Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
GaN metal-oxide-semiconductor high-electron-mobility transistors using thermally evaporated SiO as the gate dielectric

GaN metal-oxide-semiconductor high-electron-mobility transistors (MOS-HEMTs) with thermally evaporated SiO gate dielectric of different thicknesses (10–30 nm) have been investigated and compared with standard metal–semiconductor HEMT (MES-HEMT). Unlike typical dielectrics for GaN MOS-HEMTs that require deposition with ion bombardments, reactive gases and/or high temperatures, thermally evaporated SiO is expected to introduce little damage to the interface. Indeed, a lower sheet resistance and higher drain current were obtained in the SiO-based MOS-HEMTs than in the MES-HEMT. In addition, significantly lower off-state drain currents and higher Ion/Ioff ratios were obtained in the MOS-HEMTs. Importantly, the interface trap density in the MOS-HEMTs, ∼1.0 × 1012 cm−2 eV−1, was found to be significantly lower than that in MES-HEMT (2.4 × 1012 cm−2 eV−1). This enables the SiO MOS-HEMTs to exhibit drastic improvements not only in the leakage currents and breakdown voltage, but also in the drain current collapse and high frequency performance. The optimized 30 nm SiO MOS-HEMT has a 438 times higher Ion/Ioff ratio (1.4 × 108), two orders of magnitude lower off-state drain current and gate leakage current, and 100 V higher breakdown voltage as compared to the MES-HEMT. Our study may have important implications in realizing high performance, low damage and low cost gate dielectrics for GaN HEMTs.
Herding behaviour in Korea’s cryptocurrency market

ABSTRACT Herding behaviour is an interesting phenomenon that has a serious impact on the market, leading to inefficient asset prices and high volatility in periods of market turmoil. We analysed the existence of herding behaviour in the cryptocurrency market using hourly price data of eight major cryptocurrencies and the cross-sectional standard absolute deviation (CSAD) approach. Our findings showed anti-herding behaviour at shorter time intervals and herding behaviour during longer periods. The trading decisions of cryptocurrency investors mimic the behaviour of other traders over time. We further found that herding behaviour is stronger over longer time intervals in a down market. When a market is declining, it suggests that fear increases and investors are forced to act quickly in response to market movements rather than using their information. Thus, investors need to fix the situation as quickly as possible to avoid making losses, hence they need to make rational choices based on knowledge rather than emotion or fear.
Data-driven Storytelling to Support Decision Making in Crisis Settings: A Case Study

Data-driven storytelling helps to communicate facts, easing comprehension and decision making, particularly in crisis settings such as the current COVID-19 pandemic. Several studies have reported on general practices and guidelines to follow in order to create effective narrative visualizations. However, research regarding the benefits of implementing those practices and guidelines in software development is limited. In this article, we present a case study that explores the benefits of including data visualization best practices in the development of a software system for the current health crisis. We performed a quantitative and qualitative analysis of sixteen graphs required by the system to monitor patients' isolation and circulation permits in quarantine due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The results showed that the use of storytelling techniques in data visualization contributed to an improved decision-making process in terms of increasing information comprehension and memorability by the system stakeholders.
Aerobic glycolysis, the efficiency tradeoff hypothesis, and the biological basis of neuroimaging: A solution to a metabolic mystery at the heart of neuroscience.

