Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Effects of Atmospheric Conditions on the Quality of Free Space Optical Communication Link in Nigeria

Free space optical communication (FSOC) in recent years has become an emerging solution for last mile broadband connectivity in areas where fibre deployment is expensive. FSOC is an optical means communication technique that wirelessly transmit data for telecommunication and computer networking by propagating the light in free outer space. Currently, FSO is capable of up to 2.5 Gbps of data, voice and video communications through the air, through optical connectivity without requiring any medium such as fibre optic cable. FSOC basically operates between a wavelength bands of 750 – 1600 nm and using alternate O/E and E/O converters. FSO requires light, which can be projected by using sources such as light emitting diodes (LEDs) or lasers. The use of lasers is based on a similar concept as optical transmissions using fibre optic cables; the only difference is the medium of transmission. FSO communication has proved to be considered as an alternative to radio relay link line-of sight (LOS) communication systems. This paper determines the effect of atmospheric conditions on the quality of free space optical communication link in Nigeria. Meteorological data (Wind speed, Visibility and Altitude) were used to determine the atmospheric losses for Bauchi state. Optimal link distance is computed under worst and average atmospheric condition by evaluating the atmospheric condition against the power link margin. This preliminary study shows that FSOC can be deployed in Bauchi for last mile access networks, where the link distances are mostly less than 10km.
Computer-Aided Method for the Determination of Hansen Solubility Parameters. Application to the Miscibility of Refrigerating Lubricant and New Refrigerant

This article presents a method which allows one to find the Hansen solubility parameters by means of data processing. In the first part, we present the thermodynamical principle of Hansen parameters, and then we explain the model used to find parameters from experimental data. We validate the method by studying the solubility parameters of CFC-12 (dichlorodifluoromethane), HFC-134a (1,1,1,2-tetrafluoroethane), neopentylglycol esters, trimethylolpropane esters, dipentaerythritol esters, and pentaerythritol esters. Then, the variation of Hansen parameters are studied as well as the relation between the miscibility temperature (the temperature at which a blend passes from the miscible state to the immiscible state) and the interaction distance. We establish the critical interaction distance of HFC-134a which determines the solubility limit and we study its variation with temperature.
A clinical study to evaluate the effects of yoga and pharmacotherapy on pulmonary functions, mechanism of inflammation, and quality of life in bronchial asthma patients

Bronchial asthma is a chronic inflammatory disease of the airway leading to airway obstruction with considerable impact on the quality of life in the long term. In developing countries like India, urbanization and westernization are responsible for the gradual escalation in the prevalence of the disease. Approximately more than 300 million people worldwide currently suffer from asthma and this is likely to rise to 400 million by the year 2025 [1,2].
Sophisticated and Unsophisticated Runs

This paper characterizes the run behavior of sophisticated (institutional) and unsophisticated (retail) investors by studying the runs on prime money market funds (MMFs) of March 2020, at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. For both U.S. and European institutional prime MMFs, the runs were more severe in funds for which the imposition of redemption gates and fees was a material possibility because of their lower liquidity positions. In contrast, although U.S. retail prime MMFs are also required to adopt the same system of gates and fees, their outflows did not depend on fund liquidity;unsophisticated (retail) investors ran more often if their funds belonged to a family offering institutional prime MMFs and suffering larger institutional redemptions. Finally, across investor types, MMFs belonging to families with a larger offering of government MMFs experienced larger outflows;this result is consistent with lower switching costs in fund families that are more specialized in government funds.
Inferring parameters for binary black hole mergers using normalizing flows

Since the first detection of gravitational waves five years ago, the LIGO and Virgo observatories have detected dozens of signals from merging compact binaries. Each of these is analyzed using Bayesian inference and a standard sampling algorithm to extract the parameters of the system, assuming a signal model and stationary Gaussian noise. In this work, we describe the application of likelihood-free inference with normalizing flows to perform fast-and-accurate inference on gravitationalwave events. We train a neural-spline flow to model the gravitational-wave posterior over the full 15-dimensional space of system parameters for quasicircular binary black holes, given detector strain data. Training data for this consists of 10 simulated waveforms, with noise realizations and extrinsic parameters chosen at train time, effectively providing an infinitely large training dataset. Once the model is trained, we perform inference on data from the first detection, GW150914, and show that we recover results consistent with standard sampling algorithms. We thereby establish deep learning as a tool to confront the growing challenges of gravitational-wave inference.
HYBRID/BLENDED APPROACH AS AN EVOLVING PARADIGM FOR THE DEMOGRAPHICALLY ISOLATED TERTIARY STUDENTS

