Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Seed treatment for managing fall armyworm as defoliator and cutworm on maize: plant protection, residuality, and the insect life history.

BACKGROUND The highly polyphagous and invasive fall armyworm (FAW, Spodoptera frugiperda) can feed on different plant parts of host crops, damaging whorls and stalks in early maize growth stages. Systemic insecticide seed treatment (IST) could minimize this damage, although the residual efficacy may vary with the plant tissue damaged. Using damage rating scales and artificial infestation in controlled conditions, we determined the potential of IST against FAW attacking maize whorl leaves or the stalk base. RESULTS Chlorantraniliprole, cyantraniliprole, or thiodicarb+imidacloprid IST similarly killed >80% FAWs for one or two weeks after plant emergence depending on the plant tissue attacked. The residual efficacy (i.e., time after plant emergence sustaining >80% larval mortality) lasted from the first to the eleventh day (VE-V3 maize growth stages), while for cutworm on the maize stalk base, it lasted 3-7 days after plant emergence (V1-V2 stages). In terms of damage, the ISTs lasted 15 days after emergence (V4 stage) for FAW on whorl leaves and 10 days (V3 stage) for FAW feeding on the stalk base. The larvae surviving on the seed-treated plants underwent sublethal effects in growth and development, reducing insect fitness. CONCLUSION Diamide or carbamate+neonicotinoid seed treatments kill FAW larvae on maize whorls or stalks in favorable edaphoclimatic and insecticide-susceptibility conditions. The cumulative impacts of systemic IST on above-ground insect pests go beyond mortality. The ISTs studied can be valuable against FAW in maize, for instance, to help protect varieties that may not express sufficient insect resistance in maize early growth stages. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.
Impact of second wave of COVID-19 pandemic on the hesitancy and refusal of COVID-19 vaccination in Puducherry, India: a longitudinal study

ABSTRACT The second wave of COVID-19 pandemic has spread rampantly throughout India between April and May 2021, leading to high mortality rates. Identifying any change in the rate of vaccine hesitancy or refusal due to such mass casualty events will provide further insights on developing appropriate risk communication strategy. Hence, this study was undertaken to identify the vaccine hesitancy and refusal before and during the second wave of COVID-19 pandemic. We conducted a longitudinal study among 900 adults to know about their vaccine hesitancy and refusal pattern before (March 2021 – round-1) and during the second wave of COVID-19 pandemic (May 2021 – round-2). Telephonic interview was conducted using the pre-tested semi-structured questionnaire. There was an increase in the vaccine hesitancy (27.8% in round-1 to 32.7% in round-2) and refusal (25.6% in round-1 to 35.6% in round-2) during the second wave of pandemic in Puducherry. In adjusted analysis, vaccine hesitancy was found to increase by 1.19 times during the round-2 survey compared to round-1 survey (aIRR = 1.19; 95%CI: 1.03–1.37). We also found that the vaccine refusal increased by 1.40 times during the round-2 survey compared to round-1 survey (aIRR = 1.40; 95%CI: 1.22–1.62) after adjusting for age, place of residence, and occupation. We found that the confidence in COVID-19 vaccine efficacy and safety has declined over time leading to increase in the vaccine hesitancy and refusal in our study cohort, with more than one-third refusing to get themselves vaccinated during the second wave of pandemic.
Compact meander T‐shaped monopole antenna for dual‐band WLAN applications

A compact coplanar waveguide‐feed monopole antenna with dual‐band characteristics is proposed in this article. The proposed antenna mainly consists of meander T‐shaped monopole and small ground plane embedded with a pair of L‐shaped couple slots and two pairs of I‐shaped notched slots symmetrically. By elongating the meander T‐shaped arms and carefully selecting the positions and lengths of L‐shaped slot and I‐shaped slot, the antenna excites four resonant frequencies at 2.42, 2.52, 4.75, and 5.54 GHz which are formed into two wide bands to cover all the 2.4/5.2/5.8 GHz wireless local area network (WLAN) operating bands, and is with miniaturization structure. Moreover, the antenna can provide nearly dipole‐like radiation patterns and good gains across the dual operating bands. These results prove that the proposed dual‐band antenna is very suitable for WLAN applications. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Int J RF and Microwave CAE, 2013.
Multiple lines of evidence for identifying potential hazards to fish from contaminants of emerging concern in Great Lakes tributaries

