Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Classifying Transport Mode from Global Positioning Systems and Accelerometer Data: A Machine Learning Approach

Smartphones and wearable devices are driving a boom in mobility data. We use data-driven tools for classifying movement data into five different travel modes (bicycle, walk, bus, motor vehicle and SkyTrain) in Vancouver and St. John’s, Canada. Using data from a GPS-enabled smartphone app (Itinerum) combined with a wrist-worn accelerometer (GENEActiv) collected over a period of 67 days, we classified modes using Support Vector Machines from 4071 trips. Pre-labelled data were used to classify modes with 90.9% accuracy when data from both devices were combined in comparison to a single data source with accuracy ranging between 55.5% and 79.4%.
Implementing Ozone‐BAC‐GAC in potable reuse for removal of emerging contaminants

Removal of contaminants of emerging concern (CECs) is an important consideration in potable reuse. The effectiveness of ozonation, biologically activated carbon (BAC) filtration, and granular activated carbon (GAC) adsorption was assessed in the removal of 96 CECs. During phase 1, O3/total organice carbon (TOC) was varied between 0 and 1.5. Ozone was successful in removing CECs, achieving a total CEC concentration of 20.5 μg/L at an O3/TOC of 1.5 compared with 70 μg/L in absence of ozone. CECs such as iohexol, meprobamate, sucralose and flame retardants, tris(2‐carboxyethyl)phosphine (TCEP), tris(1‐chloro‐2‐propyl) phosphate (TCPP), and tris(1,3‐dichloro‐2‐propyl)phosphate (TDCPP) were detected in the ozone effluent even at the highest ozone dose. BAC filters did not contribute measurably to CEC removal, while the 20‐min empty bed contact time (EBCT) GAC removed 57.6% of the influent CEC concentration, even though the adsorption capacity had been exerted through previous operation. During phase 2, the average O3/TOC ratio was 0.64, and the impact of new GAC media on CEC removal was studied. EBCT was maintained at 15 min for both GAC contactors, while the used GAC (133,600 bed volume [BV]) was replaced with new media in one GAC contactor. The GAC with new media removed CECs below the limit of quantitation, up to 10,000 BV, while removal decreased to 70% after 20,000 BV, with seven CECs—sucralose, iohexol, acesulfame‐k, meprobamate, cotinine, primidone, and acetaminophen—being detected. Ozone doses for CEC removal and BV needed for adsorption of CECs on activated carbon can be determined from this study. Thus, the results from this study can help design and optimize ozone, BAC, and GAC systems used for potable reuse to target the removal of specific CECs.
Dealing with negative social media comments: The giant bullhorn that punctures holes in organizations’ walls, like an arrow to the chest

A negative comment on a corporate social media post can pierce like an arrow to the chest and puncture holes into an organization’s walls. A single negative voice in a sea of positive feedback can feel as though it is blaring from a giant bullhorn, striking fear into corporate community managers that an avalanche of negativity will overtake positivity like a contagious bandwagon. Why would a corporation consider telling its story in the online battlefield of social media and risk exposing its reputation to a cesspool of negativity? This paper will explore why negativity is an online barrier through research, industry advice and best practices – including from the researchers and experts who use the foregoing colourful idioms and metaphors to describe negative online comments. To answer the main question of why an organization would consider engaging on social media in the face of prolific negativity and hate speech, this paper will review the evolution of online emotions and the rise of negativity on social media. The paper will define negative online comments in the corporate context using research on trolls, cyberbullying and online personal attacks. Using the psychology of Pareto’s 80/20 rule and negativity bias, this paper will provide quantitative and qualitative perspectives on negativity to show why companies pay much more attention to negative comments than positive ones, and how analysis of negativity can help a company develop emotional intelligence. Examples will be presented from research and industry to understand and combat negativity and review research on user comments that classifies users to better understand their motivations. Using research on tone and voice in online conversation, this paper will share cautionary case studies that demonstrate how companies that are not self-aware can incite negative comments. Finally, this paper will review research on platform content moderation techniques to understand how social media platforms like Facebook manage negativity and will suggest similar solutions for corporations, including not only the online community’s ability but also our collective responsibility to moderate and overcome the online positivity deficit. Keywords: social media, community manager, online negativity, negativity bias, negative comments, online emotions, user categorization
Psychological impact of the COVID-19 pandemic: Negative and positive effects in Spanish population during the mandatory national quarantine

