Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Facial Recognition System to Detect Student Emotions and Cheating in Distance Learning

Distance learning has spread nowadays on a large scale across the world, which has led to many challenges in education such as invigilation and learning coordination. These challenges have attracted the attention of many researchers aiming at providing high quality and credibility monitoring of students. Distance learning has offered an effective education alternative to traditional learning in higher education. The lecturers in universities face difficulties in understanding students’ emotions and abnormal behaviors during educational sessions and e-exams. The purpose of this study is to use computer vision algorithms and deep learning algorithms to develop a new system that supports lecturers in monitoring and managing students during online learning sessions and e-exams. To achieve the proposed objective, the system employs software methods, computer vision algorithms, and deep learning algorithms. Semi-structural interviews were also used as feedback to enhance the system. The findings showed that the system achieved high accuracy for student identification in real time, student follow-up during the online session, and cheating detection. Future work can focus on developing additional tools to assist students with special needs and speech recognition to improve the follow-up facial recognition system’s ability to detect cheating during e-exams in distance learning.
Enhanced Hemolytic Activity of Mesophilic Aeromonas salmonicida SRW-OG1 Is Brought about by Elevated Temperatures

Aeromonas salmonicida is a well-known cold-water pathogenic bacterium. Previously, we reported the first isolation of pathogenic A. salmonicida from diseased Epinephelus coioides, a kind of warm-water fish, and it was proved to be a putative mesophilic strain with potent pathogenicity to humans. In order to investigate the mechanisms underlying mesophilic growth ability and virulence, the transcriptome of A. salmonicida SRW-OG1 at 18, 28, and 37 °C was analyzed. The transcriptome of A. salmonicida SRW-OG1 at different temperatures showed a clear separation boundary, which might provide valuable information for the temperature adaptation and virulence regulation of A. salmonicida SRW-OG1. Interestingly, aerA and hlyA, the hemolytic genes encoding aerolysin and hemolysin, were found to be significantly up-regulated at 28 and 37 °C. Since aerolysin and hemolysin are the most well-known and -characterized virulence factors of pathogenic Aeromonas strains, the induction of aerA and hlyA was associated with the mesophilic virulence. Further study proved that the extracellular products (ECPs) purchased from A. salmonicida SRW-OG1 cultured at 28 and 37 °C showed elevated hemolytic activity and virulence than those at 18 °C. Moreover, the silence of aerA and hlyA led to significantly decreased hemolysis and virulence. Taken together, our results revealed that the mesophilic virulence of A. salmonicida SRW-OG1 might be due to the enhanced expression of aerA and hlyA induced by elevated temperatures.
Dynamic Regulation of Mitochondrial [Ca2+] in Hippocampal Neurons

While neuronal mitochondria have been studied extensively in their role in health and disease, the rules that govern calcium regulation in mitochondria remain somewhat vague. In the present study using cultured rat hippocampal neurons transfected with the mtRCaMP mitochondrial calcium sensor, we investigated the effects of cytosolic calcium surges on the dynamics of mitochondrial calcium ([Ca2+]m). Cytosolic calcium ([Ca2+]c) was measured using the high affinity sensor Fluo-2. We recorded two types of calcium events: local and global ones. Local events were limited to a small, 2–5 µm section of the dendrite, presumably caused by local synaptic activity, while global events were associated with network bursts and extended throughout the imaged dendrite. In both cases, cytosolic surges were followed by a delayed rise in [Ca2+]m. In global events, the rise lasted longer and was observed in all mitochondrial clusters. At the end of the descending part of the global event, [Ca2+]m was still high. Global events were accompanied by short and rather high [Ca2+]m surges which we called spikelets, and were present until the complete decay of the cytosolic event. In the case of local events, selective short-term responses were limited to the part of the mitochondrial cluster that was located directly in the center of [Ca2+]c activity, and faded quickly, while responses in the neighboring regions were rarely observed. Caffeine (which recruits ryanodine receptors to supply calcium to the mitochondria), and carbonyl cyanide m-chlorophenyl hydrazine (CCCP, a mitochondrial uncoupler) could affect [Ca2+]m in both global and local events. We constructed a computational model to simulate the fundamental role of mitochondria in restricting calcium signals within a narrow range under synapses, preventing diffusion into adjacent regions of the dendrite. Our results indicate that local cytoplasmic and mitochondrial calcium concentrations are highly correlated. This reflects a key role of signaling pathways that connect the postsynaptic membrane to local mitochondrial clusters.
Holomorphic spinor observables and interfaces in the critical ising model