Aerobic glycolysis is a form of glucose-inefficient metabolism that occurs when cells metabolize glucose without oxygen, despite oxygen being abundant; the result is less energy per glucose molecule and increased glucose consumption. Aerobic glycolysis in the brain is a metabolic paradox: this inefficient metabolic process is a hallmark of neural activity, yet brains supposedly evolved to be energy-efficient. We discuss this paradox and introduce a possible solution, formalized as the efficiency tradeoff hypothesis: aerobic glycolysis, despite using glucose inefficiently, allows for energy-efficient communication. It allows axon diameter to be minimized (decreasing energy costs of communication) while allowing energy production to closely adhere to unpredictable, rapid-on/rapid-off energy demands. We expand on this hypothesis—linking observations across levels of analysis, from cognitive function to its biological implementation in the brain—culminating in a novel interpretation of the blood-oxygen level-dependent (BOLD) signal, which is closely related to localized metabolic changes caused by aerobic glycolysis. We hypothesize that the BOLD signal indexes bottom-up sensory encoding, or more specifically, prediction error in predictive processing models. This implies that much of a brain’s function, which is implemented with predictive signaling, is not indexed by BOLD fMRI. We then elaborate on the implications of our account for (a) how the evolution of human cytoarchitecture may relate to metabolism and brain function, (b) how social behavior may depend on metabolic cost functions, and (c) how metabolism may play a fundamental role in mental illness. We conclude that aerobic glycolysis and the efficiency tradeoff hypothesis offer a generative foundation for future neuroscientific research.
Biomonitoring of metallic pollution in the coast of Jijel (Algeria) by using algological biomarkers

ABSTRACT The paper reports the biomonitoring of metallic pollution generated by Jijel city and the port of Bouddis on the coast of Jijel (Algeria) using algological species algae [C. officinalis (Linnaeus, 1758) and Ulva lactuca (Linnaeus, 1753)] as bioindicators and biomarkers, which indicated heavy metal concentrations well above international standards (USEPA) and (IAEA-392), indicating unexpected levels of metals in seawater. The bioconcentration factor calculation has shown that these algae are excluders of Cr, accumulators of (Cu, Cd and Pb) and hyperaccumulators of Zn. These algae show different responses to toxic metals, depending on station, sampling period, age and phenological stage of specimens. These algae are suitable for use in biomonitoring for metallic pollution in coastal areas by expressing a specific range of biomarkers (MTs, GST, APX, CAT, carbonyls proteins and MDA). Abbreviation Corallina officinalis - (C. officinalis)
Vaginal pH Value for Clinical Diagnosis and Treatment of Common Vaginitis

In modern society, 75% of all women worldwide have had vaginitis at least once in their lives. The vagina has a dynamic microbial ecosystem with varying vaginal pH levels. An imbalance in that ecosystem can alter the vaginal pH and tip the scale to the point of causing issues, such as vaginitis, that require medical attention. Although vaginitis is not an incurable disease, it causes discomfort and pain that disrupt women’s daily lives. The most common causes of vaginitis include bacterial vaginosis, trichomoniasis, and vulvovaginal candidiasis. In this review, we discuss the causes, diagnostic methods, and symptoms of different types of vaginitis, the relationship of vaginitis to the prevalence of other diseases, issues associated with recurrent vaginitis and the immune system, and a variety of effective available treatments. In our article, we summarize the relationship of pH with the vaginal ecosystem, discuss the associated factors of vaginal pH, and finally introduce the different available vaginal pH self-test products.
Molecular Dynamics Simulations Study of the Interactions between Human Dipeptidyl-Peptidase III and Two Substrates

Human dipeptidyl-peptidase III (hDPP III) is capable of specifically cleaving dipeptides from the N-terminal of small peptides with biological activity such as angiotensin II (Ang II, DRVYIHPF), and participates in blood pressure regulation, pain modulation, and the development of cancers in human biological activities. In this study, 500 ns molecular dynamics simulations were performed on free-hDPP III (PDB code: 5E33), hDPP III-Ang II (PDB code: 5E2Q), and hDPP III-IVYPW (PDB code: 5E3C) to explore how these two peptides affect the catalytic efficiency of enzymes in terms of the binding mode and the conformational changes. Our results indicate that in the case of the hDPP III-Ang II complex, subsite S1 became small and hydrophobic, which might be propitious for the nucleophile to attack the substrate. The structures of the most stable conformations of the three systems revealed that Arg421-Lys423 could form an α-helix with the presence of Ang II, but only part of the α-helix was produced in hDPP III-IVYPW. As the hinge structure in hDPP III, the conformational changes that took place in the Arg421-Lys423 residue could lead to the changes in the shape and space of the catalytic subsites, which might allow water to function as a nucleophile to attack the substrate. Our results may provide new clues to enable the design of new inhibitors for hDPP III in the future.
Mapping of S 33 ( t ) and S 34 ( t ) for Pollen Sterility in Hybrids between a Weedy Strain and a Japonica Variety in Rice

