MFO)-based adaptive filter is proposed for the extraction of FECG signal. A noninvasive two-point method is used to record thoracic and abdominal ECG signals from the mother’s body. The abdominal ECG (AECG) signal is made up of fetal heart signal, the distorted maternal heart signal and noise. The thoracic signal contains the undistorted maternal heart signal. The two signals are applied to an adaptive filter whose coefficients are optimally determined by the conventional least means square (LMS) algorithm and MFO. Simulation results using both synthetic signals and the real data from Physionet data base developed by MITBIH show the superiority of the new approach over conventional methods. The performance has been proven by observation of the quality of the extracted wave forms and quantitatively by computing the Signal to Noise ratio (SNR) which was 10.28 for proposed algorithm as compared to 0.1028 for the connectional LMS and mean square error (MSE) which was 0.0215 for the proposed algorithm as compared to 0.0275 for the convectional LMS. The results indicate that the new approach is suitable for Fetal Electrocardiogram extraction from AECG.
Effects of starch or fermented fiber based diets on performance, growth status, rumen fermentation and some blood metabolites in Holstein bull calves

Starch (SS) and fermented fiber (FFS), as energy sources were included in Holstein bull calf diets to evaluate their growth performance, rumen fermentation pattern and concentration of insulin and selected blood metabolites. Fourteen Holstein bull calves (BW=94.5±2.1 kg; age 87±9 d) were allocated to treatments (n=7 calves per treatment) and the study lasted 10 weeks. The diets were based on barley grain and corn silage in SS and FFS treatments, respectively. Dry matter intake was decreased (P < 0.05) in SS compared to FFS treatment (7.83 vs. 8.21 kg/d), with SS treatment causing a lower feed conversion ratio (FCR). Growth indices (body length, withers height and heart girth) did not differ between two treatments (P > 0.05). Fecal score was more watery (= 3.1) in SS compared to FFS (= 2.4) treatment (P < 0.05). The SS diet increased propionate concentration but FFS increased acetate concentration in the rumen fluid. Blood glucose was increased, but beta-hydroxybutyrate (BHB) decreased in SS fed calves. Insulin concentration was greater by 2.1 μIU ml in SS compared to FFS fed calves. Results showed that although the high starch diet decreased the feed intake and caused feces to contain more water, it improved energy status of the calves via decreasing BHB, increasing propionate concentration and improving glucose concentrations. The SSbased diet showed greater efficiency compared to FFS in bull calves.
Development of Indigence and Reliable Emotional Intelligence Scale for Children (7 to 11 Years)

It was descriptive, mixed-method research aimed to determine “development of an indigenous and reliable Emotional Intelligence Scale for Children aged 711 years”. Baron model of “social and emotional intelligence” (1997, 2000) was followed for the study. The study population consisted of primary level students ranging from grade I to grade V from different cities of Pakistan. A nonprobability sampling technique called purposive sampling was used, and a sample of 694 students (boys= 355, girls= 339) was selected for the study. Principal Factor Analysis with Varimax rotation postulated 64 items with ten distinct factors: flexibility, emotional self-awareness, happiness, selfregard, problem-solving, social relations, impulse control, stress control, empathy, and assertiveness. The emotional intelligence scale for children consisting of 64 items was finalized. The Cronbach's alpha emerged to be . 88 for the total 64 items and ranged from . 69 to . 94 for the subscales. Emotional Intelligence Scale for Children (EISC) is a reliable instrument measuring EI based on 5point Likert scale (1= never, 2= rarely, 3= sometime, 4= often, 5= always). Further research can be conducted to confirm these ten factors extracted through this study by including various other psychological traits of children's emotional intelligence. The present research will help understand different traits that sample the domain of emotional intelligence of children. It is a valuable tool for policymakers, parents, and teachers in assessing primary school children's emotional intelligence (711 years).
All night long: problematic media use is differentially associated with sleep quality and depression by medium

