Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Biopsychosocial Variables in Male Schizophrenic Patients: A Comprehensive Comparison with Healthy Controls

Objective: this study aims to comprehensively compare neuropsychological, psychopathological, anthropometric, biochemical, pharmacological, and lifestyle variables between 27 male schizophrenic patients (SZ group) and 30 age- and sex-matched healthy male controls (HC group). Methods: participants underwent a battery of neuropsychological tests including the Trail Making Test (TMT), Stroop Color-Word Interference Test, and Verbal Fluency Test. Psychopathological symptoms in the SZ group were evaluated using the Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale (PANSS). Anthropometric measurements such as body weight, height, BMI, and waist circumference were taken. Biochemical markers measured included fasting glucose, total cholesterol, triglycerides, high-density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol, low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol, and fasting insulin. Lifestyle factors were assessed through a questionnaire for the study of views and eating habits of people aged 16 to 65. Results: the HC group outperformed the SZ group in the TMT_A test and the Stroop test, but no significant differences were observed in the TMT_B test or in phonemic fluency tests. No correlation was found between age and PANSS scores within the SZ group. Anthropometrically, the SZ group had higher body weight, waist circumference, and BMI, with no difference in height. Biochemically, the HC group had higher HDL cholesterol levels but lower insulin and insulin resistance indices. Pharmacological assessment showed a more significant impact on body weight among SZ patients taking second-generation antipsychotics. Lifestyle factors such as diet and screen time were comparable between groups, but the SZ group reported longer sleep duration and lower leisure time activity. Conclusions: our study highlights distinct neuropsychological, pharmacological, anthropometric, and biochemical differences between male schizophrenic patients and healthy controls. The results underscore the complexity of schizophrenia and point toward the need for a multi-faceted approach to its management and understanding.
The effects of pesticides on tomato pollinators depend on application practices and floral visitor assemblage

Pesticide use affects biodiversity and ecosystem service provision. Yet, such effects may vary between pesticides, dosage, application timing and pollinator assemblage in the study area. Understanding such diversity of effects is essential to enable integrated pest management practices that minimize negative impacts on pollinators. Here, we use a controlled experiment to compare different strategies of pesticide application in tomato crops: no application, low‐intensity applications (every 7 days) and high‐intensity application (every 3–4 days) with the last being the usual practice used by farmers in the study region. We focus on imidacloprid that is a neonicotinoid insecticide commonly used in Brazil. We show the negative effects of imidacloprid on the pollinator visitation rate of tomato flowers varied between flower visitor species. While the bee Paratrigona lineata was negatively affected by the imidacloprid application, no effects were detected when analysing all other bees as a group, indicating a null net effect. Although some studies have shown this insecticide is extremely harmful to bees' health, others showed that some bees do not avoid it, which may explain our results. However, the visitation rate recovery for P. lineata was only detected in the less than the more intensive treatment after imidacloprid applications ceased. The fact that no differences in fruit production were detected between treatments (including control blocks) could result from a null net effect of the negative effects on pollinators and positive effects on pest control. Further studies would be needed to disentangle the two effects.
The insect pests of coffee and their management practices in the main coffee growing region in Kenya

Coffee farming in Kenya is a major source of income for over 800,000 farmers. Globally, the Kenyan coffee is renowned for its high quality. Most of the Kenyan coffee is produced in the Mt. Kenya region. Its production faces many challenges that include infestation by a complex of insect pests. A field survey covering eight (8) main coffee-growing counties and 485 households in the Mt. Kenya region was conducted in May 2022. The survey aimed to establish the key insect pests in the region, and their distribution and management practices applied by the farmers. The survey established eight (8) insect pests as of major importance in the region. These included the Coffee Berry Borer (Hypothenemus hampei), Thrips (Diarthrothrips coffeae), Leaf miners (Leucoptera spp), Yellow Headed Borer (Dirphya nigricornis), White Borer (Anthores leuconotus), Green scales (Coccus alpinus), Kenya Meallybugs (Planococcus kenyae) and Antestia bugs (Antestiopsis spp). Their occurrence ranged from 5 to 66%. The C. alpinus (66%) occurred in all the surveyed counties, Agro-Ecological Zones (AEZs) and coffee farms’ households. The D. nigricornis (57%) was the second most common insect pest. The C. alpinus, D. nigricornis, Leucoptera spp and H. hampei dominated the “Lower” coffee zone and were less dominant in Upper Midland 1(UM 1). Farmers used insecticides, plant extracts, and physical, mechanical, cultural, and field sanitation approaches to control the pests. Insecticides at 79% was the most widespread practice used by coffee farmers. This study and its findings are key to Agricultural extension services in providing focused technical advisory services to coffee farmers based on specific insect pests per the Agro-Ecological Zones from the Mt Kenya region. Keywords: Agro-ecological zones, insect pests, infestation, management practices.
Doppler Sonar Observations of Internal Waves, Wave-Field Structure

