Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The Role of Executive Functioning in Understanding Chronic Pain Experiences in Adolescence: A Pilot Multi-Method Study

Background: Optimal executive functioning is pivotal to successful self-management of chronic pain (e.g., by being able to adapt self-management behaviours to changing situations), thereby contributing to improved health-related quality of life. However, preliminary evidence points to impaired executive functioning in people with chronic pain. Despite adolescence being identified as a sensitive period for the development of appropriate self-management and executive functioning skills, little is known about the associations between chronic pain and executive functioning performance in adolescents. The aim of the study was to pilot a multi-method approach to compare executive functioning, chronic pain, and quality of life between adolescents with and without chronic pain. Methods: A sample of 22 adolescents with chronic pain (12-18 years, 82% female, mean chronic pain duration = 6.68 years) and 13 pain-free adolescents (age and sex matched) participated. All participants completed a battery of neuropsychological tasks to assess the three key executive functioning components (i.e., inhibition, working memory and cognitive flexibility) and provided self-report on their executive functioning, pain experiences and health-related quality of life. Results: In addition to confirming the feasibility of the methods, data revealed that 23-62% of adolescents with chronic pain showed problematic performance, using normative scoring, in all three executive functioning components and showed significantly lower performance on all three executive functioning components compared to pain-free adolescents. Self-reported, but not neuropsychologically assessed, working memory and emotional control difficulties were associated with more pain-related interference and lower health-related quality of life. Conclusion: These preliminary findings reveal the critical need to screen for and address any potential deficits in executive functioning in adolescents with chronic pain to optimise their self-management of pain and subsequent health-related quality of life. The findings also illustrate the feasibility of and need for future systematic, multi-method and prospective investigations in larger samples to further clarify the cyclical associations between chronic pain and executive functioning in adolescents.
Convention Express Paper 173

This two-part study explored the efficacy of binaural renderers to accurately reproduce the placement of objects within a three-dimensional, virtual soundscape. Many previous works have only tested localization on the horizontal plane (Part I) whereas this research expanded on prior methodology by adding vertical targets along the medial and two sagittal planes (Part II). Two industry leading binaural renderers were compared. The subject task was to map where each sound source was perceived onto a planar response sheet. Results were consistent with previous research in that renderer performance was found to be weak in the horizontal domain. Findings presented here support the notion that horizontal plane localization cannot be solely relied upon to assess the quality of binaural renderers. In part two, further analysis of loci along the medial and sagittal planes will provide a more complete understanding of renderer performance and areas for potential improvement
Research Online Research

Invasive rats are the biggest threat to island biodiversity world-wide. Though the ecological impacts of rats on insular biota are well documented, introduced rats present a difficult problem for detection and management. In recent decades, improved approaches have allowed for island-wide eradications of invasive rats on small-medium sized islands and suppression on large islands, although both these still represent a formidable logistical and financial challenge. A key aspect of eradication or suppression and ongoing management is the ability to detect the presence of rats, especially at low densities. Here we review recent developments in the field of rat surveillance and summarise current published literature to recommend practices and the factors to consider when developing a surveillance program for either eradication or suppression plans. Of 51 empirical studies covering 17 countries, 58% were from New Zealand. Although detecting rats at low density is extremely challenging, advances over the past 15 years, have significantly improved our ability to detect rats. Motion-sensored cameras and rodent detection dogs have greatly improved our ability to detect rats at low densities, with cameras consistently showing an ability to detect rats at lower densities than other techniques. Rodent detection dogs are also able to reliably detect even an individual rat, although there are challenges to their widespread adoption, particularly in developing countries, due to the cost and skills required for their training and maintenance. New monitoring devices, the use of eDNA and drones represent current and future innovations to improve detection.
FORMULATION AND EVALUATION OF PARACETAMOL SUSPENSION BY USING NATURAL SUSPENDING AGENT EXTRACTED FROM PEDALIUM MUREX SEEDS

The present work was aimed to formulate and evaluate a new, cheap and effective natural suspending agent that can be used as an effective alternative for traditional suspending agent. The study procedure involved extraction of suspending agent from the Pedalium murex seeds, determination of swelling index, phytochemical testing, Micromeritic properties of mucilage like Bulk density, Tapped density, Carr‟s index, Angle of repose, Calibration of paracetamol, preparation of paracetamol suspensions and evaluated for P H determination, determination of sedimentation volume, redispersibility, determination of flow rate, measurement of viscosity, effect of temperature, drug content, particle size determination and In-vitro dissolution studies. The study showed that the extraction of suspending agent from Pedalium murex seeds. The swelling index was found to be 60% in distilled water, 40% in 0.1N hydrochloric acid and 30% in phosphate buffer pH 7.4. The photochemical test showed contains carbohydrates. As the concentration of suspending agent increases therefore viscosity of suspension increases which ultimately reduces the sedimentation of suspension.
Breccia Pipe Estimation: a new approach using non-stationary covariances

