Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
An Unsupervised Learning Approach for Categorising Research Proposals and Recommending Papers

Research writing can be technical and difficult to understand. Manual assignments of research areas and related faculties can be time-consuming and error-prone. Therefore, the first goal of this project is to build an unsupervised model to classify an unseen project proposal. We explored unsupervised learning methods such as K-means and topic models as well as a combination of Latent Dirichlet Annotation (LDA) and Bidirectional Encoder Representations from Transformers (BERT) and K-means to cluster project proposals into different categories. The second goal is to recommend papers for particular project proposals based on other similar publications. We can assume that the authors of the closest papers can be suitable supervisors for the research project. After investigating different features that can be used as numerical vector representation of documents and apply cosine similarity method to find matching pairs of paper and proposal, the features outputted by TF-IDF show the most accurate results.
Spring wheat yield prediction with empirical regression models using different biomass parameters

Transition to smart agriculture demands tools for non-invasive monitoring of cultivated plants biomass. One of the most widespread and informative biomass indicators is leaf area index (LAI). LICOR 2200C has become de facto standard in modern ecological research for non-invasive LAI estimation. In this paper, on the example of spring wheat crops of the RSAU-MTAA experimental field, the efficiency of yield and biomass parameters prediction using data from AccuPAR LP-80 and LI-COR LAI 2200C was compared. LAI data from both devices obtained at different phenological phases of spring wheat were used as predictor for spring wheat yield models. Comparing the generated models show superiority of AccuPAR LP-80 in yield prediction while LI-COR LAI 2200C shown better result in overall biomass prediction.
Creating Multiclass Bangladeshi Sign Word Language for Deaf and Hard of Hearing People and Recognizing using Deep CNN Techniques

Sign language provides the solution to the communication obstacle for the community of deaf and hard of hearing. This community often faces problems communicating with normal people and among themselves, and sometimes they need an interpreter. But this is problematic and costly. As they are also vital to society, this issue should be solved automatically by recognizing sign language. Computer vision-based sign language recognition (SLR) can mitigate this issue by automatically recognizing sign language. Much research has been done on Bengali Sign language Recognition. Most of them are limited to recognizing Bengali characters and numbers. However, no significant research has been done on Bangladeshi Sign Word Language. This might have happened because of the scarcity of the Bangladeshi Sign Words dataset. In this paper, we have constructed a primary Bangladeshi Sign Language (BdSL) dataset consisting of Bangladeshi sign word images and proposed a Deep Convolutional Neural Network (DCNN) method for recognizing static Bangladeshi sign words. We recognized 11 Bangladeshi daily useful sign words from static images with high accuracy. The proposed deep convolutional neural network model shows an accuracy of 99.12% for the recognition of 11 classes of images of static signs. The model was trained on a dataset size of 1105 images which is constructed from Bangladeshi Sign language users and volunteers. This research work will help to improve the interaction between the D&D community and the general people.
Shadowing Pathologies of Diaphragm Wall Concretes: General Overview

-This paper provides a general overview regarding shadowing pathologies that have been observed on diaphragm walls after excavation. This phenomenon, also termed mattressing by the European Federation of Foundation Contractors and the Deep Foundation Institute, on wall panels, as its name suggests, is the imprint of the reinforcement cage in the concrete block. While some mattressing is not necessarily evaluated as defect, durability issues put at risk the integrity of the structure. In some cases, the steel reinforcing bars are directly exposed to the open air, promoting corrosion phenomena, and thus harming the entire structure. Upon investigating the preliminary findings of the scientific literature, this article has defined the factors that are likely to affect the occurrence of these anomalies. These factors may be divided into three main families: diaphragm wall components, executed techniques during construction, and interactions between the components throughout the different construction stages. Recommendations presented by previous studies are also discussed.
Legislation and Legitimation: Congress and Insider Trading in the 1980s