Contaminants of emerging concern (CECs; e.g., pharmaceuticals, flame retardants, pesticides, and industrial chemicals) are omnipresent throughout tributaries to the Great Lakes. Furthermore, CECs are often present at concentrations that are potentially hazardous to aquatic species. Since 2010, we characterized the presence of CECs at 309 sites within 47 Great Lakes tributaries and characterized responses of fathead minnow (Pimephales promelas) exposed to river water at a subset of 26 sites within four tributaries. Our work resulted in three independent lines of evidence related to the potential hazards of CEC exposure to fish. First, vulnerability (where vulnerability refers to likelihood) of surface waters to CEC presence was predicted using select watershed characteristics. Second, hazard to fish (where hazard means the potential for adverse biological responses) was predicted using screening values for a subset of CECs. Third, biological responses of fathead minnow exposed to river water in streamside exposures were measured. We assessed the congruence of these three lines of evidence for identifying sites with elevated hazards to CEC exposure. Predicted vulnerability and hazards agreed at 66% of all sites. Where the two indices did not agree, vulnerability often underestimated predicted hazard. When compared with measured biological responses from streamside exposures, predicted hazards agreed for 42% of samples. Furthermore, when predicted hazards for specific effect categories were compared with similar measured biomarkers, 26% and 46% of samples agreed for reproductive and physiological effect categories, respectively. Overall, vulnerability and hazard predictions tended to overestimate the measured biological responses, providing a protective estimate of the potential hazards of CEC exposure to fish. When used together, these three approaches can help resource managers prioritize management activities in minimizing hazards of CEC exposure and can be used by researchers to prioritize studies focused on understanding the hazards of CEC exposure to fish. Integr Environ Assess Manag 2022;18:1246–1259. © 2021 The Authors. Integrated Environmental Assessment and Management published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of Society of Environmental Toxicology & Chemistry (SETAC). This article has been contributed to by US Government employees and their work is in the public domain in the USA.
Desorption of zinc, copper and lead ions from loaded flax fibres

ABSTRACT Biosorption is an efficient and cost-effective method for heavy metals’ remediation. However, saturated biosorbents may pose a serious problem for the environment. Flax fibres have shown very good adsorption capacities to remove zinc, copper and lead ions from contaminated aqueous solutions. In this study, adsorption–desorption cycles were conducted with loaded flax fibres in batch mode to recover heavy metals using four types of solutions: hydrochloric acid solution, nitric acid solution, sodium hydroxide solution and ultrapure water. Desorption kinetic studies, conducted with loaded flax fibres, showed very fast desorption of zinc, copper and lead when using nitric and hydrochloric acids with a selectivity sequence of Zn (totally desorbed) > Cu (94%) > Pb (80–73%). Desorption kinetic was slower with the use of sodium hydroxide and showed much lower desorption rates of Zn (62%) > Pb (12%) > Cu (7%). Desorption of zinc and copper from previously loaded fibres from binary metal ion system in lead solution was also investigated. Different concentrations ranging from 0.04 to 0.20 mmol/L were tested. The obtained results demonstrated a significant release in the order Zn (18–90%) > Cu (2–42%), while lead was still efficiently adsorbed. Retention efficiencies of zinc and copper and adsorption efficiency of lead resulted in the same adsorption efficiencies of the three metal ions onto flax fibres in the ternary metal ion system.
Negative aging perceptions and cognitive and functional decline: Are you as old as you feel?

