Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Thermoelectric power of overdoped Tl2201 crystals: charge density waves and T 1 and T 2 resistivities

We report measurements of the in-plane thermoelectric power (TEP) for an overdoped (OD) crystal of the single layer cuprate superconductor Tl2Ba2CuO 6+x (Tl2201) at several hole concentrations (p), from 300 or 400 K to below the superconducting transition temperature (Tc ). For p = 0.192 and 0.220, small upturns in the TEP below 150 K are attributed to the presence of charge density waves (CDW) detected by resonant inelastic x-ray scattering studies. This suggests that measurement of the TEP could provide a simple and effective guide to the presence of a CDW. Over a certain temperature range, often strongly restricted by the CDW, the TEP is consistent with the Nordheim-Gorter rule and the T 1 and T 2 terms in the in-plane resistivity of similar crystals observed below 160 K. Two scenarios in which the T 1 scattering term is uniform or non-uniform around the Fermi surface are discussed. As found previously by others, for uniform scattering the T 1 terms give scattering rates (τ −1) at lower p that are somewhat larger than the Planckian value kBT/ℏ and fall to zero for heavily OD crystals. Near 160 K, τ −1 from the T 2 terms corresponds to the Planckian value.
A parabolic solar collector for harnessing solar energy in Bucaramanga, Colombia

In this work, a solar energy collection system based on a parabolic solar collector adjusted to the conditions and availability of energy was designed to examine this type of collection device and evaluate the energy potential when installed in an educational institution. To do this, data from the historical series of solar radiation compiled by the POWER project (Prediction of Worldwide Energy Resources) were analyzed and compared with data from the Institute of Hydrology, Meteorology and Environmental Studies in Colombia (IDEAM).
Change in the motivation pattern of adolescents before and after participation in a multidisciplinary health promotion program

Introduction: there is evidence that multidisciplinary interventions are an efficient approach to achieving weight loss and other health-related goals. However, dropout rates of these programs are high among adolescents. The suggestion is that understanding the motivation of individuals to participate in these projects is fundamental to developing strategies for permanence and, consequently, promoting better results. Objective: the main aim of this study was to describe the motivations of overweight adolescents participating in a multidisciplinary health promotion project. Methods: this qualitative study was conducted from March to July 2021 using the Bardin content analysis technique. The tool used for data collection was the semi-structured interview, analyzed means by the software QSR NVivo 11 by grouping the speech into clusters. These, in turn, were evaluated in three categories: (1) motivation, (2) food, and (3) physical exercise. Results: the age of the participants was 13.8 ± 2.4 years old, with body mass index of 31.8 ± 8.5 kg/m². Regarding family income, 41.66% had a monthly payment of 3 to 6 minimum wages. Regarding parents’ educational level, 70.83% of mothers had completed higher education, while 29.16% had completed high school. According to the respondent’s answers, weight loss was the greatest motivation to participate in a multidisciplinary obesity treatment program. In category 2, it was observed that adolescents associated the act of eating with feelings such as anxiety and nervousness. In category 3, the impact of the pandemic was found under the modalities of physical exercise practiced. Conclusion: the results describe the motivation of overweight adolescents to participate in a multidisciplinary program, in addition to elucidating participants’ perception of their health and related habits, strategies for health promotion, and consequent improvement of the quality of life of these individuals.
Characterization of the Complete Mitochondrial Genome and Phylogenetic Analyses of Eurytrema coelomaticum (Trematoda: Dicrocoeliidae)

