Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Morphological and reproductive phenology of the non-native red alga Caulacanthus okamurae Yamada (Gigartinales, Caulacanthaceae) from the Slovenian coast (Gulf of Trieste, northern Adriatic)

This study reports the occurrence of the non-native red alga Caulacanthus okamurae, previously unknown on the Slovenian coast (Gulf of Trieste, northern Adriatic Sea). The distribution of the species, its abundance, morphological characteristics and reproductive phenology are described. The study is based on seasonal sampling conducted during one year, from winter to autumn 2021, on two different substrates (limestone and sandstone) of the midlittoral zone, and showed a moderate variation in the biomass of C. okamurae populations between the winter-spring and summer-autumn periods. The native algal assemblages of the two substrates impacted by C. okamurae were characterized by generally limited species diversity and consisted mainly of small-sized species with simple morphology. During the study, in addition to non-fertile thalli of C. okamurae, tetrasporophytic thalli with tetrasporocysts and female gametophytes with cystocarps were found.
A Broadband Doherty Power Amplifier for Sub-6GHz 5G Applications

This paper presents a novel and accurate procedure for designing a Doherty power amplifier (DPA) for wireless systems. The method is based on a systematic approach to designing the matching networks of both Main and Auxiliary devices, which employs an optimization process to set their input impedance in the corresponding optimal regions obtained from the standard load- and source-pull simulations. To import the optimum regions of each device into the optimization algorithm, mathematical expressions are derived and graphically reported on the Smith chart. Besides this, we have developed an accurate method to account for the loading effect of the Auxiliary amplifier on the Main one at back-off when designing the Main PA. As a proof of concept, a symmetric DPA is designed, fabricated, and tested. The measurements showed a working frequency band of 3.3–3.9GHz (aimed at n78 band of 5G-NR), a minimum peak output power of 36W, drain efficiency between 48%–53.2% at peak and 34.6%–44.5% at 6dB back-off.
Online Competitive Posted-Pricing Mechanism for Trading Time-Sensitive Valued Data

With the rapid growth of the applications in AI, the demand of data has increased significantly. To facilitate the circulation of data, numerous online data sharing and trading platforms (aka, data brokers) have emerged. In many situations the data value is time-sensitive, depending on the freshness of the data. Such a time-dependence can be characterized by a discount function $d(t)$ representing the data value fluctuation factor over the lifetime $t$. In this work, we propose a series of posted-price mechanisms to for data trading. By assuming the buyers' initial valuations follow a given distribution, we design two online posted-price mechanisms which are constant-competitive (approximately maximize the data seller's revenue), value truthful and (semi)-time truthful. We then extend our mechanisms to general value distributions. Finally, we propose an online learning mechanism to resolve the issue that we do not know the parameters of the distribution, and further explore the method of guaranteeing truthfulness. Our simulation results show that our mechanisms achieve more than 90% of the revenue over the offline baseline mechanism, and the competitive ratios converge to 1 as the number of buyers increases.
Tubulin Polymerization Promoting Proteins (TPPPs) of Aphelidiomycota: Correlation between the Incidence of p25alpha Domain and the Eukaryotic Flagellum

The seven most early diverging lineages of the 18 phyla of fungi are the non-terrestrial fungi, which reproduce through motile flagellated zoospores. There are genes/proteins that are present only in organisms with flagellum or cilium. It was suggested that TPPP-like proteins (proteins containing at least one complete or partial p25alpha domain) are among them, and a correlation between the incidence of the p25alpha domain and the eukaryotic flagellum was hypothesized. Of the seven phyla of flagellated fungi, six have been known to contain TPPP-like proteins. Aphelidiomycota, one of the early-branching phyla, has some species (e.g., Paraphelidium tribonematis) that retain the flagellum, whereas the Amoeboaphelidium genus has lost the flagellum. The first two Aphelidiomycota genomes (Amoeboaphelidium protococcorum and Amoeboaphelidium occidentale) were sequenced and published last year. A BLASTP search revealed that A. occidentale does not have a TPPP, but A. protococcorum, which possesses pseudocilium, does have a TPPP. This TPPP is the ‘long-type’ which occurs mostly in animals as well as other Opisthokonta. P. tribonematis has a ‘fungal-type’ TPPP, which is found only in some flagellated fungi. These data on Aphelidiomycota TPPP proteins strengthen the correlation between the incidence of p25alpha domain-containing proteins and that of the eukaryotic flagellum/cilium.
Graphene-Oxide-Grafted Natural Phosphate Support as a Low-Cost Ceramic Membrane for the Removal of Anionic Dyes from Simulated Textile Effluent

