Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The Role of Human Genetic Factors in the Natural Selection of Hepatitis C Virus’ Dominant Genotype in Ethnically Close Populations of Buryats and Khalkha-Mongols

The aim of the study was to assess the role of the innate immunity gene polymorphism in the population selection of hepatitis C virus (HCV) genotypes circulating in the ethnically close groups of Mongoloids: Buryats and Khalkha-Mongols. Materials and Methods. Nucleotide polymorphisms of innate immunity genes were identified in 400 patients with chronic hepatitis C, including 200 people belonging to the ethnic group of Mongols living in Ulaanbaatar (Mongolia) and 200 to the ethnic group of Buryats living in Ulan-Ude (Republic of Buryatia). The control group (n=531) consisted of apparently healthy people comprising 220 Buryats and 311 Khalkha-Mongols. Genetic studies of twelve single-nucleotide polymorphisms of nine genes: IFNL1 (rs30461); IFNL3 (rs12979860 and rs8099917); IFNL4 (rs368234815); CD209 (rs4804803); TLR3 (rs3775291 and rs13126816); TLR7 (rs179008 and rs179009); IFITM (rs12252); MyD88 (rs6853); IFIH1 (rs1990760) have been performed in the mentioned selections of the sick and healthy individuals. When analyzing the genetic study results, frequencies of gene alleles and their combinations in the form of genotypes have been compared. Results. The dominant prevalence of the HCV genotype 1 (98.0%) was found in the territory of Mongolia which appeared to be significantly higher (p<0.001) than its prevalence in the territory of Buryatia (66.0%). Among the genetic factors which can influence the formation of the circulating genotype structures in Buryat and Mongolian population, single-nucleotide polymorphisms in three genes ( IFNL3, TLR3, and TLR7 ), the frequency of which differed significantly in the examined cohorts, have been detected. In the ethnical Buryat group, the search for the candidate genes in patients with chronic hepatitis C genotype 1 and non-1 (2 or 3, 2/3) has established that T allele of rs179008 TLR7 gene occurs 2 times more often in women with chronic hepatitis C infection caused by genotype 2/3 than by genotype 1 (p=0.04). Conclusion. A low prevalence of HCV genotypes 2 and 3 among the population in the territory of Mongolia is likely to be caused by a rare frequency of the mutant T allele of TLR7 gene (rs179008) associated with the predisposition to HCV-2/3 infection, i.e. the situation that has been demonstrated in our work using the ethnical group of Buryats as an example. TLR7 (rs179008 rs179009); IFITM (rs12252); MyD88 (rs6853); IFIH1 (rs1990760).
QTL mapping for relative water content trait at reproductive stage drought stress in rice

Drought is the main constraint for rice production in rain-fed ecologies. Low relative water content (RWC) at reproductive stage is the most important limiting factor for the reduction of yield and its parameters. Identifying QTLs linked to RWC at reproductive stage can provide more opportunity to the researchers in maker-assisted breeding approach. For QTL associated to RWC in rice, two contrasting parents CR 143-2-2 and Krishnahamsa for drought tolerance were utilized for the development of recombinant inbred lines (RILs). Significant variation for RWC was observed among the RILs and parental lines in both the years of study. Bulked segregant analysis was utilized for genotyping of the mapping population. Two hundred and one SSR markers were selected and tested for parental polymorphic analysis from which 77 polymorphic markers were used for genotyping the RILs. Inclusive composite interval mapping detected, qRWC9.1 with LOD value of 4.27 and phenotypic variation (PVE%) of 60.87 within the marker interval of RM316-RM257 on chromosome 9. Consistent effect of this RWC QTL for drought tolerance traits was detected in both the years with the same marker interval. Hence, this QTL may be useful for marker-assisted improvement at reproductive stage drought tolerance in rice.
Miniaturization and Harmonic Suppression of Power Divider using Coupled Line Section for High Power Applications