ABSTRACT Media use appears to adversely affect sleep quality. Yet, findings remain inconsistent based on medium, duration, and manner of use. Given the recent, widespread rise in consumption of video-on-demand services and social media platforms, problematic use of these media has become of interest to media and sleep researchers. Although research has looked at the correlation between problematic media use and sleep, to date no studies have compared different media platforms to better understand the processes. To address this, we conducted a survey examining the relationships between both sleep quality and depression with problematic broadcast television, video-on-demand, and social media use. Results demonstrate problematic Internet-based media consumption, i.e., video-on-demand and social media use, is related to adverse sleep outcomes while broadcast television use, even when problematic, was not related to adverse sleep outcomes in our study. Similar results were found for depression. Implications for research and clinical practice are discussed.
Research Article: Characterization of a high-affinity polyclonal antibody against the Cyprinus carpio (Linnaeus, 1758) intestinal tight junction protein occluding

Tight junction protein, occludin, plays an important role in intestinal health of fish. To study the function of occludin in the intestinal barrier at the protein level, a rabbit occludin polyclonal antibody was prepared against heterologously expressed Cyprinus carpio A fragment of the occludin gene containing antigenic determinants was first ligated into the pET-21a, which is an expression vector and transformed into E. coli BL21 (DE3) strain. Expression of the target fusion protein was induced by isopropyl-beta-D-thiogalactopyranoside (IPTG). The purified fusion protein was used as an antigen to immunize New Zealand long-eared rabbits (Oryctolagus cuniculus) through ear margin vein and subcutaneous injection to obtain rabbit anti-carp polyclonal antibodies against occludin. Enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) was used to evaluate the antibody titre, and the antibody was used to determine the distribution and expression of occludin in the intestine of carp after infection with Aeromonas hydrophila. The target fusion protein had a molecular weight of approximately 31.7 ku, the antibody titre was 2.4 × 106, and the integrity of occludin protein was lower in various intestinal segments after A. hydrophila infection. The results indicated that the prepared antibody had a high titre, affinity, and specificity and can be applied to study the expression and distribution of occludin in C. carpio. The availability of this polyclonal antibody laid the foundation for the systematic study of the intestinal barrier of Cyprinus carpio . Additionally, this polyclonal antibody could also be used for explorative studies of the biological function of occludin in other fishes.
Proceedings of the World Congress on Genetics Applied to Livestock Production, 11. 923 Using GBLUP selection for increased Piscirickettsia salmonis (SRS) resistance in Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar)

In 2013, Atlantic salmon juveniles were challenge tested for Piscirickettsia salmonis (SRS) in VESO in Norway. The juveniles belonged to year class 2012 (YC-2012) comprising of 100 full and half sib families. In 2016 a sib-group of YC-2012 (non-challenged) was selected as breeding candidates to create an offspring generation year class 2016 (YC-2016) which was then challenge tested in VESO in 2017. Tissue samples from both challenged and nonchallenged groups of YC-2012 were sent to AgResearch, New Zealand, for DNA extraction and genotyping by sequencing (GBS) using PstI. The KGD method (Dodds et al., 2015) was used for estimating the genomic relationship matrix (GRM) allowing a GBLUP estimation of genomic estimated breeding value (GEBV) of SRS resistance in YC-2012 breeding candidates. Two models were applied: Test survival (TS) and Day of death (DD). Estimated heritabilities for the models differ from 0.28 (TS) to 0.41 (DD). Accuracy in the nonchallenged group was estimated as 0.66 and 0.68 for TS and DD model respectively. GEBV of YC-2012 breeding candidates was correlated with the families’ performance measured on offspring in 2016 challenge test in VESO. The correlation was 0.62 and 0.68 for TS and DD models respectively.
MONEY MARKET INSTRUMENTS AND ECONOMIC GROWTH OF NIGERIA