Eurytrema coelomaticum, a pancreatic fluke, is recognized as a causative agent of substantial economic losses in ruminants. This infection, commonly referred to as eurytrematosis, is a significant concern due to its detrimental impact on livestock production. However, there is a paucity of knowledge regarding the mitochondrial genome of E. coelomaticum. In this study, we performed the initial sequencing of the complete mitochondrial genome of E. coelomaticum. Our findings unveiled that the mitochondrial genome of E. coelomaticum spans a length of 15,831 bp and consists of 12 protein-coding genes, 22 tRNA genes, two rRNA genes, and two noncoding regions. The A+T content constituted 62.49% of the genome. Moreover, all 12 protein-coding genes of E. coelomaticum exhibit the same arrangement as those of E. pancreaticum and other published species belonging to the family Dicrocoeliidae. The presence of a short string of additional amino acids (approximately 20~23 aa) at the N-terminal of the cox1 protein in both E. coelomaticum and E. pancreaticum mitochondrial genomes has contributed to the elongation of the cox1 gene in genus Eurytrema, surpassing that of all previously sequenced Dicrocoeliidae. The phylogenetic analysis displayed a close relationship between E. coelomaticum and E. pancreaticum, along with a genus-level association between Eurytrema and Lyperosomum. These findings underscore the importance of mitochondrial genomic data for comparative studies of Dicrocoeliidae and even Digenea, offering valuable DNA markers for future investigations in the systematic, epidemiological, and population genetic studies of this parasite and other digenean trematodes.
DISCOVERING UTILIZATION PATTERNS IN AN ONLINE K-12 TEACHER PROFESSIONAL?N DEVELOPMENT PLATFORM: Clustering and Data Visualization Methods

Teachers have many options for continuing education and professional development. Online platforms are one option that can provide 24/7 access to professional development resources and communities for practice and support. By examining how teachers use these sites, we can offer suggestions for improvement and continued engagement. This paper describes an analysis of utilization patterns of instructional resources and site features in one online professional development platform for K-12 teachers in the state of Missouri in the United States. A clustering algorithm was applied to a large dataset of web analytics records to find patterns of use of professional development materials and site features. Prominent patterns suggest that teachers seek concrete video examples of teaching strategies and examples of units of instruction, and school administrators review teachers’ journals and perform administrative site functions. Teachers who are new visitors use the journal tool for initial reflection activities, but they do not access the journal tool in the future. Small patterns provide additional knowledge about the most utilized resources and the issue of referrer spam.
Advanced signal processing for pulse-amplitude modulation optical transmission systems

[ES] Los sistemas de transmision optica no-coherente se emplean actualmente en las redes opticas de corto alcance (< 80 km), como son las redes de ambito metropolitano. La implementacion mas comun en el estado del arte se basa en sistemas que emplean multiplexacion por division en longitud de onda (WDM, wavelength division multiplexing) de cuatro longitudes de onda (? ) proporcionando un regimen binario de 100 Gbps (4? ×25 Gbps). En los ultimos anos, los sistemas de transmision opticos no-coherentes estan evolucionando desde 100 Gbps a 400 Gbps (4? ×100 Gbps). Dado que este mercado comprende un gran numero de sistemas, el coste es un parametro importante que debe ser lo mas bajo posible. El objetivo de esta tesis es investigar distintos aspectos del procesado de senal en general y, especificamente, investigar nuevas tecnicas de procesado digital de senal (DSP, digital signal processing) que puedan ser utilizadas en sistemas de transmision optica no-coherentes empleando la modulacion por amplitud de pulsos (PAM, pulse-amplitude modulation). Para que una tecnica DSP sea interesante en el contexto de una red optica WDM no-coherente, esta debe mitigar de manera efectiva al menos una de las tres limitaciones principales que afectan a estos sistemas: limitaciones de ancho de banda, limitaciones por dispersion cromatica (CD), y el ruido. En esta tesis se proponen y examinan una serie de algoritmos cuyo su rendimiento es analizado mediante simulacion y experimentalmente en laboratorio: - Feed-forward equalizer (FFE): este es el esquema de ecualizacion mas comun que se emplea principalmente en las transmisiones opticas no-coherentes de alto regimen binario. Puede compensar grandes limitaciones en el ancho de banda. - Estimacion de la secuencia de maxima verosimilitud (MLSE): el MLSE es un detector optimo y, por lo tanto, proporciona las mejores prestaciones en deteccion cuando se abordan las limitaciones por CD y de ancho de banda. - Conformacion geometrica de la constelacion: en los esquemas de modulacion de intensidad optica multinivel, la distancia entre los niveles de amplitud puede ajustarse adecuadamente (de manera que no son equidistantes) a fin de aumentar la tolerancia de la senal frente al ruido. - Conformacion probabilistica: tecnica disenada especificamente para esquemas de modulacion multinivel. Esta tecnica ajusta la probabilidad de cada nivel de amplitud de modo que se incrementa la tolerancia al ruido optico. - Senalizacion de respuesta parcial (PRS, partial signaling response): este es un enfoque basado en DSP donde una interferencia entre simbolos (ISI, inter-symbol interference) controlada es introducida intencionalmente de tal manera que la senal resultante requiere menos ancho de banda. La tecnica PRS puede adaptarse para combatir tambien el efecto de CD. - Pre-enfasis digital (DPE, digital pre-emphasis): esta tecnica consiste en aplicar el inverso de la funcion de transferencia del sistema a la senal en el transmisor, lo que reduce el impacto de las limitaciones de ancho de banda en el receptor. -…
N-Terminal Pro-Brain Natriuretic Peptide in Post Cardiac Surgery as a Predictor of Ventilator-Weaning Outcomes