A novel natural phosphate/graphene oxide (GO) composite membrane was successfully fabricated using two steps: (i) silane chemical grafting and (ii) dip-coating of a GO solution. First, the low-cost disk ceramic support used in this work was fabricated out of Moroccan natural phosphate, and its properties were thoroughly characterized. The optimized ceramic support was sintered at 1100 °C following a specific heat treatment based on thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) and differential thermal analysis (DTA); it exhibited a permeability of 953.33 L/h·m2·bar, a porosity of 24.55%, an average pore size of 2.45 μm and a flexural strength of 22.46 MPa. The morphology analysis using SEM showed that the GO layer was homogenously coated on the crack-free Moroccan phosphate support with a thickness of 2.8 μm. The Fourier transform infrared spectrometer (FT-IR) results showed that modification with silane could improve the interfacial adhesion between the GO membrane and the ceramic support. After coating with GO on the surface, the water permeability was reduced to 31.93 L/h·m2·bar (i.e., by a factor of 142). The prepared GO/ceramic composite membrane exhibited good efficiency in the rejection of a toxic azo dye Congo Red (CR) (95.2%) and for a simulated dye effluent (87.6%) under industrial conditions. The multi-cycle filtration tests showed that the rejection rate of CR dye remained almost the same for four cycles. Finally, the flux recovery was also studied. After 1 h of water cleaning, the permeate flux recovered, increased significantly, and then remained stable.
Evaluation of Radar Multiple-Scattering Effects from a GPM Perspective. Part I: Model Description and Validation

Abstract A numerical model based on the Monte Carlo solution of the vector radiative transfer equation has been adopted to simulate radar signals. The model accounts for general radar configurations such as airborne/spaceborne/ground based and monostatic/bistatic and includes the polarization and the antenna pattern as particularly relevant features. Except for contributions from the backscattering enhancement, the model is particularly suitable for evaluating multiple-scattering effects. It has been validated against some analytical methods that provide solutions for the first and second order of scattering of the copolar intensity for pencil-beam/Gaussian antennas in the transmitting/receiving segment. The model has been applied to evaluate the multiple scattering when penetrating inside a uniform hydrometeor layer. In particular, the impact of the phase function, the range-dependent scattering optical thickness, and the effects of the antenna footprint are considered.
Multigenetic Origin of the X‐Discontinuity Below Continents: Insights From African Receiver Functions

Constraints on chemical heterogeneities in the upper mantle may be derived from studying the seismically observable impedance contrasts that they produce. Away from subduction zones, several causal mechanisms are possible to explain the intermittently observed X‐discontinuity (X) at 230–350 km depth: the coesite‐stishovite phase transition, the enstatite to clinoenstatite phase transition, and/or carbonated silicate melting, all requiring a local enrichment of basalt. Africa hosts a broad range of terranes, from Precambrian cores to Cenozoic hotspots with or without lowermost mantle origins. With the absence of subduction below the margins of the African plate for >0.5 Ga, Africa presents an ideal study locale to explore the origins of the X. Traditional receiver function (RF) approaches used to map seismic discontinuities, such as common conversion‐point stacking, ignore slowness information crucial for discriminating converted upper mantle phases from surface multiples. By manually assessing depth and slowness stacks for 1° radius overlapping bins, normalized vote mapping of RF stacks is used to robustly assess the spatial distribution of converted upper mantle phases. The X is mapped beneath Africa at 233–340 km depth, revealing patches of heterogeneity proximal to mantle upwellings in Afar, Canaries, Cape Verde, East Africa, Hoggar, and Réunion with further observations beneath Cameroon, Madagascar, and Morocco. There is a lack of an X beneath southern Africa and strikingly, the magmatic eastern rift branch of the southern East African Rift. With no relationships existing between depth and amplitudes of observed X and estimated mantle temperatures, multiple causal mechanisms are required across a range of continental geodynamic settings.
A comparison of Monte Carlo and analytic treatments of displacement damage in Si microvolumes