The El Teniente mine is famous not only as one of the largest known porphyry-copper ore bodies but also, among geologists, for its typical breccia pipe named “Braden”, an almost vertical poorly mineralized cone, located at the center of the mine and surrounded by early-stage mineralizations. As the edge of the pipe constitutes the limit of the deposit and of the mining operation, estimating it accurately is important. In this paper, we are interested in estimation of the elevation of the pipe surface using a geostatistical approach based on non-stationary covariances. Previous approaches have been applied on this dataset by Seguret and Celhay (2013). The proposed estimation method offers an integrated treatment of all aspects of non-stationarity (mean, variance, spatial continuity) in the modelling process. The proposed method has revealed an increased prediction accuracy when compared to standard stationary method, and demonstrated the ability to extract the underlying non-stationarity from a single realization. A comparison of predictions and prediction standard deviations maps indicates that the proposed non-stationary method captures some varying spatial features (such as locally varying anisotropy) in the data that are not present using the stationary method, the outcome appears more realistic.
Description of Owenia Gomsoni n. sp. (Oweniidae, Annelida Polychaeta) from the Yellow Sea and evidence that Owenia Fusiformis is not a cosmopolitan species

Deux populations d'Owenia fusiformis d'origine geographique differente ont ete comparees pour verifier si la distribution de l'espece est reellement cosmopolite. Les specimens ont ete recoltes en Baie de Gomso (cotes de la Coree du Sud, Mer Jaune) et en Baie de Banyuls (cotes francaises de Mediterranee). La comparaison a conduit a la definition d'une nouvelle espece Owenia gomsoni, dont les principales caracteristiques sont: la presence, sur l'animal vivant, de taches colorees specifiques disposees a la base des branchies et sur les parois laterales du corps; un panache branchial emergeant d'une base constituee de cinq paires de lobes; un collier prononce, incise lateralement, representant un pli circulaire du tegument, dispose a la limite du panache branchial avec le thorax; les dents des crochets decalees verticalement; des ecailles setales tres allongees; une preference marquee pour les grains de quartz lors de la construction du tube. La definition de cette nouvelle espece recoltee en Mer Jaune ainsi que d'autres observations, conduisent a reduire considerablement l'aire de distribution d'Owenia fusiformis delle Chiaje. En conclusion, cette espece represente un complexe d'especes et ne peut etre consideree comme cosmopolite.
Physical activity, body composition and attitudes toward exercise among college students

Regular physical activity (PA) is important in maintaining health and quality of life. Persons who do not regularly exercise or who adopt sedentary behaviour are prone to becoming overweight or obese, with significant impact on morbidity, quality of life, and physical and mental health. Positive attitudes towards exercise can facilitate the behaviours and values of a healthy lifestyle. The study aim was to investigate the association of PA level, body composition and attitudes towards exercise in university students. Body dimensions (height, weight, body mass index and fat percentage) of 300 male and 300 female students were measured and PA levels assessed. Attitudes towards exercise were assessed using a questionnaire. Female students were significantly less involved in PA than their male counterparts, with 24% of male and 63% of female students reporting that they (almost) never exercise. Most students (70%) had normal body weight, but about 20% were overweight. Participant groups (athletes, recreational, inactive, male and female students) had similar moderately positive attitudes towards exercising, which was not associated with body composition or PA level. A positive attitude was insufficient for regular participation in PA, but should be supported by education, as well as by diversified sport and recreational offerings and encouragement to engage in these activities.
PK-ICR: Persona-Knowledge Interactive Context Retrieval for Grounded Dialogue

Identifying relevant Persona or Knowledge for conversational systems is a critical component of grounded dialogue response generation. However, each grounding has been studied in isolation with more practical multi-context tasks only recently introduced. We define Persona and Knowledge Dual Context Identification as the task to identify Persona and Knowledge jointly for a given dialogue, which could be of elevated importance in complex multi-context Dialogue settings. We develop a novel grounding retrieval method that utilizes all contexts of dialogue simultaneously while also requiring limited training via zero-shot inference due to compatibility with neural Q & A retrieval models. We further analyze the hard-negative behavior of combining Persona and Dialogue via our novel null-positive rank test.
A rare case of hepatoid adenocarcinoma of the lung

Hepatoid adenocarcinoma of the lung is a special type of primary origin in the lung with obvious pathological features and short survival time. However, standard treatment guidelines have not yet been established. Herein, we report a case of hepatoid adenocarcinoma with the primary lesion located in the left upper lung. The tumour size was reduced after four cycles of combined therapy. Subsequent postoperative pathology confirmed complete remission.
Treatment of Greywater Using Bio filtration and Permeable Pavement Systems

