Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Learning Word Groundings from Humans Facilitated by Robot Emotional Displays

In working towards accomplishing a human-level acquisition and understanding of language, a robot must meet two requirements: the ability to learn words from interactions with its physical environment, and the ability to learn language from people in settings for language use, such as spoken dialogue. In a live interactive study, we test the hypothesis that emotional displays are a viable solution to the cold-start problem of how to communicate without relying on language the robot does not–indeed, cannot–yet know. We explain our modular system that can autonomously learn word groundings through interaction and show through a user study with 21 participants that emotional displays improve the quantity and quality of the inputs provided to the robot.
Environmental threats and environmental future of estuaries

Estuaries exhibit a wide array of human impacts that can compromise their ecological integrity, because of rapid population growth and uncontrolled development in many coastal regions worldwide. Long-term environmental problems plaguing estuaries require remedial actions to improve the viability and health of these valuable coastal systems. Detailed examination of the effects of pollution inputs, the loss and alteration of estuarine habitat, and the role of other anthropogenic stress indicates that water quality in estuaries, particularly urbanized systems, is often compromised by the overloading of nutrients and organic matter, the influx of pathogens, and the accumulation of chemical contaminants. In addition, the destruction of fringing wetlands and the loss and alteration of estuarine habitats usually degrade biotic communities. Estuaries are characterized by high population densities of microbes, plankton, benthic flora and fauna, and nekton; however, these organisms tend to be highly vulnerable to human activities in coastal watersheds and adjoining embayments. Trends suggest that by 2025 estuaries will be most significantly impacted by habitat loss and alteration associated with a burgeoning coastal population, which is expected to approach six billion people. Habitat destruction has far reaching ecological consequences, modifying the structure, function, and controls of estuarine ecosystems and contributing to the decline of biodiversity. Other anticipated high priority problems are excessive nutrient and sewage inputs to estuaries, principally from land-based sources. These inputs will lead to the greater incidence of eutrophication as well as hypoxia and anoxia. During the next 25 years, overfishing is expected to become a more pervasive and significant anthropogenic factor, also capable of mediating global-scale change to estuaries. Chemical contaminants, notably synthetic organic compounds, will remain a serious problem, especially in heavily industrialized areas. Freshwater diversions appear to be an emerging global problem as the expanding coastal population places greater demands on limited freshwater supplies for agricultural, domestic, and industrial needs. Altered freshwater flows could significantly affect nutrient loads, biotic community structure, and the trophodynamics of estuarine systems. Ecological impacts that will be less threatening, but still damaging, are those caused by introduced species, sea level rise, coastal subsidence, and debris/litter. Although all of these disturbances can alter habitats and contribute to shifts in the composition of estuarine biotic communities, the overall effect will be partial changes to these ecosystem components. Several strategies may mitigate future impacts.
Performance Of Pre-Winter Planted Rooted Cuttings Of Greater Yam (Dioscorea alata L.)

Nodal cuttings of Dioscorea alata from 45 day old plants were grown in vivo by treating them with different concentrations of IBA (100, 200, 500, 1,000 ppm), Rootex (a type of root promoting substance,the powdered contain 3gm IBA/Kg) and a control. For each treatment 2 node, 1 node and 0.5 node cuttings of 4 - 5 cm were used as explants. In the nursery there was a 100% survival of 1 node cuttings treated with 500 ppm of Indole 3-butyricacid (IBA) followed by Rootex 1 node, Rootex 0.5 node and control one node. From the results it was concluded that 2 node and 0.5 node cuttings were not suitable for in vivo rooting of yam with growth regulators. Single node cuttings with growth regulators are preferred for large scale production of propagules in an in vivo system for D. alata. (Nature and Science 2009; 7(12):44-47). (ISSN: 1545-0740).
Disentangling utterances and recovering coherent multi party distinct conversations

Automatic separation of interposed sequence of utterances into distinct conversations is an essential prerequisite for any kind of higher-level dialogue analysis. Unlike most models that involve highly computational intensive methods such as clustering techniques, our proposed approach uses a simple and efﬁcient sequential thread detection method which is less computational intensive. It uses the waiting time (time gap between the current speaker and the next speaker), similarity between utterances, turn-taking and participant-based features.
Afrotropical ants of the ponerine genera Centromyrmex Mayr, Promyopias Santschi gen. rev. and Feroponera gen. n., with a revised key to genera of African Ponerinae (Hymenoptera: Formicidae)

