Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Review of Approximate Computing in Image Processing Applications

Quality of real time multimedia images mostly depends on the input, i.e. size of camera sensor, pixel density, quality of lens, etc. therefore the output sometimes contains unsolvable images issues and requires image processing. Approximate computing (AC) has emerged as innovative method for image processing along with the advantages of lower power and high accuracy. In this paper, a review of AC application in image processing is done and a bit truncated Pseudo-8T Static Random Access Memory (BT-PSRAM) is proposed. It is implemented on 32nm CMOS technology node for compressed multimedia applications, and gives encouraging result with low power and energy consumption. Size of Pseudo-8T SRAM has been reduced using 2-bit truncation technique.
Multi-Task Deep Learning for Multimodal Biometric Recognition

Automatic person recognition systems are mainly based on biometrics traits to authenticate or identify people in different real-life cases. In order to get reliable results, all the web giants prioritize investing huge sums of money in these studies. In 2019, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) published outstanding achievements in facial recognition technology based on facial biometrics. One recent study estimates that the facial recognition market will be worth 8 billion euros by 2024, with double-digit annual growth rates. The success of biometric recognition has been driven by the advent of neural networks such as deep learning architectures. These learning methods quickly become popular and have offered an interesting solution for realizing intelligent biometric recognition systems. Our work aims to study the use of convolutional neural networks for biometrics recognition based on various biometric traits (such as face, palmprint, and palm vein), and also to design a multi-task learning model for multimodal biometric recognition,
3D Visual Management of Substation Based on Unity3D

The maintenance and management of power equipment in substation is the key to ensuring the power system operation's stability. Currently, the substation information management system needs more intuition and authenticity when displaying information in a 2D way, and it is challenging to render 3D model data. To solve this problem, on the basis of using 3ds Max to build the substation 3D model, the coarse-grained culling algorithm based on CPU and GPU batch processing technology is adopted to improve the rendering efficiency of 3D model data. Based on Unity3D platform and MySQL database, a 3D visualization management platform for substation equipment is designed and developed. Interactive functions such as roaming from different perspectives, visual information management, and query and update of equipment maintenance information are designed, which can intuitively display the components, specific information, and operating status of each device. Finally, a regional substation scene is taken as an example for testing, and good application results are achieved.
Active Intrusion Detection with Periodical Probing for IoT Devices

In recent years, the threat of attacks against IoT (Internet of Things) devices has become more apparent with the rapid growth of IoT technologies. Although an intrusion detection system (IDS) mitigates the risk of such attacks, the installation requires software rewriting or hardware replacement and causes cost increase of IoT devices or IoT gateways. In this paper, we propose an intrusion detection method that actively obtains feature values from IoT devices focusing on detecting an indication of intrusions with an essential cost.
An Ensemble Framework for Dropout Prediction in Online Learning

Online learning has gained traction over recent years, especially since online education has become more widespread. However, it comes with its own set of challenges of which high dropout is still a major one. Identifying at-risk learners at an early stage is pivotal to offering personalized attention that can potentially prevent them from dropping out from the online courses. This work proposes two methods to analyze students' progress in an online course and subsequently identify dropout prone students. The first method performs fusion of course activity features by concatenating previous weeks' features before training. The second method extracts course activity features from the start date of the courses to a current week instead of concatenating as the first method does. A set of machine learning models and an ensemble framework were trained and tested on these two types of feature sets. On evaluating the models, the benchmark dataset KDDCup15 has been used, where the first method yielded an F1-score 91% while the second method yielded a score 92%. It was observed that both feature fusion methods produce comparable results although we expected that the concatenation of the features over time would produce better results. We also found that using features over a longer duration of time can help in achieving better performance. Further, ensemble model consistently outperformed the base classifiers.
Spherical expansion of a collisionless plasma into vacuum: self-similar solution and ab initio simulations

We present a self-similar three-dimensional and spherically symmetric fluid model of the expansion of an either globally neutral or globally charged collisionless plasma into vacuum. As in previous works by other authors the key parameter of the model is the ratio of the electron Debye length to the radius R of the expanding ion sphere. The main difference with respect to the recently published model of Murakami and Basko (2006 Phys. Plasmas 13 2105) is that the electron temperature is spatially non-uniform. The major consequence of the spatial variability is that the self-similar solution is characterized by the presence of a sharp electron front at some finite distance ahead of the ion front. Explicit analytic expressions for the self-similar profiles of the ion and electron densities, the electron temperature and the heat flux are given for the region inside the ion front. The model is shown to be in good qualitative agreement with results from ab initio plasma simulations.
Identification and Interpretation of Microplane Material Laws