In this paper, we compare Monte Carlo and analytic calculations of displacement damage resulting from inelastic proton reactions in Si. These comparisons include the nonionizing energy loss rate, the mean recoil damage energy spectra, and their associated variance. In the limit of bulk material, both approaches are in good agreement. Sensitive volumes shrink and incident proton energies increase, the ranges of the spallation recoil fragments approach the smallest dimension of the microvolume, and the pixel-to-pixel damage variance increases rapidly. In this regime, a Monte Carlo approach is used to describe the damage energy distribution. Indeed, we show that such simulations predict the 63 MeV proton-induced dark current histograms more accurately than present analytic methods. The Monte Carlo code is also used to explore ground test fidelity issues for devices with small sensitive volumes. >
Methods to Assign UAVs for K-Coverage and Recharging in IoT Networks

This article studies a coverage problem in Internet of things (IoT) networks using unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) supported by solar-powered charging platforms. The problem at hand is to determine an assignment of UAVs to either a charging station or a monitoring point over a planning horizon. A key constraint is <inline-formula><tex-math notation="LaTeX">$K$</tex-math><alternatives><mml:math><mml:mi>K</mml:mi></mml:math><inline-graphic xlink:href="yang-ieq1-3259461.gif"/></alternatives></inline-formula>-coverage, where given a set of <inline-formula><tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\mathcal {M}$</tex-math><alternatives><mml:math><mml:mi mathvariant="script">M</mml:mi></mml:math><inline-graphic xlink:href="yang-ieq2-3259461.gif"/></alternatives></inline-formula> points, <inline-formula><tex-math notation="LaTeX">$K$</tex-math><alternatives><mml:math><mml:mi>K</mml:mi></mml:math><inline-graphic xlink:href="yang-ieq3-3259461.gif"/></alternatives></inline-formula> of these points must be monitored by a UAV in each time slot. In this respect, the paper aims to design UAVs assignment solutions that yield the longest <inline-formula><tex-math notation="LaTeX">$K$</tex-math><alternatives><mml:math><mml:mi>K</mml:mi></mml:math><inline-graphic xlink:href="yang-ieq4-3259461.gif"/></alternatives></inline-formula>-coverage lifetime. We formulate a novel mixed integer linear program (MILP) to jointly optimize UAVs assignments over a given planning horizon. The problem is challenging as the energy level of charging platforms and UAVs are coupled across time slots. Moreover, the formulated MILP requires non-causal energy arrivals information at charging platforms. To this end, we outline a model predictive control (MPC) and a Monte Carlo tree search (MCTS) based solution that use non-causal energy arrivals information. The simulation results show that MPC and MCTS achieve approximately 81.04% and 67.07% of the optimal results computed by MILP.
COntrolling NUTritional Status (CONUT) as Predictive Score of Hospital Length of Stay (LOS) and Mortality: A Prospective Cohort Study in an Internal Medicine and Gastroenterology Unit in Italy