Evolving technological advancement and emerging digital environments have permeated and swiftly changed the learning landscape globally. One such advancement that incorporates face-to-face learning with technological tools is the blended or hybrid mode of learning and teaching. Blended or hybrid learning is a seamless combination of online and face-to-face activities for classroom instruction for all and basically the demographically displaced. This research delves into a profound study of the perception of students and staff involved in a postgraduate educational leadership program offered in a blended mode. An interpretive paradigm using mixed methods approach adopting a survey consisting of Likert scale items and interviews were successfully implemented. The quantitative data was analysed using SPSS while thematic approach using emerging themes were used for interpreting the interviews. Findings testify that blended approach has been liked and very well accepted by the students as it enables them to complete their qualifications and progress academically and professionally in their lives. This study sets a solid platform for further research as certain scholars and administrators are still skeptical and hesitant in fully implementing blended mode of learning and teaching. The study concludes by stating certain implications that subsequently can make blended mode more chronic and applicable to the needs of scholars, teachers and students especially in archipelagos like Fiji and beyond.
Posterior malleolar fractures. New classification and treatment algorithm

Objective: This study proposes a new classification of posterolateral malleolar fractures and a treatment algorithm. Methods: We divided the posterolateral malleolus, which we considered as the posterior malleolus, from the posteromedial one, which we considered as being part of the medial malleolus fracture. The experience with 77 patients treated from February 2017 to February 2020 was assessed. All of them were assessed by frontal and profile radiographies and computed tomography (CT). Among the parameters to classify these fractures, we believe the most determining ones are fracture size, followed by presence of fracture displacement. Results: Fractures were divided into those whose posterior fragment was 25% smaller than the tibial joint surface and those that compromised more than 25% of this joint. The first group underwent syndesmotic opening and was subclassified into 1A (stable fractures), which do not require surgical treatment, and 1B (unstable), which require syndesmotic stabilization. The second group, which comprised the larger fractures, was subclassified into 2 A (non-displaced fractures, or with a displacement below 2 mm), which underwent percutaneous osteosynthesis, 2B (displaced fractures), and 2C (comminuted fractures), which underwent open reduction and internal fixation using a posterior approach. Conclusion: The classifications published so far are anatomic or descriptive, but none of them proposes a therapeutic algorithm for each type of fracture. We believe it will be helpful for its interpretation and decision-making on the need to perform a posterior approach, prioritizing the anatomical reduction of the joint fragment and resolution of syndesmotic instability linked to each fracture pattern using the most simple and effective method. Level of Evidence IV; Therapeutic Studies; Case Series.
Research note: Bolsonaro’s firehose: How Covid-19 disinformation on WhatsApp was used to fight a government political crisis in Brazil

Brazil has one of the highest rates of cases and deaths attributed to Covid-19 in the world. Two factors contributed to the high rates: the Brazilian government underestimated the pandemic and a large amount of disinformation was spread through social media. We found that disinformation about Covid-19 on WhatsApp was associated with political disinformation, mostly composed to support president Bolsonaro during the crisis he faced at the beginning of the pandemic. Our main finding implicates that disinformation on WhatsApp was connected to the far-right political discourse and framed Covid-19 as a political issue rather than a public health issue.
J an 2 01 7 Singularly Perturbed Profiles

In the current paper the so-called REaction-DIffusion Manifold (REDIM) method of model reduction is discussed within the framework of standard singular perturbation theory. According to the REDIM a reduced model for the system describing a reacting flow (accounting for chemical reaction, advection and molecular diffusion) is represented by a low-dimensional manifold, which is embedded in the system state space and approximates the evolution of the system solution profiles in space and in time. This pure geometric construction is reviewed by using Singular Perturbed System (SPS) theory as the only possibility to formalize, to justify and to verify the suggested methodology. The REDIM is studied as a correction by the diffusion of the slow invariant manifold defined for a pure homogeneous system. A main result of the study is an estimation of this correction to the slow invariant manifold. A benchmark model of Mechaelis-Menten is extended to the system with the standard diffusion described by the Laplacian and used as an illustration and for validation of analytic results.
On-the-Job Training and Organizational Growth of Money Deposit Banks in Port Harcourt

This study investigated the relationship between on – the job training and organizational growth of money deposit banks in Port Harcourt. The researcher presumed that the level of commitment could be traceable to the manpower training adopted. The baseline theory adopted was the human resources theory, the research design was a descriptive research design. The study had a a total population of 600, a sample size of 234 was derived using the Taro Yamane formula and a structured questionnaire was adopted as the research instrument. To confirm the reliability of the instrument used, the Cronbach’s alpha value of 0.7minimum benchmark was observed. Under investigation, descriptive statistics and the Pearson’s product moment correlation coefficient with the means of Statistical Package for Social Sciences were employed to analyze the data generated for the study. Upon completion of the study, the results of the study showed that there is a significant relationship existing between manpower training and organizational growth and it was concluded that manpower training is a significant predicator of organizational growth of deposit money bank in Port Harcourt. Hence, it was recommended that management of these deposit money banks in Port Harcourt should make effort to include and promote manpower training of their employees to get them more equipped for better productivity.
Global topics Sentiment Analysis by using Social Media data mining

