Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Improved Nonlinear Finite-Memory Estimation Approach for Mobile Robot Localization

In this article, we present a new mobile robot localization algorithm. The Kalman filter (KF) and particle filter (PF), which are widely used in localization problems, may show poor performance or the divergence phenomenon due to the existence of disturbances or missing measurements. This article proposes an improved nonlinear finite-memory estimation (INFME) algorithm to overcome the performance degradation problem caused by linearization errors in existing finite-memory (FM) estimation methods. To ensure robustness against noise and disturbances, the INFME algorithm was designed with an FM structure based on the minimization of an objective function, which induces reduction of adverse effects of disturbances including the linearization error. It showed superior accurate, robust, real-time performance in real mobile robot localization experiments. The accuracy and robustness of the new algorithm were verified using harsh experimental scenarios including a kidnapped robot problem and a situation in which multiple missing measurements occurred.
Growth charts for Mexican children with Down syndrome

We present the results of a prospective, observational, descriptive, cross‐sectional study performed on a Mexican population of 1867 children, aged 0–18 years, with Down syndrome (DS), observed between 2013 and 2019. A total of 9968 measurements of height, weight, and head circumference, as well as calculation of body mass index (BMI) were used to create growth charts and tables of percentiles. Growth curves were elaborated using Cole's LMS method. The mean weight and length at birth did not differ by sex: the weight was 2750 g for boys and 2710 g for girls (p > 0.05), and the length was 48.2 cm for boys and 47.9 cm for girls (p > 0.05). The mean final height at 18 years was different by sex: 149.6 cm for boys and 141.2 cm for girls. The average BMI at 18 years was 24.2 kg/m2 for boys and 21.9 kg/m2 for girls. In a comparison with U.S. growth charts, we find that the Mexican population has lower height and weight. These are the first growth curves for the Mexican population with DS. They can be used by health care providers to optimize preventive care by monitoring children with DS for the early identification of factors that affect individual growth.
Measuring Project Governance of Mega Infrastructure in China: A Scale Development Study

This study builds a measurement framework of project governance for mega-infrastructure considering the institutional situation of mega-infrastructure projects in China, including contractual governance, relational governance, and governmental governance. The factors of governmental governance are identified by the method of grounded theory with six cases of megaprojects, and the measures of project governance for mega-infrastructure are refined by expert interviews. The 235 questionnaires are collected, and exploratory factor analysis is used to identify six factors of the governance mechanism for mega-infrastructure projects. The scales are developed, and reliability and validity tests are conducted. Results indicate that (1) the governmental governance mechanism includes government decision, government supervision, and government coordination. (2) The three-dimensional framework of project governance is established as “contractual–relational–governmental” in the field of mega-infrastructure. (3) The measurement scales of project governance are developed and validated for mega-infrastructure, including government regulation, government coordination, risk sharing, revenue distribution, relationship maintenance, and cultural development. This research contributes to (a) the state of the knowledge by gaining a holistic and comprehensive understanding of project governance in mega-infrastructure in China, and (b) the state of the practice by providing a tool for measuring project governance in mega-infrastructure.
Birds Fine-grained Feature Extraction Based on Transfer Learning

The KLt-SNE algorithm is based on Kullback-Leibler divergence and t-SNE. Give an unknown distribution <tex>$p(x)$</tex>, at first, and then establish a <tex>$q\, (x\vert \theta)$</tex>, with the same dimension as the unknown distribution, estimate the parameter <tex>$\theta$</tex> that needs to be configured by taking <tex>$N$</tex> samples from <tex>$p(x)$</tex>. The results show that this algorithm can effectively achieve dimensionality reduction of data.
Morphological and porosity changes in primary enamel surface after an in vitro demineralization model

In vitro models are very useful in dentistry, especially to evaluate preventive methods against dental caries. Although they have been used for more than 30 years, specific demineralization models have not been established for primary enamel, which is more prone to demineralization than permanent enamel. This study evaluates porosity changes in primary enamel surface after a demineralization model through a scientifically validated analytical tool. Nine healthy human anterior primary teeth extracted for therapeutic reasons were included in this study, previous informed consent. The samples were randomly assigned to three groups n = 3: G1_2D, G2_4D, and G3_7D. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) images at ×200 and ×1000 were taken during two stages: before demineralization (BD) and after demineralization (AD). Morphological characterization was observed at ×1000, while porosity (pore count and perimeter) was analyzed by the ImageJ program, using ×200 SEM images previously converted. Several statistical analyses were used to determine differences (p ≤ .05). Morphological characterization AD revealed new pits and cracks on the enamel surface in G1_2D and G2_4D groups. Localized eroded enamel areas were observed in G3_7D. Pore count of enamel surface BD ranged from 64.26 ± 37.62 to 97.93 ± 34.25 and AD ranged from 150.06 ± 64.86 to 256 ± 58.14. AD, G_4D exhibited a decrease in pore perimeter contrary to G_2D and G_7D. Significant differences were observed. Finally, morphological changes were more evident as days of demineralization increased; 7 days of immersion could be employed as an enamel erosive model. The pore count increased after the demineralization model, BD pores perimeter was heterogeneous, and AD varied according to the immersion period.
PLAGIARISM AT UNIVERSITIES — HOW TO FIGHT IT? THE CASE OF THE CZECH REPUBLIC