Orthodox corporate law-and-economics holds that American corporate and securities regulation has evolved inexorably toward economic efficiency. That position is difficult to square with the fact that regulation is the product of government actors and institutions. Indeed, the rational behavior assumptions of law-and-economics suggest that those actors and institutions would tend to place their own self-interest ahead of economic efficiency. This article provides anecdotal evidence of such self-interest at work. Based on an analysis of legislative history - primarily Congressional hearings - this article argues that Congress had little interest in the economic policy effect of insider trading legislation in the 1980s. Rather, those laws were motivated primarily by a desire to legitimate the existing political and economic order. The policy and doctrinal grounds for prohibiting insider trading are unclear. Yet Congress devoted a great amount of attention to increasing the penalties for insider trading in the 1980s. Meanwhile, more serious economic issues went unaddressed. What explains this odd focus? Congress routinely explains corporate and securities legislation as motivated by a need to bolster investor confidence and protect the capital formation process. In the 1980s, legislators argued that insider trading scandals were undermining investor confidence. That argument is unconvincing, however, because those scandals were contemporaneous with unprecedented stock prices. An alternative explanation for the 1980s legislation is that Congress sought political legitimacy: not investor confidence in the markets, but voter confidence in the political-economic system. Our government has a symbiotic relationship with a capitalist system under which the power of business and finance sometimes rivals that of the state. This arrangement is acceptable to most voters during prosperous times, but can undermine the legitimacy of the political-economic system in times of perceived economic crisis. Government crafts its responses to such crises to protect its legitimacy. The process of self-legitimation does not consist merely of responding to exogenous preferences of constituents. It also includes attempts to mold constituents' preferences to be more consistent with the self-interest and problem-solving abilities of Congress.
The Impact of Structured Regular Physical Activity of Individual Motor Skills in School-Aged Children

This research aims to determine the positive impact of regular and structured physical exercise on the development of students' motor skills. The research used was quasi experimental. The sample used in this research was 43 school age children (experimental and control groups). The motor instruments in this study are speed, strength, coordination, and flexibility, which are the seven basic motor abilities of every healthy individual. the collected data were statistically processed in the Microsoft Office Excel 2016. The results obtained in the research were to get an answer to the question whether the experimental group had different anthropological characteristics from the control group respondents in the final measurement compared to the initial measurement, appropriate methods, methods, and workload were applied. By applying the initial and final measurement methods, significant differences were found in the motor skills of children from the experimental group subjects, which basically answered the question about the impact of implementing a structured regular physical activity program on the development of these motor skills. This study has limitations including that the study participants are still in small numbers and researchers cannot fully control because participants are not in quarantine during the experimental program. Contributions to subsequent studies were increasing the number and distribution of participants' locations, providing improved control as a form of intervention during treatment, and adding certain variables.
Machine Translation and Post-editing in AVT: A Pilot Study on a Rising Practice

Machine translation (MT) and post-editing (PE) are still considered, in many sectors, enemies of the creative freedom traditionally associated with the audiovisual genre and its translation. Its growing presence in the market is unheralded due to the widespread rejection by a large part of the professional community. However, it is necessary to study the benefits of their implementation in all areas, from quality to productivity, considering all the parties involved in the process. In order to study the differences between the traditional Audiovisual Translation (AVT) process without tools and the process implemented with MTPE, a pilot study was carried out aimed at comparing the results in the English-Spanish translation of a series of 3-minute news and sports clips with different technical characteristics. The results will allow us to obtain an objective comparative description of both processes in order to better know the strengths and weaknesses of each one.
CatBoost-based Intrusion Detection Method for the Physical Layer of Smart Agriculture

Agriculture holds a pivotal role in the progress of human society. The challenges stemming from a burgeoning population, land degradation, water scarcity, and urbanization have intensified the need for more efficient agricultural production. While smart farming brings significant benefits to farmers and agricultural output, it also introduces complex cybersecurity risks to agricultural production. The security of the physical layer in smart agriculture is intricately tied to crop growth and yield, with indirect implications for the security of the network and application layers. This paper introduces a novel intrusion detection scheme based on CatBoost for the physical layer and evaluates its effectiveness using the publicly available ToN_IOT dataset. In binary classification results, the scheme achieves a remarkable recognition accuracy of 99.94%, along with a precision and recall of 99.88%. In multi-classification results, the scheme outperforms other existing solutions across all metrics. The experimental findings clearly illustrate the exceptional recognition accuracy of this implemented method against physical layer attacks within the domain of smart agriculture. Furthermore, the system’s implementation ensures the security of input data for the smart agriculture network layer, cloud, and blockchain applications.
Operations Research and Decisions

