Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
An ethnographic study of mobile phone users in public places in Nigeria

The use of mobile phone devices in public places in Nigeria was studied in the context of an emerging new culture in the society. The introduction of new technology especially the GSM and the Internet has changed the way people communicate and do things that would have hitherto been impossible. The use of mobile phone for different aspects of the lives of the people has introduced a new culture affecting various aspects of the people’s lives including, communication, shopping, education, banking, gaming, and entertainment. Mobile phones have become part of the dress accessory for most of the user’s especially young people who are over 50% of the population of Nigeria. The concept of this study is to observe and understand how average mobile users in Nigeria respond to the use of their phones in public places in a different scenario. The objective of this research work is to identify and establish the fact of the use of mobile phones in public places in Nigeria describing different situations. Though some unspoken rules guide the use of mobile phones in public places, it has become part of the culture of the people. This research is based on an ethnographic study that uses participant observation in identifying the different ways people use their mobile phones in public places. The conclusion of this paper is to explore our relationships with people in public places while relating to how we use our mobile phones as it gradually becomes an embedded culture.
Comparison of β-glucuronidase expression and anatomical localization in bombarded immature embryos of banana..

To obtain stable expression of a foreign gene, it is important to have optimized conditions for plant genetic transformation. Here, a GUS intron-containing gene driven by CaMV 35S promoter was used to optimize the conditions of biolistic transformation of banana immature embryos and also for the study of GUS localization in the transformed cells. The GUS activity detected histochemically and fluorometrically were further analysed by microscopy. This histological study confirmed the results in the histochemical and fluorometric assay, where highest expression of GUS was achieved when the immature embryos bombarded with the helium pressure of 1350 psi and placed at the target distance of 6 cm. The observation of strong GUS staining in the deep layers of the cell structure were produced by higher acceleration pressure and shorter target distance, whereas weak GUS staining in the plant epidermis layer were observed in most lower acceleration pressure and higher target distance. The study of GUS localization on biolistic transformation provided more reliable parameters for transformation. It may also indicate the locality of the foreign gene expression area in the transgenic plant that can provide more understanding of the nature of transgene and its integration.
PassengerFlows: A Correlation-Based Passenger Estimator in Automated Public Transport

Human mobility information is widely needed by many sectors in smart cities, especially for public transport. This work designs lightweight algorithms to perform <italic>stop detection</italic>, <italic>passenger flow tracking</italic>, and <italic>passenger estimation</italic> in an automated train. The on-board learning and detection algorithms are running on an edge node that is integrated with Wi-Fi sniffing technology, a GPS sensor, and an inertial measurement unit (IMU) sensor. The stop detection algorithm determines if the automated train is static at which train station based on GPS and IMU data. When the train is moving, the <italic>correlations</italic> between statistical properties extracted from Wi-Fi probes and the actual number of passengers change. Therefore, two algorithms, passenger flow tracking and passenger estimation, are designed to analyze passenger mobility. The passenger flow tracking algorithm analyzes the number of incoming and outgoing passengers in the train. The passenger estimation algorithm approximates the number of passengers inside the train based on a multi-dimensional regression model created by statistical properties extracted from different device brands. The designed prototype is deployed in an automated hanging train to conduct real-world experiments. The experimental results indicate that the proposed passenger flow tracking algorithm reduces the average errors of <inline-formula><tex-math notation="LaTeX">$62.5\%$</tex-math></inline-formula> and <inline-formula><tex-math notation="LaTeX">$70\%$</tex-math></inline-formula> compared against two existing clustering algorithms respectively. When the devices’ brands are split for creating a regression model, compared with two counting-based approaches, the proposed passenger estimation algorithm results in lower errors with a mean of 3.15 and a variance of 9.29.
Debugging Inputs

