Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Measuring Traffic Dynamics at the Edge

This work aims to measure the impact of approximate computing on a case study of traffic dynamics metering on a System-on-Chip edge computing device. Firstly, the study proposes a baseline implementation of the metering system in C++. To analyze the application in detail, study profiled the baseline using a built-in instrumented profiler, presenting the overall performance of each of its parts. During the hotspot analysis, some parts had optimization opportunities exploitable by multi-threading and approximate computing techniques, particularly frame skipping, which is inspired by the loop perforation approximate technique. The first optimization employed was multi-threading, which led to a 1.32x speedup on the application without introducing errors in the metrics. Then, the meter was optimized by using frame skipping. This work demonstrated that adaptatively modifying the number of frames skipped improved the error in the final metrics compared to keeping it fixed. In terms of performance, the frame skipping brought the overall speed up to 1.76x. Approximate computing, in particular, frame skipping, managed to contribute up to 25% of the overall speedup, managing to accelerate the meter from 8.7 frames per second to 15 fps in the most critical case in exchange for some numerical error on the final metrics.
HOW SOCIAL MEDIA AFFECTS THE PURCHASE INTENTIONS OF FEMALE CONSUMERS IN MACAO - WATCHING BEAUTY AND COSMETICS PRODUCT EXPERIENCE VIDEOS ON YOUTUBE

YouTube has become increasingly popular for marketing purposes. As corporate and user-generated content is widely available on this platform, beauty-related professionals need to understand how to create videos that make their products more appealing and stand out from the clutter. In this study, we examine four factors (i.e., perceived usefulness of the information, perceived credibility of the information, attitude toward the purchase, and perceived video characteristics) that affect the purchase intentions of female consumers. After viewing beauty-related videos, a sample of 204 female consumers was analyzed by structural equation modeling. The findings showed that videos with more views, likes, and comments tend to have a greater effect on the respondents' intentions to purchase. Also, the factors of perceived usefulness of the information, perceived credibility of the information, and attitude toward the purchase exhibited a significant effect on the intention to buy beauty-related products. The result showed that perceived video characteristics (such as quality and visuals) did not significantly influence the purchase intention, however, there is evidence that this factor should not be ignored by content creators. Finally, our research provides insights, strategies, and future directions for industry practitioners and marketers.
Field spray abdominal gland secretions of rove beetles: Effects on the pest abundance and arthropod community

Alternative environmentally friendly methods for pest control are in high demand because of the environmental impacts of pesticides. Notably, predator‐released kairomone is a natural compound released by natural enemies, which mediates non‐consumptive effects between natural enemies and prey. However, this novel pest control agent is underutilized relative to pesticides and natural enemies. Additionally, the effects of spraying predator kairomone on the number and diversity of arthropods in fields and whether this method is environmental‐friendly are poorly understood. In the present study, a predator kairomone, rove beetle (Paederus fuscipes Curtis) abdominal gland secretion (AGS), was sprayed in rice fields to investigate whether AGS can suppress pest populations or will affect the fields’ arthropod communities. After AGS spraying, the abundance of arthropods decreased throughout the first 12‐d period, including arthropod pests such as hemipterans (small brown planthopper, Laodelphax striatellus (Fallén), brown planthopper, Nilaparvata lugens (Stål), white‐backed planthopper, Sogatella furcifera (Horváth), and leafhoppers), and lepidopterans (rice leaf folder, Cnaphalocrocis medinalis Guenée). The abundance of arthropod predators was not affected, except for predatory spiders, which decreased, and rove beetles (P. fuscipes), which increased. In the terms of arthropod diversity, neither pests nor their natural enemies were changed by AGS application. This work highlights that predator kairomone can temporarily suppress pest populations in fields but has no adverse effects on arthropod diversity; thus, this approach is environmentally friendly and can be used in real‐world applications. Broadly, present studies suggest that the application of predator kairomone may have synergistic or cumulative effects on pest suppression.
Comparative outcomes of endoscopic and radiological gastrostomy tube placement: a systematic review and meta-analysis with GRADE analysis