The ponerine ant genus Centromyrmex Mayr is redefined and its Afrotropical species are fully revised. Ten Afrotropical species are recognised of which six are described as new (decessor, ereptor, fugator, praedator, raptor, secutor). Two former infraspecific names are elevated to species rank (angolensis, longiventris) and four new junior synonyms of sellaris (= arnoldi, = congolensis, = constanciae, = guineensis) are established. The monotypic genus Promyopias Santschi is revived from synonymy and a new monotypic genus, Feroponera, type-species F. ferox sp. n. , is introduced. The possibility of a Centromyrmex genus group is discussed and a revised key to Afrotropical genera of Ponerinae is presented.
Drought Tolerance of Tall Fescue Populations Selected for High Root/Shoot Ratios and Summer Survival

Freshwater resources for turfgrass irrigation are becoming limited. Hence, the development of drought tolerant turf cultivars will be of great value to turf managers. The objective of the following research was to evaluate the fi eld drought tolerance of turf-type tall fescue (Festuca arundinacea Schreb.) entries that were selected based either on high root/shoot ratio under greenhouse conditions or under severe drought stress conditions in the fi eld. Twelve tall fescue entries (two selected by root/shoot ratio, two selected by screening fi eld drought tolerance, the four parents, and four standard controls) were established under a rain-out shelter, and their green turf coverage was evaluated during drought stress (irrigation withheld) and drought recovery (irrigation reapplied) events in 2003 and 2004. In both years, entries selected for high root/shoot ratio demonstrated signifi cantly improved drought tolerance compared to their parents, whereas improved drought tolerance for fi eld-selected entries was less consistent. Turf green-up following drought conditions was correlated to the drought tolerance of each entry, in that those cultivars that were the most drought tolerant were also the fi rst to green up on rewatering. These results validate that selecting germplasm based on high root/ shoot ratio in the greenhouse is a viable method for improving the fi eld drought tolerance of turftype tall fescue.
SCLERACTINIAN CORALS OF THE MONTEBELLO ISLANDS

Summary The present report lists the first extensive collection of corals from the Montebello Islands; it is likely that many species remain to be found. A total of 141 species of 54 genera are recorded from the present survey and a further 9 species are added from previous records. The coral fauna includes a suite of five genera characteristic of turbid inshore waters but most of the corals are characteristic of moderately clear water conditions. The coral fauna overall is most similar to that of the Dampier Archipelago.
Journal of Science, Technology, Mathematics and Education (JOSTMED), 15(3), September, 2019

This study investigated the Effects of Computer Animation Instructional Package (CAIP) on Achievement of pre-service Biology teachers in Kwara State Colleges of Education, Nigeria. Quasi-experimental design involving pretest, posttest experimental and control group design was adopted. A total of 368 pre-service Biology teachers formed the population of this study. The sample of the study 120 pre-service Biology teachers selected from intact classes of two co-educational Colleges of Education using multi-stage sampling technique. The experimental group of the study was selected purposively and this comprises 60 pre-service Biology teachers (32 male and 28 female) was taught through CAIP while their counterparts in the control group which comprises 60 pre-service Biology teachers (29 male and 31 female) was taught using conventional lecture method. The study answered two research questions and tested two null hypotheses. The instruments Cell Division Achievements Test (CDAT) used was developed, validated and administered to the students, the reliability coefficients of CDAT was established at r = 0.95. Research questions were analyzed descriptively using means and standard deviations. Null hypotheses were verified at P ≤ 0.05 levels using ANCOVA. Results revealed significant difference in the academic achievement of pre-service Biology teachers exposed to the CAIP and those taught using conventional lecture method. The study also revealed no significant difference in the academic achievement of male and female students exposed to CAIP. From the findings of the study, it was concluded that using computer animation in cell division concepts has the potentials of enhancing pre-service Biology teachers’ achievement. It was recommended, that the Federal and State Ministries for Tertiary Education to provide computers and projectors for teachers to facilitate teaching with animations.
An SEIR Model with Contact Tracing and Age-Structured Social Mixing for COVID-19 outbreak