The present paper addresses the so-called microplane formulation which became recently more and more popular for the description of quasi-brittle materials. The essential feature of this material formulation is a split of the local microplane strains and stresses allowing one to resort to simplified or in certain cases even unidirectional constitutive laws. The main attraction of the microplane concept is that an initial or evolving anisotropic material behavior can be described in a natural and simple way. Motivated from a macroscopic viewpoint, it is advocated to restrict the microplane concept to the pure volumetric-deviatoric split, as a constraint subset of the most often applied volumetric-deviatoric-tangential split. This variant has the particular advantage that typical macroscopic responses are directly reflected on the mesoscale. It will be shown that in certain cases the present version of a microplane formulation is closely related to well-known macroscopic models although being much more general than those macroscopic formulations. This close relation is exploited to derive physically sound microplane constitutive laws. Therefore the characteristic damage mechanisms of materials at two levels of observation, (1) at the macroscale in the sense of classical continuum damage mechanics, and (2) at the mesoscale utilizing the so-called microplane concept, are examined. The comparison of the microplane formulation to a well-known macroscopic one-parameter damage model enables the identification and interpretation of the microplane constitutive laws. The constitutive formulations are embedded in a thermodynamically consistent framework. Finally, the performance of the attained microplane formulation is analyzed in a mixed-mode fracture simulation of concrete.
Necessary and Sufficient Conditions for the Discreteness of the Spectrum of Certain Singular Differential Operators

1. Introduction. Let P(x) be an m × m matrix-valued function that is continuous, real, symmetric, and positive definite for all x in an interval J , which will be further specified. Let w(x) be a positive and continuous weight function and define the formally self adjoint operator l by where y(x) is assumed to be an m-dimensional vector-valued function. The operator l generates a minimal closed symmetric operator L 0 in the Hilbert space ℒ m 2 (J; w) of all complex, m-dimensional vector-valued functions y on J satisfying with inner product where . All selfadjoint extensions of L 0 have the same essential spectrum ([5] or [19]). As a consequence, the discreteness of the spectrum S(L) of one selfadjoint extension L will imply that the spectrum of every selfadjoint extension is entirely discrete.
Employing Adalimumab in Treatment of Moderate-to-Severe Hidradenitis Suppurativa: Real-Life Multicenter Data from the Czech Republic

Adalimumab is the only approved biologic treatment for moderate-to-severe hidradenitis suppurativa, nonetheless, long-term data from real-life setting are still limited. The objective of this observational multicenter study was to evaluate the effectiveness, safety, and drug survival of adalimumab in patients with hidradenitis suppurativa included in the BIOREP registry. A total of 299 patients who initiated adalimumab therapy for hidradenitis suppurativa from 2011 to November 2021 were included. The Dermatology-Life-Quality-Index (DLQI), pain scale, the number of abscesses, inflammatory nodules and draining tunnels, and International Hidradenitis Suppurativa Severity Score System (IHS4) were recorded in the 0th, 3rd, and 6th months; then every 6 months during the ongoing adalimumab treatment. Studied patients underwent treatment for up to 48 months, with the average duration of treatment lasting 2.3 years. The mean age of the patients was 44.9 years, 79% were smokers or ex-smokers, 54.8% were obese, and 26.4% were overweight, the mean BMI was 30.8. The mean time from diagnosis to initiation adalimumab therapy was 9.1 years. The number of patients with severe IHS4 dropped from the initial 249 (83.3%) to 65 (30.1%) after 12 months and this trend was maintained up to the 48th month. A decreasing number of inflammatory lesions were rapid and sustained and correlated to the improvement of patients’ quality of life, the mean DLQI score dropped from 17.6 to 8.5 after 3 months and to 5, 7 after 48 months. No unexpected risk signals were observed. Our long-term study demonstrates the effectiveness and safety of adalimumab in a real-life setting.
Atomic structure of the super-heavy element No I (Z=102)

The multiconfiguration Dirac-Fock (MCDF) method was used to calculate the excitation energies of the levels of {sup 3}P and {sup 1}P in the lowest excited configurations for the two homolog elements of No I and Yb I. Also the transition probability of the 7s7p {sup 1}P{sub 1}{yields}7s{sup 2} {sup 1}S{sub 0} transition and the ground-state ionization energy of No I were calculated. The results for Yb I agree very well with the available experiments, with deviations of below 0.6% for the triplets and below 4% for the singlet. The result for the No I excitation energies clears the situation of conflicting results between Borschevsky et al., 30 056 cm{sup -1} (3.726 eV) [Phys. Rev. A 75, 042514 (2007)], and Fritzsche, 3.36 eV [Eur. Phys. J. D 33, 15 (2005)] for the 7s7p {sup 1}P{sub 1} level, which is planned to be measured in the near future with a newly developed experimental technique by Backe et al. [Eur. Phys. J. D 45, 99 (2007)]. The ionization energy result obtained in this work, 53 701 cm{sup -1}, is in excellent agreement with the scaled result of 53 600(600) cm{sup -1}.
Effect of Supplementing Vitamin E, Selenium, Copper, Zinc, and Manganese during the Transition Period on Dairy Cow Reproductive Performance and Immune Function