Municipal wastewater can be divided into two categories, greywater and black water. Greywater occupies about 75% of total wastewater and are relatively less polluted than the black water. Reuse of greywater is becoming popular in many arid and semiarid regions in order to reduce the municipal water demand. They can be reused for groundwater recharge, landscape irrigation and for toilet flushing. However, the main challenges are their collection, storage and selection of the appropriate treatment system. The United Arab Emirates (UAE) is located in a hyper arid region, having an annual average rainfall of less than 100 mm. Reliable survey data for surface water resources are not available here. Three main sources of water resources in the UAE are groundwater, desalinated water and reclaimed wastewater. Despite their scarce water resources, residential water consumption in the UAE is significantly high, of which more than half of the municipal water are used for outdoor activities. The water demand reduction and diversification of water sources are very important for the security of its urban water supply. The study investigated the quantity and characteristics of greywater, and the efficiency of two alternative treatment systems, the biofiltration and the permeable pavement with an underlying reservoir. The study was conducted in the city of Al Ain. Both treatment systems are conventionally used for urban stormwater treatment. They are popularly known as the Water Sensitive Urban Design (WSUD) systems. Laboratory scale prototypes of both systems were prepared and investigated. The estimated greywater generation rate was found about 190 liter/capita/day. The ablution and laundry greywater exhibits the least and most deteriorated greywater, respectively. Both systems performed well in improving the greywater quality, but the vegetative biofiltration unit performed better than the permeable pavement unit. The study revealed that the permeable pavement with an underlying reservoir can be used as a storage unit and subsequent treatment can be achieved in the vegetative biofiltration system. Both systems are well fitted within the urban landscape of UAE.
Dry Stamping Coral Powder: An Effective Method for Isolating Coral Symbiotic Actinobacteria

Actinobacteria are important sources of antibiotics and have been found repeatedly in coral core microbiomes, suggesting this bacterial group plays important functional roles tied to coral survival. However, to unravel coral–actinobacteria ecological interactions and discover new antibiotics, the complex challenges that arise when isolating symbiotic actinobacteria must be overcome. Moreover, by isolating unknown actinobacteria from corals, novel biotechnological applications may be discovered. In this study, we compared actinobacteria recovery from coral samples between two widely known methods for isolating actinobacteria: dry stamping and heat shock. We found that dry stamping was at least three times better than heat shock. The assembly of isolated strains by dry stamping was unique for each species and consistent across same-species samples, highlighting that dry stamping can be reliably used to characterize coral actinobacteria communities. By analyzing the genomes of the closest related type strains, we were able to identify several functions commonly found among symbiotic organisms, such as transport and quorum sensing. This study provides a detailed methodology for isolating coral actinobacteria for ecological and biotechnological purposes.
Effect of cloud‐scale vertical velocity on the contribution of homogeneous nucleation to cirrus formation and radiative forcing

Ice nucleation is a critical process for the ice crystal formation in cirrus clouds. The relative contribution of homogeneous nucleation versus heterogeneous nucleation to cirrus formation differs between measurements and predictions from general circulation models. Here we perform large‐ensemble simulations of the ice nucleation process using a cloud parcel model driven by observed vertical motions and find that homogeneous nucleation occurs rather infrequently, in agreement with recent measurement findings. When the effect of observed vertical velocity fluctuations on ice nucleation is considered in the Community Atmosphere Model version 5, the relative contribution of homogeneous nucleation to cirrus cloud occurrences decreases to only a few percent. However, homogeneous nucleation still has strong impacts on the cloud radiative forcing. Hence, the importance of homogeneous nucleation for cirrus cloud formation should not be dismissed on the global scale.
Breathing New Life into an Old Tree: Resolving Logging Dilemma of
 B
 +
 -tree on Modern Computational Storage Drives

Having dominated databases and various data management systems for decades, B + -tree is infamously subject to a logging dilemma: One could improve B + -tree speed performance by equipping it with a larger log, which nevertheless will degrade its crash recovery speed. Such a logging dilemma is particularly prominent in the presence of modern workloads that involve intensive small writes. In this paper, we propose a novel solution, called per-page logging based B + -tree, which leverages the emerging computational storage drive (CSD) with built-in transparent compression to fundamentally resolve the logging dilemma. Our key idea is to divide the large single log into many small (e.g., 4KB), highly compressible per-page logs , each being statically bounded with a B + -tree page. All per-page logs together form a very large over-provisioned log space for B + -tree to improve its operational speed performance. Meanwhile, during crash recovery, B + -tree does not need to scan any per-page logs, leading to a recovery latency independent from the total log size. We have developed and open-sourced a fully functional prototype. Our evaluation results show that, under small-write intensive workloads, our design solution can improve B + -tree operational throughput by up to 625.6% and maintain a crash recovery time of as low as 19.2 ms, while incurring a minimal storage overhead of only 0.5-1.6%.
Distinguishing Laparoscopic Surgery Experts from Novices Using EEG Topographic Features

