Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Linking urban transport and land use in developing countries

The mobility challenges of the developing world are considerably different than those in wealthier, advanced countries, and so are the challenges of coordinating transportation and land use. Rapid population growth, poverty and income disparities, overcrowded urban cores, poorly designed road networks, spatial mismatches between housing and jobs, deteriorating environmental conditions, and economic losses from extreme traffic by congestion are among the more vexing challenges faced by developing cities that could be assuaged through improved coordination of transportation and urban development. This is underscored by examples reviewed in this paper from South Asia, Southeast Asia, China, India, Africa, and South America. It is concluded that whatever is done to improve transportation and land-use integration must be pro-poor. The cardinal features of integrated and sustainable transport and urbanism everywhere---accessible urban activities and safe, attractive walking and cycling environs---are particularly vital to the welfare and prosperity of urbanites in the world's poorest countries.
Cutaneous leishmaniasis

Background : Leishmaniasis is a disease caused by parasites of the Leishmania type. Cutaneous leishmaniasis is a neglected worldwide, zoonotic, vector- borne, tropical disease. The clinical spectrum of leishmaniasis ranges from a self-resolving cutaneous ulcer to a mutilating mucocutaneous disease and even to a lethal systemic illness. People who recover from cutaneous leishmaniasis are protected against future infections. The risk of infection is for people of all ages if they live or travel where leishmaniasis is found. Leishmaniasis usually is more common in rural than in urban areas, but it is found in the outskirts of some cities. The transmission risk is highest from dusk to dawn because this is when sand flies generally are the most active. Cutaneous leishmaniasis causes skin lesions, which can persist for months, sometimes years. The skin lesions usually develop within several weeks or months after the exposure but occasionally first appear years later. Presented here is a clinical case of leishmaniasis of the cutaneous form, diagnosed by the microscopic method. The patient was diagnosed, monitored and treated in Clinical Hospital of Infectious Diseases “Toma Ciorbă” from 10.01. 2018-09.02. 2018. The progression of the disease was favorable following the etiotropic treatment with antimony meglumine (Glucantime), requiring careful monitoring due to adverse reactions. Conclusions: Clinical symptomatology was characteristic for cutaneous leishmaniasis: skin lesions of various pink-cherry sizes, some with ulcers on the body. The first etiotropic treatment with antimony meglumine was effective. Antimonate Meglumine treatment at a dose of 15 ml resulted in adverse reactions: asthenia, fever, myalgia and arthralgia.
Ara--CANINE: Character-Based Pre-Trained Language Model for Arabic Language Understanding

Recent advancements in the field of natural language processing have markedly enhanced the capability of machines to comprehend human language. However, as language models progress, they require continuous architectural enhancements and different approaches to text processing. One significant challenge stems from the rich diversity of languages, each characterized by its distinctive grammar resulting in a decreased accuracy of language models for specific languages, especially for low-resource languages. This limitation is exacerbated by the reliance of existing NLP models on rigid tokenization methods, rendering them susceptible to issues with previously unseen or infrequent words. Additionally, models based on word and subword tokenization are vulnerable to minor typographical errors, whether they occur naturally or result from adversarial misspellings. To address these challenges, this paper presents the utilization of a recently proposed free-tokenization method, such as Cannine, to enhance the comprehension of natural language. Specifically, we employ this method to develop an Arabic-free tokenization language model. In this research, we will precisely evaluate our model’s performance across a range of eight tasks using Arabic Language Understanding Evaluation (ALUE) benchmark. Furthermore, we will conduct a comparative analysis, pitting our free-tokenization model against existing Arabic language models that rely on sub-word tokenization. By making our pre-training and fine-tuning models accessible to the Arabic NLP community, we aim to facilitate the replication of our experiments and contribute to the advancement of Arabic language processing capabilities. To further support reproducibility and open-source collaboration, the complete source code and model checkpoints will be made publicly available on our Huggingface1 . In conclusion, the results of our study will demonstrate that the free-tokenization approach exhibits comparable performance to established Arabic language models that utilize sub-word tokenization techniques. Notably, in certain tasks, our model surpasses the performance of some of these existing models. This evidence underscores the efficacy of free-tokenization in processing the Arabic language, particularly in specific linguistic contexts.
Android OpenCV based effective driver fatigue and distraction monitoring system

Driver fatigue and distraction during travel are the major causes for the road accidents. Many driver monitoring systems have been proposed in recent years for monitoring driver activities to avoid accidents. Most of the existing systems are in the form of specialized embedded hardware, majorly present in luxurious vehicles. This paper presents an effective driver fatigue and distraction monitoring system for Android Automobiles. An intelligent system for monitoring driver fatigue and distraction during travel using Adaptive Template Matching and Adaptive Boosting is designed and implemented here. A novel approach of detecting eye rub due to irritation in eye and yawning detection through intensity sum of facial region is also proposed. Experiments are conducted using android OpenCV which can be installed in low cost smart phones as well as in Android Auto. Experiment results shows that a high accuracy of driver distraction is detected in different vehicles and camera locations.
Analytical Evaluation of Nonlinear Distortion Effects on OFDMA Uplink Signals

