Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Detecting Depression and Predicting its Onset Using Longitudinal Symptoms Captured by Passive Sensing

We present a machine learning approach that uses data from smartphones and fitness trackers of 138 college students to identify students that experienced depressive symptoms at the end of the semester and students whose depressive symptoms worsened over the semester. Our novel approach is a feature extraction technique that allows us to select meaningful features indicative of depressive symptoms from longitudinal data. It allows us to detect the presence of post-semester depressive symptoms with an accuracy of 85.7% and change in symptom severity with an accuracy of 85.4%. It also predicts these outcomes with an accuracy of >80%, 11–15 weeks before the end of the semester, allowing ample time for pre-emptive interventions. Our work has significant implications for the detection of health outcomes using longitudinal behavioral data and limited ground truth. By detecting change and predicting symptoms several weeks before their onset, our work also has implications for preventing depression.
A holistic measurement model tailored to software development in a multi-language environment

Software metrics have become a crucial tool in measuring different aspects of the software development process. Their usage and expressiveness, however, are not without criticism. While the managerial side of software development wishes to scale a software’s success in one all-encompassing number, software itself is far too complex a construct as that it can be pinned down to one numerical value. This problem is exacerbated if different programming languages have to be compared: to avoid comparing the proverbial apples and oranges, the respective metrics have to be contextualized. This thesis presents a holistic measurement framework which is tailored to the software development processes in multi-language programming environments. To provide an appealing name, the model was called HOLLY an abbreviation from HOListic Language ComparabilitY model. The development of the HOLLY model occurred during a collaboration with an Austrian Health Care Systems Provider, and was practically assessed in a case study. Extending purely practical needs, however, the HOLLY model endeavored to present a holistic measurement model tailored to software development in multi-language environments. Three base requirements were important to achieve, namely (1) generality (2) flexibility and (3) separation of layers. The assessment of the HOLLY model showed that the perspective of interpretation is crucial for validity of the outcomes. To receive an overview of the status of two programming languages or product lines, the derived indicators are an apt means; however, only the subsequent observation and interpretation of the underlying metrics enable the induction of suitable countermeasures. The need for interpretation (i.e. comparing two metrics directly) versus the need for abstraction (i.e. an abstract indicator value) here exhibit a continuous interdependency, which must be considered in the evaluation of the provided data.
Tunneled Peritoneal Catheter for Refractory Ascites in Cirrhosis: A Randomized Case-Series

Background and objectives: Refractory ascites markedly worsens prognosis in cirrhosis. Large volume paracentesis (LVP) is standard treatment, but complications are common. In a randomized controlled case-series, we assessed a permanent tunneled peritoneal catheter versus LVP in patients with cirrhosis and ascites. Materials and Methods: Random allocation was computer-generated, and concealment used opaque envelopes. Patients were included from January 2017 to December 2018. Inclusion criteria were cirrhosis and recurrent ascites and expected survival of more than 3 months. Results: Thirteen patients were enrolled (PleurX =6 versus LVP = 7). Seven were female, ranging in age from 51 to 80 years. No procedure-related complications occurred. Two patients died due to variceal bleeding (PleurX-group) and sepsis (LVP-group). One patient was withdrawn due to hyponatremia (PleurX-group). Two patients were withdrawn due to bacterial peritonitis and infection of unknown origin (control-group). In the PleurX-group, all patients colonized the catheter, two developed bacterial peritonitis. The most common bacterial colonization was Staph. Epidermidis (n = 4). Conclusions: In selected patients, the PleurX catheter mobilizes ascites and may be an alternative to LVP. The risk of infection should be considered in each case. The impact of colonization and risk of infections needs further investigation. The present trial does not allow for statistical conclusions.
An Overview of the Exploitation of Renewable Energy Resources in Nigeria, South Africa, and the United Kingdom

In this study, the current perspective of renewable energy utilisation as an alternative energy source and viable energy option were examined and discussed from the standpoint of sustainable development in Nigeria, South Africa, and the United Kingdom. The challenges and drivers impacting the development and implementation of renewable energy (RE) in these countries were identified and discussed in the comparison between the countries. Amongst the numerous factors, the effect of energy policies, policymakers, its implementation and supporting financial backing, and conventional energy associated demands were predominant features of the RE development strategy of these countries. This article gives an overview and a conceptual framework of how these key factors influence RE development. It also aims to contribute to the debate on how to promote renewables, influencing decisions of the policymakers, contribute to policy formulation and attract funding in the countries considered with particular emphasis on Nigeria.
Triangle Carrier-Based DPWM for Three-Level NPC Inverters