When a program fails to process an input, it need not be the program code that is at fault. It can also be that the input data is faulty, for instance as result of data corruption. To get the data processed, one then has to debug the input data–that is, (1) identify which parts of the input data prevent processing, and (2) recover as much of the (valuable) input data as possible. In this paper, we present a general-purpose algorithm called ddmax that addresses these problems automatically. Through experiments, ddmax maximizes the subset of the input that can still be processed by the program, thus recovering and repairing as much data as possible; the difference between the original failing input and the “maximized” passing input includes all input fragments that could not be processed. To the best of our knowledge, ddmax is the first approach that fixes faults in the input data without requiring program analysis. In our evaluation, ddmax repaired about 69% of input files and recovered about 78% of data within one minute per input.
Cellulose as an efficient matrix for lipase and transaminase immobilization

Immobilization of enzymes is important to improve their stability and to facilitate their recyclability, aiming to make biocatalytic processes more efficient. One of the important aspects is the utilization of cheap, abundant, and environmentally friendly carriers for enzyme immobilization. Here we report the use of functionalized cellulose for lipase and transaminase immobilization. High immobilization efficiencies (up to 90%) could be achieved for the transaminase from Vibrio fluvialis. For immobilized lipase CAL-B as well as the transaminase, good conversions and recyclability could be demonstrated in kinetic resolutions to afford chiral alcohols or amines. Moreover, such application of the immobilized transaminase enabled very high conversions in a continuous-flow process in the asymmetric synthesis of (S)-phenylethylamine (80% conversion, >99% ee).
Overcoming the Sorrows of the Young UDP Options

—A recently proposed extension adds support for options to a UDP datagram creating an options area after the UDP payload. This leverages redundancy between IP payload length and UDP length. The area carries per-message options, encoded in a way that resembles TCP Options. This design is impacted by the way the UDP checksum is processed. We evaluate how implementations calculate the UDP checksum and unveil an underlying level of ossiﬁcation that was silently affecting UDP. We demonstrate a range of schemes that result in a range of pathologies, and reduce the expected success for deployment. We detail the extent of each of the issues discussing their genesis and their implications, and describe an approach to neutralize the most widespread pathology. Our ﬁndings show how this change can overcome the major obstacles to deployment and signiﬁcantly enhances the chances of adoption of the new extension.
Impacts of local planning to competitiveness index change – using approximate initial analysis of the Czech regions

Strategic planning must help to increase the competitiveness of the region. This relation becomes more important at the regional level in recent years. The aim of this article is usage of approximate initial analysis in Czech regions and to analyze the impact of the municipal strategic planning on their competitiveness. The approximate initial analysis uses the free available data from websites of the municipalities and allows doing the initial and fast analyses in some selected fields. Analysis was performed on all Czech regions of NUTS 3 size. The paper demonstrates the methodology of the initial analysis in practice. It compares the results with the index of competitiveness of the regions. The results demonstrate the applicability of this initial analysis in practice the results showed that the present situation is unfavorable and the Czech Republic and most of its regions are falling in evaluation of competitiveness. Key-Words: competitiveness index, economic development, local planning, region, strategic planning
Antifeedant and toxic activity of Adhatoda vasica leaf extract against Spodoptera littoralis (Lep., Noctuidae)

Abstract: The effect of crude methanolic extracts of Adhatoda vasica leaves on the feeding and performance of Spodoptera littoralis larvae was investigated in the laboratory. Feeding on fresh leaves resulted in 100% mortality of larvae after 26 days of unsubstantial growth. The extract exhibited strong antifeedant and toxic activity against the larvae when applied either on leaf discs or incorporated into artificial diet. Under choice conditions the antifeedant index calculated over 72 h for neonate larvae increased significantly (from 71.5 ± 3.2 to 92.1 ± 4.2) as the concentration of extract in the treated diet increased from 200 to 1000 ppm. Consumption by the sixth instar larvae of leaf discs dipped in 0.01, 0.1 and 0.2% extract solutions was significantly lower than consumption of control discs in both choice and no‐choice tests. The latter two concentrations deterred feeding by 63.4 and 90.4%, respectively, under choice conditions, while only the 0.2% extract solution deterred feeding by 56.8% in the no‐choice test. Toxicity of the extracts was manifested by a high mortality, reduced growth rates, and low weight gain by larvae fed on diets containing 200–2000 ppm of the extract. No larvae survived to pupation under the latter concentration. The time to pupation increased from 15.8 ± 0.4 to 37.9 ± 4.1 days as the extract concentration in diet increased from 0 to 1000 ppm. When fed to the fifth instar larvae, the crude extract significantly reduced consumption, growth, utilization of ingested and digested food, and approximate digestibility. The consumption‐dependent growth efficiency of animals fed on extract‐free diet was significantly higher than the growth efficiency of animals fed on extract‐containing diets, suggesting both antifeedant and toxic activities of the extract.
Evaluation of the importance of bacteria in vertical flow microcosms using streptomycin sulfate as the bactericide