This paper presents a compact transmission line based on the coupled line section to reduce the circuit size of Gysel power divider (GPD). The line is composed of one direct line and one coupled line section. The coupled line section consists of two series lines and one coupled line. The proposed line is symmetrical and analyzed with evenodd mode analysis to derive design equations. The line not only reduces circuit size but also improves the out-off band performance. To validate the properties of the line, a GPD is designed at 1 GHz. The physical size of this GPD occupies only 38% (0.32λg × 0.16λg, λg is the guided wavelength) circuit area compared to reference GPD. Furthermore, the proposed design includes 2 order harmonic suppression with attenuation level better than –20 dB. The proposed GPD is designed and fabricated on an Arlon substrate of relative dielectric constant of 2.2, thickness of 0.787 mm, and loss tangent 0.0009.
"Sensie": Probing the sensitivity of neural networks

Deep neural networks (DNNs) are finding increasing application across a wide variety of fields, including in industry and scientific research. Although DNNs are able to successfully tackle data problems that proved intractable to other methods, for instance in computer vision, they suffer from a lack of interpretability. Some well-known methods for visualising and interpreting the outputs of DNNs include directly inspecting the learned features of a model (e.g. convolutional kernels and activation maps); or producing “saliency maps” which allow a human researcher to inspect which parts of an input (such as an image) played the most crucial role in the model reaching a particular determination. These algorithms include occluding parts of an image (Zeiler & Fergus, 2014), guided backpropagation (Simonyan, Vedaldi, & Zisserman, 2013), and more complex algorithms such as SmoothGrad (Smilkov, Thorat, Kim, Viégas, & Wattenberg, 2017) and Layer-wise relevance propagation (Binder, Montavon, Lapuschkin, Müller, & Samek, 2016).
Analysis of Flood-Vulnerable Areas for Disaster Planning Considering Demographic Changes in South Korea

Regional demographic changes are important regional characteristics that need to be considered for the establishment of disaster prevention policies against climate change worldwide. In this study, we propose urban disaster prevention plans based on the classification and characterization of flood vulnerable areas reflecting demographic changes. Data on the property damage, casualties, and flooded area between 2009 and 2018 in 229 municipalities in South Korea were collected and analyzed, and 74 flood vulnerable areas were selected. The demographic change in the selected areas from 2000 to 2018 was examined through comparative analyses of the population size, rate of population change, and population change proportion by age group and gender. Flood vulnerable areas were categorized into three types through K-mean cluster analysis. Based on the analysis results, a strategic plan was proposed to provide information necessary for establishing regional flood-countermeasure policies.
High Density Multi-Channel Passively Aligned Optical Probe for Testing of Photonic Integrated Circuits

In this work we report the results of high density multi-channel optical multiprobes with pitches of 25 <inline-formula><tex-math notation="LaTeX">${\mu }\rm{m}$</tex-math></inline-formula> and 50 <inline-formula><tex-math notation="LaTeX">${\mu }\rm{m}$</tex-math></inline-formula> that provide edge-coupling used for on-wafer parallel testing of photonic integrated circuits. The probes are fabricated in an oxynitride platform and test demonstrations were carried out of edge-coupled indium-phosphide based photonic integrated circuits (PICs). Thirty-two optical parallel connections are simultaneously, passively aligned between the probe and the PIC by means of integrated guiding channels. The initial placement tolerance is more than 4 <inline-formula><tex-math notation="LaTeX">${\mu }\rm{m}$</tex-math></inline-formula> to give a passive alignment with an optical power variation of less than 1 dB. Multi-port loop-back optical power measurements are reported and the wavelength-dependent net modal gain of integrated semiconductor optical amplifiers was measured to further validate the concept.
Driver-Automation Collaboration for Automated Vehicles: A Review of Human-Centered Shared Control

The automated driving vehicles are experiencing a rapid development in worldwide recently. It is commonly believed that before the achievement of fully autonomous driving, the driver will always need to remain within the vehicle control loop. Hence, intelligent interaction and collaboration between the human driver and the automation will be an efficient solution for the improvement of road safety, traffic efficiency, and social acceptance to the automated vehicles. As a popular collaboration method, shared control has been widely studied in the past two decades. While it is still a challenging task to involve rich human factors into the shared control system to increase the driving experience and acceptance of the automation. In this study, a literature review on human-centered shared control is proposed towards solid research on driver-vehicle collaboration. First, the basic background and literature surveys on the human-machine collaboration (HMC) is proposed, and the important factors for efficient multi-agent collaboration and teaming are discussed. Then, different driver behavior and state modeling methods are reviewed. Based on the HMC schemes and driver behavior recognition techniques, literature surveys on human-centered shared control are proposed. Finally, challenges and future works on human-centered shared control are analyzed.
Exploring Activity Transitions in the STA-based Activity Recognition

