Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Developing a machine learning framework for 24-hour data analysis aimed at early detection of cardiac arrhythmias as a guiding tool for physicians

Cardiovascular diseases (CVD), defined as a spectrum of disorders primarily impacting the heart and the circulatory system, account for a substantial fraction of worldwide morbidity and mortality. Electrocardiograms (ECGs) are routinely implemented in a patient’s diagnosis, both in hospitals and outpatient settings. They serve as one of the primary diagnostic tools as patients encounter medical personnel, particularly in suspected CVD. A cardiac holter monitor is a medical diagnostic device, connected to the patient via several conductive leads placed across the chest, and "worn" on a strap across the shoulder. A holter is applied to record continuous ECG data (typically 24 hours). With recently emerging applications of Machine Learning (ML) in data analysis techniques, the need for human expertise and potential human error could be minimized, and prediction accuracy optimized considerably. Hence, the objective of this research is to develop a machine learning frame-work to eventually aid physicians with their decisions as a powerful guiding/assisting tool to analyse the ECG information reported by holter monitors. Furthermore, we aim to develop a computer aided diagnostic system that can assists expert cardiologists by providing intelligent, cost effective, and time saving diagnosis. In this thesis, we implement a deep learning-based solution to analyse readings of the holter monitors. In our proposed solution, we train neural networks to extract high-level features from temporal signal recordings of holter monitors. We present a supervised neural network framework to predict the physician’s final interpretations based on the holter recorded signals. The outputs of the network contain the likelihood of four possible scenarios of Normal and three types of arrhythmia. The high classification performance of the proposed methodology emphasizes the capability of this framework to be used as an assisting tool alongside the physicians to interpret holter reports.
A simplified measurement method of TMTF for hearing-impaired listeners

It is difficult to understand speech for listeners with reduced temporal resolution. To measure the auditory index of temporal resolution in clinical diagnosis, a novel measurement method was proposed. It is called a simplified measurement method of temporal modulation transfer function (S-TMTF). This method is based on measurement of temporal modulation transfer function (TMTF). The novelty of S-TMTF lies in the use of only two thresholds for estimation of peak sensitivity and 3-dB cutoff frequency. One is a threshold of modulation depth and the other is a threshold of modulation frequency. In this study, to evaluate the practicability and accuracy of peak sensitivity and 3-dB cutoff frequency, both S-TMTF and TMTF were measured for normal-hearing and hearing-impaired subjects. Results of S- TMTF were significantly correlated with that of TMTF and the measurement time of S-TMTF could be shortened to one fourth of the time for TMTF. Furthermore, the measurement time will be shortened by using the method of limits. S-TMTF would be applied for clinical diagnosis of hearing impairment.
Targeting CAMKII to reprogram tumor-associated macrophages and inhibit tumor cells for cancer immunotherapy with an injectable hybrid peptide hydrogel

Simultaneously targeted treatment of tumor cells and their surrounding growth-supporting immune cells is a promising strategy to reshape immunosuppressive tumor microenvironment (TME) and potentiate host innate and adaptive antitumor immune responses. Methods: We designed a series of melittin-(RADA)n hybrid peptide sequences with varying self-assembling motifs of RADA and screened out a melittin-(RADA)6 peptide that has an optimal gel-formation ability and in vitro antitumor activity. Results: The formed melittin-(RADA)6 (MR52) hydrogel scaffold could be loaded with a specific Ca2+/calmodulin-dependent protein kinase II (CAMKII) inhibitor, KN93, originally found to have both direct tumoricidal activity and macrophages-reprogramming ability, for potent immunotherapy against melanoma and hepatoma ascites in mice models. Our MR52 hydrogel has an interweaving nanofiber-like structure, possesses direct antitumor and controlled drug release properties, and promotes the enhanced intracellular uptake of loaded cargo. Compared to free KN93, the MR52-KN93 hydrogel (MRK) improved the killing effects and levels of immunogenic cell death (ICD) on tumor cells significantly. Due to the dual role of KN93, the injection of the MRK hydrogel retarded the growth of subcutaneous melanoma tumors dramatically and resulted in a high number of mature dendritic cells of draining lymph nodes, significantly enhancing the portion of cytotoxic T cells and reduced number of M2-like tumor-associated macrophages (TAMs) in tumors. Using a mouse model of malignant ascites (MAs), where traditional therapy was ineffective, we demonstrated that the MRK hydrogel treatment offered a significantly prolonged survival compared to controls. Following treatment with the MRK hydrogel, macrophages had elevated programmed cell death protein ligand-1 (PD-L1) expression, promising follow-up combined anti-PD-1 therapy that confers a cure rate of approximately 30% against MAs in mice models. Conclusion: Thus, the MRK hydrogel may serve as a prospective platform for antitumor applications.
A Neighborhood-Based Trust Protocol for SecureCollaborative Routing in Wireless Mobile D2DHetNets