The importance of bacteria in microbial communities of vertical flow microcosms was investigated using streptomycin sulfate as the bactericide. The bacterial loss reduced significantly total carbon, nitrogen and phosphorus contents enriched in substrate microorganisms (P 0.05). In addition, the bacterial loss reduced the microbial utilization of both amines/amides and amino acid groups in Ecoplates (P 0.05). Meanwhile, a decreased removal of NH4+–N or NO3––N in wastewater due to the bacterial loss was observed as well (P < 0.05). The current studyhighlighted the importance of bacteria in both transformations and removals of nitrogen compounds in constructed wetlands. Key words: Constructed wetland, Streptomycin application, microbial biomass, metabolic patterns, pollutant removals
Phytoplankton and Macrophyte Response to Increased Phosphorus Availability Enhanced by Rainfall Quantity

Abstract Rainfall patterns are becoming more extreme in the northeastern US and are expected to intensify with an increase in extreme precipitation events and a greater frequency of short-term drought. In Northwest Bay, an undeveloped, primarily forested sub-watershed of Lake George, NY, stream discharge and phosphorus loading in 2006 exceeded that of 2007 by more than 3-fold due to unusually heavy rainfall in 2006 and below average rainfall in 2007. The additional phosphorus loading to the open water positively influenced chlorophyll concentrations in 2006, while porewater soluble phosphorus significantly correlated to precipitation in both 2006 and 2007. The elevated porewater concentrations in early summer of 2006 provided a nutrient advantage that resulted in tissue phosphorus in 3 macrophyte species to more than double while no change in nitrogen or carbon was detected. It is believed that the heavy late spring/early summer rainfall in 2006 saturated soils creating additional stormwater run-off and increasing groundwater seepage that supplied ample phosphorus resulting in enhanced phytoplankton biomass and macrophyte uptake of phosphorus.
Simulation of a closed low-pressure honeycomb adsorber for thermal energy storage

The efficient implementation of renewable energy sources necessitates thermal energy storages. For domestic as well as industrial applications thermal energy storages based on closed adsorption are studied. Against this background, a closed low-pressure honeycomb adsorber is numerically examined in this work. The examined adsorber contains stacked layers of honeycomb blocks with rectangular channels which are separated by heat exchanger plates. Zeolite 13X and water is assumed as the adsorption pair. The focus of this work is solely on the adsorption process. The numerical model applies an one-dimensional model for the single channels of the honeycomb blocks. The one-dimensional model has been presented in a previous work of the authors. To account for transversal heat conduction in the honeycomb cross-section, the one-dimensional model equations are extended by heat source/sink terms. In addition, the mass transport equation is modified for rectangular channel flow. The results demonstrate that the heat and mass transfer and the adsorption processes are strongly coupled and can be only understood by their interaction. Regarding modelling aspects, it is found that the spatial variations of temperature and pressure as well as the local deviation from adsorption equilibrium are significant. Hence, no equilibrium assumptions should be made. Further, the minor rarefaction effect of slip should be considered. With respect to the application, the analysis yields that the thermal power can be optimized by variation of the honeycomb geometry parameters, e. g. channel size. The local optimum is a result of the inverse dependencies of the external and internal mass transfer resistance on the channel size. Interestingly, the optimum for peak and mean power do not coincide in general. Finally, it is found that the thermal power can be controlled effectively by the inlet pressure.
Controllable Functional Layer and Temperature-Dependent Characteristic in Niobium Oxide Insulator–Metal Transition Selector

