Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Structural Determinants of Mobile Learning Acceptance among Undergraduates in Higher Educational Institutions

Mobile learning has become a critical aspect of online learning in the post-pandemic era. As a result, practitioners and policymakers have paid increasing attention to mobile learning acceptance among various stakeholders. However, there is a vacuity of literature on mobile learning acceptance in developing countries, particularly in the African context. This study sought to examine the determinants of mobile learning acceptance among undergraduates in higher educational institutions using a structural equation modelling approach. Data were collected through a web survey distributed to 415 undergraduate students in Namibia. The majority of the UTAUT relationships were confirmed, although some were not supported. The results revealed a strong positive relationship between performance expectancy and hedonic motivation. Hence, hedonic motivation mediates the relationship between performance expectancy and behavioural intention to use mobile learning in Namibia. The results of this study may help to inform mobile learning implementation efforts, particularly in the post-pandemic period.
Multidisciplinary Treatment Strategy for Early Colon Cancer: A Review-An English Version

Treatment for early colon cancer has progressed rapidly, with endoscopic resection and minimally invasive surgery. It is important to select patients without risk of lymph node metastasis before deciding on endoscopic resection for early colon cancer treatment. Pathological risk factors include histologic grade of cancer cell differentiation, lymphovascular invasion, perineural invasion, tumor budding, and deep submucosal invasion. These risk factors for predicting lymph node metastasis are crucial for determining the treatment strategy of endoscopic excision and radical resection for early colon cancer. A multidisciplinary approach is emphasized to establish a treatment strategy for early colon cancer to minimize the risk of complications and obtain excellent oncologic outcomes by selecting an appropriate treatment optimized for the patient's stage and condition. Therefore, we aimed to review the optimal multidisciplinary treatment strategies, including endoscopy and surgery, for early colon cancer.
Fucoidan Improves Growth, Digestive Tract Maturation, and Gut Microbiota in Large Yellow Croaker (Larimichthys crocea) Larvae

The early life period is considered an essential period for gut microbial colonization. Manipulating gut microbiota interventions during early life periods has been proven to be a promising method to boost healthy growth. Therefore, the aim of the present study was to investigate the effects of dietary fucoidan (Fuc) on the growth, digestive tract maturation, and gut microbiota of large yellow croaker (Larimichthys crocea) larvae. Four diets were formulated with different levels of Fuc (0.00%, 0.50%, 1.00%, and 2.00%). Results showed that dietary Fuc significantly improved the growth performance of larvae. Meanwhile, dietary Fuc promoted digestive tract maturation. Dietary 1.00% Fuc significantly improved intestinal morphology. Dietary Fuc upregulated the expression of intestinal cell proliferation and differentiation related-genes and intestinal barrier related-genes. Dietary 2.00% Fuc significantly increased the activities of brush border membranes enzymes and lipase while inhibiting α-amylase. Furthermore, dietary Fuc maintained healthy intestinal micro-ecology. In detail, dietary 1.00% and 2.00% Fuc altered the overall structure of the gut microbiota and increased the relative abundance of Bacteroidetes while decreasing the relative abundance of opportunistic pathogens and facultative anaerobe. In conclusion, appropriate dietary Fuc (1.00–2.00%) could improve the growth of large yellow croaker larvae by promoting digestive tract maturation and maintaining an ideal intestinal micro-ecology.
On n-Dependence

In this note we develop and clarify some of the basic combinatorial properties of the new notion of $n$-dependence (for $1\leq n < \omega$) recently introduced by Shelah. In the same way as dependence of a theory means its inability to encode a bipartite random graph with a definable edge relation, $n$-dependence corresponds to the inability to encode a random $(n+1)$-partite $(n+1)$-hypergraph with a definable edge relation. Most importantly, we characterize $n$-dependence by counting $\varphi$-types over finite sets (generalizing Sauer-Shelah lemma and answering a question of Shelah) and in terms of the collapse of random ordered $(n+1)$-hypergraph indiscernibles down to order-indiscernibles (which implies that the failure of $n$-dependence is always witnessed by a formula in a single free variable).
Mid-Infrared Photometry of Mass-losing Asymptotic Giant Branch Stars