The COVID-19 pandemic has been spreading rapidly in Spain The objective of this work was to examine the psychological impact of the pandemic and the Spanish national quarantine that took place during March and April 2020 We investigated the prevalence of fear of coronavirus, emotional symptoms and sleep problems We also examined possible positive effects A sample of 1,161 participants (aged 19 to 84 years) completed online the Coronavirus Psychological Impact Questionnaire, the Intolerance to Uncertainty Scale–12, and the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule Results indicated that the most common fears pertain to the domains of contagion/disease/death, social isolation, and employment/income issues We found high levels of emotional impact reflected in fear of coronavirus, sleep problems, and emotional symptoms (preoccupation, distress, hopelessness, depression, anxiety, nervousness, and restlessness) Regression analyses revealed that intolerance to uncertainty and media exposure are strong predictors of the impact We also found some effects of the COVID-19 quarantine favoring positive personal experiences A new self-report instrument to assess psychological impact of coronavirus is provided © Asociacion Espanola de Psicologia Clinica y Psicopatologia
Interschool partnerships: remote Indigenous boarding students experiencing Western education whilst keeping culturally safe

ABSTRACT Secondary education access for remote Northern Territory Indigenous Australian students is limited. Although many students attend boarding schools, few complete Year 12. Whole communities rarely engage in their children’s boarding school education and boarding schools seldom engage with Elders to support a child’s cultural journey. This article presents research findings from interviews conducted with two adults from a very remote Indigenous community and six staff from a partner Western interstate boarding school community. Using a qualitative methodology with phenomenological design, findings show how students achieve Western educational success whilst maintaining their culture and offer implications, including possible model replication, for other communities.
Alcohol drinking among adolescents with native-Swedish and non-European immigrant background: the importance of parental attitudes and peer attitudes for acculturation

Abstract In this study, we examine differences in alcohol drinking between first- and second-generation non-European immigrant and native-Swedish adolescents. We also examine whether parental and peer attitudes toward alcohol are associated with the acculturation of drinking habits among adolescents with an immigrant background. The study is cross-sectional and based on a school survey conducted in 2016–2019 in eight municipalities in southern Sweden. The sample consists of 3743 adolescents in year 9 of compulsory education, aged 14–15 years, of which 538 (14.4%) had a non-European immigrant background. Non-European immigrant adolescents reported significantly lower levels of drinking than native-Swedish adolescents. Second-generation immigrants reported a higher level of consumption than first-generation immigrants, and among first-generation adolescents, drinking was more prevalent the longer the adolescents had resided in Sweden, which suggests acculturation of drinking habits. This acculturation is mainly related to changes in peer attitudes toward alcohol. Immigrant adolescents with a longer stay in Sweden reported having friends with more positive attitudes toward alcohol. Among first-generation immigrants, drinking was more common among boys than girls. These differences were primarily found among immigrant adolescents with a relatively short period of residence in Sweden, which suggests that acculturation occurs more quickly among boys than among girls.
Integration of Internet of Things and blockchain toward portability and low‐energy consumption

The modern era of information and technology leverages connectivity and information sharing for enhancing applications and reducing human intervention. The proliferation of Internet of Things (IoT) in almost all aspects of modern life raises major challenges of security and privacy in health care services and the pharmaceutical industry. Blockchain has emerged as a secure technology in a trustless network without central governance. The inherent attributes it provides can solve the security and privacy challenges related to IoT and extend its capabilities. However, traditional instances of Blockchain are not suited for the IoT environment for reasons such as computationally expensive consensus process. Proof of authentication is a lightweight consensus algorithm that can be implemented in the IoT environment. This paper presents an IoT‐friendly Blockchain scheme implemented to evaluate the feasibility of medical supply and drug transportation to aid security and mitigate privacy issues which are fault‐tolerant, transparent, and traceable. The proof of concept implementation on portable single board computer demonstrates proof of authentication consensus algorithm executed with block validation and block addition in 30 and 40 ms while consuming 45 and 60mJ, respectively. Additionally, the network performance of the proposed architecture was presented and evaluated in the application context.
Electro-mediated drug administration of mitomycin C in preventing non-muscle-invasive bladder cancer recurrence and progression after transurethral resection of the bladder tumour in intermediate- and high-risk patients

