Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Effectiveness of Traffic Management at Kajang SILK Highway

The traffic management centre is a place of operational monitoring and supervision activities at all highways under the Malaysian Highway Authority. The purpose of this centre is to help gather and disseminate information related to traffic to the users. The information presented by them is accurate and constantly updated from time to time. However, are highway users in Malaysia aware of the existence of this traffic management centre? How can traffic management centre help them to determine their travel times and fast routes especially during the festive seasons? Therefore, researchers have outlined some of the objectives to assist in obtaining information about this study. The main objective of this study is to measure the level of consumer awareness of the highway traffic management centre. In addition, the second objective of this study is to examine the factors causing traffic congestion. Besides, researchers also want to investigate the drivers’ attitudes during the congestion which will lead to an accident and congestion and thus propose measures to raise the level of awareness and measures that can be taken to reduce traffic congestion. The technique used to carry out this study is a fuzzy conjoint model. The questionnaire distributed will be administered by the researcher himself. The level of consumer awareness will be measured through the likert scale which uses fuzzy linguistic variables such as one to five scale (never, sometimes, uncertain, ever, always). This study is conducted on users who use the Kajang SILK highway through the Toll Plaza Sg. Ramal. At the end of the study, the researcher hoped that this study would help the authorities, especially the Malaysian Highway Authority and other management in improving the traffic management centre.
Using Dextran Instead of Egg Yolk in Extender for Cryopreservation of Spermatozoa of Dogs of Different Ages

Simple Summary In this study we compare the impact of cryopreservation with dextran and egg yolk on motility, morphology, and DNA integrity of spermatozoa of dogs of different ages (Chinese Crested breed). We found that the concentration, total number, and motility of fresh spermatozoa decreased, whereas the damage of the DNA increased in dogs older than 7 years. The cryopreservation of spermatozoa using extenders with egg yolk or dextran led to a decrease in these parameters in the oldest age group in an equal manner. However, taking into account the possibility of standardizing the composition of the freezing media and excluding foreign proteins from it, the use of dextran for freezing dog spermatozoa is preferable. The cryopreservation of dog spermatozoa, especially of the Chinese Crested breed, should be carried out in the young and middle aged dogs due to the age-related decrease of the cryotolerance of the cells. Abstract Egg yolk is a very common supplement of extenders aimed to protect sperm from cryoinjury, but due to their biological risks and difficulties with media standardization, there is a search for alternative. In addition, sperm cryoresistance can be affected by the initial decrease of their functional characteristics caused by age. The aim of this work was to evaluate the efficiency of using dextran (molecular weight 500 kDa) in the extenders instead of egg yolk for the cryopreservation of spermatozoa of dogs (Chinese Crested breed) of different ages. The obtained ejaculates were divided into three groups depending on the animal’s age: 1–3, 4–6 and 7–10 years old. Sperm was cryopreserved by using 7% glycerol and 20% egg yolk, or 20% dextran. The cryoresistance of spermatozoa of the oldest age category was dramatically decreased, which was manifested in their morphology, motility, and DNA fragmentation rate. There were no differences between the cryoprotectant effect of the dextran-based extender on spermatozoa and the egg yolk-based extender in all age categories of dogs. However, given the benefits of dextran-containing media, its use for the cryopreservation of canine spermatozoa has potential benefits that need to be confirmed by sperm fertilization outcomes.
Effect of Chemotherapy on the Gut Microbiome of Breast Cancer Patients During the First Year of Treatment

