Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
2019) On neglected

: Understanding the evolution of nervous and sensory systems in animals is key to understanding the distribution of animal sentience. However, the use of model organisms – mostly vertebrates, and especially mammals – often biases comparative analyses. Sneddon et al. (2018a,b) point out that using nonhuman animals as models helps us better understand the multifaceted aspects of animal pain and sentience. Several concerns need to be considered in dealing with model organisms. Here we discuss how models that are unrepresentative phylogenetically influence hypotheses about the evolution of the myelination in animals. Greater effort is needed to escape “vertebrat e-centrism” in evolutionary research.
Junction leakage current degradation under the off-state bias-temperature stress: a new reliability assessment method for high-density DRAMs

A new reliability assessment method on retention time failure for high-density DRAMs under off-state bias-temperature (B-T) stress was suggested and investigated using the well-known gated-diode test pattern. The transistor junction leakage current degradation, total junction leakage current especially including gate-induced drain leakage (GIDL) component, under the off-state B-T stress was found to be more sensitive than widely-used gate-oxide degradation under the Fowler-Nordheim (F-N) tunneling stress. The off-state bias stress also gives significantly higher degradation on the gate-oxide stress-induced leakage current (SILC) than F-N tunneling current stress. The features of the off-state B-T stress which gives stress to almost all transistor leakage components and the mechanism of the junction leakage current degradation under the off-state bias condition were discussed.
Driving control system for an autonomous vehicle using multiple observed point information

A driving control system has been developed in which the weighting given to lane marker (white line) information obtained at multiple observed points ahead of the vehicle is varied according to the driving knowledge, global driving commands and data on the white line shapes. This driving knowledge stored in the memory includes driving behavior expressed in a form of rules, which make it possible to achieve the actual driving operations performed by human drivers. As a result, smooth, stable steering control can be obtained on various types of curved roads having a continuously varying radius of curvature and width. Tests of this driving control system indicate that it provides driving performance on a par with that of skilled drivers. <<ETX>>
Al-Juboori et al Octreotide LAR in acromegaly

Background: Acromegaly is an uncommon, chronic, debilitating condition characterized by hyperinsulinism, insulin resistance, diabetes and prediabetes. One possibility for managing acromegaly's questionable influence on glucose homeostasis is the somatostatin analogues. Aim: To analyze the frequency and risk factors for impaired glucose homeostasis in acromegaly patients treated with depot long-acting octreotide (octreotide LAR), as well as the relationship between risk and treatment duration. Methods: The study included 52 Iraqi adults with acromegaly receiving octreotide LAR. Demographic, anthropometric, and clinical data were collected, as well as the duration of Octreotide LAR administration. Growth hormone, IGF-1, and adenoma size were reported retrospectively from patient data. The glycemic state was assessed and classified as DM, prediabetes, or normal. Results: The prevalence of DM was 39% and prediabetes was 40%, with the exception of being male, which was substantially related with prediabetes. DM and octreotide LAR use had a non-significant correlation. However, octreotide use altered 13% of patients from normal glycemic to prediabetes, with no correlation to treatment duration. Other than hypertension and a family history of diabetes, no other variables were found to be significant. Conclusion: Acromegaly patients have abnormal glucose metabolism, which is associated with prediabetes owing to octreotide LAR medication. Hypertension and family history of diabetes are risk factors.
Catchment Models and Management Tools for Diffuse Contaminants (Sediment, Phosphorus and Pesticides): DiffuseTools Project

(1) UCD Dooge Centre for Water Resources Research, University College Dublin, Dublin 4, Ireland (eva.mockler@ucd.ie), (2) Department of Geography, Durham University, Durham DH1 3LE, UK, (3) Teagasc, Johnstown Castle, Wexford, Ireland, (4) Department of Geography and Environmental Science, University of Reading, Reading RG6 6DW, UK, (5) Sustainable Soils and Grassland Systems Department, Rothamsted Research, Devon EX20 2SB, UK, (6) Swedish Meteorological and Hydrological Institute, Norrköping, Sweden.
Modeling and Flight Control of Large-Scale Morphing Aircraft

As morphing is an emerging topic of interest in aircraft research, the following article provides a review of the subject, with specific focus on modeling and flight control of large-scale planform altering flight vehicles. Our discussion proceeds in a fundamental manner to demonstrate that, although design methods for rigid aircraft have become highly developed, the consideration of morphing necessitates further investigation into the typically disparate fields of dynamic modeling, aerodynamic theory, and flight control theory. To clarify these points, the equations of atmospheric flight are derived in a general form, methods of integrating the aerodynamic forces are examined, and we distinguish between various approaches and methods of flight control.
Determinants of Data Breaches: A Categorization-Based Empirical Investigation

