Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Security-Enhanced Directional Modulation Symbol Synthesis Using High Efficiency Time-Modulated Arrays

Time-modulated arrays (TMAs) have been found useful to construct directional modulation (DM) transmitters, offering physical-layer security. Two issues, however, exist in conventional TMA DM, which are high power loss and generation of mirror harmonic frequency signals that may compromise wireless security. In this article, we propose to construct DM transmitters using a high efficiency TMA. By carefully designing the time sequences of the selected phase shifters, the DM symbols modulated upon multicarrier can be synthesized with suppressed mirror harmonic frequencies. It is shown that the proposed TMA DM transmitters here enjoy feeding network efficiency of 100%, and the transmit DM symbols can be synthesized at a pre-selected frequency only, significantly enhancing security performance. The effectiveness of the proposed scheme is validated via bit error rate (BER) simulations. Meanwhile, The TMA DM can also be used as a potential technique for the integrated sensing and communication (ISAC).
Reliability Exploration of System-on-Chip With Multi-Bit-Width Accelerator for Multi-Precision Deep Neural Networks

Deep neural networks (DNNs) in safety-critical applications demand high reliability even when running on edge-computing devices. Recent works on System-on-Chip (SoC) design with state-of-the-art (SOTA) hardware artificial intelligence (AI) accelerators and corresponding multi-bit-width (MBW) convolutional neural network (CNN) generation strategies show that MBW CNNs can effectively explore the trade-off between network accuracy and hardware efficiency. However, reliability has not been considered in such trade-off analysis, even though highly quantized CNNs may elevate the impact of bit flips in the hardware. Also, the reliability of the microcontroller and its interface operating with the AI accelerator are not studied. This work evaluates the reliability of DNN computation in an SoC that includes a processor, SOTA AI accelerator, and NN models highly optimized for computation efficiency using a neural architecture search (NAS) method. Focusing on neutron-induced soft error, which is the primary source of bit-flip errors in a terrestrial environment, we perform fault injection and neutron beam experiments. For these experiments, we prototype the SoC on a flash-based FPGA platform, in which the configuration memory is robust to neutron irradiation. Then, we analyze the experimental data and identify vulnerable components in the system. Furthermore, we evaluate how the SoC running different NAS-optimized MBW LeNet5 networks impact the performance, radiation sensitivity, failure rate of MBW accelerator, and crash rate of the system on the FPGAs. Our results show that instruction and data tightly coupled memory (I/DTCM) are the most vulnerable parts and the control status registers (CSRs) in our accelerator are the second most vulnerable component. Moreover, MBW networks have higher susceptibility to critical errors than single-precision networks, low-precision data are more likely to affect the classification results, and the high bits are more sensitive to faults.
A comparison of simple upscaling models with multisupport permeability data measured on a block of Berea Sandstone

A specially designed minipermeameter test system, termed the Multisupport Permeameter (MSP), has been developed for direct physical investigation of permeability upscaling. The unique feature of this instrument is its ability to acquire permeability data at multiple sample supports subject to consistent boundary conditions and flow geometries. This device has been employed to physically investigate the permeability upscaling characteristics of a block of Berea Sandstone. Results reveal a number of consistent and distinct trends relating key summary statistics to changes in sample support. Comparisons are drawn between trends in the sample mean measured on the Berea Sandstone and that predicted by three theoretical upscaling models representing three common but different approaches to modeling permeability upscaling.
Economic Growth and Stock Market Performance Under Different Regimes in Pakistan: A Comparison of Dictatorial and Democratic Regimes

Pakistan is a developing country with a history of cyclical regimes, from democratic governments to dictatorial reigns. Literature provides inconclusive evidence as to whether democratic governments or dictatorial regimes yield better economic outcomes. This study provides a chronological description of different ruling regimes of Pakistan since 1960 and relates to economic outcomes like economic growth and stock market performance of relative regimes. It is noted that dictatorial regimes in Pakistan had better economic outcomes. It is also noted that dictators enjoyed longer and more powerful tenure in Pakistan, while democratic governments remained very unstable. We argue that better economic and stock market outcomes under dictatorial regime could be a result of consistent and stable policy making. Thus, there is a need to strengthen political processes in the country and devise policies for long time horizons to improve economic outlook of Pakistan.
Retinal vessel segmentation method based on improved U-Net