Research has shown the associations between negative aging perceptions and cognitive and physical decline may be mediated through behavioral and psychological pathways, but they are rarely examined simultaneously. We aimed at assessing the difference in the probability of following a high‐, mid‐, or low‐performing cognitive trajectory, and a high‐ or low‐performing physical function trajectory by negative aging perceptions. We sought to test two competing pathway mechanisms for the associations.
The generalized method of characteristics for waveform relaxation analysis of lossy coupled transmission lines

The transient response of lossy coupled transmission lines is simulated by iterative waveform relaxation analyses of equivalent disjoint networks constructed with congruence transformers, fast-Fourier-transform waveform generators, and characteristic impedances synthesized by the Pade approximation. A two-order reduction of central-processing-unit time and a one-order savings in computer memory have been achieved. A lossy directional coupler is simulated for illustration. <<ETX>>
Control on Hilbert Spaces and Application to Some Mean Field Type Control Problems

We propose a new approach to studying classical solutions of the Bellman equation and Master equation for mean field type control problems, using a novel form of the"lifting"idea introduced by P.-L. Lions. Rather than studying the usual system of Hamilton-Jacobi/Fokker-Planck PDEs using analytic techniques, we instead study a stochastic control problem on a specially constructed Hilbert space, which is reminiscent of a tangent space on the Wasserstein space in optimal transport. On this Hilbert space we can use classical control theory techniques, despite the fact that it is infinite dimensional. A consequence of our construction is that the mean field type control problem appears as a special case. Thus we preserve the advantages of the lifiting procedure, while removing some of the difficulties. Our approach extends previous work by two of the coauthors, which dealt with a deterministic control problem for which the Hilbert space could be generic.
The playful politics of memes

ABSTRACT This special issue emphasizes memes as an avenue for researching vernacular expressions of the political. Memes disrupt and reimagine politics in humorous ways. Spreading across platforms, they confirm, contest and challenge political power and hierarchies. In this introduction, we contend that playfulness connects the humorous and the political in memes. While memes may be created to disrupt, challenge, and reimagine politics in a humorous way, we argue for a critical examination of how they playfully demarcate and move frontiers between ‘us’ and ‘them’ in the political. Memes constitute a playful activity that follows a shared set of rules and gives a (shared) voice, which may create togetherness and political identities but also increase polarization. As their template travels, memes continue to appropriate new political contexts and to (re)negotiate frontiers in the political.
Linear instability of lid- and pressure-driven flows in channels textured with longitudinal superhydrophobic grooves

Abstract It is known that an increased flow rate can be achieved in channel flows when smooth walls are replaced by superhydrophobic surfaces. This reduces friction and increases the flux for a given driving force. Applications include thermal management in microelectronics, where a competition between convective and conductive resistance must be accounted for in order to evaluate any advantages of these surfaces. Of particular interest is the hydrodynamic stability of the underlying basic flows, something that has been largely overlooked in the literature, but is of key relevance to applications that typically base design on steady states or apparent-slip models that approximate them. We consider the global stability problem in the case where the longitudinal grooves are periodic in the spanwise direction. The flow is driven along the grooves by either the motion of a smooth upper lid or a constant pressure gradient. In the case of smooth walls, the former problem (plane Couette flow) is linearly stable at all Reynolds numbers whereas the latter (plane Poiseuille flow) becomes unstable above a relatively large Reynolds number. When grooves are present our work shows that additional instabilities arise in both cases, with critical Reynolds numbers small enough to be achievable in applications. Generally, for lid-driven flows one unstable mode is found that becomes neutral as the Reynolds number increases, indicating that the flows are inviscidly stable. For pressure-driven flows, two modes can coexist and exchange stability depending on the channel height and slip fraction. The first mode remains unstable as the Reynolds number increases and corresponds to an unstable mode of the two-dimensional Rayleigh equation, while the second mode becomes neutrally stable at infinite Reynolds numbers. Comparisons of critical Reynolds numbers with the experimental observations for pressure-driven flows of Daniello et al. (Phys. Fluids, vol. 21, issue 8, 2009, p. 085103) are encouraging.
An Optimal Beamforming Model for Aperture-Level Phased Array Full-Duplex