Data security breaches involving personal and sensitive information have significantly grown over the last few years. The stolen personal information—which includes social security number (SSN), medical records, date of birth, etc.—has been used to launch fraud against individuals and organizations. It already costs billions of dollars in the United States to detect and remediate consequences of security breaches which include identity theft frauds and lawsuits. It is estimated that on an average a company spends $2 million per data breach. With the increase in the rate of breaches, it has become equally important for organizations and individuals to understand the risks and take measures to safeguard personal information. This article investigates data security breaches, which accounted for about 26 million compromised records of personal information in the United States, to present the trends and risks that characterize the security breaches. The article categorizes the incident and loss trends into different dimensions including the industry, victim type, data type, and threats such as stolen computer, hacking and unauthorized access. The research can aid individuals and organizations understand the data breach, trends and evaluate their own risks in handling personal information, which will help them to make better and informed decisions to protect against data breaches.
Installed performance of printed inverted‐F antennas (IFAs) at 2.45 GHz for bluetooth and 802.11b

Detuning is evaluated in the printed inverted‐F antenna for the 2.45‐GHz ISM band. Measurements and simulations are presented for a wooden desktop, a plastic enclosure, and an automobile body. Installed return loss differed significantly from free space and therefore near‐field and environmental‐resonance effects need to be accounted for. © 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Microwave Opt Technol Lett 39: 497–499, 2003
A review of sustainable biodiesel production using biomass derived heterogeneous catalysts

The production of biodiesel through chemical production processes of transesterification reaction depends on suitable catalysts to hasten the chemical reactions. Therefore, the initial selection of catalysts is critical although it is also dependent on the quantity of free fatty acids in a given sample of oil. Earlier forms of biodiesel production processes relied on homogeneous catalysts, which have undesirable effects such as toxicity, high flammability, corrosion, by‐products such as soap and glycerol, and high wastewater. Heterogeneous catalysts overcome most of these problems. Recent developments involve novel approaches using biomass and bio‐waste resource derived heterogeneous catalysts. These catalysts are renewable, non‐toxic, reusable, offer high catalytic activity and stability in both acidic and base conditions, and show high tolerance properties to water. This review work critically reviews biomass‐based heterogeneous catalysts, especially those utilized in sustainable production of biofuel and biodiesel. This review examines the sustainability of these catalysts in literature in terms of small‐scale laboratory and industrial applications in large‐scale biodiesel and biofuel production. Furthermore, this work will critically review natural heterogeneous biomass waste and bio‐waste catalysts in relation to upcoming nanotechnologies. Finally, this work will review the gaps identified in the literature for heterogeneous catalysts derived from biomass and other biocatalysts with a view to identifying future prospects for heterogeneous catalysts.
Light Makes Smart - Photoactive Molecular Switches for Logic Gates

This mini review presents a series of experiments in which light acts on two general phenomena: isomerization reactions and photoluminescence. The experiments described using the reversible photoactive molecular switch spiropyrane/merocyanine, is suited to teach fundamental concepts of photochemistry as well as to introduce innovative applications related to smart materials, molecular motors and logic gates.
Output power increase at idle speed in alternators

The use of a Switched Mode Rectifier (SMR) allows automotive alternators to operate at a load-matched condition at all operating speeds, overcoming the limitation of optimum performance at just one speed. While use of an SMR and load matching control enables large improvements in output power at cruise speed, no extra power is obtained at idle. This document proposes the implementation of a new SMR modulation strategy capable of improving output power at idle speed without violating thermal or current limits of the alternator. The output power improvements at idle (with no cost increase) makes the use of an SMR a more attractive option for the industry, and will facilitate introduction of the new 42V electrical standard in the near future. The proposed research will investigate the design and realization of a suitable modulation strategy and will experimentally demonstrate this new approach. Thesis Supervisor: David J. Perreault Title: Associate Professor of Electrical Engineering Thesis Supervisor: Dr. Thomas A. Keim Title: Principal Research Scientist, Laboratory for Electromagnetic and Electronic Systems
The Structure of the Electric Double Layer of the Protic Ionic Liquid [Dema][TfO] Analyzed by Atomic Force Spectroscopy