Purpose: An increase of NT-proBNP has been proved to be a predictor for ventilator weaning failure in several medical conditions. However, relation between NT-proBNP and ventilator-weaning outcomes after cardiac surgery has not yet been elucidated. This study was to investigate relationship between blood NT-proBNP and ventilatorweaning outcomes. Methods: A prospective analytical study was at Cardiovascular-thoracic intensive care unit. Cardiac-surgery patients (age 18-80 Y, consented and without exclusion criteria) were included. Blood NT-proBNP was sampling at pre-operation time and at weaning. Early-weaning outcomes were categorized into simple, difficult, and prolong weaning. Late-weaning outcomes were reintubation and suspicious cardiopulmonary compensations. Blood NT-proBNPs were compared among/between early and late-weaning outcomes. Area under the curve and sensitivity/specificity at various cut-off values for poor weaning outcomes were analyzed. Results: A final of 134 patients were analyzed. The mean NT-proBNPs (pre-operation and weaning) were 1,417.8 and 4,532.5 pg/ml, respectively. wide variations of NT-proBNPs were observed. NT-proBNPs were not significantly related to difficult, prolong, and reintubation; but significantly related to suspicious cardiopulmonary compensations. AUC range were 0.43-0.65. Conclusions: NT-proBNP increased 4-5-fold after cardiac surgery. A significant increase was related to sympathetic activation, not weaning-induced LV load. Due to low sensitivity, NT-proBNPs were not good predictors for difficult or prolong weaning and reintubation in post cardiac surgery.
Estimated glucose disposal rate and risk of arterial stiffness and long-term all-mortality: a 10-year prospective study

Background To assess the applicability of the association between estimated glucose disposal rate (eGDR) and all-cause mortality in the elderly population, and the mediating role of brachial-ankle pulse wave velocity (baPWV). Methods This was a follow-up cohort study based on the cross-sectional survey of community-dwelling elderly. All participants in the study were included between September 2009 and June 2010, and the follow-up time was December 2020. Participants included 1862 Chinese community-dwelling elderly aged 60 years and above. Insulin resistance assessed by eGDR and arterial stiffness assessed by baPWV were the primary exposures of interest. Mortality, which was followed up until December 2020, was the primary outcome. Cox proportional hazards regression models were used to estimate the association of eGDR with mortality. The mediating effect of baPWV in this association was assessed by mediation analysis. Results A total of 1826 participants with a mean age of 71.03 years old were included in the study. During the median follow-up of 10.75 years, 334 participants died. The adjusted HR comparing the highest versus the lowest eGDR quartile was 0.22 (95% CI 0.09 to 0.54; p<0.001) in the Cox proportional hazards model. The results of mediation analysis showed that baPWV had a significant mediation impact on the link between eGDR and all-cause mortality both as continuous or categorical variables. Conclusion eGDR is an independent predictor of all-cause mortality in the elderly population. baPWV partially mediated the association of eGDR and long-term all-cause mortality as a mediator factor.
Predicting Carbon Stocks Following Reforestation of Pastures: A Sampling Scenario‐Based Approach for Testing the Utility of Field‐Measured and Remotely Derived Variables