We generalize Smirnov's discrete holomorphic observables in the critical Ising model to the case of multiply connected domains. Our observables are spinors, that is, they are multiplicatively multi-valued with monodromy -1. We prove their convergence to conformally covariant scaling limits as the mesh size tends to zero. As applications, we get partial results towards the proof of conformal invariance of the spin correlations, and develop a fairly general theory of scaling limits of multiple Ising interfaces in multiply connected domains.
Preclinical and Clinical Research Models of Prostate Cancer: A Brief Overview

The incidence and mortality from prostate cancer (PCa) are on the rise which poses a major public health concern worldwide. In this narrative review, we have summarized the characteristics of major in vitro and in vivo PCa models including their utility in developing treatment strategies. Androgens, particularly, testosterone and dihydrotestosterone (DHT) activate the androgen receptor (AR) signaling pathway that facilitates the development and progression of castration resistant PCa. Several enzymes namely, CYP17A1, HSD17B, and SRD5A are essential to furnishing DHT from dehydroepiandrosterone in the classical pathway while DHT is formed from androstanediol in the backdoor pathway. The advancement in delineating the molecular heterogeneity of PCa has been possible through the development of several in vitro and in vivo research models. Generally, tissue culture models are advantageous to understand PCa biology and investigate the efficacy and toxicity of novel agents; nevertheless, animal models are indispensable to studying the PCa etiology and treatment since they can simulate the tumor microenvironment that plays a central role in initiation and progression of the disease. Moreover, the availability of several genetically engineered mouse models has made it possible to study the metastasis process. However, the conventional models are not devoid of limitations. For example, the lack of heterogeneity in tissue culture models and the variation of metastatic characteristics in xenograft models are obviously challenging. Additionally, due to the racial and ethnic disparities in PCa pathophysiology, a new model that can represent PCa encompassing different ethnicities is urgently needed. New models should continue to evolve to address the genetic and molecular complexities as well as to further elucidate the finer details of the steroidogenic pathway associated with PCa.
Why embrace a double-edged sword? A behavioral theory of board political capital building

Firm political connections are widely recognized to have both positive and negative implications, but why do firms build political connections in the first place? Distinct from prior research that typically views firm political connections as capital stock, we focus on board political capital building—selecting new directors with political backgrounds—as a strategic decision. Drawing on the behavioral theory of the firm, we examine how board political capital building is driven by performance shortfalls based on the logic of problemistic search—seeking the potential benefits of political connections while undertaking the potential downsides. Using director selection data on Chinese listed firms, we find that firms with higher performance shortfalls are more inclined to select new independent directors with political backgrounds. We further demonstrate that it is more feasible for firms with performance shortfalls to build lower-level board political capital but infeasible for them to build upper-level political capital.
Aggression in a western Amazonian colonial spider, Philoponella republicana (Araneae: Uloboridae)

Abstract. Group-living spiders are rare, and can be divided into multiple subcategories based on their tolerance of group mates. While social spiders are cooperative, colonial spiders are often antagonistic towards conspecifics. We examined colony dynamics in a colonial species, Philoponella republicana (Simon, 1891), focusing on aggressive behaviors to further understand this understudied species. We studied whether web region, sex ratio, web size, or spider size affected aggression. We also tested whether colony members discriminate against conspecific intruders, since this behavior, known as group closure, is prevalent in many other group-living animals but had not yet been tested in colonial spiders. Colony mates were often aggressive due to competition for limited resources, such as mates and orb webs, yet several characteristics of this species may reduce these competitive forces. First, female-biased secondary sex ratios appear to reduce male-male and female-male competition. Moreover, although some individuals defended orb webs, other areas in the communal web were not defended. Philoponella republicana also did not exhibit group closure. Our results further confirm that aggression between males decreases in colonies with more female-biased secondary sex ratios, and larger individuals correlate with a higher frequency of aggressive interactions. Moreover, we raise new questions concerning the evolutionary pressures that shape coloniality in spiders.
Avaliação do Engajamento do Usuário em jogos digitais: Comparando dados autorreportados e psicofisiológicos