The niobium oxide insulator–metal transition selector device is considered to be a rectifying device with great potential. However, the lack of research on the experimental parameters and the complex physical mechanism of the NbO<sub>2</sub> device seriously affected its development. In this article, a controllable intermediate functional layer of NbO<sub><italic>x</italic></sub> was reported in the Pt/NbO<sub><italic>x</italic></sub>/TiN device subjected to different forming compliance currents (FCCs) and compliance currents (CCs). The different FCCs and CCs changed the size of the Nb<sub>2</sub>O<sub>5</sub> and NbO<sub>2</sub> layers within the NbO<sub><italic>x</italic></sub> layer, which further affected the threshold voltage. The result helped to realize the control of the NbO<sub><italic>x</italic></sub> functional layer, which was also of great significance for the adjustment of the experimental parameters in the preparation experiment according to the required performance. Furthermore, the <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">${I}-{V}$ </tex-math></inline-formula> characteristics and switching times at different ambient temperatures were carried out, showing the specific dependency of the device on temperature. Between them, the simulated switching time of 2 ns at room temperature proved that the selector had a great application prospect in high speed and high-density storage or logic switch. Generally, the whole research helped to improve the control of the interlayer structure and the performance of the device for application in 3-D crossbar arrays, and provided a valid model to study the device.
Check-In: In-Storage Checkpointing for Key-Value Store System Leveraging Flash-Based SSDs

Persistent key-value store supports journaling and checkpointing to maintain data consistency and to prevent data loss. However, conventional data consistency mechanisms are not suitable for efficient management of flash memories in SSDs due to that they write the same data twice and induce redundant flash operations. As a result, query processing is delayed by heavy traffics during checkpointing. The checkpointing accompanies many write operations by nature, and a write operation consumes severe time and energy in SSDs; worse, it can introduce the write amplification problem and shorten the lifetime of the flash memory. In this paper, we propose an in-storage checkpointing mechanism, named Check-In, based on the cooperation between the storage engine of a host and the flash translation layer (FTL) of an SSD. Compared to the existing mechanism, our proposed mechanism reduces the tail latency due to checkpointing by 92.1 % and reduces the number of duplicate writes by 94.3 %. Overall, the average throughput and latency are improved by 8.1 % and 10.2 %, respectively.
A rapid in vivo shikimate accumulation assay with excised leaf discs

Abstract An in vivo shikimate accumulation assay with excised leaf tissue was developed to provide a fast and reliable method for identifying glyphosate-resistant plants. The assay is based on glyphosate-induced accumulation of shikimate. There was a linear accumulation of shikimate in excised leaf discs of soybean and canola treated with 250 μM glyphosate for 48 h. The IC50 for the accumulation of shikimate in soybean and corn leaf discs was 34 and 87 μM, respectively. Leaf discs excised from glyphosate-resistant corn or soybean did not accumulate shikimate when treated with 500 μM glyphosate. Leaf discs taken from a number of field-grown plants accumulated shikimate in a glyphosate dose–dependent manner. The accumulation of shikimate was dependent on light and the age of the leaf from which the disc was taken. The assay worked either in 96-well microtiter plates or in vials, and it clearly differentiated between glyphosate-resistant and -susceptible crops in which the resistance is due to an alteration of the target site for glyphosate. The assay was simple and robust and has the potential to be used as a high throughput assay to detect glyphosate resistance in weeds. Nomenclature: Glyphosate; canola, Brassica napus L. ‘Hayola 420’; corn, Zea mays L. ‘Pioneer 37M34’, ‘Dekalb DK493RR/BTY’; soybean, Glycine max (L.) Merr. , ‘Asgrow A2869’, ‘Asgrow AG3003’.
Effect of Helfer skin tap technique and expressed breast milk on response to pain among neonates during intramuscular injection