Reforestation of agricultural lands is an important means of restoring land and sequestering carbon (C). At large scales, the labour and costs of direct measurement of ecosystem responses can be prohibitive, making the development of models valuable. Here, we develop a new sampling scenario‐based modelling approach coupled with Bayesian model averaging to build predictive models for absolute values in mixed‐species woody plantings and differences from their adjacent pasture, for litter stocks, soil C stocks and soil C:N ratios. Modelling scenarios of increasing data availability and effort were tested. These included variables that could be derived without a site visit (e.g. location, climate and management) that were sampled in the adjacent pasture (e.g. soil C and nutrients) or were sampled in the environmental planting (e.g. vegetation, litter properties, soil C and nutrients). The predictive power of models varied considerably among C variables (litter stocks, soil C stocks and soil C:N ratios in tree plantings and their differences to their adjacent pastures) and the model scenarios used. The use of a sampling scenario‐based approach to building predictive models shows promise for monitoring changes in tree plantings, following reforestation. The approach could also be readily adapted to other contexts where sampling effort for predictor variables in models is a major potential limitation to model utilization. This study demonstrates the benefit of exploring scenarios of data availability during modelling and will be especially valuable where the sampling effort differs greatly among variables. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Optimized Hybrid Model for Enhanced Parkinson’s Disease Classification Using Feature Fused Voice Signal

- Parkinson’s Disease (PD) is a common neuro disorder that leads to reduced nerve function in the brain as a result of decreased dopamine generation. The disease is progressive, and patients may have difficulty speaking, resulting in speech variations. Hence, it is essential to detect the disease at an early stage, and through proper diagnosis, the effect of Parkinson’s Disease can be controlled. This work aims to detect and classify PD based on a vocal feature set using a hybrid CNN-ALSTM model. The model is trained with Spectral, Acoustic, and Mel-Spectrogram features obtained from denoised voice signals. This proposed work involves four phases. In the first phase, voice signals are extracted from the voice input data, and de-noising is done using Improved Optimized Variational Mode Decomposition (IO-VMD). In the second phase, the Mel-Spectrograms are generated from the pre-processed data, where deep features are extracted and trained using Custom CNN, EfficientNetB0, and Inceptionv3 models. In the third phase, a metaheuristic Squirrel Search Water cycle Algorithm (SSWA) is applied to the feature vectors, where SSWA is used for feature selection and hyper parameter tuning. Finally, the spectral and acoustic features extracted from voice signals are concatenated with the mel spectrogram feature vectors, trained, and classified using the Attention based Long Short Term Memory (ALSTM) model. A comparative analysis of models like CNN-ALSTM, Inceptionv3-ALSTM, and EfficientNetB0-ALSTM is carried out to classify PD. From the result analysis, the SSWA algorithm with a proposed hybrid EfficientNetB0-ALSTM model achieves an accuracy of 96.8% and performs better than the other models.
Bacterial Virus Forcing of Bacterial O-Antigen Shields: Lessons from Coliphages

In most Gram-negative bacteria, outer membrane (OM) lipopolysaccharide (LPS) molecules carry long polysaccharide chains known as the O antigens or O polysaccharides (OPS). The OPS structure varies highly from strain to strain, with more than 188 O serotypes described in E. coli. Although many bacteriophages recognize OPS as their primary receptors, these molecules can also screen OM proteins and other OM surface receptors from direct interaction with phage receptor-binding proteins (RBP). In this review, I analyze the body of evidence indicating that most of the E. coli OPS types robustly shield cells completely, preventing phage access to the OM surface. This shield not only blocks virulent phages but also restricts the acquisition of prophages. The available data suggest that OPS-mediated OM shielding is not merely one of many mechanisms of bacterial resistance to phages. Rather, it is an omnipresent factor significantly affecting the ecology, phage–host co-evolution and other related processes in E. coli and probably in many other species of Gram-negative bacteria. The phages, in turn, evolved multiple mechanisms to break through the OPS layer. These mechanisms rely on the phage RBPs recognizing the OPS or on using alternative receptors exposed above the OPS layer. The data allow one to forward the interpretation that, regardless of the type of receptors used, primary receptor recognition is always followed by the generation of a mechanical force driving the phage tail through the OPS layer. This force may be created by molecular motors of enzymatically active tail spikes or by virion structural re-arrangements at the moment of infection.
Does Debt Influence Earnings Management in Going Private Transactions in Brazil?