We present ground-based mid-IR imaging for 27 M-, S-, and C-type asymptotic giant branch (AGB) stars. The data are compared with those of the database available thanks to the IRAS, Infrared Space Observatory, Midcourse Space Experiment, and Two Micron All Sky Survey catalogs. Our goal is to establish relations between the IR colors, the effective temperature Teff, the luminosity L, and the mass-loss rate , for improving the effectiveness of AGB modeling. Bolometric (absolute) magnitudes are obtained through distance compilations and by applying previously derived bolometric corrections; the variability is also studied, using data accumulated since the IRAS epoch. The main results are as follows: (1) Values of L and for C stars fit relations previously established by us, with Mira variables being on average more evolved and mass-losing than semiregular variables. (2) Moderate IR excesses (as compared to evolutionary tracks) are found for S and M stars in our sample: they are confirmed to originate from the dusty circumstellar environment. (3) A larger reddening characterizes C-rich Mira variables and post-AGB stars. In this case, part of the excess is due to AGB models overestimating Teff for C stars, as a consequence of the lack of suitable molecular opacities. This has a large effect on the colors of C-rich sources, and sometimes disentangling the photospheric and circumstellar contributions is difficult; better model atmospheres should be used in stellar evolutionary codes for C stars. (4) The presence of a long-term variability at mid-IR wavelengths seems to be limited to sources with maximum emission in the 8-20 μm region, usually Mira variables (one-third of our sample). Most of the semiregular and post-AGB stars studied here have remained remarkably constant in the mid-IR over the last 20 years.
Are Some Technologies Beyond Regulatory Regimes

Regulatory frameworks are a common tool in governance to incent and coerce behaviors supporting national or strategic stability. This includes domestic regulations and international agreements. Though regulation is always a challenge, the domain of fast evolving threats, like cyber, are proving much more difficult to control. Many discussions are underway searching for approaches that can provide national security in these domains. We use game theoretic learning models to explore the question of strategic stability with respect to the democratization of certain technologies (such as cyber). We suggest that such many-player games could inherently be chaotic with no corresponding (Nash) equilibria. In the absence of such equilibria, traditional approaches, as measures to achieve levels of overall security, may not be suitable approaches to support strategic stability in these domains. Altogether new paradigms may be needed for these issues. At the very least, regulatory regimes that fail to address the basic nature of the technology domains should not be pursued as a default solution, regardless of success in other domains. In addition, the very chaotic nature of these domains may hold the promise of novel approaches to regulation.
Design and fabrication of flexible and frequency reconfigurable antenna loaded with copper, distilled water and seawater metamaterial superstrate for IoT applications

The manuscript represents a novel superstrate metamaterial loaded microstrip patch antenna to achieve multiband frequency reconfigurability. The performance is observed for the frequency band of 4 to 8 GHz. Metamaterial property is enabled by engraving triangular‐shaped split‐ring resonators in the substrate. Frequency tunability is achieved based on the switching mechanism of three PIN diodes. Different materials are loaded in the split ring resonators like copper, distilled water, and seawater for the performance observation in terms of reflectance response, Bandwidth, gain and tunability. The design provides the reflectance response of −43.38 dB, Bandwidth of 220 MHz, and frequency tunability of 100 MHz. The proposed design is also giving the highest gain of 8.3 dB. The structure is fabricated using FR‐4 to reduce the overall cost of the antenna, and it is tested using a vector network analyzer and anechoic chamber. Simulated results and fabricated ones are compared for reliability. The proposed design, with its flexible and reconfigurable capability, can be applicable in IoT applications.
The 7-year MAXI/GSC X-Ray Source Catalog in the High Galactic Latitude Sky (3MAXI)