In this paper we consider the evaluation of nonlinear distortion effects on the uplink transmission of systems employing OFDMA signals (orthogonal frequency division multiple access). Our results allow an analytical spectral characterization of the transmitted signals, as well as the computation of the nonlinear interference levels on the received signals. It is shown that the power allocated to each user has a key impact on the nonlinear distortion effects. It is also shown that nonlinear distortion levels are lower when just a small fraction of the subcarriers is used (i.e., when the system load is small).
Betaine prevents loss of sialic acid residues and peroxidative injury of erythrocyte membrane in ethanol‐given rats

To evaluate chronic ethanol toxicity on erythrocyte membrane and preventive action of betaine as a methyl donor, 24 male Wistar albino rats were divided into three groups: control, ethanol and ethanol plus betaine group. Animals were fed 60 ml diet per day for two months. Rats in the ethanol group were fed ethanol 8 g/kg/day. The ethanol + betaine groups were fed ethanol plus betaine (0.5% w/v). After two months, all animals were killed. Malondialdehyde (MDA) and sialic acid (SA) levels were determined in plasma samples. Osmotic fragility tests were performed on whole blood samples and erythrocyte membrane thiol contents were determined using membrane suspensions.
Signal 3 requirement for memory CD8+ T‐cell activation is determined by the infectious pathogen

The relevance of direct inflammatory signals (signal 3) for the activation of memory CD8+ T cells during recall responses is so far unknown. We therefore investigated the direct impact of IL‐12 and type I IFN on the formation, recall potential and protective capacity of memory T cells. Using CD8+ T cells deficient for IL‐12 or type I IFN receptors in an adoptive transfer system, we generated memory populations after infection with vaccinia virus, lymphocytic choriomeningitis virus or Listeria monocytogenes. The results demonstrate that in the absence of signal 3 cytokines during primary infection, functional memory T cells were formed. After retransfer into naïve mice, signal 3‐deficient memory T cells were able to specifically lyse target cells in vivo under non‐infectious conditions. However, after reinfection, secondary effector CD8+ T cells lacking signal 3 were impaired in expansion and protective capacity dependent on the nature of the pathogen. We conclude that memory CD8+ T cells depend on a signal 3 for expansion, independent of signals obtained during priming, thereby being influenced by the pathogen‐induced inflammatory milieu during secondary infection. In summary, our results reveal an essential role for direct inflammatory cytokine signaling in secondary T‐cell responses.
Flip-Chip p(GaN)-i(GaN)-n(AlGaN) Narrowband UV-A Photosensors

Flip-chip p(GaN)-i(GaN)-n(AlGaN) photosensors with extremely low dark currents were fabricated and characterized. It was found that the sensor with a 0.5-mum-thick Si-doped n+-Al0.15Ga 0.85N layer could only detect optical signals with wavelength in between 325 and 360 nm. With an incident wavelength of 355 nm, the authors achieved a peak responsivity of 0.16 A/W at zero bias, which corresponds to an external quantum efficiency of 56%
Opportunities and Challenges in the Implementation of IoT Applications for Health Monitoring of Elderly People in the Indian Scenario

The Internet of Things (IoT)-based health monitoring has emerged as a transformative paradigm in healthcare, especially when it comes to tracking the health of senior citizens. The aging population in India is on the rise, necessitating the development of effective and scalable solutions to address the healthcare needs of the elderly. In this regard, IoT applications present promising prospects by facilitating early identification of medical problems, timely intervention, and continuous, real-time health monitoring. IoT applications can be customized to suit the varying needs of rural and urban population. However, the implementation of IoT applications in the healthcare sector in India comes with its own set of challenges. Issues related to infrastructure, data security, and the privacy concerns need to be carefully addressed to ensure the successful deployment and sustained effectiveness of these technologies. The majority of the Indian population resides in villages; therefore, cost effectiveness is also a major concern for rural population. This paper explores the opportunities and challenges associated with the implementation of IoT applications for health monitoring and aim to provide insights for policymakers, healthcare professionals, and technologists to design and implement IoT-based health monitoring systems tailored to the specific needs of the elderly population in India.
Measuring Readiness-to-Hand through Differences in Attention to the Task vs. Attention to the Tool