Full-duplex, which aims to simultaneously transmitting and receiving over the same band, together with phased array antennas play fundamental roles in next-generation wireless communication systems. The combination of them, phased array fullduplex, is widely accepted as a promising way for realizing practical full-duplex communications. However, diversified application scenarios and rapidly grown system complexity hinder the development of PAFD. In this work, we present a spatial domain selfinterference suppression method for the implementation of fullduplex in digital phased array architectures. By taking advantage of the flexibility of fully-digital phased array, a novel computation framework is constructed to effectively optimize the transmitting beamforming weights in order to maximize the desired beamforming gains of the transmitting sub-array while simultaneously reducing the self-interference received by receiving sub-array. Our work demonstrates the capability of spatial domain methods in digital phased array and paves the way for practical full-duplex communications.
Interfacing transient stability program to EMTDC program

This paper describes the new digital simulation concept that combines the detailed capability of the electromagnetic transient program EMTDC with the large system dynamic capability of transient stability program (TSP). The response of the DC network and other FACTS devices simulated in detail in EMTDC takes into account the dynamics of a large system without the compromise of severe network reduction. The FACTS devices that have no model in the TSP program are simulated by time varying equivalent admittance created in EMTDC. Extensive tests show the TSP-EMTDC interface method used in this project is beneficial, accurate and stable. The time saving by using TSP-EMTDC interface is more significant when a larger power system is studied. A large test case with multi-port interface is compared with the results of pure EMTDC simulation.
Unsupervised Federated Learning based IoT Intrusion Detection

Machine learning has been widely used these days to detect novel intrusions across IoT devices. Supervised-based machine learning techniques need labelled datasets to train a model. Due to privacy reasons, these days, people don’t share the dataset generated across their devices with external authority. When datasets are not aggregated centrally, it becomes very difficult to process the unlabelled data and train a model across edge devices. Considering these drawbacks, we have brought an unsupervised deep learning approach that uses autoencoders to learn from unlabeled data. Our approach uses federated machine learning and can be trained across the unlabeled dataset of edge devices without compromising people’s privacy. We have tested our approach against CICIDS 2017 dataset in a federated environment and have got an accuracy of 97.75% in detecting intrusions.
Stochastic resonance: a signal+noise in a two state system

The term stochastic resonance (SR) describes a stochastic phenomenon which occurs in bistable systems when driven by a weak periodic signal embedded in noise of comparable intensity. The author discusses the phenomenology of stochastic resonance, outlines the theoretical questions, and demonstrates typical measurements on an analog simulator. The resonance occurs when the period of the signal becomes comparable to an internal time scale established by the noise. For such a condition, the signal-to-noise ratio of the response of the bistable system is maximized. <<ETX>>
Doubly spread DS-CDMA for efficient blind interference cancellation

A new spreading scheme, which consists of two stages of spreading, is considered for DS-CDMA systems. The data of a user is spread first with a long signature sequence and then with a short signature sequence. The scheme combines the advantages of the two types of spreading techniques and allows the suppression of MAI by performing both beamforming and multiuser detection efficiently. A joint receiver with blind multiuser detection and blind beamforming is proposed for the new spreading scheme. Simulations show that the joint receiver performs better than either beamforming or multiuser detection alone. To speed up convergence, an iterative version of the joint receiver is considered. A simple adaptive sequence design method is also included.
Fault prediction of elevator operation system based on LSTM

In this paper, a fault prediction method based on the time series data of elevator operation fault is proposed, and the grid search method LSTM neural network is used to select the parameters, so as to minimize the root mean square error of the prediction results. The experiment is carried out with log data of centralized warning system of rail transit communication and compared with ARIMA model. Experimental results show that LSTM algorithm is superior to ARIMA algorithm in fault prediction, it has strong practical significance.
Low-cost PM Sensor Behaviour Based on Duty-Cycle Analysis