The study aimed to differentiate experts from novices in laparoscopic surgery tasks using electroencephalogram (EEG) topographic features. A microstate-based common spatial pattern (CSP) analysis with linear discriminant analysis (LDA) was compared to a topography-preserving convolutional neural network (CNN) approach. Expert surgeons (N = 10) and novice medical residents (N = 13) performed laparoscopic suturing tasks, and EEG data from 8 experts and 13 novices were analysed. Microstate-based CSP with LDA revealed distinct spatial patterns in the frontal and parietal cortices for experts, while novices showed frontal cortex involvement. The 3D CNN model (ESNet) demonstrated a superior classification performance (accuracy > 98%, sensitivity 99.30%, specificity 99.70%, F1 score 98.51%, MCC 97.56%) compared to the microstate based CSP analysis with LDA (accuracy ~90%). Combining spatial and temporal information in the 3D CNN model enhanced classifier accuracy and highlighted the importance of the parietal–temporal–occipital association region in differentiating experts and novices.
Morphometric Studies on Duttaphrynus melanostictus (Schneider, 1799) Anura: Bufonidae from Central India, Bhopal (MP) with Special Reference to their Mortality by Roads

Amphibians are the ectotherms which have moist skin and are entirely reliant on environmental heat to maintain their body functions. India harbours 342 species of amphibians which includes 306 anuran species, 35 species of Gymnophiona and 1 salamander species (Dinesh et al., 2013). In Madhya Pradesh Chandra et al., (2005) had studied and documented 18 species of amphibians. Among them toads are quite different from frogs. Toads generally have shorter legs, warty dry skin and have paratoid glands behind the eyes. Bufonidae is a large and geographically widespread taxon of neobatrachian frogs (Duellman and Trueb, 1986).
Student Acceptance Study of PhET Simulation with an Expanded Technology Acceptance Model Approach

Phet simulation is a computer-based practicum simulation medium that helps to increase students’ engagement and understanding through concept visualization. Even though there have been numerous studies on the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) related to Phet simulation, the TAM study of Phet simulation combined with certain learning methods is rarely observed. We propose an advanced version of TAM by including the external variables of system quality, user characteristics, and instructor. This study is a quantitative design with a descriptive, explanatory type. This model was tested using an online questionnaire disseminated to 49 students that finished taking basic natural sciences subjects using Phet simulation based on problem-based learning. The result showed that system quality has an effect on perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use has an effect on behavioral intention of use, behavioral intention of use has an effect on actual usage, and there is no relationship between instructor quality on perceived usefulness. Grit on perceived ease of use, learner anxiety, and perceived usefulness on the behavioral intention of use. These findings have implications regarding user acceptance of Phet simulation combined with certain learning methods, specifically problem-based learning.
Electrospun Fibers with Lactobacillus Acidophilus: A Poten- tial In Vitro Solution Against Gardnerella Infections

Bacterial vaginosis (BV) is a prevalent condition, impacting a third of women globally. It’s marked by reduced healthy lactobacilli and increased growth of certain anaerobes like Gardnerella. Even though antibiotics can be taken orally or applied vaginally to treat BV, about 50% of the patients will have the condition return in less than 6 months. High concentrations of Lactobacillus acidophilus have been linked to health benefits. Given the recurrence rates after treating BV, there’s growing interest in using beneficial bacteria either as an alternative or as a supplementary treatment. This research wanted to demonstrate the potential for a new long-lasting delivery method for L. acidophilus. Results indicated that polyethylene oxide (PEO) fibers containing L. acidophilus can be combined with poly(lactic-co-glycolic acid) (PLGA) fibers in a 1:1 ratio. This structure subsequently releases L. acidophilus, which remains metabolically active, produces lactic acid, and can counteract Gardnerella. When these probiotic-rich fibers were consistently cultured in MRS broth and refreshed daily, they continued to produce active L. acidophilus for up to a week. The amount of lactic acid and associated pH measurements reflected the concentration of L. acidophilus from the fibers, underscoring their metabolic activity. In lab tests with vaginal cell cultures, the L. acidophilus fibers hindered Gardnerella growth in proportion to their dilution, showcasing their bacteria-killing capability. Introducing VK2/E6E7 cells to these L. acidophilus fibers showed only a slight reduction in cell viability compared to cells that weren’t treated. In summary, the findings highlight the potential of using electrospun fibers as a viable means to administer vaginal probiotics in a durable format.