ABSTRACT Objective To evaluate the effectiveness of electro-mediated drug administration of mitomycin C (EMDA/MMC) after transurethral resection of the bladder tumour (TURBT) in preventing non-muscle-invasive bladder cancer (NMIBC) recurrence and progression and to explore clinical and demographic factors associated with treatment response. Patients and methods Between April 2016 and August 2019, 112 patients diagnosed with intermediate- or high-risk NMIBC underwent a TURBT followed by an EMDA/MMC treatment. The percentage of treatment responders and progression-free survivors at 3 and 6 months were evaluated. Results Follow-up data were available for 101 patients (90%) at 3 months and 92 (82%) at 6 months. Response rates to EMDA/MMC treatment were 85% at 3 months and 75% at 6 months, and progression-free rates were 94% and 90%, respectively. No statistically significant differences were seen between intermediate- and high-risk patients. A higher risk of tumour recurrence and progression was associated with previous Bacillus Calmette–Guérin (BCG) failure. According to the Clavien–Dindo classification, only low-grade complications were observed. Conclusions EMDA/MMC after TURBT was associated with high response and progression-free rates at 3 and 6 months, with only low-grade adverse events. These results confirm the efficacy and safety of EMDA/MMC as a therapeutic option for both intermediate- and high-risk patients. However, patients with BCG failure responded poorly to EMDA/MMC. Abbreviations: ACCI: age-adjusted Charlson Comorbidity Index; CHT: chemohyperthermia; CIS: carcinoma in situ; EMDA: electro-mediated drug administration; EORTC: European Organisation for Research and Treatment of Cancer; IQR: interquartile range; (N)MIBC: (non-)muscle-invasive bladder cancer; MMC: mitomycin C; OR, odds ratio; TURBT: transurethral resection of the bladder tumour
Ethno Botanical Survey, Anti-leukemia and Anticlastogenic Potential of Medicinal Plants used for Treatment of Leukemia in Oyo State Nigeria

Ethnopharmacological Relevance: Leukemia, a cancer of the blood and bone marrow is responsible for about 222.000 deaths annually. The side effects of chemotherapy in leukemia treatment have necessitated the search for natural products especially medicinal plants as alternative therapy. Aim: This study surveyed common plants used for treating leukemia in Oyo state, Nigeria and assessed the anti-leukemic and anti-clastogenic activities of fractions of Nymphaea lotus. Methods: Semi-structured questionnaire (1000) was used to collect the ethnobotanical data among the traditional healers. Leukemia was induced in albino mice with 400 mg/kg body weight of Original Research Article Adetutu et al.; JOCAMR, 10(3): 31-51, 2020; Article no.JOCAMR. 57560 32 benzene intraperitoneally. Aqueous extracts (120mg/kg/bw), fractions and 5-florouracil (25mg) was administered to mice of different groups. The anti-leukemic, anti-clastogenic, antioxidant, hepatoprotective activities and hematological parameters were determined. N. lotus was subjected to gas-chromatography mass spectroscopy analysis. Results: The ethnobotanical survey recorded 89 plant species with their local names and parts used in the traditional therapeutic preparations. Seven plants (Pistiastratiotes (2.5%), Nymphaea lotus (1.4%), Piper guineense (1.7%), Securinega virosa (2.5%), Calotropis procera (3.4%), Morinda lucida (2.5%) and Xylopia aethiopica (4.5%) with the highest frequency of citation were selected for anti-leukemic and anti-clastogenic screening. The aqueous extract of N. lotus and M. lucida displayed anti-leukemic potential. M. lucida and X. aethiopica improved the hematological parameters. Ethyl acetate fraction of N. lotus significantly (p<0.05) reduced the number of micronucleated polychromatic erythrocyte in the bone marrow and showed anti-leukemic activity. Fractions of N. lotus restored the hematological parameters and exhibited significant (p<0.05) antioxidant activity. Histological observation revealed improvement in the liver general cytoarchitecture of mice treated with ethyl acetate and butanol fractions of N. lotus. Some known compounds were identified in ethyl acetate fraction of N. lotus. Conclusion: Most of the species tested had some anti-leukemic effect in mice, which to some extent supports their traditional inclusion in herbal preparations for treatment of leukemia. The study also identified potential anti-leukemic compounds in N. lotus extract. The study also identified potential anti-leukemic compounds in N. lotus extract.
Anti-frosting and defrosting performance of chemically modified super-nonwettable carbon soot coatings

