Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Research Methodology for Tourism Destination Resilience and Analysis of Its Spatiotemporal Dynamics in the Post-Epidemic Period

Abstract: As the COVID-19 pandemic continues to spread, the global tourism industry is facing enormous challenges. There is an urgent need to explore an effective path for tourism to recover and revitalize. With the normalization of the epidemic, tourism destinations will pay more attention to the prevention, warning, and coping strategies of the epidemic, and this focus will also be evident in the study of tourism destination resilience in the post-epidemic period. Some studies on the epidemic and the resilience of tourism are currently underway, but few of them are integrated with research on the resilience of tourism destinations in the post-epidemic period, although no systematic research ideas or methods have been found. Based on resilience theory, this paper summarizes the general research ideas and develops an epidemic resilience model suitable for urban tourism destinations. The present study also proposes a set of research methods based on the index system to analyze the resilience and its spatiotemporal dynamic characteristics of tourism destinations in the post-epidemic period. The methodology can be divided into three stages: Firstly, construct the conceptual model and evaluation system for tourism destination resilience; Secondly, select case sites for empirical analysis, measure the resilience of tourism destinations, and analyze the characteristics of spatiotemporal differences and subsequent factors of influence; And finally, establish an adaptive management mechanism for tourism destinations to use in response to the epidemic and in guiding the formulation of post-epidemic recovery policies.
Fast and more accurate incremental-decremental principal component analysis algorithm for online learning of face recognition

Abstract. Principal component analysis (PCA) has been successfully employed for face recognition. However, if the training process occurs frequently, owing to the update or downdate of the face images used for training, batch PCA becomes prohibitively expensive to recalculate. To overcome this limitation, incremental principal component analysis (IPCA) and decremental principal component analysis (DPCA) can be utilized as a good alternative to PCA because it reuses their previous results for its updates. Many IPCA or DPCA algorithms have been proposed; however, inaccurate tracking of the mean values of the face image data accumulates decomposition errors, which results in poor performance compared with batch PCA. We proposed faster and more accurate algorithms for IPCA and DPCA that maintain accurate decomposition results. The experimental results reveal that the proposed algorithms produce eigenvectors that are significantly close to the eigenvectors of batch PCA and exhibit faster execution speed for face recognition.
Rhizobial Chemotaxis and Motility Systems at Work in the Soil

Bacteria navigate their way often as individual cells through their chemical and biological environment in aqueous medium or across solid surfaces. They swim when starved or in response to physical and chemical stimuli. Flagella-driven chemotaxis in bacteria has emerged as a paradigm for both signal transduction and cellular decision-making. By altering motility, bacteria swim toward nutrient-rich environments, movement modulated by their chemotaxis systems with the addition of pili for surface movement. The numbers and types of chemoreceptors reflect the bacterial niche and lifestyle, with those adapted to complex environments having diverse metabolic capabilities, encoding far more chemoreceptors in their genomes. The Alpha-proteobacteria typify the latter case, with soil bacteria such as rhizobia, endosymbionts of legume plants, where motility and chemotaxis are essential for competitive symbiosis initiation, among other processes. This review describes the current knowledge of motility and chemotaxis in six model soil bacteria: Sinorhizobium meliloti, Agrobacterium fabacearum, Rhizobium leguminosarum, Azorhizobium caulinodans, Azospirillum brasilense, and Bradyrhizobium diazoefficiens. Although motility and chemotaxis systems have a conserved core, rhizobia possess several modifications that optimize their movements in soil and root surface environments. The soil provides a unique challenge for microbial mobility, since water pathways through particles are not always continuous, especially in drier conditions. The effectiveness of symbiont inoculants in a field context relies on their mobility and dispersal through the soil, often assisted by water percolation or macroorganism movement or networks. Thus, this review summarizes the factors that make it essential to consider and test rhizobial motility and chemotaxis for any potential inoculant.
Non-Coherent Broadcasting based on Grassmannian Superposition Transmission