No campo da Pesquisa de Usuários de Jogos, o engajamento é a consequência de uma interação motivadora entre o usuário e um jogo digital. Medir o engajamento é relevante e útil para todos os tipos de aplicações, mas, em jogos, esse construto é fundamental para entender o comportamento do jogador e mensurar a eficiência do jogo. Devido a relevância deste assunto, vários modelos teóricos e empíricos foram propostos na literatura, desde medições fisiológicas, como o monitoramento das batidas do coração, até métodos autorreportados, como a escala de atitude UES-Br. Portanto, o objetivo deste trabalho é verificar a correlação dos construtos de engajamento dos métodos autorreportados com as medições psicofisiológicas e como um pode complementar o outro. Para conduzir esta pesquisa, estão sendo executadas as seguintes etapas: Revisão da literatura, onde está sendo conduzido um estudo terciário de trabalhos que mapeiam métodos de avaliação de engajamento e bem-estar; Escrita do projeto para o Comitê de Ética, descrevendo os experimentos previstos para avaliação dos métodos de avaliação autorreportados e psicofisiológicos; Aplicação dos experimentos, onde será selecionado uma previamente amostra de participantes para jogar determinados jogos digitais; Por fim, será feita a coleta e análise dos resultados obtidos nos experimentos.
A One-Dimensional Atmospheric Boundary Layer Model: Intermittent Wind Shears and Thermal Stability at Night

Abstract : A one-dimensional, time-dependent computer model of the atmospheric boundary layer was developed to simulate intermittent turbulence and the near-ground microclimate under nighttime stable conditions. In this study, the model produced several turbulent events (oscillations) through the nighttime period that varied in number, frequency, and strength along the axes of initial geostrophic wind speed. These results were found to be in close agreement with results from several previous observational and theoretical studies of this type. It is suggested, therefore, that the one-dimensional computer model is a useful mathematical representation of the nighttime case that includes intermittency.
Febrile Seizures Cause Depression and Anxiogenic Behaviors in Rats

Febrile seizure (FS) is a common type of seizure occurring in human during infancy and childhood. Although an epileptic seizure is associated with psychiatric disorders and comorbid diseases such as depression, anxiety, autism spectrum disorders, sleep disorders, attention deficits, cognitive impairment, and migraine, the causal relationship between FS and psychiatric disorders is poorly understood. The objective of the current study was to investigate the relationship of FS occurrence in childhood with the pathogenesis of anxiety disorder and depression using an FS rat model. We induced febrile seizures in infantile rats (11 days postnatal) using a mercury vapor lamp. At 3 weeks and 12 weeks after FS induction, we examined behaviors and recorded local field potentials (LFPs) to assess anxiety and depression disorder. Interestingly, after FS induction in infantile rats, anxiogenic behaviors and depression-like phenotypes were found in both adult and juvenile FS rats. The analysis of LFPs revealed that 4–7 Hz hippocampal theta rhythm, a neural oscillatory marker for anxiety disorder, was significantly increased in FS rats compared with their wild-type littermates. Taken together, our findings suggest that FS occurrence in infants is causally related to increased levels of anxiety-related behaviors and depression-like symptoms in juvenile and adult rodents.
Inflammation of Pericardial Transverse Sinus Leading to Suspicion of Takayasu Syndrome