The inherent hydrophilicity of a variety of heat exchanging industrial appliances, including air-conditioners, refrigerators or heat pumps, is a highly-beneficial platform for the accumulation of frost at negative surface temperatures, dramatically aggravating the efficient device operation in terms of heat transfer and energy consumption. Here, we introduce experimental data from pioneering research on the frosting/defrosting behavior of chemically modified super-nonwettable soot—one of the very few materials providing scalability, satisfactory mechanical durability, icephobic and anti-bioadhesion properties simultaneously. The analysis of the anti-frosting/defrosting performance of three groups of soot coatings, obtained by treating the pristine samples with alcohol, fluorocarbon or silver hydrogen fluoride, reveals that the frost incipiency on the soot can be efficiently controlled by tailoring its chemistry and porosity. In turn, the super-nonwettable material is capable of delaying the onset of vapor condensation and frosting to supercooling degrees of 8.4 °C and 15.8 °C, accordingly, and maintaining relatively large frost-free halos up to −20 °C. Moreover, the onset of soot defrosting is accelerated by a factor of 35 compared to a bare Cu substrate, demonstrating extremely low ice adhesion forces and strong potential of the soot coatings for passive icing protection of many cryogenic facilities.
Preadaptation of pandemic GII.4 noroviruses in unsampled virus reservoirs years before emergence

Abstract The control of re-occurring pandemic pathogens requires understanding the origins of new pandemic variants and the factors that drive their global spread. This is especially important for GII.4 norovirus, where vaccines under development offer promise to prevent hundreds of millions of annual gastroenteritis cases. Previous studies have hypothesized that new GII.4 pandemic viruses arise when previously circulating pandemic or pre-pandemic variants undergo substitutions in antigenic regions that enable evasion of host population immunity, as described by conventional models of antigenic drift. In contrast, we show here that the acquisition of new genetic and antigenic characteristics cannot be the proximal driver of new pandemics. Pandemic GII.4 viruses diversify and spread over wide geographical areas over several years prior to simultaneous pandemic emergence of multiple lineages, indicating that the necessary sequence changes must have occurred before diversification, years prior to pandemic emergence. We confirm this result through serological assays of reconstructed ancestral virus capsids, demonstrating that by 2003, the ancestral 2012 pandemic strain had already acquired the antigenic characteristics that allowed it to evade prevailing population immunity against the previous 2009 pandemic variant. These results provide strong evidence that viral genetic changes are necessary but not sufficient for GII.4 pandemic spread. Instead, we suggest that it is changes in host population immunity that enable pandemic spread of an antigenically preadapted GII.4 variant. These results indicate that predicting future GII.4 pandemic variants will require surveillance of currently unsampled reservoir populations. Furthermore, a broadly acting GII.4 vaccine will be critical to prevent future pandemics.
Review of Kalah Game Research and the Proposition of a Novel Heuristic-Deterministic Algorithm Compared to Tree-Search Solutions and Human Decision-Making