We present the third MAXI/GSC catalog in the high Galactic latitude sky ( ) based on the 7-year data from 2009 August 13 to 2016 July 31, complementary to that in the low Galactic latitude sky ( ) (Hori et al. 2018). We compile 682 sources detected at significances of sD,4–10 keV ≥ 6.5 in the 4–10 keV band. A two-dimensional image fit based on the Poisson likelihood algorithm (C-statistics) is adopted for the detections and constraints on their fluxes and positions. The 4–10 keV sensitivity reaches ≈0.48 mCrab, or ≈5.9 × 10−12 erg cm−2 s−1, over half of the survey area. Compared with the 37-month Hiroi et al. (2013) catalog, which adopted a threshold of sD,4–10 keV ≥ 7, the source number increases by a factor of ∼1.4. The fluxes in the 3–4 keV and 10–20 keV bands are further estimated, and hardness ratios (HRs) are calculated using the 3–4 keV, 4–10 keV, 3–10 keV, and 10–20 keV band fluxes. We also make the 4–10 keV light curves in 1-year bins for all the sources and characterize their variabilities with an index based on a likelihood function and the excess variance. Possible counterparts are found from five major X-ray survey catalogs by Swift, Uhuru, RXTE, XMM-Newton, and ROSAT, as well as an X-ray galaxy cluster catalog (MCXC). Our catalog provides the fluxes, positions, detection significances, HRs, 1-year bin light curves, variability indices, and counterpart candidates.
Structure, Function, and Genetics of the Cerebellum in Autism

Autism spectrum disorders are common neurodevelopmental disorders that are defined by core behavioral symptoms but have diverse genetic and environmental risk factors. Despite its etiological heterogeneity, several unifying theories of autism have been proposed, including a central role for cerebellar dysfunction. The cerebellum follows a protracted course of development that culminates in an exquisitely crafted brain structure containing over half of the neurons in the entire brain densely packed into a highly organized structure. Through its complex network of connections with cortical and subcortical brain regions, the cerebellum acts as a sensorimotor regulator and affects changes in executive and limbic processing. In this review, we summarize the structural, functional, and genetic contributions of the cerebellum to autism.
Scan-Free GEXRF in the Soft X-ray Range for the Investigation of Structured Nanosamples

Scan-free grazing-emission X-ray fluorescence spectroscopy (GEXRF) is an established technique for the investigation of the elemental depth-profiles of various samples. Recently it has been applied to investigating structured nanosamples in the tender X-ray range. However, lighter elements such as oxygen, nitrogen or carbon cannot be efficiently investigated in this energy range, because of the ineffective excitation. Moreover, common CCD detectors are not able to discriminate between fluorescence lines below 1 keV. Oxygen and nitrogen are important components of insulation and passivation layers, for example, in silicon oxide or silicon nitride. In this work, scan-free GEXRF is applied in proof-of-concept measurements for the investigation of lateral ordered 2D nanostructures in the soft X-ray range. The sample investigated is a Si3N4 lamellar grating, which represents 2D periodic nanostructures as used in the semiconductor industry. The emerging two-dimensional fluorescence patterns are recorded with a CMOS detector. To this end, energy-dispersive spectra are obtained via single-photon event evaluation. In this way, spatial and therefore angular information is obtained, while discrimination between different photon energies is enabled. The results are compared to calculations of the sample model performed by a Maxwell solver based on the finite-elements method. A first measurement is carried out at the UE56-2 PGM-2 beamline at the BESSY II synchrotron radiation facility to demonstrate the feasibility of the method in the soft X-ray range. Furthermore, a laser-produced plasma source (LPP) is utilized to investigate the feasibility of this technique in the laboratory. The results from the BESSY II measurements are in good agreement with the simulations and prove the applicability of scan-free GEXRF in the soft X-ray range for quality control and process engineering of 2D nanostructures. The LPP results illustrate the chances and challenges concerning a transfer of the methodology to the laboratory.
Correlates and predictors of resilience in veterans with persistent traumatic brain injury symptoms