Patient: Female, 61-year-old Final Diagnosis: During diagnosis • pericarditis • Takayasu arteritis Symptoms: Chest pain Medication:— Clinical Procedure: — Specialty: Cardiology • Rheumatology Objective: Rare coexistence of disease or pathology Background: The purpose of this case report was to present a rare course of pericarditis starting with transverse sinus inflammation in a patient with recurrent chest pain. Typically, the effusion accumulates along the diaphragmatic surface of the back heart, and other localizations, such as the transverse sinus, are uncommon. The main risk factor for pericarditis in Europe is viral infection. In this uncommon case, we strongly suspected underlying Takayasu syndrome. The positive response to treatment with steroids in pericarditis and Takayasu arteritis may be misleading. Case Report: A 61-year-old woman was admitted to the Cardiology Clinic because of recurrent chest pain in the form of a retrosternal burning pain with radiation to both arms. With the results of laboratory tests, electrocardiogram, and computer tomography (CT), we excluded acute coronary syndrome, pulmonary embolism, and aortic dissection. In chest CT and transthoracic echocardiography (TTE), we found an effusion around the ascending aorta with uncertain inflammation and in the transverse sinus of the pericardium. After typical pericarditis treatment with non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) and afterward with steroids, which is similar to Takayasu syndrome treatment, we observed a significant improvement of the patient’s clinical condition and no recurrence of chest pain. Conclusions: Despite clinical symptoms, laboratory results, and aorta thickening with surrounding inflammation, Takayasu syndrome was excluded by rheumatologists because of the patient’s age. Transverse sinus inflammation is a very rare presentation of pericarditis, but should be considered, especially based on TTE and CT imaging, when other possible causes of retrosternal pain are excluded.
Iterative image reconstruction from the bispectrum

We present iterative least-squares methods for reconstructing diffraction-limited images from the object bispectrum obtained by speckle masking (bispectral analysis) and from other Fourier data. The theory and first astronomical speckle masking applications are described. An approximation of the least-squares integral is derived which makes it possible to calculate easily thousands of iterations with images of 512x512 pixels. Various extensions of the basic method to the simultaneous treatment of many object pixels are dicussed. Finally, applications of modified versions of the method to the Knox-Thompson method, shearing interferometry, deconvolution of aberrated images, optical long-baseline interferometry, radio interferometry (especially, mm- and submm-interferometry) and other methods are discussed
ESTIMATING THE SIZE OF THE 
$(H, G)$
 -COINCIDENCES SET IN REPRESENTATION SPHERES

Abstract Let W be a real vector space and let V be an orthogonal representation of a group G such that $V^{G} = \{0\}$ (for the set of fixed points of G). Let $S(V)$ be the sphere of V and suppose that $f: S(V) \to W$ is a continuous map. We estimate the size of the $(H, G)$ -coincidences set if G is a cyclic group of prime power order $\mathbb {Z}_{p^k}$ or a p-torus $\mathbb {Z}_p^k$ .
Functional Characterization of Heat Shock Factor (CrHsf) Families Provide Comprehensive Insight into the Adaptive Mechanisms of Canavalia rosea (Sw.) DC. to Tropical Coral Islands

Heat shock transcription factors (Hsfs) are key regulators in plant heat stress response, and therefore, they play vital roles in signal transduction pathways in response to environmental stresses, as well as in plant growth and development. Canavalia rosea (Sw.) DC. is an extremophile halophyte with good adaptability to high temperature and salt-drought tolerance, and it can be used as a pioneer species for ecological reconstruction on tropical coral islands. To date, very little is known regarding the functions of Hsfs in the adaptation mechanisms of plant species with specialized habitats, especially in tropical leguminous halophytes. In this study, a genome-wide analysis was performed to identify all the Hsfs in C. rosea based on whole-genome sequencing information. The chromosomal location, protein domain or motif organization, and phylogenetic relationships of 28 CrHsfs were analyzed. Promoter analyses indicated that the expression levels of different CrHsfs were precisely regulated. The expression patterns also revealed clear transcriptional changes among different C. rosea tissues, indicating that the regulation of CrHsf expression varied among organs in a developmental or tissue-specific manner. Furthermore, the expression levels of most CrHsfs in response to environmental conditions or abiotic stresses also implied a possible positive regulatory role of this gene family under abiotic stresses, and suggested roles in adaptation to specialized habitats such as tropical coral islands. In addition, some CrHsfAs were cloned and their possible roles in abiotic stress tolerance were functionally characterized using a yeast expression system. The CrHsfAs significantly enhanced yeast survival under thermal and oxidative stress challenges. Our results contribute to a better understanding of the plant Hsf gene family and provide a basis for further study of CrHsf functions in environmental thermotolerance. Our results also provide valuable information on the evolutionary relationships among CrHsf genes and the functional characteristics of the gene family. These findings are beneficial for further research on the natural ecological adaptability of C. rosea to tropical environments.
Discriminant analysis based feature extraction for pattern recognition