The STA (Scanpath Trend Analysis) based activity recognition approach considers both binary sensors and activity transitions to predict activity for a given instance. It is advantageous over other approaches as it provides higher accuracy with less computational complexity. This study explores the effects of activity transitions on the STA-based activity recognition approach. It investigates how the accuracy of the STA-based approach is affected when activity transitions with lower probabilities are considered, and when a different approach is used to compute transition probabilities. The experiments with the dataset previously used for the evaluation of the approach does not reveal considerable differences in the accuracy.
The Distribution of Certain Heavy Metals Between Intestinal Parasites and their Fish Hosts in the River Nile at Assuit Province, Egypt.

The present investigation was carried out on two species of freshwater fishes Oreochromis niloticus niloticus and Clarias gariepinus collected from EL-Ibrahimia and EL-Malah canals at Assuit province. Water samples were also collected for determination of some water quality parameters and the concentration of certain heavy metals including Cu, Cd and Pb. The results of water quality analysis indicated significant differences between the two selected sites. The examination of the intestinal parasites in both investigated fish species indicated that O. niloticus niloticus harbors one species of acanthocephalans, Acanthosentis tilapiae at the two investigated sites while, Clarias gariepinus was found harboring one species of nematodes, Paracamallanus cyathopharynx at site(1) and one species of trematodes, Orientocreadium lazeri at the two sites. The results also indicated that the mean concentration of the three heavy metals in water at site (1) are ranked as Cu > Cd > Pb, while at site (2) they are ranked as Cu > Pb > Cd with a highly significant difference (P Pb > Cd in both infected and uninfectedfishes. In case of parasites heavy metals concentration at site (1) the investigated heavy metals are ranked as Pb > Cu > Cd in both Acanthosentis tilapiae and Orientocreadium lazeri, while they are ranked as Pb > Cd > Cu at site (2) in Acanthosentis tilapiae and Pb > Cu > Cd in Orientocreadium lazeri. Also, a significantly higher concentration of heavy metals was recorded in the parasites compared to their host fishes.
Family Wealth and the Class Ceiling: The Propulsive Power of The Bank of Mum and Dad

In this article we demonstrate that those from working-class backgrounds face a powerful ‘class ceiling’ in elite occupations. Examining how class origin shapes economic returns in the Norwegian upper class (3.8% of the population), we first find that the income advantage enjoyed by those from privileged backgrounds increases sharply as they ascend the income distribution in both elite business and cultural fields. Second, we show that those from economically upper-class backgrounds enjoy the highest pay advantage in all upper-class destinations. Finally, we demonstrate the profound propulsive power provided by parental wealth. Our results indicate that this is the most important single driver of the class-origin income gap in virtually every area of the Norwegian upper class. These findings move forward an emerging literature on class-origin pay gaps beyond mean estimates to reveal the distinct ‘pay-off’ to class privilege in the very highest income-earning positions.
Improving Classification Performance for a Novel Imbalanced Medical Dataset using SMOTE Method