Background: The aim of the study was to examine the effect of Helfer skin tap technique and expressed breast milk on response to pain among neonates during intramuscular injection of injection Vitamin K. Design: Prospective randomized controlled trial. Sample: 60 neonates for injection vitamin K after birth [20 in each group. Control group (G1), experimental group Helfer technique (G2), EBM (G3)]. Material & Methods: Sixty term neonates were enrolled for this study. The inclusion criteria were gestational age 37-40 weeks, birth weight 2.5-4 Kg, APGAR score more than 7 at 1 minute. The enrolled neonates were randomized into control group (G1) and two intervention groupsHeifer technique group (G2), EBM (G3). During intramuscular injection procedure was video graphed and pain score, Heart rate, respiratory rate and SpO2 are assessed by researcher. Pain score assessed using Neonatal Infant Pain Scale (NIPS). Result: The mean pain score of the three groups G1, G2, G3 were 4.5, 3.55& 3.19. Breast feeding had lowest mean pain score. Alterations in Heart rate, respiratory rate and SpO2 lowest in Heifer technique group. Conclusion: Pain in new born should recognized and treated. EBM and Heifer technique before injection can be easily applied easily to alleviate pain response. Educational programmers for pain management in newborns should be conducted and guidelines can be prepared as institutional protocol.
CYANOLICHENS: THEIR RESPONSE TO POLLUTION AND POSSIBLE MANAGEMENT STRATEGIES FOR THEIR CONSERVATION IN NORTHEASTERN NORTH AMERICA

Abstract This short review focuses on lichens which have cyanobacteria as their main photosynthetic partner or in localized areas termed cephalodia. Research is cited to show that cyanolichens are very sensitive to gaseous air pollution, to acid rain, and to habitat disturbance. These lichens are worth conserving for their own sake but are also valuable for assessing the status of forests in areas like northeastern North America, where forests cover large tracts of land. The richness of the cyanolichen flora reflects biological diversity in the forests. Cyanolichens fix atmospheric nitrogen, are generally nutrient-rich, and have a diverse associated invertebrate fauna. These invertebrates provide food that sustain both resident and migrating birds. Management strategies that might be used to maintain and ensure the survival of the rich cyanolichen flora of the northeastern U.S. and Atlantic Provinces of Canada are presented and discussed.
Glycine and γ-aminobutyric acid(A) receptor function is enhanced by inhaled drugs of abuse

Inhalable solvents possess significant abuse liability and produce many of the neurobehavioral effects typically associated with central nervous system-depressant agents, including motor incoordination, anxiolysis, and the elicitation of signs of physical dependence on withdrawal. We tested the hypothesis that the commonly abused solvents toluene, 1,1,1-trichloroethane (TCE), and trichloroethylene (TCY) affect ligand-gated ion channel activity, as do other classes of central nervous system-depressive agents. TCE and toluene, like ethanol, reversibly enhanced gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA)(A) receptor-mediated synaptic currents in rat hippocampal slices. All three inhalants significantly and reversibly enhanced neurotransmitter-activated currents at alpha1beta1 GABA(A) and alpha1 glycine receptors expressed in Xenopus oocytes. We previously identified specific amino acids of glycine and GABA(A) receptor subunits mediating alcohol and volatile anesthetic enhancement of receptor function. Toluene, TCE, and TCY were tested on several glycine receptor mutants, some of which were insensitive to ethanol and/or enflurane. Toluene and TCY enhancement of glycine receptor function was seen in all these mutants. However, the potentiating effects of TCE were abolished in three mutants and enhanced in two, a pattern more akin to that seen with enflurane than ethanol. These data suggest that inhaled drugs of abuse affect ligand-gated ion channels, and that the molecular sites of action of these compounds may overlap with those of ethanol and the volatile anesthetics.