—This paper proposes a triangle carrier based discontinuous PWM (TCB-DPWM) implement method for three-level neutral-point-clamped (3L-NPC) inverters. The function equivalent relationship of proposed TCB-DPWM and space vector based discontinuous PWM (SVB-DPWM) is mathematically analyzed in this paper. The proposed TCB-DPWM method effectively simplified the implementation of the SVB-DPWM by injecting twice common mode voltages (CMVs) to original modulation signals, where different DPWM methods can be easily obtained in a unified scheme by setting different values of proportional allocation factor for small vectors in different sectors. In addition, a TCB-DPWM based neutral point voltage balancing method is investigated to demonstrate its application. The polarity of the CMV injection is regulated according to the polarity of the proportional allocation factor to realize the neutral point voltage balancing. Finally, the proposed TCB-DPWM and neutral point voltage balancing method are both verified by simulation and experimental results. The results show that the proposed TCB-DPWM can effectively simplify the implementation of modulation and improve system efficiency.
The Indo-Pacific climate dynamics and teleconnections with a special emphasis on the Indian summer monsoon rainfall

The climate dynamics in the Indo-Pacific sector is dominated by several modes of interannual climate variations. The El Niño/Southern Oscillation (ENSO) is historically recognized as the dominant mode of climate variations in the global climate system. It affects the weather and climate all over the world including Indian summer monsoon rainfall (ISMR) through direct and indirect pathways. Also, the ENSO-induced basin-wide mode of the tropical Indian Ocean is shown to have a delayed effect, like a capacitor, on the climate variations of the western Pacific and the adjacent land regions of Asia. The Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD) is recently recognized to be the other dominant climate mode that has worldwide impacts on weather and climate including ISMR. In addition, perhaps related to the global warming processes, the characteristics of the ENSO have changed in recent decades and a new ocean-atmosphere coupled mode called ENSO Modoki has emerged. The ENSO Modoki signals are seen centered in the central Pacific with opposite polarity signals appearing on both sides of the basin. Different from ENSO, the ENSO Modoki associated teleconnections can be seen in many parts of the world. Besides the tropical climate mode, the Indo-Pacific sector also has subtropical climate modes related to local air-sea interactions. Particularly, the Indian Ocean subtropical dipole (IOSD) is shown to have a significant correlation with the rainfall variability in southern Africa, Australia, India and even southern China. Several modes of coastal air-sea interactions modes are also discovered recently. The most interesting of them is the Ningaloo Niño/Ningaloo Niña off the western coast of Australia. This coastal Nino has a strong influence not only on the coastal ecosystem but also the regional climate variability in Australia.
Large-scale mass transport in the austral fjords and channels of Chile

The southern coast of Chile (41.0 o S – 46.5 o S) is a unique region with a complex marine system of fjords and channels that receives melted waters from the glaciers of the southern Patagonian ice field. Despite this region is almost uninhabited, it has been affected by harmful algal blooms called red tide, which has increased in frequency, duration, extension and toxicity. Furthermore, recent events of ISA virus have stroked salmon farms that operate on the region, with severe consequences on the Chilean economy. Considering these environmental trends, it is crucial to understand horizontal transport mechanisms that spread both algae and virus in the region. The main objective of this article is to characterize and quantify the dispersion mechanisms that dominate large-scale mass transport in the upper layer of this region. Particularly, the focus is placed on tide dispersion, estuarine dispersion and wind dispersion. For doing this, we modeled the coupled atmospheric-hydrodynamics three-dimensional conditions for the summer of 2011. The atmospheric simulations were carried out with WRF model and the hydrodynamic simulations were conducted with CWR-ELCOM. In order to define which dispersion mechanism dominates the horizontal transport, different scenarios were simulated considering changes in the external forcing, and the horizontal dispersion coefficient of the upper layer was then computed using the simulated flow velocities. It is shown that estuarine dispersion has an important role in the horizontal shear dispersion during the floods, but more important were the combined effects of tide and wind dispersion during the entire simulation. Particularly, the wind counteracts the effects of tide dispersion, showing an increase on the horizontal dispersion when the wind speed is reduced.
Automatic recognition processing in ultrasound computed tomography of bone