Simple Summary Global demand for dairy products keeps increasing. Yet, dairy cows are exposed to numerous stresses, such as metabolic stress and heat stress, particularly during the transition period, which is three weeks around calving. In the face of climate change, techniques to improve transition cattle both production and reproduction in high temperature and humidity environments are important, particularly in subtropical regions. The present work examined whether supplementation of selenium and vitamin E or zinc, copper, and manganese complex would help transition dairy cows to improve their health and achieve greater milk production by overcoming immune and metabolic stress. The supplementation of trace elements and vitamin E may enable transition cattle to better adapt to heat stress. The conclusions of this study can provide dairy farmers in Taiwan or other subtropical regions with a reference to adjust their management practice for transition dairy cows. Abstract The transition dairy cows are challenged by various stresses such as decreased dry matter intake, liver dysfunction, increased inflammation, and oxidative stress, particularly in subtropical regions. These might increase the requirement for vitamin E and trace elements. To examine whether supplementation of vitamin E, selenium or copper, zinc, and manganese complex would help transition dairy cows to achieve greater reproduction performance by overcoming the immune function and postpartum disorders in subtropical Taiwan. A total of 24 Holstein Friesian dairy cows were enrolled in this study and divided into three groups (n = 8 cows/group): treatment 1 supplemented with organic selenium and vitamin E (SeE), treatment 2 supplemented with organic copper, zinc, and manganese complex (CZM) and control (CON). The results showed SeE supplementation improved immune function, reproductive performance, and milk yield, but not negative energy balance status. Supplementation of CZM improved milk yield and energy regulation through antioxidative capacity and immune function, but had no influence on reproductive performance.
Development of a multi-source, multi-detector, finger photoplethysmography system

Finger-based photoplethysmography (PPG) is traditionally acquired using a finger clip form factor on the fingertip. This form factor is not conducive for long-term measurements during regular everyday activities due to its inability to be easily worn while moving outside a clinical setting. However, advancements in finger-based PPG sensors over the last several decades include ring designs at the proximal phalanx of the finger, which are more conducive to being worn during everyday living conditions. The anatomy of this location is more complex relative to the tip as there is a smaller density of blood vessels. Also, the finger's proximal phalanx is comprised of more opaque tissue and bone, which affects the path of the light. In this study, a ring design that included 8 LEDs/PDs each at 45 degrees that included two wavelengths (940 nm: infrared and 655 nm: red) on the proximal phalanx of the finger was studied in terms of their relative placement to each other for detection. Specifically, the system was used to investigate how the pulsatile and DC component amplitudes of the photodiodes varied around the finger in both transmission and reflectance modes as a function of the 8 LEDs/PDs pairs at 45 degrees on the ring. All 64 combinations of LEDs/PDs located at the proximal phalanx of the finger were investigated. The results showed the locations that yielded the strongest amplitude PPG signals.
A Stable Algorithm for Solving the Multifacility Location Problem Involving Euclidean Distances

There is a rapidly growing interdisciplinary interest in the application of location models to real life problems. Unfortunately, the current methods used to solve the most popular minisum and minimax location problems are computationally inadequate. A more unified and numerically stable approach for solving these problems is proposed. Detailed analysis is done for the linearly constrained Euclidean distance minisum problem for facilities located in a plane. Preliminary computational experience suggests that this approach compares favourably with other methods.
Periprosthetic joint infection caused by Haemophilus parainfluenzae. Case report and literature review

Rev Esp Quimioter 2023;36(3): 325-328 325 of progressive pain, and a possible loosening of the prosthesis was observed on radiographs. C-reactive protein (CRP) was 3 mg/dL and erythrocyte sedimentation rate (ESR) of 42 mm/h in addition to abundant joint effusion. An arthrocentesis for culture and study of the joint fluid was performed. Cell count was 6,280 cells/mm3 (85% polymorphonuclears), with glucose 177.0 mg/dl and CRP 6.84 mg/dl. This sample was inoculated in the following culture media: Tryptic soy sheep blood agar (TSS), chocolate agar (CHA), Shaedler-5% sheep blood agar (SCS), MacConkey agar (McC), and part of the fluid was also inoculated in a blood culture bottle (BactAlert), all from Biomérieux Marcy l’Etoile, France). TSS, CHA and McC were incubated at 37oC in a 5% CO2 atmosphere. SCS was incubated in an anaerobic atmosphere at 37oC. All media were incubated for 15 days.
Hybrid-based Recommender System for Online Shopping: A Review