New interaction techniques, like multi-touch, tangible interaction, and mid-air gestures often promise to be more intuitive and natural; however, there is little work on how to measure these constructs. One way is to leverage the phenomenon of tool embodiment---when a tool becomes an extension of one's body, attention shifts to the task at hand, rather than the tool itself. In this work, we constructed a framework to measure tool embodiment by incorporating philosophical and psychological concepts. We applied this framework to design and conduct a study that uses attention to measure readiness-to-hand with both a physical tool and a virtual tool. We introduce a novel task where participants use a tool to rotate an object, while simultaneously responding to visual stimuli both near their hand and near the task. Our results showed that participants paid more attention to the task than to both kinds of tool. We also discuss how this evaluation framework can be used to investigate whether novel interaction techniques allow for this kind of tool embodiment.
New Epidemiology for Postoperative Nosocomial Infections

Changes in health care delivery systems over the last decade have resulted in a major increase in outpatient surgery and a higher severity of illness for inpatients. We sought to determine the effects of this change on the epidemiology of postoperative surgical infections. Historical data on incidence and epidemiology of infection were obtained from peer-reviewed articles published between 1960 and 1999 (MEDLINE). All nosocomial infections in 5035 patients admitted to a tertiary-care university hospital surgical intensive care unit between January 1994 and December 1997 were prospectively identified and classified as wound, urinary tract, bloodstream, or pneumonia. Incidence of bacterial isolates at each site was also recorded. From these data we determined infection rates per 100 admissions. We also identified all device-related nosocomial infections and calculated infection rates. Comparisons between time periods were made. In the 1960s wound infections constituted the predominant postoperative infection at 46 per cent. This was replaced by urinary tract infection in the 1970s (44%) and 1980s (32%) and closely followed by bloodstream infections (25%). In the 1990s nosocomial pneumonia became the most common postoperative infection, comprising 43 per cent of surgical intensive care unit infections. Analysis of the bacteriology also revealed changing trends with primarily Gram-positive organisms in the 1960s followed by an increase in methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus in the 1970 to 1980s, and currently resistant Gram-negative bacteria predominate. The incidence of fungal infections has steadily increased. This survey identified a new epidemiology for postoperative surgical infections. Over the last several decades the reported wound infections have been markedly decreased and there is little change in urinary tract infection. Nosocomial pneumonia with resistant Gram-negative bacteria now predominates along with increased incidence of fungal infections. Currently, postoperative infections are now more severe, involve critical organs, and require close monitoring of the changing patterns of pathogens.
Computational Reconstruction of Pacemaking and Intrinsic Electroresponsiveness in Cerebellar Golgi Cells

The Golgi cells have been recently shown to beat regularly in vitro (Forti et al., 2006. J. Physiol. 574, 711–729). Four main currents were shown to be involved, namely a persistent sodium current (I Na-p), an h current (I h), an SK-type calcium-dependent potassium current (I K-AHP), and a slow M-like potassium current (I K-slow). These ionic currents could take part, together with others, also to different aspects of neuronal excitability like responses to depolarizing and hyperpolarizing current injection. However, the ionic mechanisms and their interactions remained largely hypothetical. In this work, we have investigated the mechanisms of Golgi cell excitability by developing a computational model. The model predicts that pacemaking is sustained by subthreshold oscillations tightly coupled to spikes. I Na-p and I K-slow emerged as the critical determinants of oscillations. I h also played a role by setting the oscillatory mechanism into the appropriate membrane potential range. I K-AHP, though taking part to the oscillation, appeared primarily involved in regulating the ISI following spikes. The combination with other currents, in particular a resurgent sodium current (I Na-r) and an A-current (I K-A), allowed a precise regulation of response frequency and delay. These results provide a coherent reconstruction of the ionic mechanisms determining Golgi cell intrinsic electroresponsiveness and suggests important implications for cerebellar signal processing, which will be fully developed in a companion paper (Solinas et al., 2008. Front. Neurosci. 2:4).
The clinical pharmacokinetics and metabolism of the analgesic meptazinol.

1. The analgesic drug meptazinol is rapidly and completely absorbed after oral, intramuscular (i.m.) and rectal dosage. However, the absolute bioavailability of the drug following oral dosage is low (4.5-8.7%). Rectal administration leads to a higher bioavailability (15.5%) while after i.m. dosage the drug is totally systemically available. 2. Meptazinol is widely distributed outside the vasculature (Vd*area 5.9 l/kg) partly due to the low degree of binding to plasma proteins (27% bound) and also the relatively high lipophilicity of the unionized species (log P = 2.7). 3. Elimination of the drug from plasma proceeds rapidly (t1/2 2 h) largely as the result of glucuronidation and sulphation of the phenolic function in the molecule. The major route of excretion is via the urine, greater than 70% of the dose appearing in the 0-24 h urine collection almost entirely as conjugated metabolites. 4. After multiple dosing, orally or parenterally, there is no accumulation above that predicted from single dose kinetics. 5. The pharmacokinetics of the drug are generally unaltered by age (neonates to geriatrics) and pregnancy. Renal disease also has no effect in this respect, although cirrhotic liver disease results in up to a 4-fold increase in oral bioavailability. 6. Only limited data are available on the pharmacokinetics of meptazinol when given with other drugs. Alcohol appears to have no effect, while general anaesthesia appears to reduce clearance of the drug.
MISO Multicasting With Constant Envelope Precoding