Introduction There is accumulating information of the effects of chemotherapy and weight changes on the gut microbiome of breast cancer patients. Methods In this 1-year follow-up study, we investigated gut microbiome of 33 breast cancer patients who donated fecal samples at baseline and after completion of treatment. We compared alpha diversity and mean taxa abundance at baseline and absolute taxa abundance changes (final-baseline) by treatment (16 neoadjuvant [neoADJ], 13 adjuvant [ADJ], 4 no chemotherapy [noC]) and specific chemotherapy agent using Wilcoxon rank sum and negative binomial mixed model (NBMM) analysis. Results All four gut alpha diversity measures changed in association with chemotherapy treatment; they increased in the neoADJ (+16.4% OTU p = 0.03; +51.6% Chao1 p = 0.03; +7.0% Shannon index p = 0.02; +11.0% PD whole tree p = 0.09) but not in the ADJ and noC group (ADJ+noC). The difference in Chao1 index change between groups was statistically significant (pneoADJ vs. ADJ+noC=0.04). Wilcoxon p values of 0.03–0.003 were observed for five taxa. In NBMM analysis, changes in taxa abundance differed (Bonferroni-adjusted p ≤ 0.0007) for two Bacteroidetes taxa (g_Alistipes, f_S24-7) and two Firmicutes taxa (g_Catenibacterium, g_Eubacterium). NBMM analysis results remained unchanged with adjustment for weight changes. Alpha diversity changes were also found by receipt of chemotherapy agents. Consistent increases in alpha diversity were observed among those treated with TCHP (OTU p = 0.009; Chao1 p = 0.02; Shannon p = 0.02; PD whole tree p = 0.05) but not AC, Taxol or Herceptin. Those treated with TCHP or Herceptin showed increases in Verrucomicrobia (g_Akkermansia) but decreases of Bacteroidetes(g_Alistipes); the differences in changes in taxa abundance were statistically significant. Conclusion Results from this pilot longitudinal study support an effect of chemotherapy, particularly neoADJ on the gut microbiome of breast cancer patients even after adjustment for weight changes. Further investigations are needed to confirm these findings in larger studies and with longer follow-up and to assess the impact of these microbiome changes on patient outcome.
High-Throughput Sequencing Reveals Novel microRNAs Involved in the Continuous Flowering Trait of Longan (Dimocarpus longan Lour.)

A major determinant of fruit production in longan (Dimocarpus longan Lour.) is the difficulty of blossoming. In this study, high-throughput microRNA sequencing (miRNA-Seq) was carried out to compare differentially expressed miRNAs (DEmiRNAs) and their target genes between a continuous flowering cultivar ‘Sijimi’ (SJ), and a unique cultivar ‘Lidongben’ (LD), which blossoms only once in the season. Over the course of our study, 1662 known miRNAs and 235 novel miRNAs were identified and 13,334 genes were predicted to be the target of 1868 miRNAs. One conserved miRNA and 29 new novel miRNAs were identified as differently expressed; among them, 16 were upregulated and 14 were downregulated. Through the KEGG pathway and cluster analysis of DEmiRNA target genes, three critical regulatory pathways, plant–pathogen interaction, plant hormone signal transduction, and photosynthesis-antenna protein, were discovered to be strongly associated with the continuous flowering trait of the SJ. The integrated correlation analysis of DEmiRNAs and their target mRNAs revealed fourteen important flowering-related genes, including COP1-like, Casein kinase II, and TCP20. These fourteen flowering-related genes were targeted by five miRNAs, which were novel-miR137, novel-miR76, novel-miR101, novel-miR37, and csi-miR3954, suggesting these miRNAs might play vital regulatory roles in flower regulation in longan. Furthermore, novel-miR137 was cloned based on small RNA sequencing data analysis. The pSAK277-miR137 transgenic Arabidopsis plants showed delayed flowering phenotypes. This study provides new insight into molecular regulation mechanisms of longan flowering.
Simulation of adaptive optics systems for laser transmission applications

Adaptive optics systems are highly complicated networks of devices that makes an analytical study of such systems difficult. Hence numerical simulations are crucial in providing a quantitative evaluation of capabilities of adaptive optics systems. The integrated simulations of atmospheric turbulence, wind profiles, Fresnel light propagation, model of Shack- Hartmann wavefront sensor, and wavefront reconstruction are done, and the aim is to simulate adaptive optics correction process and investigate the atmospheric turbulence and Shack-Hartmann sensor parameters on optimal results. The results of simulation of light propagation through turbulent atmosphere are presented.
Plasmon resonances of aluminum nanoparticles and nanorods

