Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Parallel Operation of Self‐Limited Analog Programming for Fast Array‐Level Weight Programming and Update

Memristive neural networks perform vector matrix multiplication efficiently, which is used for the accelerator of neuromorphic computing. To train the memristor cells in a memristive neural network, the analog conductance state of the memristor should be programmed in parallel; otherwise, the resulting long training time can limit the size of the neural network. Herein, a novel parallel programming method using the self‐limited analog switching behavior of the memristor is proposed. A Pt/Ti:NbOx/NbOx/TiN charge trap memristor device for the programming demonstration is utilized, and a convolutional neural network is emulated to train the MNIST dataset, based on the device characteristics. In the simulation, the proposed programming method is able to reduce programming time to as low as 1/130, compared with the sequential programming method. The simulation suggests that the programming time required by the proposed method is not affected by array size, which makes it very promising in a high‐density neural network.
Using aerobic exercise to evaluate sub-lethal tolerance of acute warming in fishes

ABSTRACT We investigated whether fatigue from sustained aerobic swimming provides a sub-lethal endpoint to define tolerance of acute warming in fishes, as an alternative to loss of equilibrium (LOE) during a critical thermal maximum (CTmax) protocol. Two species were studied, Nile tilapia (Oreochromis niloticus) and pacu (Piaractus mesopotamicus). Each fish underwent an incremental swim test to determine gait transition speed (UGT), where it first engaged the unsteady anaerobic swimming mode that preceded fatigue. After suitable recovery, each fish was exercised at 85% of their own UGT and warmed 1°C every 30 min, to identify the temperature at which they fatigued, denoted as CTswim. Fish were also submitted to a standard CTmax, warming at the same rate as CTswim, under static conditions until LOE. All individuals fatigued in CTswim, at a mean temperature approximately 2°C lower than their CTmax. Therefore, if exposed to acute warming in the wild, the ability to perform aerobic metabolic work would be constrained at temperatures significantly below those that directly threatened survival. The collapse in performance at CTswim was preceded by a gait transition qualitatively indistinguishable from that during the incremental swim test. This suggests that fatigue in CTswim was linked to an inability to meet the tissue oxygen demands of exercise plus warming. This is consistent with the oxygen and capacity limited thermal tolerance (OCLTT) hypothesis, regarding the mechanism underlying tolerance of warming in fishes. Overall, fatigue at CTswim provides an ecologically relevant sub-lethal threshold that is more sensitive to extreme events than LOE at CTmax. Summary: Fatigue from sustained aerobic exercise can be used to measure sub-lethal tolerance of acute warming in fishes.
Adaptive Sequential Interpolator Using Active Learning for Efficient Emulation of Complex Systems

Many fields of science and engineering require the use of complex and computationally expensive models to understand the involved processes in the system of interest. Nevertheless, due to the high cost involved, the required study becomes a cumbersome process. This paper introduces an interpolation procedure which belongs to the family of active learning algorithms, in order to construct cheap surrogate models of such costly complex systems. The proposed technique is sequential and adaptive, and is based on the optimization of a suitable acquisition function. We illustrate its efficiency in a toy example and for the construction of an emulator of an atmosphere modeling system.
FinTech, Lending and Payment Innovation: A Review

The global landscape has seen the advent of new technology in offering innovative financial services and products and reshaping the financial sector, namely FinTech. In this review, we discuss the literature on recent FinTech development and its interaction with both banks and consumers. We synthesize the insights it provides into two domains: credit supply and payment and clearing services. The rise of FinTech has introduced digital transformation of the “bricks‐and‐mortar” banking model and dramatically changed the way financial services are delivered. We also present several future questions and directions that are worthy of investigation for researchers and policy‐makers.
A Compact Self-Triplexing Antenna Using HMSIW Cavity