Purpose To understand the relationships between resilience and socio-demographic, clinical, cognitive, and affective variables in veterans with persistent traumatic brain injury (TBI) symptoms, and to identify and estimate the value of resilience predictors. Methods A total of 146 veterans with remote TBI were enrolled into a cross-sectional study. Correlational analysis was used to examine associations between variables. Multiple regression analysis was used to determine the most valuable predictors of resilience. Results Resilience was correlated with neurobehavioral symptoms of TBI, post-traumatic stress symptoms, quality of life, cognitive performance, and positive affect. There were no significant correlations with socio-demographic variables, TBI characteristics, depression, anxiety, and negative affect. Multiple linear regression showed that cognitive performance and positive affect were the most valuable predictors, followed by neurobehavioral symptoms and post-traumatic stress. Conclusions Resilience in veterans with TBI has a strong correlation with persistent neurobehavioral symptoms, posttraumatic stress, quality of life, cognitive functioning, and positive affect. Such variables as good cognitive performance and positive affect were found to be more valuable for effective resilience in veterans with persistent TBI symptoms (possibly as protective factors) than clinical type of traumatic brain injury, the amount or the time that had passed since their last trauma and can explain the great amount of resilience variance even after excluding all other variables. Unlike many other factors, these variables can be modified. Targeting them in specific interventions will possibly cultivate resilience.
Pan-cancer analysis supports MAPK12 as a potential prognostic and immunotherapeutic target in multiple tumor types, including in THCA

P38 mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK)12 (also known as P38 γ) is critical in the development and progression of various types of tumors. Despite the extensive literature on the subject, further studies are needed to elucidate its role in cancer progression. Here, a comprehensive bioinformatics analysis of a generalized cancer dataset was performed to explore the mechanism of MAPK12 regulation in tumorigenesis. Several tumor datasets and online analytical tools, including HPA, SangerBox, UALCAN, GEPIA2, STRING, ImmuCellAI, and MEXPRESS, were used to analyze the expression information on MAPK12 in several types of cancers. Western blotting and reverse transcription-quantitative PCR were used to verify the protein and mRNA expression levels of MAPK12, respectively, in human normal thyroid cells (HTORI-3) and thyroid carcinoma (THCA) cells. Cytotoxicity and EdU assays were used to verify the promoting effect of MAPK12 on cell proliferation in THCA cells. Analysis of several cancers found that MAPK12 was overexpressed in multiple cancer types. Upregulated MAPK12 mRNA expression levels were correlated with a worse prognosis in patients with several types of cancer. Cytotoxicity and EdU experiments showed that MAPK12 knockdown inhibited THCA cell proliferation. Gene Ontology-Biological Process and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes analyses showed that the enrichment of MAPK12 genes was related to cell proliferation and the tumor immune microenvironment. These results showed that MAPK12 was closely related to the immune checkpoint, microsatellite instability, and tumor mutational burden and affected the sensitivity of the tumor to immunotherapy. This study showed that MAPK12 may be an immunotherapeutic and promising prognostic biomarker in certain types of tumors.
Optimal location planning of electric bus charging stations with integrated photovoltaic and energy storage system

This study presents a novel bus charging station planning problem considering integrated photovoltaic (PV) and energy storage systems (PESS) to smooth the carbon‐neutral transition of transportation. This paper illustrates a two‐stage stochastic programming model capturing the uncertainty of PV power outputs and designs a step‐wise solution approach in which a conventional charging station location problem is solved in the first step and an improved L‐shaped algorithm is developed in the second step to determine charging station locations with PESS. The numerical experiments indicate that the step‐wise solution approach can provide high‐quality solutions within acceptable computational time. A case study is performed using a real‐world transit network in Beijing, China, with 34 bus routes and 15 candidate bus charging stations. Compared with the benchmark model, both recharging cost and carbon emission are reduced considerably. This paper provides novel insights into the development of integrated transportation and renewable energy systems.
The effect of pair cascades on the high-energy spectral cut-off in gamma-ray bursts