Blood vessels are the main anatomical structure of the fundus retina. Retinal blood vessel segmentation images have been widely used in the judgment of cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases and retinal diseases. Therefore, appropriate fundus retinal blood vessel segmentation method is of great significance for the detection of retinal diseases. Based on U-Net, the original convolution structure in the encoding part is replaced by the Res-Se module, and the CBAM module is introduced in the skip connection part to achieve fine-grained feature fusion, thereby improving the network's ability to segment the subtle features of retinal vessels. Experiments on the CHASEDB1 dataset show that the proposed model has certain improvements in accuracy, sensitivity, and specificity indicators. This model can more accurately segment retinal vessels and demonstrate better segmentation performance.
Yellow Himalayan Raspberry (Rubus ellipticus Sm.): Ethnomedicinal, Nutraceutical, and Pharmacological Aspects

Yellow Himalayan raspberry (Rubus ellipticus Sm., Rosaceae) is a native species of the Indian subcontinent, Southern China, and the Philippines, which has been historically used as a traditional medicine and food. All of the parts of this plant have been used in traditional medicine to treat respiratory ailments, diabetes, and gastrointestinal disorder, and as an anti-infective agent. The scientific evaluation revealed a richness of macronutrients, micronutrients, and minerals in the fruits, indicating its potential use as a nutraceutical. Furthermore, this plant has been found to be rich in various secondary metabolites, including polyphenols, flavonoids, anthocyanins, tannins, and terpenoids. Ascorbic acid, kaempferol, gallic acid, and catechin are some of the compounds found in this plant, which have been widely discussed for their health benefits. Furthermore, various extracts and compounds obtained from R. ellipticus have shown antioxidant, antidiabetic, anticancer, anti-inflammatory, nephroprotective, antipyretic, anticonvulsant, and anti-infective activities investigated through different study models. These findings in the literature have validated some of the widespread uses of the fruits in folk medicinal systems and the consumption of this nutritious wild fruit by local communities. In conclusion, R. ellipticus holds strong potential for its development as a nutraceutical. It can also improve the nutritional status of villagers and uplift the economy if properly utilized and marketed.
Low-Resolution Quantization in Phase Modulated Systems: Optimum Detectors and Error Rate Analysis

This paper studies optimum detectors and error rate analysis for wireless systems with low-resolution quantizers in the presence of fading and noise. A <italic>universal</italic> lower bound on the average symbol error probability (<inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\mathsf {SEP}$ </tex-math></inline-formula>), correct for all <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$M$ </tex-math></inline-formula>-ary modulation schemes, is obtained when the number of quantization bits is not enough to resolve <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$M$ </tex-math></inline-formula> signal points. In the special case of <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$M$ </tex-math></inline-formula>-ary phase shift keying (<inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$M$ </tex-math></inline-formula>-PSK), the maximum likelihood detector is derived. Utilizing the structure of the derived detector, a general average <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\mathsf {SEP}$ </tex-math></inline-formula> expression for <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$M$ </tex-math></inline-formula>-PSK modulation with <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$n$ </tex-math></inline-formula>-bit quantization is obtained when the wireless channel is subject to fading with a circularly-symmetric distribution. For the Nakagami-<inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$m$ </tex-math></inline-formula> fading, it is shown that a transceiver architecture with <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$n$ </tex-math></inline-formula>-bit quantization is <italic>asymptotically</italic> optimum in terms of communication reliability if <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$n \geq \log _{2}M +1$ </tex-math></inline-formula>. That is, the decay exponent for the average <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\mathsf {SEP}$ </tex-math></inline-formula> is the same and equal to <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$m$ </tex-math></inline-formula> with infinite-bit and <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$n$ </tex-math></inline-formula>-bit quantizers for <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$n\geq \log _{2}M+1$ </tex-math></inline-formula>. On the other hand, it is only equal to <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\frac {1}2$ </tex-math></inline-formula> and 0 for <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$n = \log _{2}M$ </tex-math></inline-formula> and <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$n < \log _{2}M$ </tex-math></inline-formula>, respectively. An extensive simulation study is performed to illustrate the accuracy of the derived results, energy efficiency gains obtained by means of low-resolution quantizers, performance comparison of phase modulated systems with independent in-phase and quadrature channel quantization and robustness of the derived results under channel estimation errors.
Immunotherapy around the Clock: Impact of Infusion Timing on Stage IV Melanoma Outcomes