We propose a novel construction for Grassmannian superposition transmission, which allows to transmit multiple data streams non-coherently, i.e., without channel state information at the transmitter and receiver, over single-input multiple-output block-fading channels. This scheme is suitable for multi-resolution broadcasting, as well as, for non-coherent non-orthogonal multiuser transmissions. We present a low-complexity greedy detector for this superposition scheme, as well as, a trellis detector that achieves close-to-optimal performance with significantly reduced complexity compared to maximum likelihood detection. We investigate the performance of the proposed schemes by numerical simulations, showing that the overall symbol error rate performance is very similar to existing single-stream transmission schemes, yet, at the same time supporting the transmission of multiple independent data streams using a non-orthogonal Grassmannian superposition.
A 1.69-pJ/b 14-Gb/s Digital Sub-Sampling CDR With Combined Adaptive Equalizer and Self-Error Corrector

This paper presents an area- and energy- efficient digital sub-sampling clock and data recovery (CDR) with combined adaptive equalizer and self-error corrector (SEC). Using the digitized phase difference between the incoming data and the full-rate output clock of a digitally controlled oscillator (DCO) for both the equalizer adaptation and clock recovery loop, the proposed adaptive equalizer is combined with the CDR by sharing its adaptation loop including a sub-sampling phase detector (SSPD) and a digital logic circuit. Consequently, the active area and power dissipation for the adaptive equalizer are reduced. Furthermore, the SEC is proposed to improve the high-frequency jitter tolerance of the CDR. The SEC detects bit errors by observing the comparator decision and corrects the errors without any data encoding or complicate circuits. The out-of-band jitter tolerance is improved by 22.6% at 100 MHz for 17.2-dB loss channel with <10−12 bit-error rate (BER) with the proposed SEC. The SEC is applicable to various receivers with compact design at a low cost. The prototype receiver consumes 23.9 mW at 14-Gb/s and occupies 0.007 mm2 in a 28-nm CMOS technology.
Semi-supervised Many-to-many Music Timbre Transfer

This work presents a music timbre transfer model that aims to transfer the style of a music clip while preserving the semantic content. Compared to the existing music timbre transfer models, our model can achieve many-to-many timbre transfer between different instruments. The proposed method is based an autoencoder framework, which comprises two pretrained encoders trained in a supervised manner and one decoder trained in an unsupervised manner. To learn more representative features for the encoders, we produced a parallel dataset, called MI-Para, which is synthesized from MIDI files and digital audio workstations (DAW). Both the objective and the subjective evaluation results showed the effectiveness of the proposed framework. To scale up the application scenario, we also demonstrate that our model can achieve style transfer by training in a semi-supervised manner with a smaller parallel dataset.
A Formally Verified Security Scheme for Inter-gNB-DU Handover in 5G Vehicle-to-Everything

Cellular technology has evolved over the decades for mobile network operators to accommodate the ever-growing demands of services for connecting Vehicle-to-Everything (V2X). The 5G infrastructure facilitates V2X communications, where a small-cell base station operating at ultra-high radio frequency with limited coverage becomes pervasive. These small-cell base stations in 5G-V2X must be strategically deployed near the consumers to realize several use cases. More recently, the architectural split solutions in Next Generation Radio Access Network (NG-RAN) are introduced, in which the gNB is divided into the distributed unit (gNB-DU) and control unit (gNB-CU). This functional split intends to improve scalability, performance, and network orchestration optimization. In this case, frequent user equipment (UE) handover between gNB-DUs is inevitable. However, the current 5G standard did not consider securing the path between these two entities. Hence, the NG-RAN could likely experience various security threats if the current handover procedure standard is employed without changes. Consequently, this paper introduces potential threats like resource depletion at NG-RAN caused by the useless execution of resource-demanding procedures to complete the transfer of attachment of UE to target gNB-DU. Another is UE being denied from accessing services caused by unsuccessful uplink and downlink synchronization during random access procedure execution, requiring establishing security and mutual authentication between the entities. Motivated by this, we proposed a security protocol composed of two phases, namely initial and handover. While the former phase assists in mutual authentication and key agreement between UE and serving gNB-DU, the latter secures UE’s mobility in inter-gNB-DU handover. This protocol aims to preserve the existing quality of service and support essential security requirements, including confidentiality, integrity, mutual authentication, secure key exchange, and perfect forward secrecy. The security requirements are formally verified using BAN logic and Scyther, and the proposed protocol demonstrated lower handover latency than EAP-AKA’, AKA, EAP-TLS, and EAP-IKEv2.
Operative Outcome of Side-Locking Loop Suture Technique Accompanied by Autologous Semitendinosus Tendon Grafting for Chronic Rupture of Achilles Tendon