Telecommunication companies have an important role in technology development, so evaluating the performance of these companies has been an interest of managers. This article uses a hybrid method using data envelopment analysis (DEA) and the best-worst method (BWM) to measure the performance of communication companies. The hybrid DEA-BWM method is used for the weight determination and performance assessment of 17 telecommunication contractor firms in the Khorsan Razavi province of Iran. We considered four inputs: gross losses, sales cost, legal reserve, and fixed assets. On the other side, three outputs including operation income, operation profit, and retained earnings are considered as outputs. Considering the input-output parameters and using the hybrid method by seven selected criteria, we rank all contractor firms. We found that the BPM firm has the best performance while and GKS firm is found as the firm with the weakest performance. Compared with the classical DEA methods, we found more reliable results with higher discrimination power, using the hybrid DEA-BWM.
Understanding salinity stress responses in sorghum: exploring genotype variability and salt tolerance mechanisms

Salinity, a significant abiotic stressor, adversely affects global plant growth. To address this, monitoring genetic diversity within a plant species germplasm for salt tolerance traits is vital. This study investigates the responses of ten sorghum genotypes to varying salt stress levels (control, 60 mM NaCl, and 120 mM NaCl), aiming to assess genetic diversity. Using a randomized complete block design with three replications and a split-plot arrangement, salt treatments were assigned to main plots, and genotypes were placed in sub-plots. Physiological attributes, including photosynthetic rate, stomatal conductance, CO2 concentration, leaf area index, chlorophyll concentrations, and antioxidant enzyme activity, were measured during the 50% flowering stage. Fresh forage yield was evaluated at the early dough stage, while dry forage yield and sodium/potassium concentrations were determined post-drying. Salinity induced 10–23% and 21–47% reductions in forage fresh yield at 60 mM and 120 mM NaCl, respectively, across sorghum genotypes. Forage dry yield also declined by 11–33% at 60 mM NaCl and 30–58% at 120 mM NaCl. Increased oxidative stress markers, proline, soluble carbohydrates, and antioxidant enzyme activity accompanied salinity. Genotypes exhibited diverse responses, with Payam showing significant chlorophyll and yield reductions at 60 mM NaCl and notable stress indicators at 120 mM NaCl. Pegah and GS4 demonstrated robust osmoregulation. In stress tolerance indices, Sepideh excelled at 60 mM NaCl, while GS4 outperformed at 120 mM NaCl. Pegah demonstrated high tolerance at 120 mM NaCl. Our findings highlight the importance of combating oxidative stress, managing water-related stress, and maintaining ionic homeostasis for sorghum’s salt stress resilience. Key indicators like K/Na ratio, MDA, MSI, SOD, and proline effectively differentiate between tolerant and sensitive genotypes, offering valuable insights for sorghum breeding. Salt-tolerant sorghum genotypes exhibit stable photosynthesis, improved stomatal function, and membrane integrity through efficient osmotic regulation and robust antioxidant enzyme activity. This capability enables them to sustain performance, minimizing final product loss. The results suggest cultivating salt-tolerant sorghum in saline areas for increased sustainable production, with Pegah and GS4 emerging as promising candidates for further testing in salt-affected environments to obtain reliable yield data.
Rescue subthalamic stimulation after unsatisfactory outcome of pallidal stimulation in Parkinson's disease: a case series and review