Heterogeneous Device-to-Device mobile networks are characterised by frequent network disruption and unreliability of peers delivering messages to destinations. Trust-based protocols has been widely used to mitigate the security and performance problems in D2D networks. Despite several efforts made by previous researchers in the design of trust-based routing for efficient collaborative networks, there are fewer related studies that focus on the peers’ neighbourhood as a routing metrics’ element for a secure and efficient trust-based protocol. In this paper, we propose and validate a trust-based protocol that takes into account the similarity of peers’ neighbourhood coefficients to improve routing performance in mobile HetNets environments. The results of this study demonstrate that peers’ neighborhood connectivity in the network is a characteristic that can influence peers’ routing performance. Furthermore, our analysis shows that our proposed protocol only forwards the message to the companions with a higher probability of delivering the packets, thus improving the delivery ratio and minimizing latency and mitigating the problem of malicious peers ( using packet dropping strategy).
Mexican Maize Landraces for Corn on the Cob Production at the Central Highlands

Consumption of corn on the cob (Zea mays L.) in Mexico is based on commercial hybrids, even though there are several native races selected by farmers for this purpose. The aim of this study was to characterize immature ears from genetic material derived from three maize landraces adapted to the Mexican central highlands. We evaluated 28 accessions belonging to landraces Cacahuacintle, Chalqueno and Elotes Conicos in Montecillo, Estado de Mexico under a complete randomized blocks design with two replications for two consecutive cycles. Quality was measured through total soluble solid content, protein content and a sensory analysis, along with morphological traits and yield. We found native genotypes with superior quality than that of the commercial control. An analysis of variance and comparison of means by Tukey’s test, as well as a principal component analysis were applied. Native maize showed soluble solid contents of 13.6o Brix, protein content of 12.4 % and better tasting of immature ears than that of the commercial control. Also, the landraces produced ear length of up to 18.5 cm, diameter of up to 5.3 cm, average of 17 grain rows and 90.8 % of grain fill length, which were similar to the control. The yield of landraces reached up to 12 t ha-1 of fresh unhusked ears and 6.3 t ha-1 of fresh kernels. Ear length and diameter can be used as selection criteria for improvement of yield and morphologic traits, and soluble solid content for improvement of tender corn quality. Variability in native maize could satisfy the consumption preferences of corn on the cob and fresh kernel consumption of the population centers of the central part of Mexico.
Essays on Greek Yogurt in the US Market

The US yogurt market has been volatile in the last decade, marked by striking sales increases and dramatic market structure changes. According to an industry report, 1 dollar sales of yogurt in 2017 reached $8:8 billion|a more than 80% increase from 2007. Such remarkable sales growth can be attributed to the rapid rise of Greek yogurt, which has been established as a subcategory accounting for more than half of the category sales. Chobani, a new entrant, has played an important role in this development, as it elevated Greek yogurt from niche to a mass-market trending product. With the increasing popularity of Greek yogurt, Chobani has grown to be one of the largest brands in the highly competitive yogurt category. The two large category incumbents, Dannon and Yoplait, launched Greek yogurt two years later than Chobani. Dannon was able to grow quickly through subsequent introduction of successful new products, whereas Yoplait experienced a significant sales decline and has lost its number-one leading position. As a result, the market structure has changed radically from a duopoly to a three- rm oligopoly. This dissertation studies those dynamic changes in the yogurt category caused by the development of Greek yogurt and the entry of Chobani.
Applying Echo State Networks with Reinforcement Learning to the Foreign Exchange Market