In December 2019 a severe acute respiratory syndrome now known as SARS-CoV-2 began to surge in Wuhan, China. The virus soon spread throughout the world to become a pandemic. Since the outbreak various measures were put in place to contain and control the spread, these interventions were mostly based on compartmental models in epidemiology with the main goal of controlling and monitoring the rate of the basic and effective reproduction number. In this paper, we propose an SEIR model where we incorporate contact tracing and age-structured social mixing. We show the explicit relation between contact tracing and social mixing and other relevant parameters of the proposed model. We derive a formula for the effective reproduction number which is expressed in terms of reported cases, tracing quantities and social mixing. We use this formula to determine the expectation value of the effective reproduction number in London, UK.
COMPARISON OF SUBWORD SEGMENTATION METHODS FOR OPEN-VOCABULARY ASR USING A DIFFICULTY METRIC

We experiment with subword segmentation approaches that are widely used to address the open vocabulary problem in the context of end-to-end automatic speech recognition (ASR). For morphologically rich languages such as German which has many rare words mainly due to compound words, there is an increasing interest in subword-level word representation based on, e.g., byte-pair encoding and unigram language model. However, we are not aware of any systematic comparative analysis of different approaches. To this end, we propose a framework which estimates a difﬁculty score of a test utterance for the ASR model based on an out-of-vocabulary metric. Using this framework we run experiments on several subword segmentation approaches, which provides us with comparative analysis on the strengths and weaknesses of them. For the ASR model, we employ a fully convolutional sequence-to-sequence encoder architecture using time-depth separable convolution blocks and a lexicon-free beam search decoding with n-grams subword language model. Additionally, we leverage multiple models with different word representations to investigate their impact on ASR performance.
APPLICATIONS OF ZIGBEE SoC WITH LOW POWER BASED ON FULL SWING GATE DIFFUSION INPUT

- ZigBee system-on-chip (SoC) is an essential module in all advanced wireless communication devices and it is the alternating advanced technology over the conventional Bluetooth technology. System on chip (SoC) is to develop complex network products fastly, easily and reliably which enable the end-users. A new implementation technique of efficient Xnor delay based encoder using full swing Gate-Diffusion-Input (GDI) technique is presented. Xnor circuit is the most energy efficient and very suited to low voltage application designs. This full swing GDI based encoder design allows reducing power and delay of the circuit, while maintaining low complexity of logic design. It minimizes the number of bit “1”s in modulated bit stream without losing information combined with full swing GDI logic style. Performance analysis is based on delay and power dissipation, advantages and drawbacks of full swing GDI encoder.
DETERMINATION OF PROBIOTIC PROPERTIES OF LACTIC ACID BACTERIA FROM CURD

Probiotics mean live microorganisms that have beneficial effects on their host's health. The medical world has long been interested in nutrient properties of curd. Curd is commonly used fermented milk product in India since time immemorial. In this study lactic acid bacteria were isolated from curd and their probiotic potential was investigated. Total 2 lactic acid bacteria were isolated on the basis of catalase test and gram staining. Both the isolates were gram positive cocci and catalase negative. Both of them showed a great probiotic potential. Both the organisms were found resistant to low pH (i.e. pH 3) as well as 0.3% bile salts concentrations. It was observed that they were having antibacterial activity against eight test organisms. However, they were unable to show antibacterial activity against B. subtilis, and B. megaterium.
Bulanık Sistemler ve Kontrol (devamı)

PID Kontrolörlerinin Optimal Parametrelerinin Belirlenmesi Amacıyla Bir Bulanık Mantık Karar Mekanizması Tasarımı Engin Yeşil, Berna Ayaz 71 Tip–2 Bulanık Sistemlerde Tip İndirgeme Yaklaşımı Mehmet Karaköse, Semiha Makinist 77 Hata ve Normalize Edilmiş İvme Bilgisine Dayalı PI Kontrolör Katsayı İyileştirme Yöntemi İbrahim Eksin, Aysel Abalı, Müjde Güzelkaya 83 Ziegler-Nichols PID Kontrolör Parametrelerini Bulanık Tabanlı İyileştirme Yöntemi İbrahim Eksin, Müjde Güzelkaya , Çakmak Cansevi 89 Melez Bulanık PID Kontrolörlerinin Tasarım Yöntemleri ve DCS Üzerinde Gerçeklenmesi Engin Yesil, Burak Kurtuluş, Halil Tozar, Muharrem Uğur Yavaş, Tufan Kumbasar 96 Kaskat Kontrol yapıları için Bulanık PID Kontrolör Tasarım Yöntemi Engin Yesil, Furkan Dodurka, Alper Yükselen, Tufan Kumbasar 102 Bulanık Kümeleme Yöntemi Tabanlı Çok Merkezli Kümeleme Yöntemi ile Menopoz Verileri Hakkında Karar Verebilen Bir Sistemin Geliştirilmesi Hikmet Özge Bacak, Kemal Leblebicioğlu, Sinan Beksaç 107
Evaluation of CD44 and TGF-B Expression in Oral Carcinogenesis