Background Subthalamic nucleus (STN) and globus pallidus interna (GPi) are two main structures primarily targeted by deep brain stimulation (DBS) to treat advanced Parkinson's disease (PD). A subset of cases with unsatisfactory outcomes may benefit from rescue DBS surgery targeting another structure, while these patients' characteristics have not been well described and this phenomenon has not been well reviewed. Methods This monocentric retrospective study included patients with PD, who underwent rescue STN DBS following an unsatisfactory outcome of the initial bilateral GPi DBS in a retrospective manner. A short review of the current literature was conducted to report the clinical outcome of rescue DBS surgeries. Results Eight patients were identified, and six of them were included in this study. The rescue STN DBS was performed 19.8 months after the initial GPi DBS. After 8.8 months from the rescue STN DBS, patients showed a significant off-medication improvement by 29.2% in motor symptoms compared to initial GPi DBS. Non-motor symptoms and the health-related quality of life were also significantly improved. Conclusion Our findings suggest that the rescue STN DBS may improve off-medication motor and non-motor symptoms and quality of life in patients with failure of initial GPi DBS. The short review of the current literature showed that the target switching from GPi to STN was mainly due to poor initial outcomes and was performed by target substitution, whereas the switching from STN to GPi was mainly due to a gradual waning of benefits, long-term axial symptoms, dyskinesia, and dystonia and was performed by target addition.
Egocentric Human Activities Recognition With Multimodal Interaction Sensing

Egocentric human activity recognition (ego-HAR) has received attention in fields where human intentions in a video must be estimated. However, the performance of existing methods is limited due to insufficient information about the subject’s motion in egocentric videos. To overcome the problem, we proposed to use two hands’ inertial sensor data as supplements for egocentric videos to do the ego-HAR task. For this purpose, we construct a publicly available dataset, egocentric video, and inertial sensor data kitchen (EvIs-Kitchen), which contains well-synchronized egocentric videos and two-hand inertial sensor data and includes interaction-focus actions as recognition targets. We also designed the optimal choices of input combination and component variants through experiments under two-branch late-fusion architecture. The results show our multimodal setup outperforms any other single-modal methods on EvIs-Kitchen.
Megaflora of the Hell Creek and lower Fort Union Formations in the western Dakotas: Vegetational response to climate change, the Cretaceous-Tertiary boundary event, and rapid marine transgression

The Hell Creek and Fort Union Formations in southwestern North Dakota and northwestern South Dakota have yielded a diverse megaflora of 380 species from 158 quarry sites. These sites are situated in a stratigraphic framework, delimited by palynology, magnetostratigraphy, and vertebrate paleontology, that contains both the Cretaceous-Tertiary (K-T) boundary event horizon and stratigraphic evidence for rapid base-level increase. The late Maastrichtian Hell Creek flora is dominated by angiosperms; ferns, fern allies, cycads, ginkgo, and conifers represent <10% of total taxa and specimens. Megafloral extinction at the K-T boundary is extensive, effectively eliminating all dominant plant taxa of the upper Hell Creek Formation. K-T survivorship appears to be greatest in plants that occupied Cretaceous mire facies. The Hell Creek megaflora is heterogeneous with respect to stratigraphic position and sedimentary facies, allowing the recognition of three superposed megafloral zones and two facies-controlled megafloras. Hell Creek vegetation represents an angiosperm-dominated woodland composed of small- to medium-sized trees, often with lobed leaves. One exception is a diverse angiosperm-dominated herbaceous vegetation associated with large paleochannels in the middle of the formation. The uppermost Hell Creek megaflora zone (HCIII) first occurs near the base of magnetic polarity subchron C29R. The HCIII megaflora is significantly more diverse than earlier Hell Creek floras, and foliar physiognomy suggests a significant climate warming during the final 300-500 k.y. of the Cretaceous. The Paleocene megaflora is depauperate, less heterogeneous than the Cretaceous megaflora, and dominated, in all facies, by taxa that were most common in Cretaceous mire facies.
Age- and length-at-maturity of female arrowtooth flounder(Atheresthes stomias) in the Gulf of Alaska