The foreign exchange market (forex) is the market in which currencies are traded with each other. The exchange rate is driven by supply and demand, which in turn is driven by factors such as inflation, interest rates, political and economic stability, and market sentiment, and is largely stochastic. Traders attempt to exchange currencies at the right time to make profit, and they use many types of analyses to do so. In this study, we use the forex as a testbed for echo state networks (ESN), a type of recurrent neural network. We looked at how well we can use the past to predict the change in exchange rate over the next hour, and we simulate trading based on these predictions. The ESN could not predict the change in exchange rate over the next hour better than a benchmark, nor better than random in most cases, and as such it also traded poorly. However, when combining the rich temporal representation of the ESN with Q-learning, a form of reinforcement learning, a more flexible trading agent was able to make significant profit in a simulation, despite trading costs. Author's note: due to an error in the experiments the results from chapter 3 were invalidated
Transformational Leadership of Nurse Managers as Perceived byRegistered Nurses, in Divisional Hospitals, The Republic of Fiji

Introduction: Leadership style of nurse managers play an important role on registered nurses’ retention and organizational productivity thru quality nursing care which is costly to healthcare organizations. This study intends to examine registered nurse’s overall perception of transformational leadership and its related factors of nurse manager in divisional hospitals, The Republic of Fiji. Method: This descriptive study included 348 nurses selected from 3 divisional hospitals in The Republic of Fiji. Random proportional stratified sampling was used. Research instruments consisted of demographic data form, and the Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire. Descriptive statistics was used to analyze data. Results: Response rate was 73% where majority 223 (91%) were females and 21 (9%) were male respondents. Transformational leadership was rated at a moderate level (x̄) = 49.68, SD = 18.31). The seven factors related to transformational leadership namely (i) management by exception; (ii) inspiration motivation; (iii) idealized influence; (iv) individualized consideration; (v) intellectual stimulation; (vi) contingent reward; and (vii) laissez-fair were also rated at a moderate level. Conclusion: This research contributes to the literature on nurse mangers leadership styles wherein transformational leadership style employed by nurse managers was perceived by registered nurses at a moderate level in this study setting. Baseline information has been elicited for nursing policy makers’ consideration to promote transformational leadership and conduct further research.
A Critical Review of Wastewater Resource Recovery Implementation in Indonesia

Wastewater has been recognized as a resource due to its large quantities, and it contains many valuable resources that can be converted into valuable material. Reusing or recovering resources from wastewater can reduce the environmental footprint of wastewater treatment, minimize the contamination and ensure the availability of valuable resources for the human being. The ultimate aim of wastewater resource recovery (WRR) is to create a sustainable and resilient community which is very relevant in Indonesia as this country experiences many natural or human-made disaster. To have an effective implementation, therefore, it is crucial to identify the barriers or supporting factors in its implementation of Wastewater Resource Recovery, which can be different for many regions. Through extensive literature studies, this study intends to review the possibility of WRR implementation in Indonesia. This study discusses Indonesia policy/regulation about wastewater management across all-region in Indonesia, identify barriers in WRR, compares global trends of wastewater management to Indonesia practice and list wastewater resources that potentially can be recovered in Indonesia. From the review, barriers of WRR implementation in Indonesia is most probably due to the policy and regulation of wastewater management which many of them did not support the option of WRR, instead of suggesting only safe discharge option. However, some regulations have mentioned the utilization of wastewater by-product, but it is limited only to treated water utilization. Other obstacles are social acceptance and distance between recovered material supply and demand. Social acceptance includes the human perception regarding the health risk associated with wastewater by-product. Religion also could be a potential barrier that needs to be handled in the implementation of WRR. This study could give new insight into the current state of wastewater resource recovery initiative in Indonesia; thus the strategy to overcome the barriers could be designed.
Autoencoder-Based Generation of Individuals in Population-Based Metaheuristics