Background: The purpose of this retrospective study was to clarify the operative outcomes of the side-locking loop suture (SLLS) technique accompanied by autologous semitendinosus tendon grafting for chronic Achilles tendon rupture. Methods: A chart review was conducted of consecutive patients treated with the SLLS technique at our department from 2012 to 2017. Postoperatively, a below-knee splint was applied for 2 weeks in 20 degrees of plantar flexion and then active range of motion exercise was started. Partial weightbearing exercise was allowed at 4 weeks according to patient tolerance, and full weightbearing without crutches was allowed at 8 weeks. The American Orthopaedic Foot & Ankle Society (AOFAS) ankle-hindfoot scale score and the Achilles tendon rupture score (ATRS) were used to evaluate clinical outcomes preoperatively and at the final follow-up. Results: Ten patients (6 men, 4 women) were included in the analysis. Mean AOFAS ankle-hindfoot scale score increased significantly from 64.2 ± 5.6 points preoperatively to 95.0 ± 5.3 points at the final follow-up (P < .001). The mean ATRS also increased significantly from 29.8 ± 4.4 points to 86.2 ± 7.7 points, respectively (P < .001). Mean time between surgery and ability to perform 20 continuous double-leg heel raises of the operated foot was 13.5 ± 3.4 (range 10-18) weeks. One patient complained of postoperative hypoesthesia in the foot, which had spontaneously resolved by 3 months after surgery. Conclusion: The SLLS technique accompanied by autologous semitendinosus tendon grafting provided successful operative outcomes for patients with chronic Achilles tendon rupture regardless of the size of the defect, and thus long-term orthotic use was not needed after surgery. Level of Evidence: Level IV, retrospective case series.
The pigtail macaque (Macaca nemestrina) model of COVID-19 reproduces diverse clinical outcomes and reveals new and complex signatures of disease

The novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2, the causative agent of COVID-19 disease, has killed over four million people worldwide as of July 2021 with infections rising again due to the emergence of highly transmissible variants. Animal models that faithfully recapitulate human disease are critical for assessing SARS-CoV-2 viral and immune dynamics, for understanding mechanisms of disease, and for testing vaccines and therapeutics. Pigtail macaques (PTM, Macaca nemestrina) demonstrate a rapid and severe disease course when infected with simian immunodeficiency virus (SIV), including the development of severe cardiovascular symptoms that are pertinent to COVID-19 manifestations in humans. We thus proposed this species may likewise exhibit severe COVID-19 disease upon infection with SARS-CoV-2. Here, we extensively studied a cohort of SARS-CoV-2-infected PTM euthanized either 6- or 21-days after respiratory viral challenge. We show that PTM demonstrate largely mild-to-moderate COVID-19 disease. Pulmonary infiltrates were dominated by T cells, including CD4+ T cells that upregulate CD8 and express cytotoxic molecules, as well as virus-targeting T cells that were predominantly CD4+. We also noted increases in inflammatory and coagulation markers in blood, pulmonary pathologic lesions, and the development of neutralizing antibodies. Together, our data demonstrate that SARS-CoV-2 infection of PTM recapitulates important features of COVID-19 and reveals new immune and viral dynamics and thus may serve as a useful animal model for studying pathogenesis and testing vaccines and therapeutics.
Intrinsic variation in the vertically transmitted insect-specific core virome of Aedes aegypti