In this letter, a novel design of compact self-triplexing antenna using half-mode substrate integrated waveguide (HMSIW) cavity for triple-band applications is presented. In the proposed antenna, an inverted V-shaped slot is inserted on the top surface of a rectangular HMSIW cavity and three individual microstrip feedlines are used to excite three separate modes at three different wireless local area network (WLAN) bands around 4.95, 5.3, and 5.9 GHz. Due to use of HMSIW cavity, the size of antenna has become compact. The measured isolation of the antenna in between any two ports is better than 20.5 dB in such a compact structure. The measured gains at three frequencies 4.95, 5.3, and 5.9 GHz are 4.5, 4.9, and 6.1 dBi, respectively. The efficiency of antenna is better than 84% in all the bands. The separation between co-to-cross-polarization levels is more than 19 dB, and front-to-back ratio (FTBR) is better than 14 dB at each band. Moreover, any band of antenna can be tuned independently by keeping other bands almost intact.
The Role of VEGF in the Process of Neovasculogenesis

Neovasculogenesis is a multi-stage process of blood vessel formation which plays a vital role in neoplasia. The formation of blood vessels in tumours is closely related to invasive cancerous growth. The process of angiogenesis is closely regulated by the system of cooperating stimulants and inhibitors. Factors stimulating neovasculogenesis are characterised by a fairly broad spectrum of activity. Three key attributes of proangiogenic factors have been identified as: 1. The specific effect on endothelial cells, i.e. the given factor’s presence induces angiogenesis. 2. The presence of specific receptors in endothelial cells. 3. Neutralisation of the factor inhibits angiogenesis (Grunstein et al., 1999; McMahon, 2000; Szala & Radzikowski, 1997). There are a number of proteins that have been referred to as pro-angiogenic factors that actively participate in the formation of capillaries. VEGF meets all key requirements of being classified as a pro-angiogenic factor: it specifically affects vascular epithelial cells, it is present only during angiogenesis, it does not occur in adults unless new vessels are being formed. Its overexpression is connected to the formation of capillaries and its neutralisation inhibits the process (Grunstein et al., 1999; McMahon, 2000).
Foundational Curriculum for the African American Student Network: Synthesis of Discussion Topics and Themes

The African American Student Network (AFAM) is a therapeutic counterspace associated with positive educational and social outcomes for Black undergraduates at a predominantly White institution in the Midwest. We adapted consensual qualitative research methods to explore discussion topics and synthesize themes across hundreds of AFAM meetings spanning more than a decade. We found that AFAM students talked most about navigating college life followed by understanding racism, exploring identity, standing up for justice, and finding love, respectively. Importantly, these themes map on to and extend traditional psychosocial tasks for emerging adulthood, particularly in terms of racism and social justice. Additionally, the topics and themes uncovered here can provide a foundational curriculum or roadmap for others interested in developing therapeutic counterspaces like AFAM.
Improving Music Transcription by Pre-Stacking A U-Net

We propose to pre-stack a U-Net as a way of improving the polyphonic music transcription performance of various baseline Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNS). The U-Net, a network architecture based on skip-connections between layers acts as a transformation network followed by a transcription network. Notably, we do not introduce any additional loss terms specific to the transformation network, but instead, jointly train the entire combined model with the original loss function that was designed for the back-end transcription network. We argue that this U-Net network transforms the input signal into a representation that is more effective for transcription, and thus enables the observed improvements in accuracy. We empirically confirm with several experiments using the MusicNet dataset, that the proposed configuration consistently improves the accuracy of transcription networks. This enhancement cannot be achieved by simply introducing more neurons or more layers to the baseline CNNs. Moreover, we show that using the proposed architecture we can go beyond general music transcription and perform transcription in an instrument-specific fashion. By doing so, the original general transcription performance is also increased.
Reproductive chemical cues in two freshwater fishes : topmouth gudgeon Pseudorasbora parva (Temminck and Schlegel) and sunbleak Leucaspius delineatus (Heckel)