— In recent years, there has been an emerging interest which shows and support social media analysis for marketing, opinion analysis and understanding community coherence. Understanding gained from this social media analysis is used by many organizations like marketing, advertising, disaster management, etc. to improve their performance by planning future strategies. This paper proposes a workflow to integrate both qualitative analysis and large-scale data mining techniques, which by using parallelism and multi-threading technique provide the fastest way to data analysis.
Optimal placement of facts devices to reduce power system losses using evolutionary algorithm

The rapid and enormous growths of the power electronics industries have made the flexible AC transmission system (FACTS) devices efficient and viable for utility application to increase power system operation controllability as well as flexibility. This research work presents the application of an evolutionary algorithm namely differential evolution (DE) approach to optimize the location and size of three main types of FACTS devices in order to minimize the power system losses as well as improving the network voltage profile. The utilized system has been reactively loaded beginning from the base to 150% and the system performance is analyzed with and without FACTS devices in order to confirm its importance within the power system. Thyristor controlled series capacitor (TCSC), unified power flow controller (UPFC) and static var compensator (SVC) are used in this research work to monitor the active and reactive power of the carried out system. The adopted algorithm has been examined on IEEE 30-bus test system. The obtained research findings are given with appropriate discussion and considered as quite encouraging that will be valuable in electrical grid restructuring.
Máster Universitario Aplicaciones Multimedia Meta-review of text input approaches within VR - A study on the platform’s viability as a productivity workspace -

VR technology has evolved significatively during the past decades both in terms of accessibility and technological feats, and this project reflects on its growth to then study the platform’s viability as a productivity workspace. For that, the neuroscience behind VR is overviewed and VR interactivity extensively explored. Said interactivity is yet evolving and thereby so are the many text input approaches within VR. These are detailed throughout this document in a meta-review where their performance and usability are studied. Scientific literature suggests that the integration of real physical keyboards within virtual environments performs above virtual keyboards, with Logitech’s approach being the most interesting take due to its accessibility and superior performance. However, strictly virtual keyboards fit better among other use case scenarios and, since there is not an alternative regarded as the defining standard among those covered within the meta-review, a prototype was developed to further evaluate their usability; the development of said prototype is covered within the pages of this document, and many were the text input approaches within its scope. A study was performed with the prototype at issue, proving touch-based virtual keyboards to surpass raycast-based ones in typing speed and user experience. Such study also highlights which touch-based approaches performed best whilst also evaluating virtual size ownership sensations and the performance implications of the keyboards’ size, suggesting that there is an ideal (intermediate) keyboard size for each approach and that, as opposed to what is implied in some of the works found in scientific literature, minimalistic representations of one’s hand do not improve performance: given the mismatch between the visual and haptic experiences, these approaches negatively affect virtual hand ownership thus
COMPARISON OF SCOTCH MALT WHISKY MATURATION IN OAK MINIATURE CASKS AND AMERICAN STANDARD BARRELS

The sensory and chemical attributes of Scotch malt distillate matured in uncharred, American white oak casks, were compared with distillate matured in miniature casks of similar wood with a capacity of 6 Litres. The maturation profiles of the two types of casks differed in the pattern of extraction of wood components and in the flavour characteristics of the final distillates. The product from the miniature cask maturations was not comparable with a Scotch malt whisky, due to differences in the ratios of concentrations of extractives. This may relate to differences in oxidation rates in the two cask types.
PHOTOTOXICITY OF α-TERTHIENYL AND PSORALENE INROSE AND MUSTARD
APHIDS (MACROSIPHUM ROSAE & LIPAPHIS ERYSIMI) IN DOON VALLEY

Climate change has an impact on agriculture and insect pests that affect the crop production. Aphid pests occur throughout the temperate region of the world andcause direct damage by sucking plants sap which affects growth and yield of the crops. Species of aphids are diverse and ubiquitous but their importance among crop differs.Ultraviolet radiation (UVR) is an electromagnetic radiation and constitutes about 10% of the total light output of sunlight. Ultraviolet-B coming due to ozone depletion is the most photo chemically reactive wavelength of solar radiation and important stressor to organisms particularly in their early stages of life and affect ecosystem. Psoralene and alphaterthienyl are naturally occurring plant metabolites found in many crops and become photo reactive in presence of solar ultravioletB radiation. Measurement of solar ultraviolet radiation (UV-B and UV-E) was performed in Garhwalregion of Uttarakhand. Morphological, behavioural changes, mortality rate and glutathione contents were observed in mustard and roseaphids after ultraviolet-B irradiation with psoralene and α-terthienyl photo sensitizers. UV-B and UV-E radiation showed seasonal, diurnal and altitudinal variations. αterthienyland psoralenewith ultraviolet-B radiation showed stunted growth, morphological changes, low reproduction and high mortality up to 26% in aphids. Reduction in glutathione (GSH) level in aphids was also observed after UVB and photosensitizersexposure.Enhanced UV-B was found more toxic with photosensitizers andthus, can be used as natural insecticide. Dose, intensity and species dependent changes in toxicity of psoralene and αterthienyl were observed in aphids. Resultsindicate that UV-B radiation with photosensitizers has toxic effect on aphids population, dispersal and diversity. Psoralene was found more toxic than αterthienyl in aphids. Mustard aphid (Lipaphis erysimi) was found more sensitive than rose aphid (Macrosiphum rosae).
Time2Vec Embedding on a Seq2Seq Bi-directional LSTM Network for Pedestrian Trajectory Prediction