In the era of the digital revolution, online shopping has developed into a remarkably simple and economical option for consumers to make purchases securely and conveniently from their homes. In order for the online merchant to optimize their profit, the online shopping platform must always display a list of potential products that customers may purchase. The recommender system kicks in at this point to assist in finding products that customers would like and recommend a list of product recommendations that match the customer's preferences. This paper reviews the recommender system technology in detail by reviewing the classification technique. Other than that, the related works will be reviewed to understand how each technique works, the strengths and limitations, the datasets and evaluation metrics employed.
Characteristics and patients’ portrayals of Norwegian social media memes. A mixed methods analysis

Background Despite reports on troublesome contents created and shared online by healthcare professionals, a systematic inquiry of this potential problem has been missing. Our objective was to characterize the content of healthcare-associated social media memes in terms of common themes and how patients were portrayed. Materials and methods This study applied a mixed methods approach to characterize the contents of Instagram memes from popular medicine- or nursing-associated accounts in Norway. In total, 2,269 posts from 18 Instagram accounts were included and coded for thematic contents. In addition, we conducted a comprehensive thematic analysis of 30 selected posts directly related to patients. Results A fifth of all posts (21%) were related to patients, including 139 posts (6%) related to vulnerable patients. Work was, however, the most common theme overall (59%). Nursing-associated accounts posted more patient-related contents than medicine-associated accounts (p < 0.01), but the difference may be partly explained by the former focusing on work life rather than student life. Patient-related posts often thematized (1) trust and breach of trust, (2) difficulties and discomfort at work, and (3) comical aspects of everyday life as a healthcare professional. Discussion We found that a considerable number of Instagram posts from healthcare-associated accounts included patients and that these posts were diverse in terms of contents and offensiveness. Awareness that professional values also apply online is important for both healthcare students and healthcare providers. Social media memes can act as an educational resource to facilitate discussions about (e-)professionalism, the challenges and coping of everyday life, and ethical conflicts arising in healthcare settings.
Surfaces of revolution with prescribed mean curvature

In this paper we study a surface of revolution in the Euclidean three space Λ. The generating curve of the surface satisfies a nonlinear differential equation which describes the mean curvature. The purpose of this note is to solve the differential equation by an elementary method. Solutions are represented explicitly by generalized FresnePs integrals which involve the mean curvature. Therefore, for a given continuous function H(s), we can construct a 3-parameter family of surfaces of revolution admitting H(s) as the mean curvature. We shall remark that these computations are different from the one in Delaunay [1]. About 140 years ago, he solved the differential equation under the constancy of the mean curvature and gave a method of geometric constructions for such surfaces. For the proof, he first obtains a solution of an evolute of the generating curve. By making use of this solution, he found a representation formula of the generating curve. Therefore these solutions hold only on some intervals on which the evolute can be defined. It seems not to be simple to obtain a global solution from his method. Our calculations will easily find global solutions and the corollary of the main theorem of this note describes all complete surfaces of revolution with constant mean curvature. During this research I stayed in Kδln and received many nice advices from Professors Peter Dombrowski and Helmut Reckziegel. By their suggestions, my original computations could be simplified and generalized. And also I shall mention that Reckziegel got interested in drawing graphs of these generating curves by making use of the computer and obtained many beautiful pictures. He permitted me with favor to include some of the graphs by his programming in this paper. The author wishes to express his deep gratitude to both of them for helpful
Improvement in oxidative stability and quality characteristics of functional chicken meat product supplemented with aqueous coriander extract

ABSTRACT The aim of the current study was to explore the preservative effect of aqueous coriander extract and butylated hydroxytoluene (BHT) on the shelf life of refrigerated chicken patties for 9 days. For this purpose, BHT (100 ppm) and aqueous coriander extract (1%) was applied to improve the storage stability. The patties were evaluated for their physiochemical characterization including total phenolic content (TPC), thiobarbituric acid reactive substances (TBARS), peroxide value (PV), total carbonyl, metmyoglobin, and instrumental color, microbial analysis including (total plate count), and sensory attributes including (color and odor). The results showed that coriander extract has a significant (P < .05) effect in terms of delaying microbial growth, lipid and protein oxidation compared to BHT application. Likewise, higher phenolic contents were observed in patties treated with coriander extract. Conclusively, coriander extract did not impose any undesirable effect of physical attributes (instrumental color and color/odor) of cooked chicken patties. It is concluded that aqueous coriander extract is a plenteous source of various antioxidants and should be used as a functional food additive in meat products at 1% concentration without affecting the product’s quality attributes.