Protic ionic liquids are promising electrolytes for fuel cell applications. They would allow for an increase in operation temperatures to more than 100 °C, facilitating water and heat management and, thus, increasing overall efficiency. As ionic liquids consist of bulky charged molecules, the structure of the electric double layer significantly differs from that of aqueous electrolytes. In order to elucidate the nanoscale structure of the electrolyte–electrode interface, we employ atomic force spectroscopy, in conjunction with theoretical modeling using molecular dynamics. Investigations of the low-acidic protic ionic liquid diethylmethylammonium triflate, in contact with a platinum (100) single crystal, reveal a layered structure consisting of alternating anion and cation layers at the interface, as already described for aprotic ionic liquids. The structured double layer depends on the applied electrode potential and extends several nanometers into the liquid, whereby the stiffness decreases with increasing distance from the interface. The presence of water distorts the layering, which, in turn, significantly changes the system’s electrochemical performance. Our results indicate that for low-acidic ionic liquids, a careful adjustment of the water content is needed in order to enhance the proton transport to and from the catalytic electrode.
Person – Job Fit in Students’ Perspective and Its Consequences for Career Aspirations

Purpose: The purpose of this article is to examine the relationship between students’ dedication (S_DED) and their perception of person-job fit (P_J Fit) and investigate how it correlates with students’ career aspirations (CAREER_ASP). Additionally, the relationship between perceived P_J Fit and students’ work experience (WORK_EXP) and social support (S_SUPPORT) have been analyzed. Design/Methodology/Approach: This study was conducted among tourism and/or hospitality students of two universities that agreed to participate in the study. They are located in cities of Poland and Croatia which are very attractive tourist destinations. The questionnaires were administered in each institution and the auditorium survey technique was applied to gather the data. Findings: The findings of this study revealed that there is a positive and significant correlation between students’ dedication and their perception of person-job fit. It was also indicated that there is a positive and significant correlation between students’ work experience, students’ social support and perceived P_J Fit. Finally, it was proved that the more students perceive their skills and abilities as matching the requirements of their future work, the more they believe they can pursue a career in this field. Practical Implications: It is recommended that the educators pay more attention to the person-job fit of students when recruiting them for T&H courses at higher education institutions. Moreover, it is important to offer a variety of activities to increase students’ dedication to the studies undertaken. Specifically, for curriculums to be suitable and to generate enthusiasm among students, they should be customized to meet the requirements of the labor market and modern teaching techniques should be applied to actively engage students in the learning process, making it challenging. Originality/value: To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is one of the first to focus on identifying factors relating to students’ perception of their P_J Fit by linking it with their career aspirations in a single research model.
Deep Learning-Based Multimodal Abnormal Gait Classification Using a 3D Skeleton and Plantar Foot Pressure

Classification of pathological gaits has an important role in finding a weakened body part and diagnosing a disease. Many machine learning-based approaches have been proposed that automatically classify abnormal gait patterns using various sensors, such as inertial sensors, depth cameras and foot pressure plates. In this paper, we present a deep learning-based abnormal gait classification method employing both a 3D skeleton (obtained with a depth camera) and plantar foot pressure. We collected skeleton and foot pressure data simultaneously for 1 normal and 5 pathological (antalgic, lurching, steppage, stiff-legged, and Trendelenburg) gaits and classified them by using a multimodal hybrid model fed both data types together. In the proposed method, we fed the sequential skeleton and average foot pressure data into recurrent neural network (RNN)-based encoding layers and convolutional neural network (CNN)-based encoding layers, respectively, to effectively extract features from different data types. Their output features were concatenated and fed to fully connected layers for classification. The pressure-based and skeleton-based single-modal models achieved classification accuracies of 68.82% and 93.40%, respectively. The proposed multimodal hybrid model showed improved performance with an accuracy of 95.66%. We fine-tuned the hybrid model by applying a 3-step training methodology and ultimately increased the accuracy to 97.60%. This study indicates that the integrated features of the skeleton and foot pressure data represent both the spatiotemporal motion information and weight distribution, so data fusion can generate a positive effect in pathological gait classification.
A Study on the Postprocessing of Channel Estimates in LTE System

The Long Term Evolution (LTE) system is designed to provide a high quality data service for fast moving mobile users. It is based on the Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM) and relies its channel estimation on the training samples which are systematically built within the transmitting data. Either a preamble or a lattice type is used for the distribution of training samples and the latter suits better for the multipath fading channel environment whose channel frequency response (CFR) fluctuates rapidly with time. In the lattice-type structure, the estimation of the CFR makes use of the least squares estimate (LSE) for each pilot samples, followed by an interpolation both in time-and in frequency-domain to fill up the channel estimates for subcarriers corresponding to data samples. All interpolation schemes should rely on the pilot estimates only, and thus, their performances are bounded by the quality of pilot estimates. However, the additive noise give rise to high fluctuation on the pilot estimates, especially in a communication environment with low signal-to-noise ratio. These high fluctuations could be monitored in the alternating high values of the first forward differences (FFD) between pilot estimates. In this paper, we analyzed statistically those FFD values and propose a postprocessing algorithm to suppress high fluctuations in the noisy pilot estimates. The proposed method is based on a localized adaptive moving-average filtering. The performance of the proposed technique is verified on a multipath environment suggested on a 3GPP LTE specification. It is shown that the mean-squared error (MSE) between the actual CFR and pilot estimates could be reduced up to 68% from the noisy pilot estimates.
Investigations of Medical Image Segmentation Methods with Inclusion Mathematical Morphological Operations