There has been an increasingly urgent need to prevent a very specific type of unethical behavior — plagiarism — at Czech universities and colleges in the last few years. With increasing availability of electronic sources for professional scientific texts the level of “violation” by plagiarism rises proportionally. The chance for intercepting such plagiarized content is very low. The paper will present a comparison of the current situation on plagiarism in the Czech Republic with the situation in the world. The conclusion will introduce a unique system developed for extremely fast analysis of content for plagiarism.
Spin-Orbit Logic with Magnetoelectric Nodes: A Scalable Charge Mediated Nonvolatile Spintronic Logic

As nanoelectronics approaches the nanometer scale, a massive effort is underway to identify the next scalable logic technology beyond Complementary Metal Oxide Semiconductor (CMOS) computing. Such computing technology needs to improve switching energy & delay at reduced dimensions, allow improved interconnects and provide a complete logic/memory family. However, a viable beyond-CMOS logic technology has remained elusive. Here, we propose a scalable spintronic logic device which operates via spin-orbit transduction combined with magneto-electric switching. The proposed Magneto-Electric Spin Orbit (MESO) logic enables a new paradigm to continue scaling of logic performance to near thermodynamic limits for GHz logic (100 kT switching energy at 100 ps delay). The proposed MESO devices scale strongly and favorably with critical dimensions of the device, showing a cubic dependence of switching energy on size, (E_m proportional to W^3), and square dependence on voltage (E_m proportional to V^2). The excellent scaling is obtained thanks to the properties of the spin orbit effects (e.g. Inverse Spin Hall Effect (ISHE) and Inverse Rashba-Edelstein Effect (IREE)) and the dependence of capacitance on size. The operating voltages for these devices are predicted to be < 100 mV allowing a significant jump ahead of historic trends of scaling voltage with size and corresponding reduction of energy. Interconnect resistance is a critical obstacle for scaling beyond 10 nm dimensions. We project a less detrimental impact of interconnect resistance and show that MESO logic is amenable for highly resistive interconnects (100 uOhm.cm-1 mOhm.cm) which opens a possibility to use nano-metallic (width < bulk electron mean free path) or doped semiconducting wires (width<5 nm). A scalable, CMOS compatible, non-volatile logic family proposed here may enable the next multi-generational scaling of computing devices.
The Importance of Selected Coordination Motor Skills for an Individual Football Player’s Effectiveness in a Game

The appropriate level of coordination motor skills (CMS) in a football player is one of the factors determining the effectiveness of their actions. Adaptability and complex reaction time are of particular importance in models of coordination requirements in football. The lead aim of this study is to determine the relationship between two selected coordination motor skills and the offensive, defensive and comprehensive effectiveness of an individual player’s actions. The study was conducted on a group of 91 Polish male football players aged 20 to 31 years, all in the senior age category. The research tools included: a test assessing motor adaptation (research by dribbling the ball with the dominant leg), psychomotor test of complex reaction time (tested with an S-10.2 measuring device) and a test of the effectiveness of an individual player’s actions (one-on-one simulation game). The conducted research indicated that adaptability and complex reaction time are both important abilities for success when attacking in an individual game, and in the assessment of a comprehensive index of individual competences in a one-on-one football game. However, the most significant factor influencing the effectiveness of a player’s defensive action is solely the complex reaction time.
The Efficacy of a Forgiveness Bibliotherapy: A Randomized Controlled Trial with Nursing Students