Since 2009, local outbreaks of dengue (serotypes 1-3) mediated by Aedes aegypti mosquitoes have occurred in the United States, particularly in Florida (FL). In 2016 and 2017, dengue virus serotype 4 was found alongside several insect-specific viruses (ISVs) in pools of A. aegypti from sites in Manatee County, FL, in the absence of an index case. Although ISVs have been characterized in A. aegypti globally, the constitution of a core virome in natural populations remains unclear. Using mosquitoes sampled from the same area in 2018, we compared baseline ovary viromes of field (G0) and lab (Orlando) A. aegypti via metagenomic RNA sequencing. Across all samples, virome composition varied by sample type (field- or colony-derived). Four ISVs comprised >97% of virus sequences: a novel partiti-like virus (Partitiviridae), a previously described toti-like virus (Totiviridae), unclassified Riboviria, and four previously described orthomyxo-like viruses (Orthormyxoviridae). Whole or partial genomes for the toti-like virus, partiti-like virus, and one orthomyxo-like virus were assembled and analyzed phylogenetically. Multigenerational maintenance of these ISVs was confirmed orthogonally by RT-PCR in G0 and G7 mosquitoes, indicating vertical transmission as the mechanism for ISV sustentation. This study provides fundamental information regarding ISV ecology, persistence, and variation in A. aegypti in nature.
SOP Change Robust Optical Modulation Based on Dual Polarization Modulation for Multi-Dimensional Optical Transmission

In optical transmission technique using optical polarization, the change of state of polarization (SOP) and the rotation of SOP (RSOP) during optical transmission has a significant impact on the transmission performance. We propose polarized intensity rotational frequency shift keying (PIR-FSK) as a novel modulation technique in change of SOP and RSOP-tolerant optical transmissions. The proposed PIR-FSK signal does not affect the entire intensity of the optical carrier by modulating the sinusoidal signals on each X and Y-polarized optical carrier. Therefore, the proposed PIR-FSK modulation and optical carrier intensity modulation can operate at the same time. Moreover, since the proposed technique does not modulate the signal using the SOP unlike the PolSK, PIR-FSK is not affected by SOP changes that occur during transmission, and the signal does not be degraded even with RSOP. We demonstrated that the signals modulated using the proposed PIR-FSK modulation have higher signal capacity and efficiency compared to the signal modulated using PolSK modulation.
Secure Image Inference Using Pairwise Activation Functions

Polynomial approximation has for the past few years been used to derive polynomials as an approximation to activation functions for use in image prediction or inference employing homomorphic encryption technique to induce data privacy and security. Most proposed works thus far have only been limited to deriving very few polynomials to use for these tasks. While the literature has considered forming new activation functions as pairwise multiplication of well-known activation functions, the design space is mostly unexplored. In some practical applications, there is usually a mix of activation functions used, so looking ahead, there is the need to explore into using other potential functions that can also improve performance whiles not relying on a few ones proposed such as ReLU and Swish. This paper explores the design space of such pairwise, multiplied activation functions and their application in homomorphic image inference or prediction using the widely popular MNIST and CIFAR-10 benchmark datasets. Moreover, we analyzed corresponding curve fitting parameters (range and degree), homomorphic-friendly pooling methods, and optimization methods in the ciphertext domain to avoid incurring huge computation costs but not compromising accuracy. Results show new activation function combinations yielding similar or better results in ciphertext as compared to the ones in plaintext.
Deep Reinforcement Learning for Joint Offloading and Resource Allocation in Fog Computing