This paper aimed to analyze the influence of debt in earnings management of non-financial companies that were listed on the Brazilian capital market and went private by stock repurchase between 2002 and 2020. The companies that went private were matched by size and sector of activity with those that remained on the stock exchange market in the year prior to the offer announcement. Earnings management was estimated using discretionary accruals and debt was measured by Debt-to-Equity ratio and Total Debt ratio. The results suggest that companies that went public by repurchasing shares tend present negative earnings management. Also, it was found negative and significant relationship between earnings management and Debt-to-Equity ratio and company size. It is understood that the intensification of the monitoring of the managers' actions, mainly due to the publicity of the process implies the restriction of discretionary practices.
Carbon Dioxide (CO2) Dietary Emissions Are Related to Oxidative and Inflammatory Status in Adult Population

Background: Carbon dioxide (CO2) is a primary greenhouse gas (GHG) causing global temperature to rise. Unsustainable diets induce an increment in the risk of obesity and noncommunicable diseases but also contribute to the global GSG burden. Objective: To assess whether CO2 dietary emissions influence the inflammatory and oxidative status of subjects with metabolic syndrome (MetS). Methods: As part of the PREDIMED-Plus study, 100 adults (55–75 years old) from the Balearic Islands, Spain, were recruited and classified according to their dietary CO2 emissions. Anthropometric parameters were determined, fasting blood samples were collected and plasma, neutrophils, and peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) were obtained. Dietary inflammatory index (DII), adherence to a Mediterranean diet (ADM), fatty liver index (FLI), and estimated glomerular filtration (eGFR) were calculated. Clinical biochemical parameters, blood count, and oxidative stress and inflammatory biomarker levels were also determined. Results: DII was higher in participants with high dietary CO2 emissions. Adherence to the MedDiet was inversely associated with CO2 emissions. Malondialdehyde (MDA) levels were higher in urine and plasma samples from subjects with high dietary CO2 emissions. Reactive oxygen species (ROS) production by PBMCs was greater in participants with high CO2 emissions. Interleukin-15, resistin, and leptin plasma levels were increased in participants with high dietary CO2 emissions. Conclusion: Dietary CO2 emissions influence oxidative status and inflammation in relation to the increased prooxidative and proinflammatory status in PBMCs and plasma. These biomarkers were useful for monitoring diet sustainability and health.
The use of a transport simulation system (AIMSUN) to determine the environmental effects of pedestrianization and traffic management in the center of Thessaloniki

Traffic congestion in urban areas results in increased energy consumption and vehicle emissions. Traffic management that alleviates traffic congestion also mitigates the environmental effects of vehicular traffic. This study uses the transport simulation model AIMSUN to evaluate the environmental effect of a set of traffic management and pedestrianization schemes. The effects of the pedestrianization of specific sections of roads, converting two-way roads into one-way roads for traffic and changing the direction of flow of traffic along one-way roads were simulated for different areas of Thessaloniki’s city centre network. The assessment of the environmental effect was done by determining the predicted fuel consumption and emissions of greenhouse gases (GHG) and air pollutants. Fuel consumption and the environmental indicators were quantified directly using the fuel consumption and emissions model in AIMSUN. A typical weekday morning peak period, between 09:00am–10:00am, was simulated and the demand data obtained using a macroscopic traffic assignment model previously developed for the wider area of Thessaloniki. The results presented in this paper are for network-wide simulation statistics (i.e. fuel consumed, carbon dioxide (CO2), nitrogen oxides (NOx) and particulate matter (PM)).