This paper presents a description of a proposed architecture for the pedestrian trajectory prediction task on the TrajNet dataset. This task aims to determine future final agent position and future agent movement trajectory using previous agent positional information. The proposed architecture is a Seq2Seq bi-directional LSTM (Long short-term memory) network with a Time2Vec input embedding layer. After experimenting and evaluating, our experimental results show that adding a Time2Vec input-embedding layer improves the performance of a Seq2Seq bi-directional LSTM recurrent model on the pedestrian trajectory prediction task
The Impact of Oil Price Shocks on the Iraq Economy – a Case Study for the Period 1990-2018

This paper estimates the impact of external shocks, especially oil shocks, on major macroeconomic variables – Real Gross Domestic Product, Government Expenditure, Inflation rates and Unemployment Rates – in the Iraq economy with quarterly data covering the period Q1 1990 to Q4 2018. In this study we have used a restricted VAR model and Johansen Co-integration test and Impulse Response Functions to investigate the impact of oil price shocks on the Iraq economy. Our results indicate that despite the decline in oil revenues as a percentage of GDP to 28.6% in 2015 compared with 42.4% in 2014. This was not accompanied by a decrease in public expenditure, because a large part of government spending goes to the operational budget, which is characterised by a high stability as a result of the increase of government spending on military operations for the purpose of extending security stability. Therefore inflation rates have only slightly changed, as the money supply in the Iraqi economy has not changed despite the changes in oil prices. We believe this is due to the extensive size of the Operating Budget, which is relatively stable at the expense of the Capital Budget, 30% at best for the duration of the research.
Introduction of Identical Twins with a Mutation in the STK4 Gene Showing Clinical Manifestations Associated with Mutations at Different Ages: A Case Report

Combined immunodeficiencies (CIDs) are a heterogeneous group of disorders characterized by various gene mutations. The mutations in the STK4 (Serine Threonine Kinase 4) gene, which has a role in the regulation of apoptosis and proliferation, can be a cause of immunodeficiency. In the current paper, we reported a case of identical twin brothers with a novel STK4 mutation, one of whom showed clinical manifestations associated with this mutation with a delay of two years. The mutation in the STK4 gene was identified employing Whole Exome Sequencing (WES), and we described the probable reasons for this delay. We found that the STK4 genetic defect caused almost the same clinical symptoms of immunodeficiency in the twin brothers. Meanwhile, the severity of the disease was higher in one of them, which may be due to extra genetic defect in LRBA, and likely differences in the percentage of B lymphocyte population and CD4+/ CD8+ state. Received: 2019-08-19, Revised: 2020-10-18, Accepted: 2020-10-20. Citation: Abolnezhadian F, Iranparast S, Ahmadpour F. Introduction of Identical Twins with a Mutation in the STK4 Gene Showing Clinical Manifestations Associated with Mutations at Different Ages: A Case Report. Iran J Immunol. 2020; 17(4):333-340, doi: 10.22034/iji.2020. 83003.1607
Semantics and Cognition: an interview with Gilles Fauconnier

Gilles Fauconnier is a linguist and cognitive scientist internationally known for his work on the theory of Mental Spaces and on the theory of Conceptual Integration or “Blending”, in partnership with Mark Turner. His contribution to Cognitive Semantics in particular and Semantic Theory in general is invaluable. The theory of mental spaces allows refined treatment to a series of semantic phenomena that have always challenged semanticists such as referential opacity , conditionality , counterfactuality , presuppositional projection , among others. The theory of conceptual blending also enables the advanced treatment of the complex cognitive construction of the linguistic meaning underspecified in grammatical constructions, which offer clues or means of activating the cognitive process of blending, as the XYZ grammatical construction prototypically illustrates. Another central topic concerns the relationship between the semantic-cognitive processes of blending, metaphor and metonymy, their typological limits and their intersections. Consequently, the high explanatory power of blending invites us to reflect on its centrality in cognition and grammar for the construction of linguistic meaning, as well as on its economy, which includes its restrictions.