Purpose of study: The need for forgiveness education for nursing self-care and forgiveness facilitation has risen. Therefore, the present pilot study tested the efficacy of an 8-week forgiveness bibliotherapy with a small number of undergraduate nursing students. Design of study: Matched pairs of nursing students were randomly assigned to either the experimental group or no-contact control group. The experimental group, using 8 keys to forgiveness by R. Enright (2015) as the treatment manual, read one chapter a week for 8 weeks and provided weekly reflections. Forgiveness and forgiveness-related outcome measures were administered at pretest, posttest, and one-month follow-up. Findings: At the posttest, the experimental group had significantly greater improvement in forgiveness compared to the control group with a large effect size, which was maintained at one month follow-up. There was no other significant difference between the two groups. Within-group comparisons of the experimental group showed improvement in forgiveness, anxiety, depression, and fatigue from pre to post testing periods and forgiveness, anger, anxiety, depression, and fatigue from pre to follow-up testing periods. Conclusion: Use of bibliotherapy may be a cost-effective way to promote the virtue of forgiveness for students in nursing programs.
CircRNAs as Potential Blood Biomarkers and Key Elements in Regulatory Networks in Gastric Cancer

Gastric cancer (GC) is the fifth most common type of cancer and the third leading cause of cancer death in the world. It is a disease that encompasses a variety of molecular alterations, including in non-coding RNAs such as circular RNAs (circRNAs). In the present study, we investigated hsa_circ_0000211, hsa_circ_0000284, hsa_circ_0000524, hsa_circ_0001136 and hsa_circ_0004771 expression profiles using RT-qPCR in 71 gastric tissue samples from GC patients (tumor and tumor-adjacent samples) and volunteers without cancer. In order to investigate the suitability of circRNAs as minimally invasive biomarkers, we also evaluated their expression profile through RT-qPCR in peripheral blood samples from patients with and without GC (n = 41). We also investigated the predicted interactions between circRNA-miRNA-mRNA and circRNA-RBP using the KEGG and Reactome databases. Overall, our results showed that hsa_circ_0000211, hsa_circ_0000284 and hsa_circ_0004771 presented equivalent expression profiles when analyzed by different methods (RNA-Seq and RT-qPCR) and different types of samples (tissue and blood). Further, functional enrichment results identified important signaling pathways related to GC. Thus, our data support the consideration of circRNAs as new, minimally invasive biomarkers capable of aiding in the diagnosis of GC and with great potential to be applied in clinical practice.
Valorization of By-Products from Biofuel Biorefineries: Extraction and Purification of Bioactive Molecules from Post-Fermentation Corn Oil

The aim of this work was to develop innovative and sustainable extraction, concentration, and purification technologies aimed to recover target substances from corn oil, obtained as side stream product of biomass refineries. Residues of bioactive compounds such as carotenoids, phytosterols, tocopherols, and polyphenols could be extracted from this matrix and applied as ingredients for food and feeds, nutraceuticals, pharmaceuticals, and cosmetic products. These molecules are well known for their antioxidant and antiradical capacity, besides other specific biological activities, generically involved in the prevention of chronic and degenerative diseases. The project involved the development of methods for the selective extraction of these minor components, using as suitable extraction technique solid phase extraction. All the extracted and purified fractions were evaluated by NMR spectroscopic analyses and UV–Vis spectrophotometric techniques and characterized by quali-quantitative HPLC analyses. TPC (total phenolic content) and TFC (total flavonoid content) were also determined. DPPH and ABTS radical were used to evaluate radical quenching abilities. Acetylcholinesterase (AChE), amylase, glucosidase, and tyrosinase were selected as enzymes in the enzyme inhibitory assays. The obtained results showed the presence of a complex group of interesting molecules with strong potential in market applications according to circular economy principles.
Synthesis, Hydrophilicity and Micellization of Coil-Brush Polystyrene-b-(polyglycidol-g-polyglycidol) Copolymer—Comparison with Linear Polystyrene-b-polyglycidol

In this paper, an original method of synthesis of Coil-Brush amphiphilic polystyrene-b-(polyglycidol-g-polyglycidol) (PS-b-(PGL-g-PGL)) block copolymers was developed. The hypothesis that their hydrophilicity and micellization can be controlled by polyglycidol blocks architecture was verified. The research enabled comparison of behavior in water of PS-b-PGL copolymers and block–brush copolymers PS-b-(PGL-g-PGL) with similar composition. The Coil-Brush copolymers were composed of PS-b-PGL linear core with average DPn of polystyrene 29 and 13 of polyglycidol blocks. The DPn of polyglycidol side blocks of coil–b–brush copolymers were 2, 7, and 11, respectively. The copolymers were characterized by 1H and 13C NMR, GPC, and FTIR methods. The hydrophilicity of films from the linear and Coil-Brush copolymers was determined by water contact angle measurements in static conditions. The behavior of Coil-Brush copolymers in water and their critical micellization concentration (CMC) were determined by UV-VIS using 1,6-diphenylhexa-1,3,5-trien (DPH) as marker and by DLS. The CMC values for brush copolymers were much higher than for linear species with similar PGL content. The results of the copolymer film wettability and the copolymer self-assembly studies were related to fraction of hydrophilic polyglycidol. The CMC for both types of polymers increased exponentially with increasing content of polyglycidol.
Approximator: A Software Tool for Automatic Generation of Approximate Arithmetic Circuits