Although the impact of circadian timing on immunotherapy has yet to be integrated into clinical practice, chronoimmunotherapy is an emerging and promising field as circadian oscillations are observed in immune cell numbers as well as the expression of immunotherapy targets, e.g., programmed cell death protein-1 and its ligand programmed death ligand 1. Concurrent retrospective studies suggest that morning infusions may lead to higher effectiveness of immune checkpoint inhibitors in melanoma, non-small cell lung cancer, and kidney cancer. This paper discusses the results of a retrospective study (2016–2022) exploring the impact of infusion timing on the outcomes of all 73 patients with stage IV melanoma receiving immunotherapy at a particular medical center. While the median overall survival (OS) was 24.2 months (95% confidence interval [CI] 9.04–39.8), for a median follow-up of 15.3 months, our results show that having more than 75% of infusions in the afternoon results in shorter median OS (14.9 vs. 38.1 months; hazard ratio 0.45 [CI 0.23–0.86]; p < 0.01) with more expressive impacts on particular subgroups: women, older patients, and patients with a lower tumor burden at the outset of immunotherapy. Our findings highlight the potential benefits of follow-up validation in prospective and translational randomized studies.
Assessing the Use of GEE Methods for Analyzing Continuous Outcomes from Family Studies: Strong Heart Family Study

Background: Because of its convenience and robustness, the generalized estimating equations (GEE) method has been commonly used to fit marginal models of continuous outcomes in family studies. However, unbalanced family sizes and complex pedigree structures within each family may challenge the GEE method, which treats families as clusters with the same correlation structure. The appropriateness of using the GEE method to analyze continuous outcomes in family studies remains unclear. In this paper, we performed simulation studies to evaluate the performance of GEE in the analysis of family study data. Methods: In simulation studies, we generated data from a linear mixed effects model with individual random effects. The random effects covariance matrix is specified as twice that of the pedigree matrix from the Strong Heart Family Study (SHFS) and other hypothetical pedigree structures. A Bayesian approach that utilizes the pedigree matrix was also conducted as a benchmark to compare with GEE methods with either independent or exchangeable correlation structures. Finally, analysis with a real data example was included. Results: Our simulation results showed that GEE with independent correlation structure worked well for family data with continuous outcomes. Real data analysis revealed that all GEE and Bayesian approaches produced similar results. Conclusion: GEE model performs well on continuous outcome in family studies, and it yields estimated coefficients similar to a Bayesian model, which takes genetic relationship into account. Overall, GEE is robust to misspecification of genetic relationships among family members.
Research and subsystems of container ports along the Maritime Silk Road based on computer modeling techniques

This paper evaluates the container ports importance along "21st Century Maritime Silk Road". A directed weighted container shipping network is constructed by collecting global container ship route data in 2021 and using complex network related methods. This paper proposes a comprehensive evaluation model with the Entropy-weight TOPSIS method based on the ports’ own multi attributes involving the navigation, transfer and anti-interference ability. It also proposes an evaluation model based on the ports’ global attribute considering the importance influence of other ports who has communication with the evaluated port in the network. 400 container ports’ importance in the real container shipping network along the "21st Century Maritime Silk Road " are evaluated by using the above two evaluation methods and the results are analyzed to prove the correlation and rationality of the evaluation methods. The result shows that Singapore Port, Rotterdam Port, Kelang Port, Hong Kong Port, Ningbo Port and Shanghai Port are very important in the container shipping network; The important ports identified based on the ports’ global attribute evaluation method have greater influence on the container shipping network, and the port failure will lead to more serious network damage; In order to ensure the stability of the container shipping network, the key ports which has high ranking in importance evaluation should be given priority to development and protection. In addition, strengthening the joint construction of the key ports themselves and the surrounding port groups is also significant.
An Empirical Study on Interfaces for Presenting Large Sets of Point Features in Mobile Maps

ABSTRACT This paper presents an empirical study assessing the usability and utility of different interfaces for visualizing large sets of point features in mobile maps. We focus on interfaces that present only a subset of all features and provide interaction functionalities for browsing through all of the information. We compare an established zoom-and-pan interface against three recently proposed interfaces that do not require a change of map scale or section. Each of the novel interfaces implements one additional, specialized interaction functionality for presenting all information without the need to zoom or pan. As a first step towards user-centred design, we investigate how well the specialized interactions are adopted by users. Given a visual search task, we show that participants performed significantly fewer zooming and panning operations using the novel interfaces than when using the zoom-and-pan interface. Further, we observe advantages in terms of search accuracy and the extent of the visible map area.
HPV Vaccination Behavior, Vaccine Preference, and Health Beliefs in Chinese Female Health Care Workers: A Nationwide Cross-Sectional Study