We report experimental and theoretical analysis of the plasmonic resonances of Al nanoparticles and nanorods. Ordered nanoparticle arrays with well-defined shapes and narrow size distributions are fabricated on quartz substrates over large areas using extreme ultraviolet interference lithography. The structures, which have sizes down to 40 nm, exhibit strong and sharp particle plasmon resonances in the near and deep-UV ranges. A comprehensive theoretical analysis carried out using dipolar approximation and finite-difference time-domain methods shows good overall agreement with measurements while revealing the dependence of the optical response of Al structures on the fabrication conditions. The results demonstrate the suitability of using Al as a plasmonic material in the UV range and the feasibility of extending applications of plasmonics, such as surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy, down to the deep-UV range.
Adiabatic Potentials of the Lowest in 1Πg and 1,3Δg States of the Hydrogen Molecule

Abstract The Born-Oppenheimer energies and adiabatic corrections have been computed for the I and R 1 Π g , J and S 1 Δ g and j and s 3 Δ g electronic states. For the R state these are the first accurate ab initio results. For the remaining states the energies are the lowest ever obtained, except for the J 1 Δ state, where our energies are higher. It is argued that the present results are the correct ones. Theoretical term values of the lowest singlet states are compared with experiment, and the remaining convergence errors in the Born-Oppenheimer potentials near equilibrium are estimated to be below 0.5 cm −1 for the I and R states and about 2-4 cm −1 for the J and S states.
Associations between Cord Blood Leptin Levels and Childhood Adiposity Differ by Sex and Age at Adiposity Assessment

Lower cord blood leptin levels have been associated with lower and higher adiposity in childhood and associations seem to differ according to the child’s age, methods of adiposity assessment and sex. Our aim was to investigate sex-specific associations of cord blood leptinemia with childhood adiposity at birth, 3 and 5 years of age. We measured cord blood leptin using Luminex immunoassays in 520 offspring from the Gen3G cohort. We tested associations between cord blood leptin and body mass index (BMI) z-score, skinfolds thicknesses (SFT), and body composition using dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry, adjusted for confounders. At birth, girls had almost twice as much leptin in cord blood as boys (15.5 [8.9; 25.6] vs. 8.6 [4.9; 15.0] ng/mL; p < 0.0001) as well as significantly greater adiposity. Lower levels of cord blood leptin were associated with higher sum of SFT (β = −0.05 ± 0.02; p = 0.03) and higher BMI z-score (β= −0.22 ± 0.08; p = 0.01) in 3-year-old boys only. We did not observe these associations at age 5, or in girls. Our results suggest a sexual dimorphism in the programming of leptin sensitivity and childhood adiposity, but further observational and functional studies are needed to better understand the role of leptin in early life.
Student resilience to COVID-19-related school disruptions: The value of historic school engagement

Does historic school engagement buffer the threats of disrupted schooling – such as those associated with the widespread COVID-19-related school closures – to school engagement equally for female and male high school students? This article responds to that pressing question. To do so, it reports a study that was conducted in 2018 and 2020 with the same sample of South African students (n = 172; 66.30% female; average age in 2020: 18.13). A moderated moderation model of the 2018 and 2020 data showed that historic levels of school engagement buffered the negative effects of disrupted schooling on subsequent school engagement (R² = .43, β = −5.09, p < .05). This protective effect was significant for girl students at moderate and high levels of historic school engagement, but not at lower levels of historic school engagement. Disrupted schooling did not significantly affect school engagement for male students at any level of historic school engagement. In addition, student perceptions of teacher kindness were associated with higher school engagement and having experienced an adverse event at school with lower school engagement. The results point to the importance of facilitating school engagement and enabling school environments – also when schooling is disrupted.
Clustering Longitudinal Health Data Using Hidden Markov Models