The use of reproductive chemical cues is widespread amongst fishes. However, the most understood sex pheromone systems derive from species that employ a scramble spawning reproductive strategy. This thesis investigated for the first time the use of reproductive chemical communication in topmouth gudgeon Pseudorasbora parva (Temminck & Schlegel) and sunbleak Leucaspius delineates (Heckel) that use two different forms of a male nest guarding reproductive strategy. In topmouth gudgeon, approximately a third of reproductive females adopted a body posture in response to reproductive male conditioned water advertising high receptivity to potential mates. Electro-Olfactory Gram recordings of reproductive male and female topmouth gudgeon revealed a high magnitude response to reproductive male and female odours. In addition, both topmouth gudgeon and sunbleak reproductive females responded to chemicals cues derived from conspecific reproductive males by an increase in swimming behaviour. In contrast to male topmouth gudgeon, reproductive male sunbleak responded to chemical cues from reproductive conspecific males and females. Active compounds were isolated from reproductive male topmouth gudgeon conditioned water by two different methods solid phase extraction (C-18 cartridges) and using a freeze drier. The eluate was subsequently separated using High Performance Liquid Chromatography into retention time fractions. An active fraction was identified using a bioassay guided separation. Nuclear Magnetic Resonance analysis showed that compounds were present in the active fraction. Chemical interaction between topmouth gudgeon (invasive to Europe) and sunbleak (native to Europe) was also investigated. Behaviour responses in the two species were asymmetrical topmouth gudgeon did not respond to sunbleak chemical cues. In contrast, both reproductive female and male sunbleak responded to topmouth gudgeon chemical cues. The results show that reproductive chemical communication is in operation in both test species. The cross species interaction indicates that pheromone pollution may represent an additional impact of non-native species introductions.
Advances in inorganic and hybrid perovskites for miniaturized lasers

Abstract The rapid advancement of perovskite-based optoelectronics devices has caught the world’s attention due to their outstanding properties, such as long carrier lifetime, low defect trap density, large absorption coefficient, narrow linewidth and high optical gain. Herein, the photonic lasing properties of perovskites are reviewed since the first stimulated emission of perovskites observed in 2014. The review is mainly focused on 3D structures based on their inherently active microcavities and externally passive microcavities of the perovskites. First, the fundamental properties in terms of crystal structure and optical characteristics of perovskites are reviewed. Then the perovskite lasers are classified into two sections based on the morphology features: the ability/inability to support lasing behaviors by themselves. Every section is further divided into two kinds of cavities according to the light reflection paths (Standing wave for the Fabry–Pérot cavity and travelling wave for the Whispering-Gallery-Mode cavity). The lasing performance involves fabrication methods, cavity sizes, thresholds, quality factors, pumping sources, etc. Finally, some challenges and prospects for perovskite lasers are given.
Arbuscular Mycorrhizal Fungi Status of Some Crops In The Cross River Basin of Nigeria

The incidence of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) colonization and rhizospheric spore prevalence of ten crops was studied in relation to their foliar concentration of nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium in the Calabar area of the Cross River Basin of Nigeria in order to determine their mycorrhizal status. All crops studied had an incidence of mycorrhizal colonization including Talinum triangulare a member of Portulacaceae family. The highest percentage AMF colonization of 97.60% and rhizospheric spore density of 112 spores/5g soil were found in Arachis hypogea while Talinum triangulare and Telfairia occidentalis had the lowest percentage AMF colonization of 30.90% and rhizospheric spore density of 10 spores/5g soil respectively. There was no correlation between the percentage AMF colonization and the rhizospheric spore density of the crops sampled. Foliar phosphorus concentration was highest in A. hypogea , (1.20%), for potassium it was in Colocasia esculenta (9.3%) while T. occidentalis had the highest foliar nitrogen concentration (4.9%). There was no significant relationship between foliar nutrient concentration and AM fungi colonization or rhizospheric spore density. Keywords: AMF, Colonization, Spore density, Foliar nutrients, Cross River Basin of Nigeria.
Espectro polínico da própolis de Scaptotrigona aff. postica (Hymenoptera, Apidae, Meliponini) em Barra do Corda, MA, Brasil