Abstract During May of 1980 an internal-wave-measurement experiment was conducted from the Research Platform FLIP off the California coast. This paper discusses an 18-day sequence of velocity profiles obtained during the experiment using a pair of Doppler sonars. The sonars Profile to a depth of 700 m, with approximately 20 m depth resolution. Plots of the velocity and shear field indicate the dominance of near-inertial motions. Much of the near-inertial variance can be ascribed to a few identifiable wave groups. The progress of these groups can he tracked for many days. The shear at the base of the mixed layer is often dominated by near-inertial motions propagating vertically through the thermocline rather than wind-forced motions in the mixed layer itself. Power-spectral analysis suggests that the low-frequency component of the wave field is dominated by the near-inertial and tidal peaks and their harmonics. The wisdom in modeling the low-frequency wave field as an “equivalent continuum” is questioned.
A Spectrally Interrogated Polarimetric Optical Fiber Sensor for Current Measurement with Temperature Correction

We report on a study of the temperature dependence of the response of a BSO crystal based polarimetric current sensor with spectral interrogation. Two possible interrogation schemes are discussed. The spectral dependence of the optical rotation along the crystal caused by temperature and current changes is investigated, and approximate dependences for the sensitivities to current SI and temperature ST are derived. A mixed term in the response with spectral interrogation is revealed, the elimination of which is achieved by tracking wavelength shifts Δλ1 and Δλ2 of two distinct extrema in the polarimetric response. A temperature independent second degree equation for the current changes ΔI as a function of the measured spectral shifts is derived and tested.
Reduced order modeling of structural problems with damage and plasticity

Model order reduction (MOR) techniques are used across the engineering sciences to reduce the computational complexity of high‐fidelity simulations. MOR methods reduce the computation time by representing the problem using a lower number of degrees of freedom (DOF). The use of reduced order models (ROM) in the analysis of structural problems with damage and plasticity has the potential to significantly reduce computational time and increase efficiency. Of course, the approximation of a problem in a lower dimensional space introduces an approximation error that needs to be kept small enough so that the results of the ROM maintain their validity. One well‐known reduced order modeling approach is the proper orthogonal decomposition (POD). POD is used to extract the dominant modes of the structure, which are then used to solve a problem in the smaller dimensional subspace. To overcome the limitations of the POD regarding nonlinear problems, the discrete empirical interpolation method (DEIM) is employed. An exemplary uncertainty quantification application is used to investigate the methodology. The investigation shows that the POD‐based DEIM can significantly reduce the computational effort of highly nonlinear structural simulations incorporating damage while maintaining a high approximation accuracy.
Evaluation and Intercomparison of Small Uncrewed Aircraft Systems Used for Atmospheric Research

Small uncrewed aircraft systems (sUAS) are regularly being used to conduct atmospheric research and are starting to be used as a data source for informing weather models through data assimilation. However, only a limited number of studies have been conducted to evaluate the performance of these systems and assess their ability to replicate measurements from more traditional sensors such as radiosondes and towers. In the current work, we use data collected in central Oklahoma over a 2-week period to offer insight into the performance of five different sUAS platforms and associated sensors in measuring key weather data. This includes data from three rotary-wing and two fixed-wing sUAS and included two commercially-available systems and three university-developed research systems. Flight data were compared to regular radiosondes launched at the flight location, tower observations, and intercompared with data from other sUAS platforms. All platforms were shown to measure atmospheric state with reasonable accuracy, though there were some consistent biases detected for individual platforms. This information can be used to inform future studies using these platforms and is currently being used to provide estimated error covariances as required in support of assimilation of sUAS data into weather forecasting systems.
MOLECULAR SEXING AND ITS RELATIONSHIP WITH THE SEMI-CONCEALED YELLOW CORONAL PATCH OF THE WHITE-THROATED SPADEBILL PLATYRINCHUS MYSTACEUS CANCROMUS

In sexually monomorphic species, sex identification by molecular techniques is an important alternative. In this study, we employed molecular sexing to determine the sex of seven adult females, two immature females, one female with missing age data, and 21 adult males of White-throated Spadebills Platyrinchus mystaceus cancromus. The sex and age of each individual were associated with the presence or absence of a semi-concealed yellow coronal patch, typical of the species. All males displayed the semi-concealed patch, and four out of seven adult females also exhibited it. One of the two juvenile females exhibited a patch. The female with missing age data also exhibited the patch. This finding disputes previous reports that juveniles of this species do not have coronal patches. We conclude that semi-concealed yellow coronal patches are not sexually dimorphic in White-throated Spadebills. Both sexes can have a patch, but adults who do not have them are females.
The Choices of Livelihood Diversification Strategies and Determinant Factors Among the Peri-Urban Households in Amhara Regional State, Ethiopia