Arrowtooth flounder (Atheresthes stomias) has had the highest abundance of any groundfish species in the Gulf of Alaska since the 1970s (Matarese et al., 2003; Turnock et al., 2005; Blood et al., 2007); however, commercial catches have been restricted because Pacific halibut (Hippoglossus stenolepis) are caught as bycatch in the fishery. Arrowtooth flounder plays a key role in the ecosystem because it is a dominant organism within the food web, both as an apex predator of fish and invertebrates, as well as an important prey for walleye pollock (Theragra chalcogramma; Aydin et al., 2002). Walleye pollock is the dominant groundfish in the Bering Sea, a principal groundfish in the Gulf of Alaska, and the primary prey for marine mammals. The distribution of arrowtooth flounder extends from Cape Navarin and the eastern Sea of Okhotsk in Russia, across the Bering Sea, Aleutian Islands, Gulf of Alaska, and south to the coast of central California (Shuntov, 1964; Britt and Martin, 2001; Chetvergov, 2001; Weinberg et al., 2002; Zenger, 2004). Because of the importance of arrowtooth flounder in the marine ecosystem of A laska, a maturity study of this species was undertaken to determine age-at-maturity, which is essential for age-based stock management models. Before these results, management has had to rely upon a length-at-maturity-based estimate (Zimmermann, 1997) to manage stocks in the Gulf of Alaska (GOA), Bering Sea, and Aleutian Islands. The central GOA was selected as the location for this maturity study Age- and length-at-maturity of female arrowtooth flounder (Atheresthes stomias) in the Gulf of Alaska because it contains approximately 70% of the total Gulf of Alaska arrowtooth flounder biomass (1.9×106 t, age 3 and older)— the highest percentage in the world (Shuntov, 1964; Britt and Martin, 2001; Weinberg et al., 2002; Wilderbuer and Nichol, 2006).
THE RESEARCH OF DRIVER’S GAZE AT THE TRAFFIC SIGNS

Traffic signs provide drivers with appropriate warnings and information and signal legal requirements and directions. The aim of this article is to research the frequency and duration of a driver’s gaze at traffic signs. The selected stretch of road in the Slovak Republic has been subjected to a high number of traffic accidents with the most common causes reported as incorrect driver behavior and distracted driving. Therefore, the study’s objective is to measure the time drivers spend looking at billboards. To achieve this outcome, the study uses eye tracking glasses, which are designed to record a person’s natural gaze behavior in real-time. Previous research has shown that the average time gazing at a billboard is 0.543 seconds. The article also contains a comparison of driver’s gaze at different traffic signs and billboards. The economic quantification of traffic accidents on the selected road is also included in the article.
Safety of Immunization for Children with Immune Thrombocytopenia

Vaccine hesitancy is a common issue for children with immune thrombocytopenia (ITP) in China. The objective of this paper is to assess the immunization statuses of children with ITP, analyze the possible relationship between immunization and thrombocytopenia, and evaluate the safety of immunization after ITP remission. We included 186 children with an ITP history and followed up with them for two years after receiving re-immunization recommendations. The participants had an overall age-appropriate vaccine coverage of 57.9%. Vaccine-associated thrombocytopenia occurred in 99 (53.2%, 95% CI = 46.06–60.26) children ranging from 0 to 34 days following immunization, with 14 vaccines involved. One hundred and fifty-four (82.3%, 95% CI = 76.72–87.54) children were advised to restart immunization, whereas 32 (17.2%, 95% CI = 12.46–23.28) were advised to postpone partial or full vaccination. Following the follow-up, 150 (80.6%, 95% CI = 74.37–85.68) children completed the catch-up immunization, whereas 27 (14.5%, 95% CI = 10.17–20.30) partially completed it. Four patients with thrombocytopenia relapsed following the re-immunization. Incomplete catch-up immunization was related to the factors of chronic thrombocytopenia, vaccine-associated thrombocytopenia, and the relapse of ITP following re-immunization. ITP may occur after immunization with vaccines other than measles-containing vaccines. Re-immunization in children with ITP generally does not result in a relapse, regardless of whether the previous thrombocytopenia was vaccine-associated.