Propolis is a resinous substance collected by bees from different parts of a plant. Therefore, its quality is related to its botanical origin. The objective of the study was to verify whether the pollen types found indicate the botanical origin of their resins and contribute to understand the relationship of these bees with the vegetation surrounding the meliponary. Thirty one samples were collected over 12 months at seven day intervals. Pollen grains were extracted from the propolis and used to prepare microscope slides, after which identification, counting and determination of frequency classes was undertaken. A total of 94 pollen types were identified belonging to 35 plant families. Borreria verticillata (34.17%) was the most frequent pollen type, followed by Anadenanthera sp. (13.65%) and Mimosa caesalpiniifolia (10.5%). Fabaceae (38.37%) and Rubiaceae (34.18%) were the families with the highest pollen frequencies. There were also found 34 unique pollen types, i.e. types that only occur on a given month of the year which may be characterised as seasonal indicators for flowering species and thus infer data on their phenology. The results obtained were not enough to determine the botanical origin of the resins; however the wide variety of pollen types found in the propolis samples indicated a broad interaction between bees and plants and contributed toward the phytogeographic characterisation of the propolis.
Secure Routing In Vehicular Ad Hoc Networking With Relay Node Against Black And Gray Hole Attack

: VANeting a peculiar n/w with a dynamic topology that transfers messages or warnings between vehicles to Roadside units and between vehicles in all types of roadside regimes, including rural, urban, and highways. These communications bring all the roadside nodes to work together by setting routes and communication links. It also supports and offers intelligent transportation, comfort, security, and entertainment applications. The ―Wireless Access Vehicular Environment (WAVE)‖ standard in VANET has IEEE 802.11p / 609.3 standards at the lower/advanced level of the network layer, respectively. This network (n/w) has rapidly changing topologies with high mobility. The warning messages alert others to prevent collisions and traffic accidents and thus reducing roadside issues. Designing a routing protocol for this dynamic topology involves a lot of challenges such as packet loss, delay, latency, security threats, etc. The proposed model aims to improve the vehicular system by employing the Relay Driven Backbone network where the vehicles are elected automatically as Relay and Distributed Broadcasting Protocol is used for Data Communication. Two security threats Black, Gray hole, and broadcast storm problem in broadcasting are discussed. Proper implementation is ensured to prevent those threats. For Simulation evaluation of proposed models NS-3 is used. The parameters PDR, Throughput, PLR, E2E Delay are addressed in addition to compared with existing models.
Sabellids and serpulids (Polychaeta sedentaria) from the type Maastrichtian, the Netherlands and Belgium

Calcareous tubes of the sabellid genus Glomerula and of the family Serpulidae (subfamilies Serpulinae and Spirorbinae) rank amongst the commoner, highly diverse biota of the type Maastrichtian strata. These cover the sequence from the upper Beutenaken Member (Gulpen Formation) up to and including the Meerssen Member (Maastricht Formation). Of the 40+ taxa of calcareous worm tubes found in this interval, the commonest ones are described and illustrated in the present paper, which also comprises a revision of data published in 2005.
Deciphering the metamorphic evolution of the Pulo do Lobo metasedimentary domain (SW Iberian Variscides)