Ultrasound Computed Tomography (USCT) of soft biological tissues today provides images with a high-level of resolution. The signal acquisition system using multichannel and/or multifrequency arrays performs in circular mode and the main (linear) inversion algorithms are based on compression wave propagation modeling. The main limits of these methods for bone imaging are due to the large impedance contrast between tissues, and to propagative phenomena generated through periosteal interfaces (mode conversion, attenuation). The linear inversion methods fail to provide high-level resolution images. Despite their performance and robustness, the non-linear methods are still today unsuitable for clinical applications because of the high computation time required. However, in the special case of children bone imaging, acquisition steps must be as fast as possible, with short-time exposure and low-intensity sonication. In this context, we have developed a fast-acquisition setup (1 sec.) based on a cylindrical-focusing ring antenna, and a protocol (< 5 sec.) using classical Born approximation and spatial Fourier transform. Unfortunately, the result today is a poor contrast-to-noise ratio (CNR) image. Previous work done to improve CNR used signal and image processing. This work focuses on this last point, and an automatic edge detection procedure, using Haar wavelet 2D-decompositon, combining k-means and Ostu algorithms. Results will be presented on ex vivo real bone samples and on geometrical mimicking bone phantom (SawbonesTM). An example of bone defect imaging will be presented and discussed.
Review Comments for "On tuning of atmospheric inverse methods: Comparison on ETEX and Chernobyl datasets using FLEXPART v8.1 and v10.3"

Abstract. Estimation of the temporal profile of an atmospheric release, also called the source term, is an important problem in environmental sciences. The problem can be formalized as a linear inverse problem where the unknown source term is optimized to minimize the difference between the measurements and the corresponding model predictions. The problem is typically ill-posed due to low sensor coverage of a release and due to uncertainties e.g. in measurements or atmospheric transport modeling, hence, all state-of-the-art methods are based on some form of regularization of the problem using additional information. We consider two kinds of additional information, the prior source term, also known as the first guess, and regularization parameters for shape of the source term. While the first guess is based on information independent of the measurements, such as physics of the potential release or previous estimations, the regularization parameters are often selected by the designers of the optimization procedure. In this paper, we provide a sensitivity study of two inverse methodologies on the choice of the prior source term as well as regularization parameters of the methods. The sensitivity is studied in two cases: data from the European Tracer Experiment (ETEX) using FLEXPART v8.1 and the caesium-134 and caesium-137 dataset from the Chernobyl accident using FLEXPART v10.3.
Impacts of Decomposition Techniques on Performance and Latency of Microservices

Micro service architecture (MSA) has undoubtedly become the most popular modern-day architecture, often used in conjunction with the rapidly advancing public cloud platforms to reap the best benefits of salability, elasticity and agility. Though MSA is highly advantageous and comes with a huge set of benefits, it has its own set of challenges. To achieve the separation of concerns and optimal performance, defining the boundaries for the services clearly and their underlying persistent stores is quintessential. But logically segregating the services is a major challenge faced while designing the MSA. Some of the guiding principles like Single responsibility principle (SRP) and common closure principle (CCP) are put in place to drive the design and separation of microservices. With the use of these techniques the service layer can be designed either by (i) Building the services related to a business subdomain and packaging them as a microservice; (ii) or Defining the entity relationship model and then building the services based on the business capabilities which are grouped together as a microservice; (iii) or understanding the big picture of the application scope and combining both the strategies to achieve the best of both worlds. This paper explains these decomposition approaches in detail by comparing them with the real-world use cases and explains which pattern is suitable under which circumstances and at the same time examines the impacts of these approaches on the performance and latency using a research project.
Enhancing the Joining Properties of Biodegradable PLA from Fused Deposition Modeling by Infrared Laser Irradiation

The development of high complexity geometry parts is one of the main goals of the additive manufacturing technology. However, the failure of printed structures and the joining of different parts to create complex assemblies represents a real challenge in the research of efficient and sustainability techniques for the permanent assembly of polymers. Laser welding processes have been used as a single step method to join metals until years ago. Nowadays, the growing trend in the use of thermoplastics for additive manufacturing has led to the need to adapt this technique to materials with a very specific nature and more sensitive to thermal effects. Also, the possibility of transmitting the laser beam through transparent polymer layers allows to focus the energy supply on internal sections of the assembled components. In this research, an infrared laser marking system was used to join two different samples of polylactic acid manufactured by fused deposited modeling technology. In order to increase the effectiveness of the bonding process, a transparent and a dark sample have been used as assembly material, focusing the laser beam on the interface area of the two parts. By means of tensile tests, dimensional measurement and the use of optical microscopy techniques, a basis was established that links the supplied energy by laser to the joining performance.
Hepatoprotective Impact of Cinnamon Aqueous Extract