Background: Hospital malnutrition affects nearly 30% of patients in medical wards and correlates with worse outcomes. An early assessment is necessary to stratify the risk of short-term outcomes and mortality. The predictive role of COntrolling NUTritional status (CONUT) score in this context has not yet been elucidated in Western countries. We aimed to test CONUT at admission as a predictive score of hospital outcomes, in an Internal Medicine and Gastroenterology Department of an Italian Tertiary Care University hospital. Methods: We prospectively enrolled patients admitted to our center, stratifying them into the four CONUT classes (normal = 0–1; mild = 2–4; moderate = 5–8; severe = 9–12 points) according to serum albumin (g/dL), total lymphocyte count (/mm3), and total cholesterol (mg/dL); the primary outcome measure was length of stay (LOS) and the secondary one was in-hospital mortality. Results: Out of a total of 203 patients enrolled, 44 (21.7%) patients had a normal status (0–1), 66 (32.5%) had a mild impairment (2–4), 68 (33.5%) had a moderate impairment (5–8), and 25 (12.3%) a severe impairment (9–12). The mean LOS was 8.24 ± 5.75 days; nine patients died. A moderate-severe CONUT correlated with a higher LOS at the univariate [HR 1.86 (95% CI 13.9–3.47); p < 0.0001] and multivariate analysis [HR 1.52 (95% CI 1.10–2.09); p = 0.01]. The CONUT score was also a predictor of mortality, with an AUC of 0.831 (95% CI 0.680–0.982) and with an optimal cut-off at 8.5 points. Nutritional supplementation within 48 h from admission correlated with lower mortality [OR 0.12 (95% CI 0.02–0.56) p = 0.006]. Conclusions: CONUT is a reliable and simple predictor of LOS and in-hospital mortality in medical wards.
Understanding the Diurnal Oscillation of the Gut Microbiota Using Microbial Culture

The composition of the gut microbiota oscillates according to the light–dark cycle. However, the existing literature demonstrates these oscillations only by molecular methods. Microbial cultures are an interesting method for studying metabolically active microorganisms. In this work, we aimed to understand the diurnal oscillation of the intestinal microbiota in Wistar male rats through microbial culture analysis. Over a 24 h period, three animals were euthanized every 6 h. Intestinal segments were dissected immediately after euthanasia and diluted in phosphate-buffered saline (PBS) for plating in different culture media. The CFU/mL counts in feces samples cultured in the Brucella medium were significantly higher at ZT0, followed by ZT6, ZT18, and ZT12 (p = 0.0156), which demonstrated the diurnal oscillation of metabolically active anaerobic bacteria every 6 h using microbial culture. In addition, quantitative differences were demonstrated in anaerobic bacteria and fungi in different gastrointestinal tract tissues.
Comments on a Criterion of Transformation Proposed by Schlesselman

Abstract In the two-way analysis of variance with replicates, Schlesselman (1973) proposed a criterion of transformation based on classical statistics for testing homoscedasticity and additivity. He compared his criterion (Z(γ)) for selecting a transformation with the maximum likelihood estimate of Box and Cox (1964), and found Z(γ) superior in selecting a “correct” transformation when tested on models with normal and Cauchy error terms. We report here corrections of some of the sampling results given by Schlesselman, and also correct his result on the distribution of Z(γ) when the errors are normally distributed.
Hypothesis Testing for Autocorrelated Short Climate Time Series

AbstractCommonly used statistical tests of hypothesis, also termed inferential tests, that are available to meteorologists and climatologists all require independent data in the time series to which they are applied. However, most of the time series that are usually handled are actually serially dependent. A common approach to handle such a serial dependence is to replace in those statistical tests the actual number of data by an estimated effective number of independent data that is computed from a classical and widely used formula that relies on the autocorrelation function. Despite being perfectly demonstrable under some hypotheses, this formula provides unreliable results on practical cases, for two different reasons. First, the formula has to be applied using the estimated autocorrelation function, which bears a large uncertainty because of the usual shortness of the available time series. After the impact of this uncertainty is illustrated, some recommendations of preliminary treatment of the time s.
Orbital Angular Momentum Waves Generation using Circular Array Antenna

A uniform circular-based array antenna to generate Orbital Angular Momentum (OAM) waves at sub-6 GHz 5G is presented in this paper. The proposed antenna consists of four identical radiating elements with varying phase difference of 90° arranged in the form of circular configuration. A carefully designed feeding phase shift network to provide similar output energy at output ports with desired phase shift value is designed. To confirm the generation of OAM waves at the desired frequency bands, the phase distribution and the 2D polar form was analyzed. In contrast to other previous works, the proposed antenna design of this paper is very simple to design with higher gain.
Robotic Manipulation System Design and Control for Non-Contact Remote Diagnosis in Otolaryngology: Digital Twin Approach