Abstract Diversification of livelihoods is crucial to address poverty and food insecurity and improve the welfare of peri-urban people. However, there has been insufficient research exploring livelihood diversification strategies and their determinants in peri-urban areas. This study investigates livelihood diversification strategies and their determinants among peri-urban households in Injibara, Burie, and Gish Abay towns in the Amhara region, Ethiopia. The study used both primary and secondary data, with 393 households included through a multi-stage sampling procedure. Data were collected through interviews, focus group discussions, and field observations. Descriptive and inferential statistics along with a multinomial logit model were employed. The results showed that on-farm alone (36.1%), on-farm plus non-farm (17.5%), on-farm plus off-farm (24.5%), and a combination of on-farm plus non-farm plus off-farm (21.9%) activities were the most pertinent livelihood strategies in the study area. The multinomial logit model results revealed that dependency ratio, land size, distance from the marketplace, access to extension services, exposure to shock, access to training, and cooperative membership were the major determinants of livelihood diversification strategies. Moreover, poor infrastructural development, absence of technical support, inadequate skill training, and lack of awareness are constraints to livelihood diversification in the area. Thus, a comprehensive development plan that enhances successful livelihood diversification is found to be imperative. Therefore, policies and actions aimed at strengthening the livelihoods of peri-urban communities should focus on expanding peri-urban infrastructure, enhancing capacity-building efforts, and stakeholder cooperation.
Road Construction Fraud Detection System using Fuzzy Logic

All over the world, fraud poses a serious threat to both the developing and developed economies, this is generally due to the large amount of resource it illegal take away from the state and advanced nature of technology which aids the scheme. Nigeria is not an exception in fraud and financial crime-related cases, however, road construction and infrastructural development related frauds are rarely checked. Through these frauds, large state resources is diverted. Using World Bank benchmark for road construction in Africa, this paper designed a Road Construction Fraud Detection System Using Fuzzy Logic. Contract cost, environment factors, and other contract details were compared against the standard benchmark of contract sum in such areas. Also fuzzy rules were used to determine whether a contract is fraudulent or not. This work would show that contract inflations and fraud in road construction can be detected and minimized with a good fraud detection system.
Exploring User-Generated Content to Detect Community Problems: The Ontological Model of ALLEGRO

: Social-media services contribute to creating situation awareness, thus offering a snapshot of today's society. Citizens can use such communication channels to report problems concerning the quality of life of individuals and the well-being of the community in which they live. Therefore, we can develop applications that can analyse online user-generated data about a variety of problems from different topics (e.g. education, health, or politics, among many others) to reconstruct the state of society as interpreted by social-media users in the given community. In this context, the main objective of this paper is to describe the ontological model required for representing community problems affecting quality of life and well-being, and how this ontology supports the natural language processing and text-mining tasks of topic categorisation and keyword extraction. This ontological model can become a significant component in natural language understanding applications, particularly in those where machine-learning or neural-network models are enhanced with external knowledge to perform opinion mining.
Comparison of scaling relationships of extensional fault cores in tight carbonate and porous sandstone reservoirs

This paper presents a comparative analysis of the thicknesses–displacement relationships of fault cores in non-/low-porous carbonate and porous sandstone reservoirs. Fault thickness data were collected from extensional faults in mainly Cretaceous continental sandstones and Late Cretaceous–Paleogene marine carbonates exposed along the eastern flank of the Suez Rift, Egypt. The dataset consists of 730 thickness measurements, of which 313 are from 68 faults in carbonate rocks, and 417 are from 120 deformation band/microfaults and faults in sandstones. These data show that the increase in fault core thickness with displacement for the two lithologies is, overall, similar in log–log space, consistent with a power-law trend with an exponent of 0.5. However, for smaller faults, cores in carbonates are generally thicker than those in sandstones. The observation of nearly equal core thickness–displacement relationships for larger faults (>10 m displacement) suggests that increased displacement reduces the geomechanical influence of lithology. In a statistical analysis of bins of fault displacement, small displacement faults seem to follow a skewed distribution towards smaller fault core thicknesses, moderate displacement faults have a normal distribution, while large displacement faults have a distribution skewed towards large core thicknesses. Each thickness distribution can be estimated with a mean and standard deviation. Fault core thickness variations are caused by interplaying factors such as fault geometric development, spatial and temporal positioning of shear and volumetric strains, and rheological changes. The variability in core thickness and intrinsic architecture of fault cores for any given location will cause significant variation in across-fault fluid flow, even for the same juxtaposition style.
Internal and external workload in national and international netball competition