Background Percutaneous endoscopic gastrostomy (PEG) and percutaneous radiological gastrostomy (PRG) are invasive interventions used for enteral access. We performed a systematic review and meta-analysis with assessment of certainty of evidence to compare the risk of adverse outcomes and technical failure between PEG and PRG. Methods We queried PubMed, EMBASE, and Cochrane from inception through January 2022 to identify studies comparing outcomes of PEG and PRG. The primary outcome was 30-day all-cause mortality; secondary outcomes included the risk of colon perforation, peritonitis, bleeding, technical failure, peristomal infections, and tube-related complications. We performed GRADE assessment to assess the certainty of evidence and leave-one-out analysis for sensitivity analysis. Results In the final analysis, 33 studies, including 26 high-quality studies, provided data on 275,117 patients undergoing PEG and 192,691 patients undergoing PRG. Data from high quality studies demonstrated that, compared to PRG, PEG had significantly lower odds of selected outcomes, including 30-day all-cause mortality (odds ratio [OR] 0.75, 95% confidence interval [CI] 0.60-0.95; P=0.02), colon perforation (OR 0.61, 95%CI 0.49-0.75; P<0.001), and peritonitis (OR 0.71, 95%CI 0.63-0.81; P<0.001). There was no significant difference between PEG and PRG in terms of technical failure, bleeding, peristomal infections or mechanical complications. The certainty of the evidence was rated moderate for colon perforation and low for all other outcomes. Conclusions PEG is associated with a significantly lower risk of 30-day all-cause mortality, colon perforation, and peritonitis compared to PRG, while having a comparable technical failure rate. PEG should be considered as the first-line technique for enteral access.
COVID-19 Pandemic: Assessment of Behavior and Attitudes in Medical Waste Management Among Healthcare Workers in Kuwait

The COVID-19 pandemic has been affecting world economies, business revenues, and the livelihood of many individuals, and has also resulted in accumulated medical waste. Countries, governments, and health workers are striving to contain this virus by applying different strategies and protocols. This research investigates and identifies the significant determinants that influence the acceptance and Adoption of non-hazardous medical waste recycling behaviour in Kuwait. This article questions whether healthcare workers in Kuwait are actually behaving differently regarding non-hazardous medical waste recycling during the pandemic as opposed to previously. The study uses a deductive research approach involving a quantitative methodology by applying the theory of planned behaviour as a framework. From an overall perspective, individuals have positive intentions and behaviours toward recycling. However, COVID-19 and the fear of spreading the virus had a positive impact on the healthcare workers' recycling behaviour in public hospitals in Kuwait.
Does the Establishment of National New Areas Improve Urban Ecological Efficiency? Empirical Evidence Based on Staggered DID Model

The environmental effects of national new areas have been an important topic but received little attention in academia. This study conducts a quasi-natural experiment using panel data of China’s 282 prefecture-level cities from 2006 to 2019, and evaluates the establishment of national new areas on urban ecological efficiency using the staggered difference-in-difference (DID) method, tests the robustness, and further examines the influential mechanism and urban heterogeneity of the empirical results. The results show that the establishment of national new areas has significantly improved urban eco-efficiency. Moreover, the mechanism analysis of the influences shows that national new areas improve urban eco-efficiency by improving urbanization level and urban transportation infrastructure. In addition, the heterogeneity analysis of cities shows that national new areas of cities in eastern and central regions are both significantly improving urban eco-efficiency, while those in western and northeastern regions are not. Furthermore, the promotion effect in the regions of “one new area in one city” model is better than that in “one new area in two cities” model; national new areas in non-resource-based cities show more positive effects on promoting urban eco-efficiency than those in resource-based cities. The conclusions reliably evaluate the results of the current construction of national new areas and provide feasible suggestions for further implementation of the related policy to balance economic development and environmental protection.
Many-body localization phase transition: A simplified strong-randomness approximate renormalization group

We present a simplified strong-randomness renormalization group (RG) that captures some aspects of the many-body localization (MBL) phase transition in generic disordered one-dimensional systems. This RG can be formulated analytically, and the critical fixed point distribution and critical exponents (that satisfy the Chayes inequality) are obtained to numerical precision by solving integro-differential equations. This reproduces many, but not all, of the qualitative features of the MBL phase transition that are suggested by previous numerical work and approximate RG studies: our RG might serve as a "zeroth-order" approximation for future RG studies. One interesting feature that we highlight is that the rare Griffiths regions are fractal. For thermal Griffiths regions within the MBL phase, this feature might be qualitatively correctly captured by our RG. If this is correct beyond our approximations, then these Griffiths effects are stronger than has been previously assumed.
Detecting monopole charge in Weyl semimetals via quantum interference transport

Topological Weyl semimetals can host Weyl nodes with monopole charges in momentum space. How to detect the signature of the monopole charges in quantum transport remains a challenging topic. Here, we reveal the connection between the parity of monopole charge in topological semimetals and the quantum interference corrections to the conductivity. We show that the parity of monopole charge determines the sign of the quantum interference correction, with odd and even parity yielding the weak antilocalization and weak localization effects, respectively. This is attributed to the Berry phase difference between time-reversed trajectories circulating the Fermi sphere that encloses the monopole charges. From standard Feynman diagram calculations, we further show that the weak-field magnetoconductivity at low temperatures is proportional to $+\sqrt{B}$ in double-Weyl semimetals and $\ensuremath{-}\sqrt{B}$ in single-Weyl semimetals, respectively, which could be verified experimentally.
Experimental Investigation of the Effect of Groundwater on the Relative Permeability of Coal Bodies around Gas Extraction Boreholes