In recent decades, machine learning algorithms have been used in different fields; one of the most used fields is the health sector. Biomedical data are usually extensive in size, and very hard to be analyzed and interpreted by humans. For this purpose, machine learning models are used to extract hidden patterns from data. In this paper, we aim to analyze, diagnose, and classify diabetes patients using six machine learning algorithms for a new real diabetes dataset. The newly created dataset, called ZADA, is obtained from medical records of about 7000 patients in Zakho city, Kurdistan Region of Iraq. However, our new dataset is imbalanced, which means one class is the minority and the other one is the majority. Class imbalance is a challenging problem in classification, especially in the two-class dataset. When class distributions are imbalanced, traditional machine learning methods often give low classification performance for unseen samples of the minority class. This is because the model tends to be strongly directed by the majority class. To overcome these problems, we first examine the impact of the imbalanced data on the classification performance and hence, use a resampling method to rebalance the data. Furthermore, we utilized three normalization techniques as a preprocessing step to further improve the performance of machine learning algorithms' performance. Therefore, we propose a classification analysis based on the three normalization methods along with the resampling (SMOTE) method to tackle the class imbalance problem. Various experiments are conducted to find the best algorithm with the best performance according to the distribution of minority classes. Results show that the resampling method and the normalization techniques had a positive effect on classification model performance.
PP4-dependent HDAC3 dephosphorylation discriminates between axonal regeneration and regenerative failure

The molecular mechanisms discriminating between regenerative failure and success remain elusive. While a regeneration-competent peripheral nerve injury mounts a regenerative gene expression response in bipolar dorsal root ganglia (DRG) sensory neurons, a regeneration-incompetent central spinal cord injury does not. This dichotomic response offers a unique opportunity to investigate the fundamental biological mechanisms underpinning regenerative ability. Following a pharmacological screen with small molecule inhibitors targeting key epigenetic enzymes in DRG neurons we identified HDAC3 signalling as a novel candidate brake to axonal regenerative growth. In vivo, we determined that only a regenerative peripheral but not a central spinal injury induces an increase in calcium, which activates protein phosphatase 4 that in turn dephosphorylates HDAC3 thus impairing its activity and enhancing histone acetylation. Bioinformatics analysis of ex vivo H3K9ac ChIPseq and RNAseq from DRG followed by promoter acetylation and protein expression studies implicated HDAC3 in the regulation of multiple regenerative pathways. Finally, genetic or pharmacological HDAC3 inhibition overcame regenerative failure of sensory axons following spinal cord injury. Together, these data indicate that PP4-dependent HDAC3 dephosphorylation discriminates between axonal regeneration and regenerative failure. Graphical Abstract Following central nervous system (CNS) spinal injury, protein phosphatase 4/2 activity is not induced since calcium levels remain unchanged compared to uninjured conditions. HDAC3 remains phosphorylated and occupies deacetylated chromatin contributing to its compaction inhibiting gene expression. Following peripheral nervous system (PNS) sciatic injury, protein phosphatase 4/2 activity is induced by calcium. HDAC3 is dephosphorylated leading to its inhibition and release from chromatin sites contributing to increase in histone acetylation and in the expression of regeneration associated genes (RAGs).
LTCC-Based Fluidic Tuners for Low Microwave Frequency Reconfigurable Circuits

This article presents a frequency reconfigurable RF impedance tuner using eight cascaded fluidic cells to cover the frequency band [0.9, 2.4] GHz. The tuner is made of eight fluidic fillable cavities on top of a coplanar waveguide transmission line in a single low-temperature cofired ceramic (LTCC) substrate. Each cavity is either kept empty or filled with deionized (DI) water to alter the substrate’s permittivity and so change the tuner’s response. Closed-form expressions are derived and used to dimension the tuner’s individual cells, while 3-D field simulations are used to complete the design of a single cell and an entire eight-cell tuner. Both components are fabricated, and good agreement between simulation and measured is observed. The fabricated tuner is used to build a fluidic reconfigurable RF amplifier.
Analisis Materi Buku Siswa Sejarah Kebudayaan Islam MA Kelas XI Terbitan Kemenag Kurikulum 2013