Particulate Matter (PM) air pollution has received growing attention in recent years due to the increased sensitivity to the problem and the spread of low-cost sensing devices. These low-cost devices are able to produce valuable data, but they come with certain hurdles which are engineering challenges to be overcome. These challenges are mainly: reduction of consumed energy; reduction of data logged and transmitted; aging of sensors. The aim of this paper is to understand if it is possible to reduce the duty-cycle of an air pollution monitoring sensor and still get meaningful data on the general behavior. This has advantages from all perspectives: it enables less logging of redundant information; it reduces the strain of the sensor to extend its lifespan and to reduce maintenance costs; it reduces the energy consumed by the sensor, essential in battery-powered devices.
Implementing Multilevel Inverters and Multiport DC-DC Converters for Microgrids

Microgrids are in great demand owing to their ability to enhance generation power and distribute electricity to local loads. Microgrids include renewable energy sources, DC-DC converters, batteries, and DC-AC inverters. Multiport converters and multilevel inverters are proposed for the conversion process in this paper. The cost and size of the entire system are reduced when a multiport DC-DC converter is used. Furthermore, employing conventional inverters results in an output voltage that is unstable and unsynchronized with the power grid. A multilevel inverter using the Phase Lock Loop (PLL) method is utilized to solve this problem. The suggested approach generates a pure sinusoidal output voltage while saving money and space.
Increased Excursions to Functional Networks in Schizophrenia in the Absence of Task

Brain activity during rest has been demonstrated to evolve through a repertoire of functional connectivity (FC) patterns, whose alterations may provide biomarkers of schizophrenia - a psychotic disorder characterized by dysfunctional brain connectivity. In this study, differences between the dynamic exploration of resting-state networks using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data from 71 schizophrenia patients and 74 healthy controls were investigated using a method focusing on the dominant fMRI signal phase coherence pattern at each time point. Through the lens of dynamical systems theory, brain activity in the form of temporal FC state trajectories was examined for intergroup differences by calculating the fractional occupancy, dwell time, limiting probability of each state and the transition probabilities between states. Results showed reduced fractional occupancy of a globally synchronized state in schizophrenia. Conversely, FC states overlapping with canonical functional subsystems exhibited increased fractional occupancy and limiting probability in schizophrenia. Furthermore, state-to-state transition probabilities were altered in schizophrenia. This revealed a reduced probability of remaining in a global integrative state, increased probability of switching from this state to functionally meaningful networks and reduced probability of remaining in a state related to the Default Mode network. These results revealed medium to large effect sizes. Finally, this study showed that using K-medoids clustering did not influence the observed intergroup differences - highlighting the utility of dynamical systems theory to better understand brain activity. Combined, these findings expose pronounced differences between schizophrenia patients and healthy controls - supporting and extending current knowledge regarding disrupted brain dynamics in schizophrenia.
Rectifier Circuit With Wide Ranges of Input Power Based on Reflected Power Recovery Network

This paper represents a new rectifier circuit based on the reflected power recovery network. First, a traditional rectifier circuit that works at 2.45 GHz is designed. When the input power and operating frequency change, the rectifier circuit will have losses and reduce the rectification efficiency due to the non-linearity of the diode. The reflected power recovery network can re-inject the reflected power back to the circuit. In order to verify the conclusion, theoretical analysis has been carried out and the circuit has been implemented. Measurement results show that the RF-DC efficiency of the rectifier circuit can be kept above 50% within the frequency from 2.30 GHz to 2.70 GHz and the input power from 12.7 dBm to 20.5 dBm.
Research on welding technology of surface mount device on high integration substrate

With the development of T/R modules towards miniaturization, high density, reliability and performance, the mixed assembly technology is frequently used in the assembly processing of T/R module. This paper mainly introduces the welding technology of surface mount device after the welding of the large area substrate of T/R module, and studies the influence of the thickness of the stencil of different sizes on the welding effect of the surface mount device. The result shows that the manual printing stencil is more than 4 times faster than manual coating solder paste and the welding effect is best with 0.07mm stencil.