4. Mapping of S33( t) and S34( t) for Pollen Sterility in Hybrids between a Weedy Strain and a Japonica Variety in Rice W. JING, L. L. LIU, L. JIANG and J . M. WAN ,2 ,* 1) State Key Laboratory of Crop Genetics and Germplasm Enhancement, J iangsu Provincial Center of Plan t Gene Engineer ing , Nanjing Agricu ltural University , Nanjing , 210095 China 2) Institu te of Crop Sciences, Chinese Academy of Agricu ltural Sciences, Beijing, 100081 China
A novel method for diagnosing bearing transfer faults based on a maximum mean discrepancies guided domain-adversarial mechanism

Transfer learning has been successfully applied in fault diagnosis to solve the difficulty in constructing network models due to the lack of labeled data in practical engineering. The current transfer learning models mainly use the adaptive method to obtain the similarity between source and target domains, but the obtained similarity is incomplete. Inspired by the domain-adversarial mechanism, a novel method called ‘distance guided domain-adversarial network’ (DGDAN) is proposed in this study. DGDAN includes two modules: domain-adversarial network and maximum mean discrepancies (MMD) guided domain adaptation. In this method, a stacked autoencoder (SAE) is used as the feature extractor of the domain-adversarial network to learn domain invariant features, and MMD is used to measure the non-parametric distance of different metric spaces to improve domain alignment. Reduction of the distance of the bottleneck layer of the feature extractor is employed to improve the feature extraction capability of the network. Experimental results show that the classification accuracy rate of DGDAN is more than 98%, and DGDAN has superior robustness and generalization ability.
A branch-and-bound approach to virtual machine placement

Finding the best mapping of virtual machines to physical machines in cloud data centers is a very important optimization problem, with huge impact on costs, application performance, and energy consumption. Although several algorithms have been suggested to solve this problem, most of them are either simple heuristics or use off-the-shelf, mostly integer linear programming (ILP) solvers. In this paper, we propose a new approach: a custom branch-and-bound algorithm that exploits problem-specific knowledge in order to improve effectiveness. As shown by empirical results, the new algorithm performs better than state-of-the-art general-purpose ILP solvers.
The Brand Strategy Analysis: Surviving and Competing in The Disruptive Era

The umrah travel industry is continuously growing while negative news of the industry still exists. Travel organizers should act professional service while complying with government rules. Consequently, many brands came offering interesting promises to serve pilgrims. This research aimed to reveal the brand awareness brand management model and its development among umrah travel organizers. Key informant interviews with associated secondary data mining were important sources of data gathering. Furthermore SWOT analysis used in data processing to uncover related information for strengths weaknesses opportunities threats and rivalry position among organizers. The results suggested five ways to build brand awareness: social media optimization partnering with public figures whose great influence posters forming a community of umrah alumni and applying a famous brand name. Travel organizers could take advantage of using a prominent brand and cede their entire policies of the parent organization. They might empower the parent brand operational experience to support marketing activities. Moreover, the organizers supervised their own brand mastering overall decision making. Those are three actions in the framework of brand management. Equally for the evolution of a brand strategy among travel organizers each can choose whether aggressive cautious defensive or competitive strategy.
Tiliroside: Anti-liver cancer effects and investigation of aldose ‎reductase inhibition properties with molecular modeling studies