This thesis describes an approach for clustering multivariate time series with variables taking both categorical and continuous values. Time series of this type are frequent in healthcare, where they represent the health trajectories of individuals. The problem is challenging because categorical variables make it difficult to define a meaningful distance between trajectories. Clustering is one of the most common and useful tasks in data mining, so it is a wellstudied problem. However, clustering of sequential or longitudinal data is more challenging than traditional clustering as sequence of observations should be processed rather than single data point values. The analysis of longitudinal data is an interesting application area in epidemiology and clinical research, since it allows researchers to observe individual patterns of change and to capture the relationship between exposure and outcome. The typical approach to longitudinal clustering in health services research uses K-means clustering to form the heath states (conditions) and a first order Markov chain to describe the transitions between states. This procedure ignores information from temporally-adjacent observations and prevents uncertainty from parameter estimation and cluster assignments from being incorporated into the analysis. The approach proposed here was based on incorporation of the Hidden Markov Models (HMMs), using the following steps: first, map each trajectory into an HMM, then define a suitable distance between HMMs, and finally proceed to cluster the HMMs with a method based on a distance matrix. The assumption was made that the health conditions to be observed are just the manifestations of a true health state that cannot be observed directly, and that remain hidden. Therefore, rather than modelling the transitions of each health state, the transitions of the hidden states were modelled, as well as the probabilities of observing certain health conditions in each hidden state. The approach was tested on a simulated, but realistic, data set of 1,255 trajectories of individuals from the 45 and Up data set, on a synthetic validation set consist of 1,255 trajectories with known clustering structure, and on a smaller set of 268 trajectories extracted from the longitudinal Health and Retirement Survey. The proposed method can be implemented quite simply using standard packages in R and Matlab, and may be a good candidate for solving the difficult problem of clustering multivariate time series with categorical variables using tools that do not require advanced statistical knowledge, and therefore are accessible to a wide range of researchers.
Factors Related to Mental Health of Foreign Care Workers in Long-Term Care Facilities in Japan during the COVID-19 Pandemic—A Comparative Study

This study aimed to evaluate the factors related to the mental health of foreign care workers in Japan’s long-term care (LTC) facilities and compare their results with those of native care workers. We conducted a cross-sectional survey covering 80 LTC facilities across Japan between August and November 2021. The survey mainly included mental health, workload, reward, sense of coherence, loneliness, COVID-19-specific factors and sociodemographic variables. The results show that workload was a distinct feature associated with the mental health of foreign care workers (n = 172) when compared with those of native care workers (n = 154). In addition, we found that the relationship between cultural adaptation and mental health in a sample of foreign care workers was mediated by loneliness and sense of coherence (SOC). Finally, we found that reward, loneliness, SOC, and COVID-19-specific factors had significant impacts on the mental health of both foreign and native care workers. These findings highlight the importance of support measures from the workplace for foreign care workers. Workplace interventions that focus on workload, reward, and sense of coherence strategies are required to address mental health improvement and may still be of value in dealing with the continuing COVID-19 pandemic.
“I Will Be Healthy”: Ideal Self in Patients with Alzheimer’s Disease

Background: Within the concept of the self, a distinction can be made between ideal self (i.e., what would like to become) and feared self (i.e., what would not like to become in the future). Objective: We investigated ideal self and feared self in patients with mild Alzheimer’s disease (AD). We have also measured these self-related processes in relation to depression and anxiety. Methods: We invited 31 patients with mild AD and 35 control participants to decide whether they would consider the statement (e.g., I will be healthy) as a representation that they would like to acquire (i.e., ideal self) or to avoid (i.e., feared self). Results: Analysis demonstrated that more participants assigned the “I will be healthy” statement to ideal self than to feared self, and this tendency was observed in both AD participants and controls. Less depression and anxiety were observed in participants who have assigned the “I will be healthy” statement to their ideal self compared to those who assigned this statement to their feared self, and this was observed in both AD participant and control groups. Conclusion: Our study demonstrates that AD patients tend to endorse positive health traits and to integrate these traits into their ideal self. AD patients tend to endorse health-related images that are associated with hopes when projecting into their future self. This positive projection into the self may create a motivational force (e.g., aspirations and hopes) to embody the “healthy” self that AD patients desire to be.
CELO Fiber1 Knob Is a Promising Candidate to Modify the Tropism of Adenoviral Vectors