Abstract. The Pulo do Lobo domain is one of the units exposed within the orogenic suture zone between the Ossa-Morena and the South Portuguese zones in the SW Iberian Variscides. This metasedimentary unit has been classically interpreted as a Rheic subduction-related accretionary prism formed during pre-Carboniferous convergence and eventual collision between the South Portuguese Zone (part of Avalonia) and the Ossa-Morena Zone (peri-Gondwanan terrane). Discrete mafic intrusions also occur within the dominant Pulo do Lobo metapelites, related to an intra-orogenic Mississippian transtensional and magmatic event that had a significant thermal input. Three different approaches have been applied to the Devonian–Carboniferous phyllites and slates of the Pulo do Lobo domain in order to study their poorly known low-grade metamorphic evolution. X-ray diffraction (XRD) was used to identify the mineralogy and measure crystallographic parameters (illite “crystallinity” and K-white mica b-cell dimension). Compositional maps of selected samples were obtained from electron probe microanalysis, which allowed for processing with XMapTools software, and chlorite semiempirical and thermodynamic geothermometry was performed. Thermometry based on Raman spectroscopy of carbonaceous material (RSCM) was used to obtain peak temperatures. The microstructural study shows the existence of two phyllosilicate growth events in the chlorite zone, the main one (M1) related to the development of a Devonian foliation S1 and a minor one (M2) associated with a crenulation cleavage (S2) developed in middle–upper Carboniferous times. M1 entered well into epizone (greenschist facies) conditions. M2 conditions were at lower temperature, reaching the anchizone–epizone boundary. These data accord well with the angular unconformity that separates the Devonian and Carboniferous formations of the Pulo do Lobo domain. The varied results obtained by the different approaches followed, combined with microstructural analysis, provide different snapshots of the metamorphic history. Thus, RSCM temperatures are higher in comparison with the other methods applied, which is interpreted to reflect a faster re-equilibration during the short-lived thermal Mississippian event. Regarding the metamorphic pressure, the data are very homogeneous: very low celadonite content (0 %–10 %) in muscovite (and low values of K-white mica b-cell dimension; 8.995 Å mean value), indicating a low pressure–temperature gradient, which is unexpected in a subduction-related accretionary prism. Highlights A multidisciplinary approach has been applied to study the metamorphism of the Pulo do Lobo metapelites. Devonian metamorphism entered epizone conditions. Carboniferous metamorphism reached the anchizone–epizone boundary. The inferred low-pressure gradient is incompatible with a subduction-related accretionary prism.
Effects of predator species, vegetation and prey assemblage on prey preferences of predators with emphasis on vulnerability of age-0 common carp

Predation is an important force structuring aquatic communities, but predator-prey interactions are complex and regulated by multiple factors. Invasive fishes may interact with native fishes to alter predator-prey preferences and community dynamics. For example, common carp, Cyprinus carpio L. , is an invasive species that can become abundant and negatively affect aquatic ecosystems. Juvenile common carp are occasionally found in predator diets, but predator preferences for common carp compared with alternative prey remains unknown. Prey selection and feeding behaviour of five piscivores (flathead catfish, Pylodictis olivaris (Rafinesque); largemouth bass, Micropterus salmoides (Lacepede); smallmouth bass, M. dolomieu Lacepede; walleye, Sander vitreus (Mitchill); and northern pike, Esox lucius L. ) foraging on juvenile common carp and two alternative prey (fathead minnow, Pimephales promelas Rafinesque, and yellow perch, Perca flavescens Mitchill) at variable densities and habitats were evaluated. Common carp and fathead minnow were generally selected for or neutrally selected across predator species, habitat types and prey assemblages. By contrast, yellow perch was generally selected against. Common carp were easily captured but difficult to manipulate and ingest compared with other prey. These results reveal that common carp are vulnerable to a variety of predators, suggesting control of this detrimental invader may be possible through biomanipulation.
Hybrid Signature Scheme Integrating Elliptic Curve Cryptosystem with Ong, Schnorr, and Shamir Digital Signature Scheme

Transmitting data over unsecured Channels is one of the most indispensable issues which motivates researchers to study. In this paper, a new hybrid digital signature approach is going to be proposed which integrates the elliptic curve cryptosystem (ECC) into Ong, Schnorr, and Shamir signature (OSS). A self-invertible 8×8 key matrix will be utilized as a portion of the OSS digital signature. The strength of the proposed technique relies on combining couple of fundamental mathematical problems namely the discrete logarithm problem (DLP) and integer factorization problem (IFP). Elaborated results regarding security and time rendering analysis have been measured and confirmed its durability against diverse patterns of attacks. The submitted technique can be applied as a substitutional protocol if all the familiar systems are executed.