Biotechnology is the field to yield modern systems, tools, and materials by taking control at the atomic and molecular levels using the features that appear on those surfaces. Applications for biotechnology in medical diagnostics, food, medicine, environment, energy, chemistry, physics, etc, introduce this technology as an interdisciplinary and cross-sectoral context. Tiliroside (kaempferol 3-O-(600-O-p-coumaroyl)-b-D glucopyranoside) is a glycosidic flavonoid found in several medicinal and dietary sources, such as linden, rose hips and strawberries. In recent years, plant extracts have been identified as a new way to discover new anti-diabetic drugs. Due to the unwanted side effects associated with current drugs, an increasing number of patients are demanding to use natural products with anti-diabetic activity.The biological activities of tiliroside against human aldose reductase were investigated using a molecular docking study. In the oncological part of the recent study, the treated cells with tiliroside were assessed by MTT ‎assay for 48h about the cytotoxicity and anti-liver cancer ‎ properties on normal (HUVEC) and ‎liver cancer ‎ cell lines, i.e. SNU-387, LMH/2A, McA-RH7777, and N1-S1 Fudr. ‎The results of these calculations revealed the high affinity of this compound to the enzyme. This binding affinity could be considered as a reason for the low IC50 of tiliroside against the aldose reductase.Tiliroside can be utilized as an efficient drug in the treatment of cancer in humans.
Pleiotropic Benefits of DPP-4 Inhibitors Beyond Glycemic Control

Dipeptidyl peptidase (DPP)-4 inhibitors are oral anti-diabetic medications that block the activity of the ubiquitous enzyme DPP-4. Inhibition of this enzyme increases the level of circulating active glucagon-like peptide (GLP)-1 secreted from L-cells in the small intestine. GLP-1 increases the glucose level, dependent on insulin secretion from pancreatic β-cells; it also decreases the abnormally increased level of glucagon, eventually decreasing the blood glucose level in patients with type 2 diabetes. DPP-4 is involved in many physiological processes other than the degradation of GLP-1. Therefore, the inhibition of DPP-4 may have numerous effects beyond glucose control. In this article, we review the pleiotropic effects of DPP-4 inhibitors beyond glucose control, including their strong beneficial effects on the stress induced accelerated senescence of vascular cells, and the possible clinical implications of these effects.
When polarization hits corporations: the moderating effect of political ideology on corporate activism

Traditionally, it has been argued that companies should maintain a neutral stance on issues of a social or political nature, especially controversial ones. However, in recent years, corporations have begun to adopt clear positions on sensitive and polarizing social and political issues. This new phenomenon, called corporate activism, is beginning to gain prominence in corporate strategies, which now extend beyond business objectives and sometimes may go against the beliefs held by many customers. To date, studies aimed at identifying whether these types of actions benefit or harm companies are scarce, and none of them have focused on consumer perceptions. Adopting the latter approach, this work identifies the antecedents and effects of corporate activism, and the influence that political ideology can have as a variable moderating these effects. Analysis of a sample of 1,521 individuals representative of the Spanish population using a structural equation model yielded the following results: (i) institutional and corporate credibility and authenticity act as antecedents of corporate activism, (ii) when credibility in institutions diminishes, consumers perceive that corporations should be more involved in social and political affairs, even when controversial or polarizing, (iii) reputation and brand equity are considered effects of corporate activism, and (iv) political ideology acts as a variable moderating these effects, in such a way that individuals with a more conservative ideology do not appreciate that companies that get involved in activist initiatives will enjoy positive consequences on their reputation and brand equity, while individuals with more liberal views do perceive such positive effects. These findings help companies to guide their strategic decisions, especially those related to corporate social responsibility (CSR), as well as help governments and institutions to understand the social changes that are taking place and understand the role that consumers expect corporations to play today.
Jianhua Hu, Prominence and locality in grammar: The syntax and semantics of wh-questions and reflexives (Routledge Studies in Chinese Linguistics). London & New York: Routledge, 2019. Pp. xv + 191.