Medical image segmentation research is becoming efficient by using mathematical morphological (MM) operators. There are different methods in image segmentation such as supervised and unsupervised segmentations. The MM operators are much effective, in developing a computer aided diagnosis (CAD) system. Medical image such as mammograms, generally they are of low contrast, such that radiologists face difficulties in observing the results. Due to this, diagnosis fails to generate high rate false positives and false negatives. In the proposed work improvement of quality of image segmentation with inclusion of morphological operations with other methods such as watershed transform, fuzzy logic based techniques, curvelets and MRF to detect the masses and calcifications in mammograms. Classification of masses and evaluation of segmentation process are done with artificial neural network and other performance metrics. These methods lead to increase in the accuracy, specificity and sensitivity of mammography and reduce unnecessary biopsies.
Comparison of fiber length analyzers

In recent years, several fiber new fiber length analyzers have been developed and brought to market. The new instruments provide faster measurements and the capability of both laboratory and on-line analysis. Do the various fiber analyzers provide the same length, coarseness, width, and fines measurements for a given fiber sample? This paper provides a comparison of fiber length analyzers over a range of fiber types. Integrated Paper Services, Inc., the USDA FS Forest Products Laboratory, and the Paper Science Department at UW-Stevens Point evaluated six distinct pulp samples using the FS-200, Fibermaster, MorFi, Fiber Lab, FQA (Fiber Quality Analyzer) and HI Res FQA analyzers. Each optical fiber length instrument studied provides repeatable measurements for fiber length, coarseness, width, and fines. However, there were measurement differences between the instruments. Given the fact that the various instruments have unique hardware and software, these measurement differences were expected. Fiber length, width, and coarseness, and fines measurements generally correlate well between instruments indicating that calibration between instruments is possible. Fines measurements do not correlate between the MorFi and the other instruments because the MorFi measures and reports fines on a different basis.
A Systematic Review of Weight Perception in Virtual Reality: Challenges and Road Ahead

Weight is perceived through the combination of multiple sensory systems, and many factors can influence the perception of heaviness, including touch, visual, and force senses. There have been significant advancements in the development of haptic interfaces throughout the years. However, many challenges limit the progression to enable humans to sense the weight in virtual reality (VR). This article presents an overview of the factors that influence how weight is perceived and the phenomenon that contributes to various types of weight illusions. A systematic review has been undertaken to study the development of weight perception in VR, underlying haptic technology that renders the mass of a virtual object, and the creation of weight perception through pseudo-haptic. We summarize the approaches from the perspective of haptic and pseudo-haptic cues that exhibit the sense of weight such as force, skin deformation, vibration, inertia, control-display (C/D) ratio, velocity, body gestures, and audio-visual representation. The design challenges are highlighted, and research gaps are discussed, including accuracy and precision, light weight discrimination, heavy weight rendering, and absolute weight simulation.
Growth-Climate Relationships and Long-Term Growth Trends of the Tropical Forest Tree Choerospondias axillaris (Anacardiaceous) in East-Central Thailand

Tropical forests play important roles in global carbon cycling. Tree-ring analysis can provide important information for understanding long-term trends in carbon-fixation capacity under climate change. However, tree-ring studies in tropical regions are limited. We carried out a tree-ring analysis to investigate the dendrochronological potential of the tropical forest tree Choerospondias axillaris (Anacardiaceae) in east-central Thailand. Our study focused on growth-climate relationships and long-term growth trends. A chronology was constructed covering the period from 1932 to 2019. The tree-ring width index of C.axillaris was positively correlated with precipitation in June, July, and October. Furthermore, growth of C.axillaris was positively correlated with the Standardized Precipitation-Evapotranspiration Index (SPEI) from July to October, indicating that growth of C.axillaris is mainly limited by moisture availability in the late monsoon season. Moving correlation analysis further revealed the consistency and temporal stability of the relationship of tree growth with monsoon season precipitation and SPEI during the period under study. There was a significant increasing trend in long-term growth from 1932 to 2002 (slope = 0.017, p < 0.001); however, long-term growth decreased from 2003 to 2019 (slope = −0.014, p < 0.001). Our study provides important insight into the growth-climate correlations of a broad-leaved tree species in a dry evergreen forest in tropical Asia.