Penelitian ini dilatarbelakangi karena adanya beberapa temuan mengenai ketidaksesuaian analisis buku siswa pada kurikulum 2013. Maka dari itu, penelitian ini bertujuan untuk mengetahui analisis materi buku siswa. Sehingga dengan adanya penelitian ini diharapkan agar sesuai dengan analisis yang telah dilakukan. Metode penelitian ini menggunakan pendekatan penelitian kepustakaan (library research). Sumber data yang digunakan penelitian ini berupa buku, jurnal, dan situs internet yang terkait dengan topik yang dipilih. Teknik pengumpulan data dengan identifikasi wacana dari buku-buku, jurnal dan informasi lainnya yang terkait. Selanjutnya dianalisis dengan metode analisis deskriptif, yaitu dengan mengumpulkan dan menyusun suatu data, kemudian dilakukan analisis terhadap data tersebut. Dari hasil analisis buku siswa Sejarah Kebudayaan Islam, maka hasil yang diperoleh dari peneliti yaitu banyaknya keterampilan / maharah yang diberikan pada siswa tidak menjamin bagi peserta didik dalam memahami semua materi yang disajikan oleh guru, kemungkinan dengan memberikan hanya beberapa keterampilan saja, namun materi akan dikuasai dengan baik oleh peserta didik. Dengan begitu, meskipun ada banyak maupun sedikitnya keterampilan yang disajikan pada KD tidak mempengaruhi keterampilan pada peserta didik. DOI: 10.29408/fhs.v4i1. 2188
Isolation and Characterization of Halophilic Bacteria from Salinity Soil of Shatkhira, Bangladesh

Aim: The aim of this study was undertaken for the isolation and molecular characterization of the halophilic bacteria from salt affected soils. Place and Duration of Study: This study was conducted on the salinity affected area in Ramzan Nagor under Shamnagor Upazilla of Shatkhira District, Bangladesh. The collection of soil sample, isolation of halophilic bacteria and subsequent experiments were done from May to December 2018. Methodology: Salt affected soil could be good source of halophilic bacteria as it contain high amount of salt. Hence, one gram of salt affected soil sample which was containing high amount of salt was suspended to 100 ml sterile distilled water and one ml of sample from the top of the suspension were taken in to 250 ml Erlenmeyer flaks containing 100 ml of mineral salts (MS) medium. The primary enrichment was incubated for several days at 37C with shaking at 120 rpm (revolution per minute) on an orbital shaker. Cultures which were found to be turbid after a period of up to 4 days were used as inocula in subsequent experiments. Results: Four halophilic bacterial strains viz. Bacillus sp. strain 8-15, Enterobacter sp. strain LCR75, Acinetobacter sp. strain 407 and Acinetobacter junii strain F27 were isolated from the saline Original Research Article Mohanta et al.; JAMB, 20(5): 67-76, 2020; Article no.JAMB. 57961 68 soil and screened for their growth at a range of salt (NaCl) concentrations viz., 0%, 2%, 2.5%, 3%, 3.5%, 4%, 4.5% and 5%. Out of four isolates, Bacillus sp. showed the highest capacity to tolerate 5% salt concentration whereas Enterobacter sp. and other two isolates (Acinetobacter sp. and Acinetobacter junii) showed the capacity to tolerate 4% and 2.5% salt concentration respectively. Based on their morphological and biochemical characteristics the isolates were found to be Grampositive and Gram-negative, rod shaped, motile bacteria which were later identified on the basis of 16S rRNA gene sequencing. The optimum culture conditions of the isolates were pH 7.0 and temperature 37°C. Results on the antibiogram profiles of the isolates revealed that the strains were sensitive to most of the antibiotics used in this study except Kenamycin, Ceftazidime and Ampicillin. Conclusion: The isolated halophilic bacteria may play an important role to optimize the salt affected soil; hence they could be important candidates for further research on slat bioremediation.
Masks and racial stereotypes in a pandemic: the case for surgical masks

Abstract To contain the spread of COVID-19, experts emphasize the importance of wearing masks. Unfortunately, this practice may put black people at elevated risk for being seen as potential threats by some Americans. In this study, we evaluate whether and how different types of masks affect perceptions of black and white male models. We find that non-black respondents perceive a black male model as more threatening and less trustworthy when he is wearing a bandana or a cloth mask than when he is not wearing his face covering—especially those respondents who score above average in racial resentment, a common measure of racial bias. When he is wearing a surgical mask, however, they do not perceive him as more threatening or less trustworthy. Further, it is not that non-black respondents find bandana and cloth masks problematic in general. In fact, the white model in our study is perceived more positively when he is wearing all types of face coverings. Although mandated mask wearing is an ostensibly race-neutral policy, our findings demonstrate the potential implications are not.