The traditional cloud computing model can no longer satisfy the current demand due to the limitations of backhaul bandwidth and high latency. Therefore, a new fog computing architecture is proposed, which relieves the bandwidth load and energy pressure on the backhaul link by reducing the number of communications between the cloud computing center and the users. The latency is drastically reduced by proximity to the devices. However, the performance of fog computing is highly dependent on a variety of resource allocation strategies. Therefore, task offloading strategies and resource allocation strategies are a great challenge. In this paper, we use the advantage actor-critic (A2C) algorithm in Deep reinforcement learning (DRL) to jointly optimize the offloading strategy, and network resource allocation strategy to reduce latency for dependent computational tasks in fog computing. One of the major challenges of such problems is that there are multiple action dimensions, which makes it difficult to converge the network. Therefore, this paper uses the multi-agent method to simplify the problem by splitting the complete offload decision action into three sub-actions. We demonstrate through numerical simulations that the algorithm can effectively reduce the cost and also discuss the effects of the different number of devices and the different number of fog nodes on the cost.
Enhancement of Sensitivity Near Exceptional Point by Constructing Nonreciprocal Fiber Cavity Assisted by Isolator and Erbium-Doped Fiber

Sensitivity enhancement was demonstrated in a nonreciprocal fiber cavity operating near the exceptional point (EP). A fiber Bragg grating (FBG) was used to couple a pair of modes propagating in the opposite direction in a fiber ring cavity and give rise to mode splitting in the spectrum. The different roundtrip losses between the two counter-propagating modes showing nonreciprocity is introduced by coupling an extra fiber ring with an isolator. It could enter the EP in the nonreciprocity cavity due to the pair of modes coalesced in both the real and imaginary parts. In order to resolve the weak mode splitting near the EP, the mode linewidth was narrowed by compensating the roundtrip loss by a section of the pumped active fiber. The experimental results showed that a larger change in the mode splitting strength was observed in the nonreciprocity cavity when the temperature in the cavity was controlled by the incident power, indicating an obvious improvement of sensitivity in the EP-based fiber sensor.
Surface-based map plasticity of brain regions related to sensory motor and pain information processing after osteonecrosis of the femoral head

Pain is one of the manifestations of hip disorder and has been proven to lead to the remodeling of somatotopic map plasticity in the cortex. However, most studies are volume-based which may lead to inaccurate anatomical positioning of functional data. The methods that work on the cortical surface may be more sensitive than those using the full brain volume and thus be more suitable for map plasticity study. In this prospective cross-sectional study performed in Yueyang Hospital of Integrated Traditional Chinese and Western Medicine, Shanghai University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, China, 20 patients with osteonecrosis of the femoral head (12 males and 8 females, aged 56.80 ± 13.60 years) and 20 healthy controls (9 males and 11 females, aged 54.56 ± 10.23 years) were included in this study. Data of resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging were collected. The results revealed that compared with healthy controls, compared with the healthy controls, patients with osteonecrosis of the femoral head (ONFH) showed significantly increased surface-based regional homogeneity (ReHo) in areas distributed mainly in the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, frontal eye field, right frontal eye field, and the premotor cortex and decreased surface-based ReHo in the right primary motor cortex and primary sensory cortex. Regions showing significant differences in surface-based ReHo values between the healthy controls and patients with ONFH were defined as the regions of interests. Seed-based functional connectivity was performed to investigate interregional functional synchronization. When the areas with decreased surface-based ReHo in the frontal eye field and right premotor cortex were used as the regions of interest, compared with the healthy controls, the patients with ONFH displayed increased functional connectivity in the right middle frontal cortex and right inferior parietal cortex and decreased functional connectivity in the right precentral cortex and right middle occipital cortex. Compared with healthy controls, patients with ONFH showed significantly decreased cortical thickness in the para-insular area, posterior insular area, anterior superior temporal area, frontal eye field and supplementary motor cortex and reduced volume of subcortical gray matter nuclei in the right nucleus accumbens. These findings suggest that hip disorder patients showed cortical plasticity changes, mainly in sensorimotor- and pain-related regions. This study was approved by the Medical Ethics Committee of Yueyang Hospital of Integrated Traditional Chinese and Western Medicine, Shanghai University of Traditional Chinese Medicine (approval No. 2018-041) on August 1, 2018.