ABSTRACT Differences in workload exist between netball playing positions and competition levels, but no research has compared workloads experienced by the same elite players during national and international competitions. This study collected internal (heart rate) and external (PlayerLoad·min−1) workload data per match quarter from 44 players during a national competition and 12 players during an international competition. Nine players played in both competitions. Linear mixed models compared percentage of match quarter in each heart rate zone and PlayerLoad·min−1 between competitions for each playing position. Workloads against low- and high-ranked international opponents were also compared. Internal workloads were greater in national compared to international competition for GD and WD positions. PlayerLoad·min−1 was significantly higher by 8–13% in the national competition for positions WD and C, and by 5–8% in the international competition for GD and GA. Positional differences may indicate a role of the team’s tactical style of play. Workloads were generally greater against higher- rather than lower-ranked international opponents. These results indicate that tactical factors in combination with playing position and opposition characteristics should be considered when preparing physically for matches.
Nitrification in sandy soils of the Atlantic Coastal Plain and its relationship to the development of subsoil acidity

The process of nitrification is known to exacerbate the development of soil and subsoil acidity, particularly in weathered and coarsely textured soils such as those often found in the Atlantic Coastal Plain in the Southeastern United States. The purpose of this research was to elucidate the relationship between typical soil properties in this region and the pattern of nitrification. The research shows that nitrification rates in these soils were found to be at or near the low end of the scale as compared with other reported rates. Lengths of lag phases were found to be at or near the high end of the scale. Rates and lag phases were closely related to both soil CEC and relative water content. This study also shows that the relationship between nitrification and change in soil pH is not simple and that buffering mechanisms related to the pattern of pH change in these soils need further study. INDEX WORDS: Nitrification, subsoil acidity, ammoniacal fertilizer NITRIFICATION IN SANDY SOILS OF THE ATLANTIC COASTAL PLAIN AND ITS RELATIONSHIP TO THE DEVELOPMENT OF SUBSOIL ACIDITY
PERBANDINGAN METODE COLLABORATIVE FILTERING DAN HYBRID JIANG-CONRATH

Recommender system is a component which has been developed for online commerce purposes. In this issue, one of the popular methods that has been widely used is collaborative filtering. However, this method has some drawbacks and needs to be improved. Therefore, in this research a combination of Collaborative Filtering (CF) and hybrid jiang-conrath method has been compare with original CF, and the result expected reducing some deficiencies on the original collaborative filtering method. Based on the performance tests, the results conclude that the combination can reduce some weaknesses on the original collaborative filtering, especially on the cold-start item and sparsity issue.
PPP-BOTDA method to achieve cm-order spatial resolution in Brillouin distributed measuring technique

Principle of Pulse Pre-Pump(PPP) method was published in our previous work. The possibility of access both high spatial resolution and good precision was illustrated. These double specs have been the target of Brillouin distributed measuring technique (BOTDA) for more than 10 years. This paper reports the experimental results of PPP-BOTDA (Pulse-PrePump Brillouin Optical Time Domain Analysis) based on the published theory. In this report, we describe the system of PPP-BOTD. The results of theoretical prediction and experimental data are compared. PPP-BOTDA method shows a unique advantage over other existing plans. The topics of spatial resolution, Brillouin frequency shift precision, and measurement range are discussed. Based on these new understanding, a commercial portable type system of PPP-BOTDA is developed. The spatial resolution of 10cm and the strain measuring precision equivalent to ±25μe are successfully achieved, as well as kilometers order of sensing distance. This was not reported before to our knowledge. We believe this system has a high utility in the future.
Analysis on Dynamic Change of Relative Water Content and Needle Water Conservation of Pinus sylvestris var. mongolica on Sandy Land

Morphological structure,water-retention ability of Pinus sylvestris var.mongolica,Pinus tabulaeformis,Pinus densiflora and dynamic change of relative water content(RWL)of Pinus sylvestris var.mongolica were analyzed and studied.The result shows that needle traits and structure of Pinus sylvestris var.mongolica is favored to drought-resistant,and the proportion of bound water of leaf water content is high.Leaf water conservation is stronger and initial rate of water loss is 2.5-4.1%;site condition,age class,density has no significant effect on RWL of Pinus sylvestris var.mongolica;needle RWL shows single peak change during growing season,that is,RWL is much lower in June and July,hitting the high in August and descend in Sept.and Oct.;needle RWL of 2-year-old Pinus sylvestris var.mongolica is correlated with air temperature.