The COVID-19 pandemic has emphasized the need for non-contact medical robots to alleviate the heavy workload and emotional stress experienced by healthcare professionals while preventing infection. In response, we propose a non-contact robotic diagnostic system for otolaryngology clinics, utilizing a digital twin model for initial design optimization. The system employs a master-slave robot architecture, with the slave robot comprising a flexible endoscope manipulation robot and a parallel robot arm for controlling additional medical instruments. The novel 4 degrees of freedom (DOF) control mechanism enables the single robotic arm to handle the endoscope, facilitating the process compared to the traditional two-handed approach. Phantom experiments were conducted to evaluate the effectiveness of the proposed flexible endoscope manipulation system in terms of diagnosis completion time, NASA task load index (NASA-TLX), and subjective risk score. The results demonstrate the system’s usability and its potential to alternate conventional diagnosis.
Leveraging Model Poisoning Attacks on License Plate Recognition Systems

Computer vision-based license plate recognition (LPR) has been widely deployed for automatic vehicle identity inspection due to the offered convenience and efficiency. However, the practical LPR systems are potentially vulnerable to malicious attacks, which may lead to incorrect recognition and impact the safety of transportation. Previous studies of attacking strategies targeting LPR systems mainly focused on evasion attacks, which are less efficient than model poisoning attacks that can cause mis-classification through directly manipulating the parameters of the victim model other than perturbing each testing sample. To fill this gap, we conduct the first systematic study on the vulnerability of LPR systems against model poisoning attacks. In specific, we aim to compromise the integrity of the model training such that the attacked LPR system would mis-classify all the samples from the victim class to the attacker-chosen class. To achieve this, we fine-tune the feature extractor layers of the LPR model such that it can obtain similar feature representations given samples belong to victim and attacker-chosen classes. This is implemented in a generator-discriminator fashion, where a discriminator learns to classify the victim and attacker-chosen classes given the input samples. Subsequently, the feature extractor is fine-tuned to generate manipulated features that can confuse the discriminator. Our empirical results on the CCPD dataset demonstrate that the proposed attacking strategy can substantially compromise LPR systems with high success rates.
On Conjugate Convex Functions

Since the classical work of Minkowski and Jensen it is well known that many of the inequalities used in analysis may be considered as consequences of the convexity of certain functions. In several of these inequalities pairs of “conjugate” functions occur, for instance pairs of powers with exponents a and a related by 1/a + 1/a = 1. A more general example is the pair of positively homogeneous convex functions denned by Minkowski and known as the distance (or gauge) function and the function of support of a convex body. The purpose of the present paper is to explain the general (by the way rather elementary) idea underlying this correspondence.
Epidemiological features of traumatic spinal cord injury in China: A systematic review and meta-analysis

Background Traumatic spinal cord injury (TSCI) is a highly fatal and disabling event, and its incidence rate is increasing in China. Therefore, we collated the epidemiological factors of TSCI in different regions of China to update the earlier systematic review published in 2018. Method We searched four English and three Chinese electronic databases from 1978 to October 1, 2022. From the included reports, information on sample characteristics, incidence, injury characteristics, prognostic factors, and economic burden was extracted. The selection of data was based on the PRISMA statement. The quality of the included studies was assessed by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) tool. The results of the meta-analysis were presented in the form of pooled frequency and forest plots. Results A total of 59 reports (60 studies) from 23 provinces were included, of which 41 were in the Chinese language. The random pooled incidence of TSCI in China was estimated to be 65.15 per million (95% CI: 47.20–83.10 per million), with a range of 6.7 to 569.7 per million. The pooled male-to-female ratio was 1.95:1. The pooled mean age of the cases at the time of injury was 45.4 years. Motor vehicle accidents (MVAs) and high falls were found to be the leading causes of TSCI. Incomplete quadriplegia and AISA/Frankel grade D were the most common types of TSCI. Cervical level injury was the most prevalent. The pooled in-hospital mortality and complication rates for TSCI in China were 3% (95% CI: 2–4%) and 35% (95% CI: 23–47%). Respiratory problems were the most common complication and the leading cause of death. Conclusion Compared with previous studies, the epidemiological data on TSCI in China has changed significantly. A need to update the data over time is essential to implement appropriate preventive measures and formulate interventions according to the characteristics of the Chinese population.