This study investigated the relationship between the money market instruments and economic growth of Nigeria using time series analysis from 1981-2019. The relevant variables for which data were sourced include: Real gross domestic product, Financial deepening indicator [ratio of money supply (M2) to gross domestic product – (M2/GDP)(%)], value of treasury bills outstanding, value of Certificate of deposit outstanding, value of commercial paper outstanding, and value of banker acceptance outstanding. The data extracted from the CBN statistical bulletin, vol. 30, 2019. The Augmented Dickey Fuller (ADF), Johansen cointegration test and Error Correction Mechanism (ECM) were adopted. The research findings found that, there is significant relationship between money market instruments and economic growth in Nigeria. Furthermore, there is insignificant relationship between money market instruments and the development of the Nigerian financial system. The study recommends amongst others, the need for Government to create appropriate macroeconomic policies, legal framework and consolidate and improve on reforms with a holistic view to developing and deepening the market so as to promote productive activities, investments, and ultimately economic growth. JEL: E41; E50; E51 Article visualizations:
Employing Bert Embeddings for Customer Segmentation and Translation Matching

—In this work, we investigate the performance of Bert (Bidirectional Encoder Representations from Transformers) embeddings for two Natural Language Processing (NLP) scenarios based on semantic similarity and conduct a comparison with ordinary Word2Vec embeddings. The Bert embeddings are pre-trained on a multi-lingual dataset from Google consisting of several Wikipedias. The semantic similarity between two input texts is estimated in the usual way of applying the cosine measure on the two embeddings centroids. In case of Bert, these centroids are determined by two different approaches. In the ﬁrst approach, we just average the embeddings of all the word vectors of the associated sentence. In the second approach, we only average the embeddings of a special sentence start token that contains the whole sentence representation. Surprisingly, the performance of ordinary Word2Vec embeddings turned out to be considerably superior in both scenarios and both calculation methods.
Attainment of the Immediate Program Graduate Attributes and Learning Outcomes of Teacher Candidates towards Global Competence Initiatives

This paper focuses on assessing the immediate program graduate attributes and learning outcomes for the teacher preparation towards global competence initiatives. It describes the students' retrospection, which will serve as a basis for the program's strategic enhancement. This study employed a descriptive survey of 75 teacher candidates in the Philippines. Findings revealed that the top five highest program graduate attributes are lifelong learner, responsive teacher, ethical educator, subject matter expert, and multi-literate educator. Simultaneously, the bottom five are effective communicator, value-laden educator, instructional material developer, classroom manager, assessor and evaluator, and curriculum planner and implementer. Grade in experiential learning courses spelled the difference in the acquisition of graduate attributes. Implying that students with high academic performance perceived themselves to have a high level of acquisition of the Immediate Graduate Attributes (IGA). Retrospection of the respondents showed excellent satisfaction with the research and extension services, educational counseling program, and the instructors and professors' qualities while family and relatives were influential in choosing teaching as career preparation. Finally, parents' satisfaction and geographic locations are important factors that affect the teacher education program enrollment. This study will serve as reference in designing teacher education initiatives towards internationalization.
Area Reduction of Combinational Circuits Considering Path Sensitization

: Area reduction of a circuit is a promising solution for decreasing the power consumption and the chip cost. Timing constraints should be preserved after a delay increase of resized circuit gates to guarantee proper circuit operation. Sensitization of paths should also be considered in timing analysis of circuit to prevent pessimistic resizing of circuit gates. In this work, a greedy area reduction algorithm is proposed which is path-based and benefits well from viability analysis as the sensitization method. A proper metric based on viability conditions is presented to guide the algorithm towards selecting useful circuit nodes to be resized with acceptable performance and area reduction results. Instead of using gate slacks in resizing the candidate gates, all circuit gates are down-sized first and then the sizes of circuit gates that violate the circuit timing constraint are increased. This approach leads to considerable improvement in the complexity and performance of the proposed method. Results show that area improvement of about 88% is achievable. Comparison to a pessimistic method also reveals that on average 14.2% growth in area improvement is obtained by the presented method.
Health Problems of Workers in the Poultry Sector