HAL is a multi-disciplinary open access archive for the deposit and dissemination of scientific research documents, whether they are published or not. The documents may come from teaching and research institutions in France or abroad, or from public or private research centers. L’archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est destinée au dépôt et à la diffusion de documents scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non, émanant des établissements d’enseignement et de recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires publics ou privés. Autoencoder-based generation of individuals in population-based metaheuristics Bastien Pasdeloup, Maryam Karimi-Mamaghan, Mehrdad Mohammadi, Patrick Meyer
Recovery of Silver and Gold From Electronic Waste by Electrodeposition in Ethaline Ionic Liquid

ANA MARIA POPESCU, VASILE SOARE, OLGA DEMIDENKO, JOSE M. CALDERON MORENO, ELENA IONELA NEACŞU, CRISTINA DONATH*, MARIAN BURADA, IONUT CONSTANTIN, VIRGIL CONSTANTIN* Romanian Academy, “Ilie Murgulescu” Institute of Physical Chemistry, 202 Splaiul Independentei 060021, 060021, Bucharest, Romania Institute of Non-ferous and Rare Metals-IMNR,102 Biruintei Blvd., 077145, Pantelimon, Ilfov County, Romania Scientific-Practical Materials Research Centre, National Academy of Belarus, P. Brovki 19 Str. , Minsk, 220072, Belarus
Acoustic Labyrinth: Validation of a game – based heart auscultation educational tool

The aim of the study was to validate a prototype of a game-based educational tool for improving auscultation skills. The tool was presented to 12 medical school students studying at a foundation university. The data collection tools of the study were: Cardiac sound identification form, educational tool evaluation form and auscultation survey form. Key findings of the study were: 1—Each medical student increased their identification skills and retention was possible. 2—The most incorrectly identified heart sound was the most correctly identified heart sound after using the tool. 3—Medical students sided with the tool for it is flexible, quicker method of learning and getting feedback, can be used anytime, anywhere without interruption of daily life. 4—Since students felt skillful and epic, in real-World tackling problems, on the mission; saving lives, and competitive, they repeated the content otherwise they would not. 5—The tool created a hype and motivation for further learning. 6—Tool was effective on the users with possible restricted acoustic capability which could imply findings might also be used for improving listening skills and musical ear. Keywords: Stethoscope skills, heart auscultation training, mobile learning, game-based learning, retention.
Formulation of Composite Flour with Antioxidant from Goroho Plantain Flour (Musa Acuminafe, sp) and Yellow Pumpkin Flour (Cucurbita moschata) and Its Application on Biscuit Making

Locally grown crops with phytochemical antioxidant content i.e. goroho plantain and yellow pumpkin were used to develop composite flour. Mixture experiment with simplex lattice design was used for formulation to study the effect of blending goroho plantain flour (GF) with yellow pumpkin flour (PF) on phytochemical content and antioxidant capacity of developed composite flours. Responses measured including phytochemical content (total phenolic and carotenoid), antioxidant capacity (DPPH assay, FRAP assay, phosphomolybdenum assay, and reducing power assay), colour values of flours, proximate components, and sensory quality of biscuits made from composite flours. The results showed that increase in proportion of PF improved the phytochemical content, antioxidant capacity, and proximate components with the exception of carbohydrates. However, substitution of GF with PF reduced sensory ratings for all the sensory attributes of biscuits developed from composite flours. Among biscuits made from composite flours, sensory ratings for aroma, colour, texture, and taste were not statistically different ( p >0.05). PF can be used as fortification material to improve the phytochemical antioxidant content in composite flours prepared from GF and PF, or flours from other locally grown plants.
Acoustic analysis of onset voicing in Dzongkha obstruents