In this letter, we study a multiple-input single-output (MISO) multicast system, where a multi-antenna transmitter sends a common message to multiple single-antenna users via constant envelope (CE) precoding. We aim to minimize the maximum symbol error rate over all users by jointly optimizing the CE precoding at the transmitter as well as the constellation scaling and rotation at each of the user receivers. First, we present a general problem formulation for any given symbol constellation. Then, we focus on the N-ary phase shift keying and show the corresponding problem is equivalent to a quadratically constrained quadratic program, which is non-convex and thus difficult to solve. We propose an approximate solution by applying the semi-definite relaxation technique and a customized Gaussian randomization method. Numerical results show that our proposed scheme significantly outperforms other benchmark schemes in MISO multicasting with CE precoding, and also performs closely to the optimal non-CE multicasting under the same total transmit power.
Characterizing the branch misprediction penalty

Despite years of study, branch mispredictions remain as a significant performance impediment in pipelined superscalar processors. In general, the branch misprediction penalty can be substantially larger than the frontend pipeline length (which is often equated with the misprediction penalty). We identify and quantify five contributors to the branch misprediction penalty: (i) the frontend pipeline length, (ii) the number of instructions since the last miss event (branch misprediction, I-cache miss, long D-cache miss)-this is related to the burstiness of miss events, (iii) the inherent ILP of the program, (iv) the functional unit latencies, and (v) the number of short (LI) D-cache misses. The characterizations done in this paper are driven by 'interval analysis', an analytical approach that models superscalar processor performance as a sequence of inter-miss intervals.
Asynchronous Microcontroller Simulation Model in VHDL

— This article describes design of the 8-bit asynchronous microcontroller simulation model in VHDL. The model is created in ISE Foundation design tool and simulated in Modelsim tool. This model is a simple application example of asynchronous systems designed in synchronous design tools. The design process of creating asynchronous system with 4-phase bundled-data protocol and with matching delays is described in the article. The model is described in gate-level abstraction. The simulation waveform of the functional construction is the result of this article. Described construction covers only the simulation model. The next step would be creating synthesizable model to FPGA.
The Minimally Invasive Manipulator: An ergonomic and economic non-robotic alternative for endoscopy?

Abstract Introduction: Since the da Vinci robotic system was introduced, it has been reported to have ergonomic advantages over conventional laparoscopy (COV). High investments associated with this system challenged us to design a more economical, mechanical alternative for improvement of laparoscopic ergonomics: the Minimally Invasive Manipulator (MIM). Material and methods: An earlier reported MIM prototype was investigated. Its shortcomings were input for the establishment of design criteria for a new prototype. Results: A new prototype was developed, aiming at improved intuitiveness and ergonomics. The handle and instrument tip were redesigned and the parallelogram mechanism was converted from linear moving parts to mainly rotating parts. Discussion: The new prototype was tested by a panel of experts and novices during an indicative ergonomic experiment. A major advantage of the MIM seems to be the possibility to perform laparoscopic surgery in a sitting position, in line with the working axis, instead of standing at the side of the patient. At an estimated cost level of 10% of the da Vinci system, the MIM can be an economical alternative for the enhancement of laparoscopy ergonomics. However, further development for clinical feasibility is necessary.
Dependency Parsing by Inference over High-recall Dependency Predictions

As more and more syntactically-annotated corpora become available for a wide variety of languages, machine learning approaches to parsing gain interest as a means of developing parsers without having to repeat some of the labor-intensive and language-specific activities required for traditional parser development, such as manual grammar engineering, for each new language. The CoNLL-X shared task on multi-lingual dependency parsing (Buchholz et al., 2006) aims to evaluate and advance the state-of-the-art in machine learning-based dependency parsing by providing a standard benchmark set comprising thirteen languages. In this paper, we describe two different machine learning approaches to the CoNLL-X shared task.
Multi-Criteria Optimization in Answer Set Programming

We elaborate upon new strategies and heuristics for solving multi-criteria optimization problems via Answer Set Programming (ASP). In particular, we conceive a new solving algorithm, based on conflict-driven learning, allowing for non-uniform descents during optimization. We apply these techniques to solve realistic Linux package configuration problems. To this end, we describe the Linux package configuration tool aspcud and compare its performance with systems pursuing alternative approaches.