Care must be taken of occupational health due to its importance for raising of production and maintenance of human safety. The study aimed to assess the health problems of the poultry sector workers on the farm, processing, and marketing. The study was conducted with a sample of 150 males and 50 females, to evaluate their physical status during the last month in Baghdad. A questionnaire was prepared that included demographic questions as well as about health problems during the last month. Big of the workers suffered from some healthy defects due to daily, unorganized continuous without new machinery work such as muscular and auricular pains, headaches defects in eyes, ears, skin, and upper respiratory tract, or systemic problems as fever, vomiting, and diarrhea due to contact with the biological agents in the scattering of poultry residues. Therefore, we recommend using serious personal protective equipment. The authority must support the workers economically and ethically through awareness of maintaining their physical and health fitness and preserving the environment and its aesthetics.
Comparative transcriptome analysis reveals gene network regulation of TGase-induced thermotolerance in tomato

Transglutaminase (TGase), the ubiquitous protein in plants, catalyzes the post-translational transformation of proteins and plays a vital role in photosynthesis. However, its role and mechanism in tomato subjected to heat stress still remain unknown. Here, we carried out a transcriptomic assay to compare the differentially expressed genes (DEGs) between wild type (WT) and TGase overexpression (TGaseOE) plants employed to high-temperature at 42 °C and samples were collected after 0, 6, and 12 h, respectively. A total of 11,516 DEGs were identified from heat-stressed seedlings, while 1,148 and 1,353 DEGs were up-and downregulated, respectively. The DEGs upon high-temperature stress were closely associated with the pathways encompassing protein processing in the endoplasmic reticulum, carbon fixation, and photosynthetic metabolism. In addition, 425 putative transcription factors (TFs) were identified, and the majority of them associated with the bHLH, HSF, AP2/ERF, MYB, and WRKY families. RNA-seq data validation further confirmed that 8 genes were linked to protein processing and photosynthesis, and the mRNA level of these genes in TGaseOE was higher than that in WT plants, which is consistent in transcriptome results. In conclusion, these results reveal the transcriptional regulation between WT and TGaseOE in tomato under heat stress and shed light on a new dimension of knowledge of TGase-mediated thermotolerance mechanism at the molecular level.
Evaluations of partial resistance of native sesame germplasms to Fusarium wilt disease

Sesamum indicum L. is an important oil seed in Iran which is cultivated as summer crop in alternation with cereals and cucurbits, playing an important role in sustainable agriculture. Sesame wilt disease caused by Fusarium oxysporum f. sp. sesami is one of the limiting factors in its cultivation. Application of genetic improvement of disease resistance is one of the effective strategies to solve the disease problems in sesame. In this project, the partial resistance of 24 genotypes including, some commercial cultivars and promising lines were tested against Fusarium wilt disease. The experiments were conducted in three different conditions (greenhouse, micro plot and field). In greenhouse and micro plot experiments, artificial inoculation was used while in field experiment, no artificial inoculum was used. For evaluating results, the infection percentage (wilted plants) was recorded on a scale of 1-6 scoring system. The results showed that in artificial inoculation conditions, none of sesame genotypes were immune. Infection mean percentages of sesame genotypes were calculated to be 58.34, 28.6 and 15.96, in greenhouse, micro-plot and field, respectively. Total results of the three experiments showed that 29.1% of the sesame genotypes (JL1, Jl14, JL10, JL11, JL13, Jl18 and Darab1) fell in resistant (R) category and 37.5% of the genotypes (JL2, Varamin37, Local, Yekta, JL29, JL16, JL6, JL14-1 and Darab2) fell in moderately resistant (MR) group. The resistant and moderately resistant genotypes can be used for breeding programs and development of resistant varieties, however further efforts are needed to identify highly resistant genotypes from among more native germplasms via screening program.
The role of galectin-3 and its genetic variants in tumor risk and survival of patients with surgically resected early-stage non-small cell lung cancer