The highly luminous and variable prompt emission in Gamma-Ray Bursts (GRBs) arises in an ultra-relativistic outflow. The exact underlying radiative mechanism shaping its non-thermal spectrum is still uncertain, making it hard to determine the outflow's bulk Lorentz factor $\Gamma$. GRBs with spectral cutoff due to pair production ($\gamma\gamma\to e^+e^-$) at energies $E_c\gtrsim10\;$MeV are extremely useful for inferring $\Gamma$. We find that when the emission region has a high enough compactness, then as it becomes optically thick to scattering, Compton downscattering by non-relativistic $e^\pm$-pairs can shift the spectral cutoff energy well below the self-annihilation threshold, $E_{\rm sa}=\Gamma m_ec^2/(1+z)$. We treat this effect numerically and show that $\Gamma$ obtained assuming $E_c=E_{\rm sa}$ can under-predict its true value by as much as an order of magnitude.
Vegetation phenology from Sentinel 2 data: a GIS open source application

The vegetation phenology is defined as the seasonal timing of recurring biological events, the causes of their timing, their relationship to biotic and abiotic forces, and the interrelations among phases of the same or different species. Phenology is one of the most reliable indicators of vegetation dynamics. Geographical Information Systems (GIS) combined with freely available satellite imagery significantly contributes to the study of vegetation phenology. A GIS open-source application that estimates vegetation phenology metrics from time-series of Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) and Enhanced Vegetation Index (EVI) as proxies for phenology was already been developed. The application was based on products from MODIS sensor (MOD13 data) and considered two crops, vineyards and maize. However, this application is now obsolete in the recent version of QGIS software. This work aims to develop an improved version of the open-source application to automatically extract the phenological metrics from a set of Sentinel 2 input data. Sentinel 2 has the advantage of also being free, with higher spatial, spectral, and temporal resolution, being particularly suitable for “in-season crop forecasting”. Several limitations found in the previous version can be surpassed with the use of Sentinel 2 data. For instance, the small farms, due to the presence of multiple land cover types within a pixel, can now be monitored with much greater confidence. The application is free and open source, so it can be modified according to the user requirements and adopted to different crops and regions.
Behavior of Sulfur Abundances in Metal-poor Giants and Dwarfs

LTE and non-LTE (NLTE) abundances of sulfur in six metal-poor giants and 61 dwarfs (62 dwarfs including the Sun) were explored in the range of -3 ≲ [Fe/H] ≲ +0.5 using high-resolution, high signal-to-noise ratio spectra of the S I 8693.9 and 8694.6 Å lines observed by us and measured by François and Clegg, Lambert, & Tomkin. NLTE effects in S abundances are found to be small and practically negligible. The behavior of [S/Fe] versus [Fe/H] exhibits a linear increasing trend without plateau with decreasing [Fe/H]. Combining our results with those available in the literature, we find that the slope of the increasing trend is -0.25 in the NLTE behavior of [S/Fe], which is comparable to that observed in [O/Fe]. The observed behavior of S may require chemical evolution models of the Galaxy, in which scenarios of hypernovae nucleosynthesis and/or time-delayed deposition into interstellar medium are incorporated.
Pomegranate Husk Scald Browning during Storage: A Review on Factors Involved, Their Modes of Action, and Its Association to Postharvest Treatments

The pomegranate (Punica granatum L.), which contains high levels of health-promoting compounds, has received much attention in recent decades. Fruit storage potential ranges from 3 to 4 months in air and from 4 to 6 months in Controlled Atmospheres (CA) with 3–5% oxygen and 10–15% carbon dioxide. Storage life is limited by decay, chilling injury, weight loss (WL), and husk scald. In particular, husk scald (HS) limits pomegranate long-term storage at favorable temperatures. HS appears as skin browning which expands from stem end towards the blossom end during handling or long-term storage (10–12 weeks) at 6–10 °C. Even though HS symptoms are limited to external appearance, it may still significantly reduce pomegranate fruit marketability. A number of postharvest treatments have been proposed to prevent husk scald, including atmospheric modifications, intermittent warming, coatings, and exposure to 1-MCP. Long-term storage may induce phenolic compounds accumulation, affect organelles membranes, and activate browning enzymes such as polyphenol oxidases (PPO) and peroxidases (POD). Due to oxidation of tannins and phenolics, scalding becomes visible. There is no complete understanding of the etiology and biochemistry of HS. This review discusses the hypothesized mechanism of HS based on recent research, its association to postharvest treatments, and their possible targets.