Statement of the Problem: Oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC) is the most common malignancy of the oral cavity. Early diagnosis of OSCC by using biomarkers provides preventive treatment approach to suppress the disease in early stages. CD44 as a cancer stem cell (CSC) marker may be cleaved by MT1-MMP and plays an important role in migration of cancer cells. TGF-B promotes formation of invasive cancer cells phenotype through epithelial mesenchymal transition (EMT) and induces MT1-MMP formation. Purpose: The aim of this study was to evaluate the expression of TGF-B and CD44 in leukoplakia (premalignant lesion), squamous cell carcinoma (SCC), and normal oral mucosa to determine the role of these markers in the carcinogenesis process of the oral mucosa. Materials and Method: In this retrospective study, the expression of TGF-B and CD44 were evaluated in 55 paraffin-embedded specimens (10normal mucosa, 15 non-dysplastic leukoplakia, 15 dysplastic leukoplakia, and 15 OSCC) by immunohistochemistry. Statistical analyses were performed using Kruskal-Wallis, Mann-Whitney, and Spearman’s rank correlation tests. Results: Evaluation of CD44 and TGF-B expression in the four studied groups showed statistical significant difference for each marker (p< 0.001). Pairwise comparison of CD44 and TGF-B expression in all groups except normal mucosa and non-dysplastic leukoplakia demonstrated statistical significant difference. In addition, there was positive significant correlation between two markers (r= 0.914, p< 0.001). Diagnostic test’s accuracy for identification of OSCC and dysplastic leukoplakia from non-dysplastic leukoplakia and normal tissues and recognition of OSCC from dysplastic leukoplakia showed optimum sensitivity and specificity. Conclusion: Increased expression of CD44 as a cancer stem cell marker and TGF-B as an EMT marker from normal mucosa to non-dysplastic leukoplakia, dysplastic leukoplakia, and OSCC and also the significant correlation between these two markers indicated their role in carcinogenesis of oral mucosa.
The Effect of Endurance Training on Fibronectin Gene Expression of the Sciatic Nerve in Diabetic Rats

Diabetic neuropathy can cause disorders in axon transmission, changes in the extracellular matrix, and peripheral nerve damages. However, its mechanism, along with the beneficial effects of exercise on these disorders is not entirely clear. The aim of the current study was to assess changes in fibronectin mRNA gene expression level of the sciatic nerve in rats with streptozotocin-induced diabetes after endurance training. Eighteen male Wistar rats (10 weeks old with 250±20 gr weight) were randomly assigned to three groups, including healthy, induced diabetes and induced diabetes plus endurance training. Induction of diabetes was conducted using an intraperitoneal injection of a single dose of streptozotocin (STZ). Neuropathy was confirmed using the behavioral tests. Rats in induced diabetes plus training group had 8 weeks of moderate and increasing intensity endurance training on the treadmill. The Fibronectin mRNA gene expression level of the sciatic nerve was assessed using Real-time-PCR. Changes in fibronectin protein and myelin thickness were measured by immunohistochemistry and luxol fast blue staining. The mean and standard deviation was used to report descriptive data. Data were entered into SPSS 22. Fibronectin mRNA gene expression level (1.90) of sciatic nerve fibronectin protein and myelin thickness reduced significantly due to diabetes (P<0.05). Eight weeks of endurance training increased fibronectin gene expression of sciatic nerve fibronectin protein and prevented further destruction of myelin, which was statistically significant. The results showed that diabetes leads to changes in the extracellular matrix and the reduction of the sciatic nerve myelin thickness. Endurance training as a non-drug strategy is effective in preventing these damages.
A NEW ASYMMETRICAL SINGLE PHASE 15 LEVEL REDUCED SWITCH MULTILEVEL VOLTAGE SOURCE INVERTER