Water infiltration in boreholes is a common problem in mine gas pre-extraction, where water infiltration can significantly reduce the efficiency of gas extraction and curtail the life cycle of the borehole. It is important to evaluate the effect of groundwater on the permeability of the coal body around a gas extraction borehole. In order to determine the seepage parameters of the fractured coal body system around the borehole, a water–gas two-phase seepage test was designed to determine the relative seepage parameters of the fractured coal media seepage system. The main conclusion is that the relative permeability of gas can be effectively increased by increasing the negative extraction pressure at the early stage of extraction to accelerate drainage to reduce the water saturation of the coal seam. Under the combined effect of porosity and seepage pressure, the relative permeability of gas and water in the fractured coal rock body shows three stages. The dependence of the total permeability on the effective stress is closely related to the stages in the evolution of the pore structure, and the total effective permeability decreases with the increase in the effective stress. A decrease in porosity can lead to a decrease in permeability and an increase in the non-Darcy factor. Through an in-depth analysis of the damage and permeability pattern of the coal body around the perimeter of the dipping borehole, the efficient and safe extraction of gas from dipping boreholes in water-rich mines is thus ensured.
THE MAGELLAN PFS PLANET SEARCH PROGRAM: RADIAL VELOCITY AND STELLAR ABUNDANCE ANALYSES OF THE 360 au, METAL-POOR BINARY “TWINS” HD 133131A & B

We present a new precision radial velocity (RV) data set that reveals multiple planets orbiting the stars in the ∼360 au, G2+G2 “twin” binary HD 133131AB. Our six years of high-resolution echelle observations from MIKE and five years from the Planet Finder Spectrograph (PFS) on the Magellan telescopes indicate the presence of two eccentric planets around HD 133131A with minimum masses of 1.43 ± 0.03 and 0.63 ± 0.15 at 1.44 ± 0.005 and 4.79 ± 0.92 au, respectively. Additional PFS observations of HD 133131B spanning five years indicate the presence of one eccentric planet of minimum mass 2.50 ± 0.05 at 6.40 ± 0.59 au, making it one of the longest-period planets detected with RV to date. These planets are the first to be reported primarily based on data taken with the PFS on Magellan, demonstrating the instrument’s precision and the advantage of long-baseline RV observations. We perform a differential analysis between the Sun and each star, and between the stars themselves, to derive stellar parameters and measure a suite of 21 abundances across a wide range of condensation temperatures. The host stars are old (likely ∼9.5 Gyr) and metal-poor ([Fe/H] ∼ −0.30), and we detect a ∼0.03 dex depletion in refractory elements in HD 133131A versus B (with standard errors ∼0.017). This detection and analysis adds to a small but growing sample of binary “twin” exoplanet host stars with precise abundances measured, and represents the most metal-poor and likely oldest in that sample. Overall, the planets around HD 133131A and B fall in an unexpected regime in planet mass–host star metallicity space and will serve as an important benchmark for the study of long-period giant planets.
Computed tomography-guided percutaneous cholecystostomy: a single institution’s 6-year experience

Background Acute cholecystitis (AC) is an emergency commonly managed by a surgical department. The interventional part of the standard treatment algorithm includes laparoscopic or open cholecystectomy. Percutaneous cholecystostomy (PC) under imaging guidance is recommended as the first-line approach in the subset of high-risk patients for perioperative complications, as a bridging therapy to elective surgery or as a definitive solution. The aim of the present study was to evaluate the mortality and morbidity of PC performed under computed tomographic (CT) guidance in patients at high surgical risk. Methods Medical and imaging records from all consecutive patients who underwent a CTPC between 2015 and 2020 were reviewed. Adult patients with a definite indication for CTPC were recruited and mortality 7 and 30 days post-procedure was recorded. Variables potentially affecting those outcomes were retrieved and included in our analysis. Results Eighty-six consecutive patients at high risk for surgical management were identified and included in the present study. Most patients (58.1%) were diagnosed with AC, while 14 (16.3%) had concurrent AC and cholangitis, 13 (15.2%) gallbladder empyema, and 9 (10.4%) hydrops. The 7- and 30-day mortality rates were 16.3% (14/86) and 22.1% (19/86), respectively, and were significantly associated with patients’ hospitalization in the intensive care unit (P<0.05). Other parameters investigated, such as age, sex, diagnosis, catheter diameter, and duration of hospital stay were not significantly associated with our primary outcome. Conclusion PC is a safe alternative to surgery in patients with high perioperative risk, thus providing acceptable mortality rates.
Cervical cancer knowledge, awareness and related health behaviours amongst women of reproductive age in Kiambu County, Kenya: a cross-sectional study