We present an acoustic analysis of cues to onset voicing in Dzongkha, the national language of Bhutan. Dzongkha is typically described as having a four-way laryngeal contrast between aspirated, unaspirated, prevoiced and devoiced obstruents. Previous descriptions suggest that this system may be changing, with the devoiced series either merging with the voiced series, or losing closure voicing but retaining contrastive pitch and/or voice quality. Based on data from 12 speakers, we find voiced and devoiced plosives are realised both with and without voicing lead. Tokens realized as phonetically voiced can be redundantly breathy; however, a low register tone always occurs on syllables headed by both voiced and devoiced obstruents, regardless of presence or absence of voicing lead. We discuss the implications of these findings for models of tonogenesis and historical sound change in the Tibeto-Burman context.
Diversity Includes Disability: Experiences of Resilience in a University Residence

The provision of residence accommodation is a persistent challenge that is faced by universities across the globe. However, suitable accommodation for students with disabilities is an even greater challenge that is exacerbated by the absence of appropriately designed, maintained and managed residences. In particular, the adverse impact on wheelchair users and students whose disabilities require specific design adaptations is acute. This article will focus on the experiences of students with disabilities in university residences. The study on which this article is based employed a phenomenological theoretical approach with ‘resilience’ as the conceptual framework. The findings reveal that many stressors impacted students with disabilities in university residences and that these stressors potentially hampered their performance. However, these students developed personal attributes and ways of responding to the stressors they encountered, and many devised social networks utilisation to address their challenges and navigate institutional barriers. A particular focus was that embracing diversity is crucial for all operations at universities to counteract the discrimination and stigmatisation that are often experienced by students with disabilities.
Assessing Thoracic and Lumbar Spinal Curvature Norm: A Systematic Review

Purpose: The quality and condition of the human body are of particular importance. This is because the positive and negative changes resulting from this matter could affect other conditions. The skeletal condition of the spine is an essential part of a person’s physical condition. Recognizing correct positions has always attracted the attention of sports scientists. The present study reviewed the normative data of the thoracic and lumbar curvature.
Global Economic Shocks, Local Economic Institutions, and Legislative Responses∗

e dramatic rise in import competition from developing countries since the 1990s has given new urgency to explain political responses in the United States and other advanced economies. While recent scholarship has demonstrated multiple eects of trade shocks, far less aention has been paid to unbundling the mechanisms through which import competition aects political responses on compensatory and trade policies. In this paper, we assess the possibility that an important part of the political eect works through local economic institutions – labor unions – that shape the relative strength of workers in the policymaking process. We study the US House of Representatives to untangle this institutional channel from other channels. In our empirical analysis we leverage two distinct sources of exogenous variation: an instrument for import competition drawn from the literature and a novel instrument for district-level union membership based on history and geography. We use them in a new semi-parametric approach to disentangle causal mechanisms. We nd that (i) import competition lowers district-level unionization, (ii) weaker unions lead to less legislative support for compensating economic losers as well as less opposition to trade deregulation, and (iii) the union channel represents a large fraction of the overall eect of import exposure on legislative votes. We show that results are robust under alternative specications and when accounting for possible local violations of exclusion restrictions. ese ndings have important implications for the political economy of globalization. ey suggest that the political impact of globalization is broad with lasting consequences for civil society and democratic politics. ∗Prepared for the Annual Meeting of the International Political Economy Society, San Diego, November 2019. Stegmueller’s research was supported by a grant of the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF-2017S1A3A2066657). Becher acknowledges IAST funding from the ANR under the Investments for the Future (Investissements d’Avenir) program, grant ANR-17-EURE-0010. †Institute for Advanced Study in Toulouse, University of Toulouse 1 Capitole, michael.becher@iast.fr ‡Duke University, daniel.stegmueller@duke.edu