Fowl adenovirus 4 (FAdV-4) has the potential to be constructed as a gene transfer vector for human gene therapy or vaccine development to avoid the pre-existing immunity to human adenoviruses. To enhance the transduction of FAdV-4 to human cells, CELO fiber1 knob (CF1K) was chosen to replace the fiber2 knob in FAdV-4 to generate recombinant virus F2CF1K-CG. The original FAdV4-CG virus transduced 4% human 293 or 1% HEp-2 cells at the multiplicity of infection of 1000 viral particles per cell. In contrast, F2CF1K-CG could transduce 98% 293 or 60% HEp-2 cells under the same conditions. Prokaryotically expressed CF1K protein blocked 50% transduction of F2CF1K-CG to 293 cells at a concentration of 1.3 µg/mL while it only slightly inhibited the infection of human adenovirus 5 (HAdV-5), suggesting CF1K could bind to human cells in a manner different from HAdV-5 fiber. The incorporation of CF1K had no negative effect on the growth of FAdV-4 in the packaging cells. In addition, CF1K-pseudotyped HAdV-41 could transduce HEp-2 and A549 cells more efficiently. These data indicated that CF1K had the priority to be considered when there is a need to modify adenovirus tropism.
Invariant measures on locally compact semigroups

The main result of this paper shows that a locally compact abelian semigroup is embeddable as an open subsemi- group of a locally compact abelian group G if and only if the trans- lations x i—>x+y are open maps and there exists a nonnegative reg- ular measure n on S such that ii(U) =ii(x+ U) >0 for every open set U and x in 5. Our main result is a somewhat stronger statement than the above in that we show that whenever such a measure exists it is the restric- tion to S of the Haar measure on G. This provides a partial answer to a question raised by J. H. Williamson in (5, §5). We follow the terminology of (5) as regards semigroups and the measure theoretic terminology of (3). In particular: A locally compact abelian semigroup 5 is an abelian semigroup (not necessarily having a unit) which is a locally compact Hausdorff space such that for each y in S the map xi—»x+y is continuous. We say that a locally compact abelian semigroup S is embeddable in a locally compact group G if there exists a bicontinuous semigroup monomorphism c/> mapping 5 into G. The following proposition is of independent interest (see (4, Theorem 2.1 and Lemma 1.3)). Proposition. Let S be a locally compact abelian semigroup. The following conditions on S are equivalent.
Probabilistic leak localization in water distribution networks using a hybrid data-driven and model-based approach

In this paper, a hybrid leak localization approach in WDNs is proposed, combining both model-based and data-driven modeling. Pressure heads of leak scenarios are simulated using a hydraulic model, and then used to train a machine-learning based leak localization model. A key element of the methodology is that discrepancies between simulated and measured pressures are accounted for using a dynamically calculated bias correction, based on historical pressure measurements. Data of in-field leak experiments in operational water distribution networks were produced to evaluate our approach on realistic test data. The results show that the leak localization model is able to reduce the leak search region in parts of the network where leaks induce detectable drops in pressure. When this is not the case, the model still localizes the leak but is able to indicate a higher level of uncertainty with respect to its leak predictions.
Human Milk for Vulnerable Infants: Breastfeeding and Milk Sharing Practice among Ghanaian Women

Human milk has the best impact on childhood survival. In Ghana, it is estimated that 43% of women exclusively breastfeed for 0–5 months and only 42% of breastfeeding mothers continue through 20–23 months. Although the Ghanaian government has implemented policies to facilitate exclusive breastfeeding, substantial gaps to achieve optimal newborn health and wellbeing remain. The purpose of this study was to evaluate breastfeeding prevalence and human milk sharing practices among Ghanaian women. Qualitative responses were received from Ghanaian females (n = 1050). In our sample, 81% indicated they breastfed their children and 8% reported ever sharing breastmilk with another mother. Reasons for sharing milk included (i) insufficient breastmilk production of the recipient mother, and (ii) mother’s unavailability prompting women to offer their milk to a crying baby. About 60% of our sample reported that they were not concerned about sharing their milk. Findings present a strong indicator for milk donation towards the establishment of a human milk bank in Ghana. Health promotion efforts should aim at increasing education about the risks involved in milk sharing as well as the benefits of human milk donation through formal and safer channels such as a Human Milk Bank.