The Kalah game represents the most popular version of probably the oldest board game ever—the Mancala game. From this viewpoint, the art of playing Kalah can contribute to cultural heritage. This paper primarily focuses on a review of Kalah history and on a survey of research made so far for solving and analyzing the Kalah game (and some other related Mancala games). This review concludes that even if strong in-depth tree-search solutions for some types of the game were already published, it is still reasonable to develop less time-consumptive and computationally-demanding playing algorithms and their strategies Therefore, the paper also presents an original heuristic algorithm based on particular deterministic strategies arising from the analysis of the game rules. Standard and modified mini–max tree-search algorithms are introduced as well. A simple C++ application with Qt framework is developed to perform the algorithm verification and comparative experiments. Two sets of benchmark tests are made; namely, a tournament where a mid–experienced amateur human player competes with the three algorithms is introduced first. Then, a round-robin tournament of all the algorithms is presented. It can be deduced that the proposed heuristic algorithm has comparable success to the human player and to low-depth tree-search solutions. Moreover, multiple-case experiments proved that the opening move has a decisive impact on winning or losing. Namely, if the computer plays first, the human opponent cannot beat it. Contrariwise, if it starts to play second, using the heuristic algorithm, it nearly always loses.
Simultaneous determination of ezetimibe, atorvastatin and simvastatin using quadrupole LC-MS: Application to combined tablets and plasma after SPE

A simple and sensitive liquid chromatography-mass spectrometric (LC-MS) method has been developed and validated for the simultaneous determination of ezetimibe (EZE), atorvastatin calcium (ATO), and simvastatin (SMV) in combined dosage forms and human plasma. Successful separation of the studied drugs was achieved on a Zorbax Eclipse Plus C18 column (3.0 × 150 mm, 5 µm) using a mobile phase consisting of acetonitrile and 0.1% formic acid in water (65:35, v/v) at a flow rate of 0.5 mL min−1. Total run time was 9.3 min and diclofenac sodium was used as internal standard (IS). Positive selected ion monitoring (SIM) mode was applied where, the monitored ions were those at m/z values of 392.1, 559.3, 296.0, and 441.4 corresponding to EZE, ATO, IS, and SMV, respectively. The method was fully validated according to the ICH guidelines. The intraday and interday precision showed relative SD values not more than 1.77 and 1.99%; respectively. The limits of detection (LOD) were 0.25, 0.25, and 0.75 ng mL−1 while the limits of quantification (LOQ) were 1.25, 0.75, and 2.5 ng mL−1 for EZE, ATO, and SMV, respectively. The developed method was applied on two types of combined tablets concerning drug assay with mean percent recoveries within acceptable range. The method has been extended to the determination of the studied drugs in human plasma where, a solid phase extraction method was optimized for their extraction with percent recovery not less than 97%.
Photonics in nature and bioinspired designs: sustainable approaches for a colourful world

Biological systems possess nanoarchitectures that have evolved for specific purposes and whose ability to modulate the flow of light creates an extraordinary diversity of natural photonic structures. In particular, the striking beauty of the structural colouration observed in nature has inspired technological innovation in many fields. Intense research has been devoted to mimicking the unique vivid colours with newly designed photonic structures presenting stimuli-responsive properties, with remarkable applications in health care, safety and security. This review highlights bioinspired photonic approaches in this context, starting by presenting many appealing examples of structural colours in nature, followed by describing the versatility of fabrication methods and designed coloured structures. A particular focus is given to optical sensing for medical diagnosis, food control and environmental monitoring, which has experienced a significant growth, especially considering the advances in obtaining inexpensive miniaturized systems, more reliability, fast responses, and the use of label-free layouts. Additionally, naturally derived biomaterials and synthetic polymers are versatile and fit many different structural designs that are underlined. Progress in bioinspired photonic polymers and their integration in novel devices is discussed since recent developments have emerged to lift the expectations of smart, flexible, wearable and portable sensors. The discussion is expanded to give emphasis on additional functionalities offered to related biomedical applications and the use of structural colours in new sustainable strategies that could meet the needs of technological development.