Approximate arithmetic circuits are an attractive alternative to accurate arithmetic circuits because they have significantly reduced delay, area, and power, albeit at the cost of some loss in accuracy. By keeping errors due to approximate computation within acceptable limits, approximate arithmetic circuits can be used for various practical applications such as digital signal processing, digital filtering, low power graphics processing, neuromorphic computing, hardware realization of neural networks for artificial intelligence and machine learning etc. The degree of approximation that can be incorporated into an approximate arithmetic circuit tends to vary depending on the error resiliency of the target application. Given this, the manual coding of approximate arithmetic circuits corresponding to different degrees of approximation in a hardware description language (HDL) may be a cumbersome and a time-consuming process—more so when the circuit is big. Therefore, a software tool that can automatically generate approximate arithmetic circuits of any size corresponding to a desired accuracy would not only aid the design flow but also help to improve a designer’s productivity by speeding up the circuit/system development. In this context, this paper presents ‘Approximator’, which is a software tool developed to automatically generate approximate arithmetic circuits based on a user’s specification. Approximator can automatically generate Verilog HDL codes of approximate adders and multipliers of any size based on the novel approximate arithmetic circuit architectures proposed by us. The Verilog HDL codes output by Approximator can be used for synthesis in an FPGA or ASIC (standard cell based) design environment. Additionally, the tool can perform error and accuracy analyses of approximate arithmetic circuits. The salient features of the tool are illustrated through some example screenshots captured during different stages of the tool use. Approximator has been made open-access on GitHub for the benefit of the research community, and the tool documentation is provided for the user’s reference.
Patient Reported Outcome Measures After Breast Augmentation – Using the BREAST-Q IS

Purpose Cosmetic breast augmentation procedures are commonly performed breast device surgeries. The Australian Breast Device Registry (ABDR) administers a five-question patient reported outcome measure (PROM), the BREAST-Q Implant Surveillance module (BREAST-Q IS), to patients 1, 2 and 5 years after breast device surgery. The measure includes an open-ended question to add any comments. This study aimed to use the responses to this open-ended question to assess participants’ experiences of breast devices 1 and 2 years after breast augmentation. The secondary objective was to identify emerging and important issues relating to breast augmentation and devices. Patients and Methods This qualitative descriptive study was conducted using a randomly selected sample of 268 responses to the open-ended question in the BREAST-Q IS, from the ABDR database. These responses were from patients who underwent breast augmentation between 2015 and 2018. Comments were analyzed using conventional content analysis in NVivo 12. Results Four major themes were identified: satisfaction following breast augmentation, dissatisfaction following breast augmentation, complications and breast symptoms following breast augmentation and other comments. Two dominant themes were regarding satisfaction (n = 112) with overall surgical outcome, medical team, and post-operative appearance and complications and breast symptoms (n = 177) following breast augmentation. Emerging issues identified were rippling of breast implants and breast implant illness (BII). Conclusion PROMs can be used to understand patients’ perspectives on various aspects of their own surgical experiences. Participants provided responses regarding complications and breast symptoms experienced, and rippling of the breast implants and BII are emerging issues after breast augmentation.
Analyzing Human Abilities to Detect Fake Bangla News with Respect to Different Features

Fake News has become a significant concern in Bangladesh. Now, people are more connected through social media, sharing their views as well as responding to others. Whether a person can identify a piece of fake news as fake can also depend on some of the individual’s attributes like age, gender, religious view etc. Therefore, it was critical for our work to analyze such correlation between the human’s ability in identifying fake news and their respective attributes. In this work, we have developed a dataset (~5K user replies) where the quantitative and qualitative data were collected through a questionnaire survey, which was inclusive and representative. Our dataset was constructed in such a way where we retained some of the specific information about the participants, news categories and whether that specific user could detect that fake news as fake or not. This novel dataset was then used for our analysis and model building. We have identified some relationships between the different groups of human attributes and fake Bangla news to identify the impact on our society; first by using data visualization tools and then using k-means clustering. Occupation and Religion attributes were chosen as the features that had the highest F-scores and a high correlation value for k-means clustering. We have also used different classification models which acted as predictors, i.e., be able to detect fake news as fake or not. Random Forest was the best predictor with an accuracy of 99%. The outcome of our work, which was to show the social impact of Fake Bangla News on our society, was upheld through our work in both social and ubiquitous computing perspective.