It has generally been accepted that the Principle of Locality is a syntactic concept if locality is viewed from the perspective of the Closeness Condition or the Minimal Link Condition, while the Principle of Prominence belongs to the domain of semantics, although it also involves factors concerning pragmatics and cognition and includes the syntactic concept of constituent-command (c-command). Prominence and Locality in Grammar, by Jianhua Hu, challenges this consensus and advances the viewpoint that factors pertaining to locality and prominence are often interrelated in the actual production and interpretation of linguistic expressions. Using wh-questions and reflexives, two classical topics in generative grammar, Hu examines how the interaction between locality and prominence can account for some basic syntactic–semantic constraints that underlie the formation and interpretation of linguistic structures and expressions. While the focus is on Mandarin, he also looks at the roles that locality and prominence play in English. The notions of prominence and locality are employed in both wh-interpretation and reflexive binding but the formation and interpretation of wh-questions in Mandarin are constrained more by the principle of locality, whereas the interpretation of reflexives is constrained more by the principle of prominence. It is difficult to find universal definitions of locality and prominence. Prominence is amore flexible concept, so it ismore difficult to give it a unified definition even for different linguistic structures in the same language. To some extent, locality can be regarded as a representation of prominence. In other words, what is closer is more prominent. However, locality in terms of Closeness is a syntactic constraint, whereas prominence incorporates not only syntactic conditions like c-command but also semantic conditions like the animacy hierarchy. Apart from the introduction and the conclusion, the remainder of the book is divided into two parts, i.e. ‘Wh-questions’ (Part I) and ‘Reflexives’ (Part II). The
Influence of Surfactant-Mediated Interparticle Contacts on the Mechanical Stability of Supraparticles

Colloidal supraparticles are micron-scale spherical assemblies of uniform primary particles, which exhibit emergent properties of a colloidal crystal, yet exist as a dispersible powder. A prerequisite to utilize these emergent functionalities is that the supraparticles maintain their mechanical integrity upon the mechanical impacts that are likely to occur during processing. Understanding how the internal structure relates to the resultant mechanical properties of a supraparticle is therefore of general interest. Here, we take the example of supraparticles templated from water/fluorinated oil emulsions in droplet-based microfluidics and explore the effect of surfactants on their mechanical properties. Stable emulsions can be generated by nonionic block copolymers consisting of a hydrophilic and fluorophilic block and anionic fluorosurfactants widely available under the brand name Krytox. The supraparticles formed in the presence of both types of surfactants appear structurally similar, but differ greatly in their mechanical properties. While the nonionic surfactant induces superior mechanical stability and ductile fracture behavior, the anionic Krytox surfactant leads to weak supraparticles with brittle fracture. We complement this macroscopic picture with Brillouin light spectroscopy that is very sensitive to the interparticle contacts for subnanometer-thick adsorbed layers atop of the nanoparticle. While the anionic Krytox does not significantly affect the interparticle bonds, the amphiphilic nonionic surfactant drastically strengthens these bonds to the point that individual particle vibrations are not resolved in the experimental spectrum. Our results demonstrate that seemingly subtle changes in the physicochemical properties of supraparticles can drastically impact the resultant mechanical properties.
Knowledge Retention Challenges in Information Systems Development Teams: A Revelatory Story From Developers in New Zealand

Information systems development (ISD) is an integral part of organizational agility in today’s competitive business environment. High turnover, agile ways of working, and fluid work environments pose challenges for ISD. This paper explores the erosion of knowledge retention (KR) arising from ISD staff churn in a New Zealand-based financial organization in the aftermath of a major earthquake. In this exploratory study, the authors develop a causal model of KR in the ISD context, which articulates the challenges to and consequences of ineffective KR at the routine and exiting stages of KR. The model identifies four challenges—coordination complexity, insufficient resources for knowledge retention, insufficient attention to knowledge retention, and slow staff replacement and handover processes—that can affect the loss of ISD knowledge when routine and exiting KR fall into disarray. This study also reveals that role stress and reduced ISD agility reinforce the cycle of knowledge loss.
Campylobacter lari vertebral osteomyelitis.

We report a case of Campylobacter lari vertebral osteomyelitis with iliopsoas abscess. This is the first case report of vertebral osteomyelitis due to C. lari, which was identified from a vertebral biopsy sample collected by CT-guided percutaneous needle biopsy in a patient without obvious episodes of immunodeficiency. HK semisolid media played an important role in identifying the pathogen. It is important to make every possible effort to identify the causative pathogen in vertebral osteomyelitis.