Background The aim of this study was to investigate the possible relationship between galectin-3 gene variants, serum level, gene expression level, and the risks and survivals of resectable non-small cell lung cancer patients. Methods The rs4644 and rs4652 variants of galectin-3 were genotyped by TaqMan single nucleotide polymorphism assay using genomic deoxyribonucleic acid isolated from the peripheral blood of 65 (54 males, 11 females; mean age: 60.1±11.9 years; range, 34 to 83 years) with Stage IA-IIIA non-small cell lung cancer who underwent primary surgical treatment and 95 healthy individuals (48 males, 47 females; mean age: 53.9±13.5 years; range, 32 to 87 years) between March 2017 and September 2018. Circulating galectin-3 levels in serum samples of the patient and control groups were assessed by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay. Messenger ribonucleic acid expression of galectin-3 in tumor and surrounding tissues of the patient group was examined by real-time quantitative polymerase chain reaction. Both predictive and prognostic significance of the results were analyzed. Results The presence of angiolymphatic invasion was significant in the patients with rs4652 AA genotype (p=0.04). Serum galectin-3 levels were significantly higher in the patients than the controls (p<0.0001). The patients with rs4644 CA/CC (p<0.0001 and p<0.0001) and rs4652 AA/AC (p=0.001 and p<0.0001) genotypes had higher serum galectin-3 levels than their corresponding controls. Serum galectin-3 levels increased in the presence of vascular invasion in patients with both rs4644 AC (p=0.03) and rs4652 AC (p=0.019) genotypes. The receiver operating characteristic curve suggested serum galectin-3 level as a strong predictive marker for the patient group with a cut-off value of 17.089 ng/mL (area under the curve: 0.910±0.04; 95% confidence interval: 0.832-0.988; p<0.001). Univariate analysis revealed the association of lower serum galectin-3 levels with better survival (p=0.048). Multivariate survival analysis showed that only high serum galectin-3 levels tended to be related to survival of the patients (hazard ratio: 5.106; 95% confidence interval: 0.956-27.267; p=0.056). Conclusion The presence of galectin-3 gene variants may lead to histopathological differences among patients with non-small cell lung cancer. Serum galectin-3 level may be a valuable diagnostic biomarker and be associated with survival of these patients.
University of Southern Denmark Beneficial effect of mildly pasteurized whey protein on intestinal integrity and innate defense in preterm and near-term piglets Navis,

Background. The human digestive tract is structurally mature at birth, yet maturation of gut functions such as digestion and mucosal barrier continues for the next 1–2 years. Human milk and infant milk formulas (IMF) seem to impact maturation of these gut functions differently, which is at least partially related to high temperature processing of IMF causing loss of bioactive proteins and formation of advanced glycation end products (AGEs). Both loss of protein bioactivity and formation of AGEs depend on heating temperature and time. The aim of this study was to investigate the impact of mildly pasteurized whey protein concentrate (MP-WPC) compared to extensively heated WPC (EH-WPC) on gut maturation in a piglet model hypersensitive to enteral nutrition. Methods. WPC was obtained by cold filtration and mildly pasteurized (73 ◦C, 30 s) or extensively heat treated (73 ◦C, 30 s + 80 ◦C, 6 min). Preterm (~90% gestation) and near-term piglets (~96% gestation) received enteral nutrition based on MP-WPC or EH-WPC for five days. Macroscopic and histologic lesions in the gastro-intestinal tract were evaluated and intestinal responses were further assessed by RT-qPCR, immunohistochemistry and enzyme activity analysis. Results. A diet based on MP-WPC limited epithelial intestinal damage and improved colonic integrity compared to EH-WPC. MP-WPC dampened colonic IL1-β, IL-8 and TNF-α expression and lowered T-cell influx in both preterm and near-term piglets. Anti-microbial defense as measured by neutrophil influx in the colon was only observed in near-term piglets, correlated with histological damage and was reduced by MP-WPC. Moreover, MP-WPC stimulated iALP activity in the colonic epithelium and increased differentiation into enteroendocrine cells compared to EH-WPC. Conclusions. Compared to extensively heated WPC, a formula based on mildly pasteurized WPC limits gut inflammation and stimulates gut maturation in preterm and near-term piglets and might therefore also be beneficial for preterm and (near) term infants.