Fisher's linear discriminant analysis (FLDA) has been widely used in pattern recognition applications. However, this method cannot be applied for solving the pattern recognition problems if the within-class scatter matrix is singular, a condition that occurs when the number of the samples is small relative to the dimension of the samples. This problem is commonly known as the small sample size (SSS) problem and many of the FLDA variants proposed in the past to deal with this problem suffer from excessive computational load because of the high dimensionality of patterns or lose some useful discriminant information. This study is concerned with developing efficient techniques for discriminant analysis of patterns while at the same time overcoming the small sample size problem. With this objective in mind, the work of this research is divided into two parts. In part 1, a technique by solving the problem of generalized singular value decomposition (GSVD) through eigen-decomposition is developed for linear discriminant analysis (LDA). The resulting algorithm referred to as modified GSVD-LDA (MGSVD-LDA) algorithm is thus devoid of the singularity problem of the scatter matrices of the traditional LDA methods. A theorem enunciating certain properties of the discriminant subspace derived by the proposed GSVD-based algorithms is established. It is shown that if the samples of a dataset are linearly independent, then the samples belonging to different classes are linearly separable in the derived discriminant subspace; and thus, the proposed MGSVD-LDA algorithm effectively captures the class structure of datasets with linearly independent samples. Inspired by the results of this theorem that essentially establishes a class separability of linearly independent samples in a specific discriminant subspace, in part 2, a new systematic framework for the pattern recognition of linearly independent samples is developed. Within this framework, a discriminant model, in which the samples of the individual classes of the dataset lie on parallel hyperplanes and project to single distinct points of a discriminant subspace of the underlying input space, is shown to exist. Based on this model, a number of algorithms that are devoid of the SSS problem are developed to obtain this discriminant subspace for datasets with linearly independent samples. For the discriminant analysis of datasets for which the samples are not linearly independent, some of the linear algorithms developed in this thesis are also kernelized. Extensive experiments are conducted throughout this investigation in order to demonstrate the validity and effectiveness of the ideas developed in this study. It is shown through simulation results that the linear and nonlinear algorithms for discriminant analysis developed in this thesis provide superior performance in terms of the recognition accuracy and computational complexity
A Review on Gallium Oxide Materials from Solution Processes

Gallium oxide (Ga2O3) materials can be fabricated via various methods or processes. It is often mentioned that it possesses different polymorphs (α-, β-, γ-, δ- and ε-Ga2O3) and excellent physical and chemical properties. The basic properties, crystalline structure, band gap, density of states, and other properties of Ga2O3 will be discussed in this article. This article extensively discusses synthesis of pure Ga2O3, co-doped Ga2O3 and Ga2O3-metal oxide composite and Ga2O3/metal oxide heterostructure nanomaterials via solution-based methods mainly sol-gel, hydrothermal, chemical bath methods, solvothermal, forced hydrolysis, reflux condensation, and electrochemical deposition methods. The influence of the type of precursor solution and the synthesis conditions on the morphology, size, and properties of final products is thoroughly described. Furthermore, the applications of Ga2O3 will be introduced and discussed from these solution processes, such as deep ultraviolet photodetector, gas sensors, pH sensors, photocatalytic and photodegradation, and other applications. In addition, research progress and future outlook are identified.