ABSTRACT Background Data on cervical cancer knowledge, perceptions, screening practices and other relevant health behaviours among women in rural Kenya is limited. Yet understanding this information is a key first step in developing evidence-based interventions aimed at addressing the low uptake of screening services and heavy cervical cancer disease burden within Kenya. Consequently, our study sought to assess cervical cancer knowledge, attitude, and practice amongst women of reproductive age within Kiambu County, known for a high cervical cancer disease burden. Methods This was an analytical cross-sectional study undertaken in April 2022. Data was collected using interviewer-administered questionnaires from 472 females randomly selected from within the community. Data analysis included descriptive statistics (mean values, standard deviations, and frequencies) and logistic regression, using STATA version 13. Results More than 80% of respondents were aware of cervical cancer though only 54% answered at least half of the knowledge questions correctly. Knowledge of HPV was particularly low, likely because 55% of the study sample stated they had never heard of HPV. Though 89% of study participants deemed cervical cancer preventable, more than 60% had an unfavourable attitude towards cervical cancer screening, deeming the process expensive, painful, and embarrassing. In line with the latter observation, only 20% of our sample had ever been screened for cervical cancer and less than half of this group had undergone regular screening. Notably, knowing a place where cervical cancer screening services are provided had the largest increase in odds of being screened (3.94; 95% CI: 1.08–14.37). Fear of tests and outcomes was also noted to be a prime concern amongst our study participants. Conclusion A clear message from this study is the need to ensure community members are aware of where to access screening services and strategies are implemented to address prevalent fears and negative perceptions.
Predicting Google’s Stock Price with LSTM Model

Stock market has a profound impact on the market economy, Hence, the prediction of future movement of stocks is of great significance to investors. Therefore, an efficient prediction system can solve this problem to a great extent. In this paper, we used the stock price of Google Inc. as a prediction object, selected 3810 adjusted closing prices, and used long short-term memory (LSTM) method to predict the future price trend of the stock. We built a three-layer LSTM model and divided the entire data into a test set and a training set according to the ratio of 8 to 2. The final results show that while the LSTM model can predict the stock trend of Google Inc. very well, it cannot predict the specific price accurately.
LARGE-SCALE SYSTEM OPTIMIZATION: A REVIEW

Abstract : Possibilities are outlined that are believed to be of assistance in developing solution techniques for solving large-scale systems, the development of which will govern the cleverness used in instructing automated devices, the cleverness, in turn, determining the quality of the decisions made by the devices. The possibilities for developing the solution techniques include (1) taking advantage of the low density of nonzero coefficients in an original matrix, (2) finding a compact inverse representation of the basis using a simplex method, and (3) making use of the generalized linear program or decomposition principle approach. The last-mentioned technique is used for illustration on a linear-control problem where it led to the maximum principle and could be used to converge constructively to an optimal solution.
Effect of Exercise on the Resting Metabolic Rate and Substrate Utilization in Women with Gestational Diabetes Mellitus: Results of a Pilot Study

Regular physical activity during pregnancy has a positive effect on the mother and fetus. However, there is scarce data regarding the effect of exercise in pregnancies complicated by gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM). The aim of the present parallel, non-randomized, open-label, pilot, clinical study was to examine the effect of two exercise programs on the resting metabolic rate (RMR) and substrate utilization in pregnancies complicated by GDM, compared with usual care (advice for the performance of exercise). Forty-three pregnant women diagnosed with GDM between the 24th and 28th gestational week, volunteered to participate. Three groups were formed: Usual care (n = 17), Walking (n = 14), and Mixed Exercise (n = 12). The Usual care group was given advice on maintaining habitual daily activities without any additional exercise. The Walking group exercised regularly by walking, in addition to the habitual daily activities. Finally, the Mixed Exercise group participated in a program combining aerobics and strength exercises. Training intensity was monitored continuously using lightweight, wearable monitoring devices. The Walking and Mixed Exercise groups participated in the training programs after being diagnosed with GDM and maintained them until the last week of gestation. RMR and substrate utilization were analyzed using indirect calorimetry for all participants twice: between 27th and 28th gestational week and as close as possible before delivery. No differences were observed between groups regarding body composition, age, and medical or obstetrical parameters before or after the exercise programs. RMR was increased after the completion of the exercise interventions in both the Walking (p = 0.001) and the Mixed Exercise arms (p = 0.002). In contrast, substrate utilization remained indifferent. In conclusion, regular exercise of moderate intensity (either walking, or a combination of aerobic and strength training) increases RMR in women with GDM compared to the lack of systematic exercise. However, based on the present, pilot data, these exercise regimes do not appear to alter resting substrate utilization.