Human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccination has been proven to be the most effective method to prevent cervical cancer. This study aimed to determine the HPV vaccination behavior and preference in Chinese female health care workers. A nationwide cross-sectional study was performed to recruit 15,967 respondents aged 18–45 years from 31 provinces in China’s mainland in 2021. Of them, 30.0% have been vaccinated or have made an appointment. Regardless of actual vaccination status, respondents mostly preferred the 9-valent HPV vaccine (58.6%), followed by 4-valent (15.6%) and 2-valent vaccines (3.1%); additionally, 17.9% did not have a preference. Moreover, health beliefs on HPV and HPV vaccination were measured using a health belief model (HBM) analysis. Six HBM constructs differed significantly by HPV vaccination status. Higher levels of perceived susceptibility (beta = 0.074), perceived benefit (beta = 0.072), self-efficacy (beta = 0.304), and cues to action (beta = 0.039) scales were significantly associated with increasing HPV vaccine uptake. In contrast, perceived severity (beta = −0.019) and perceived barriers (beta = −0.089) were negative factors. In conclusion, HPV vaccine uptake is high in Chinese female health care workers. HBM constructs may be effective in facilitating the improvement and delivery of targeted intervention programs to increase HPV vaccine uptake.
A 10MHz-BW 85dB-DR CT 0-4 Mash Delta-Sigma Modulator Achieving +5dBFS MSA

This paper presents a continuous-time (CT) 0–4 dual-stage Multi-stAge Noise-sHaping (MASH) Delta-Sigma Modulator (DSM), exhibiting +5dBFS maximum stable amplitude (MSA). In the context of 0–4 MASH topology, the 4-bit CT DSM employed as the second stage only processes 4-bit quantization noise (QN) of the front-end. Though the input signal exceeds the full scale (FS), the second stage still stays stable as long as the signal leakage does not overload it. Such feature guarantees the improved stability over a wider signal input range. In addition, to address the well-known QN leakage issue of MASH topology, we propose to combine the feedforward topology with proportional-integral-based excess loop delay compensation. It ensures high robustness of the proposed 0–4 MASH DSM without requiring any calibration. Additionally, we present an analysis of the anti-aliasing filtering (AAF) for the 0-X MASH DSM. It is found that the overall AAF of the 0-X MASH DSM is contributed from the second stage. Sampled at 400MHz, the 65nm CMOS experimental prototype measures signal-to-noise and distortion ratio (SNDR)/spurious-free dynamic range (SFDR) of 76.7dB/87.3dB over a 10MHz bandwidth with 15.1mW power consumption. Moreover, with achieving +5dBFS MSA, the dynamic range (DR) is extended to be as high as 85dB, resulting in a state-of-the-art Scherier Figure of Merit (FoM) of 173.2dB based on DR.
Risk Assessment and Mitigation of Cascading Failures Using Critical Line Sensitivities

Security concerns have been raised about cascading failure risks in evolving power grids. This article reveals, for the first time, that the risk of cascading failures can be increased at low network demand levels when considering security-constrained generation dispatch. This occurs because critical transmission corridors become very highly loaded due to the presence of centralized generation dispatch, e.g., large thermal plants far from demand centers. This increased cascading risk is revealed in this work by incorporating security-constrained generation dispatch into the risk assessment and mitigation of cascading failures. A security-constrained AC optimal power flow, which considers economic functions and security constraints (e.g., network constraints, $N - 1$ security, and generation margin), is used to provide a representative day-ahead operational plan. Cascading failures are simulated using two simulators, a quasi-steady state DC power flow model, and a dynamic model incorporating all frequency-related dynamics, to allow for result comparison and verification. The risk assessment procedure is illustrated using synthetic networks of 200 and 2,000 buses. Further, a novel preventive mitigation measure is proposed to first identify critical lines, whose failures are likely to trigger cascading failures, and then to limit power flow through these critical lines during dispatch. Results show that shifting power equivalent to 1% of total demand from critical lines to other lines can reduce cascading risk by up to 80%.
Investigating Teaching Practices in Reading Instruction of Amazigh Language in Morocco

This study investigates the efficacy of reading instruction practices within the context of Amazigh language education. The research focuses on the impact of implementing targeted reading instruction on students' language proficiency. Employing a mixed-methods approach, this study combines quantitative and qualitative analyses to provide a comprehensive exploration of the topic. The sample comprises primary school teachers across different grade levels, each engaged in teaching the Amazigh language. Careful attention was given to the sampling design and geographic locations. Quantitative data was collected through an observation grid, allowing for a quantitative assessment of teachers' practices and perceptions. Complementary to this, qualitative data was obtained through classroom observations and semi-directed interviews, enabling a detailed exploration of instructional techniques and challenges faced. On the other hand, qualitative data underwent thematic analysis, revealing common threads in instructional strategies and hurdles encountered. Through the integration of quantitative and qualitative insights, a comprehensive panorama of the existing reading instruction landscape emerged. Findings shed light on the strengths and weaknesses of current strategies, providing a deeper understanding of the frequency and nature of reading instruction activities. Moreover, the outcomes bear pedagogical significance and offer valuable insights for advancing language education practices. This study not only contributes to the realm of pedagogical research but also has implications for enhancing language education strategies.