This paper proposes a new Asymmetrical multilevel inverter topology with reduced number of switches. This topology is superior to the existing multilevel inverter (MLI) configurations in terms of lower total harmonic distortion (THD) value and lower cost. The idea incorporates a new module setup comprising of four different voltage sources having voltage output levels in a specific ratio. The proposed topology uses a novel pulse width modulation (PWM) technique (as presented) to control the gating pulses. The operation is simulated using MATLAB/SIMULINK and its results are validated through FPGA Spartan 3 based hardware prototype inverter (using three voltage sources to produce a 7 level output, which may be extended to 15 level). The circuit complexity is drastically reduced and it is suitable for medium and high power applications. THD for the output is quite low when compared with the conventional inverter.
Journal of Science, Technology, Mathematics and Education (JOSTMED), 14(), March, 2018

MEDUGU, J. D. PhD, & SULAI, M. E. PhD Department of Electrical Technology Education, Modibbo Adama University of Technology, Yola Adamawa State Department of Education, Gombe State University, Gombe. Nigeria Phone No: +234-703-291-5191 Abstract This study investigated the challenges in integration of ICT for effective instructional delivery in Science and Technical Colleges of Adamawa State, Nigeria. The population of the study was 533 students and 37 teachers. The sample of the study was 170 respondents (133 students and 37 teachers) that were randomly selected. The design of the study was a descriptive survey design. A structured questionnaire was used to elicit information from the respondents and the data were collected from the sampled respondents that included teachers and students. The data was analyzed using mean and standard deviation to answer the research questions. t-test inferential statistic at 0.05 level of significance was used to test the hypotheses. Findings of the study revealed that factors such as; improper budgeting by technical colleges, inadequate funding of technical colleges, lack of technical and administrative support, instability of electricity, short time period allotted for ICT classes and lack of equipped ICT workshop, as the major challenges in adoption of ICT for instructional delivery in the schools. The study recommended as follows; Adamawa State government should adequately fund the Technical Colleges, and the fund should be properly budgeted so as to enable the acquisition of appropriate ICT facilities and workshop equipment for effective adoption and integration of ICT in education, effective and efficient presentation and utilization of ICT facilities in classroom.
ABDOMINAL COMPUTED TOMOGRAPHIC EVALUATION OF LIVER AND SPLEEN FOR 1 STAGING MAST CELL TUMOURS IN DOGS YIELDS NONSPECIFIC RESULTS

24 Canine mast cell tumours (MCT) staging is commonly performed using abdominal 25 ultrasonography and fine needle aspiration cytology of masses, lymph nodes, hepatic and 26 splenic parenchyma. Computed tomography (CT) is used for abdominal and thoracic or 27 whole-body imaging in staging MCT in the authors’ institution enabling to evaluate multiple 28 body areas in one exam. The purpose of this study was to compare the CT exams acquired 29 for staging of mast cell disease to their subsequent liver and spleen cytology findings. 30 Medical records of dogs with primary MCT that underwent abdominal CT and 31 concurrent liver and spleen aspirates were reviewed. The CT exams were evaluated for 32 attenuation, size and margination of the liver and spleen. The relationship between CT 33 findings and cytology results was analysed. 34 Forty-nine dogs matched the inclusion criteria: 5/49 dogs with cutaneous MCT were 35 positive for metastasis from liver and/or spleen aspirates. Of the 5 dogs with cytological 36 evidence of liver or spleen metastasis, 4 had normal CT liver attenuation and size, one dog 37 had concurrent primary hepatocellular neoplasia, 4 dogs had abnormal splenic parenchyma 38 dogs (2 nodular, 2 diffuse heterogeneity) and one dog had a normal attenuation of the spleen. 39 In 4 dogs, the spleen was subjectively enlarged. 40 CT evaluation of the liver showed no consistent pattern associated with mast cell 41 metastasis and did not predict cytology results. Splenic enlargement more commonly 42 coincided with mast cell metastasis. Sampling of the liver and spleen remains to be 43 considered in the absence of abnormal CT findings for full staging. 44