Cinnamon is used in the medical field for the treatment of many diseases, especially those related to liver disease. This study aimed to assess the effective compounds of cinnamon water extract and its role in protecting against liver disease in experimental rats. The liver cirrhosis was induced by carbon tetrachloride (CCl4). In rats with liver cirrhosis caused by CCl4 were observed to have elevated liver enzymatic activity in serum. The elevated aspartate aminotransferase (AST) and alanine aminotransferase (ALT) were significantly enhanced to nearly normal after administering oral cinnamon aqueous extract at a dose of 0.6 ml / 100 g body weight/day for 12 consecutive weeks. There was a significant rise in the serum Malondialdehyde (MDA), while the activities of reduced glutathione (GSH), albumin and total proteins decreased significantly in rats treated with CCl4. Cinnamon aqueous extract has a protective effect on the liver by lowering the level of MDA and elevating the activities of GSH, total proteins and serum albumin. The histological examination of the liver confirmed the enhancement effect in the studied liver biomarkers. In conclusion, the high content of phytochemicals in cinnamon aqueous extract may be considered as the main cause of the protective properties against liver disease.
Deciphering the function of chromatin modifiers in genome regulation and maintenance in Saccharomyces cerevisiae

ii Preface . iv Table of Contents . v List of Tables . ix List of Figures . x List of Abbreviations . xiii Acknowledgements . xv Dedication . xvii Chapter 1: Introduction . 1 1.1 Introduction of chromatin . 2 1.2 Chromatin structure . 3 1.3 Modifications of chromatin . 5 1.4 SWR1-C and histone variant H2A.Z . 8 1.5 HATs and histone acetylation . 12 1.5. 1 NuA4 complex structure and function . 14 1.5. 2 NuA4 submodules . 16 1.6 Role of chromatin in DNA damage . 19 1.6. 1 DNA damage response and regulation . 20 1.6. 2 Role of chromatin in DNA damage . 21 1.6. 2.1 Role of NuA4 complex in DNA damage . 22 1.6. 2.2 Role of Dot1 in DNA damage . 22
New RTP Packet Payload Shrinking Method to Enhance Bandwidth Exploitation Over RTP Protocol

One of the pillars to run businesses is the telecommunications. Most of the institutions are migrating, if not already migrated, to Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) technology. However, VoIP still need some improvements, in terms of networks bandwidth exploitation and VoIP call quality, to meet the businesses expectations. Networks bandwidth exploitation, which is our concern in this paper, has been enhanced using different approaches and methods. This paper suggests a new method to enhance networks bandwidth exploitation Packet’s payload shrinking (compression) approach. The suggested method works with the RTP protocol and called RTP Payload Shrinking (RPS) method. As the name implies, the RPS method will reduce the size of the RTP packet payload, through shrinking it based on specific algorithm, which enhances the networks bandwidth exploitation. The RPS method utilizes the RTP fields to store the values that are needed to apply the shrinking algorithm at the sender and receiver sides. The effectiveness of the proposed RPS method has been examined in comparison to conventional RTP protocol without shrinking. The deployment result showed that the saved bandwidth ratio has reached up to nearly 17% in the tested scenarios. Therefore, enhancing the network bandwidth exploitation.
SPATIAL PLANNING TEXT INFORMATION PROCESSING WITH USE OF MACHINE LEARNING METHODS

Abstract. Spatial development plans provide an important information on future land development capabilities. Unfortunately, at the moment access to planning information in Poland is limited. Despite many initiatives taken to standardize planning documents, the standard for recording plans has not yet been developed. Each of the planning areas has a symbol and a category of land use, which is different in each of the plans. For this reason, it is very difficult to carry out an analysis enabling aggregation of all areas with a specific, the same development function. The authors in the article conduct experiments aimed at using machine learning methods for the needs of processing the text part of plans and their classification. The main aim was to find the best method for grouping texts of zones with the same land use. The experiment consists in an attempt to automatically classify the texts of findings for individual areas into the 10 defined categories of land use. Thanks to this, it is possible to predict the future land use function for a specific zone text regulation and aggregate all zones with specific land use type. In the proposed solution for the classification problem of heterogeneous planning information authors used k-means algorithm and artificial neural networks. The main challenge for this solution, however, was not the design of the classification tool but rather the preprocessing of the text. In this paper an approach for text preprocessing as well as selected methods of text classification is presented. The results of the work indicate greater use of CNN's usability to solve the problem presented. K-means clustering produces clusters, in which texts are not grouped according to land use function, which is not useful in the context of zones aggregation.