Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
E-Cigarette Use, Small Airway Fibrosis, and Constrictive Bronchiolitis.

BACKGROUND Vaping, including the use of electronic cigarettes (e-cigarettes), has become increasingly prevalent, yet the associated long-term health risks are largely unknown. Given the prevalence of use, particularly among adolescents early in their lifespan, it is vital to understand the potential chronic pathologic sequelae of vaping. METHODS We present the cases of four patients with chronic lung disease associated with e-cigarette use characterized by clinical evaluation, with pulmonary function tests (PFTs), chest high-resolution computed tomography (HRCT), endobronchial optical coherence tomography (EB-OCT) imaging, and histopathologic assessment. RESULTS Each patient presented with shortness of breath and chest pain in association with a 3- to 8-year history of e-cigarette use, with mild progressive airway obstruction on PFTs and/or chest HRCT findings demonstrating evidence of air trapping and bronchial wall thickening. EB-OCT imaging performed in two patients showed small airway-centered fibrosis with bronchiolar narrowing and lumen irregularities. The predominant histopathologic feature on surgical lung biopsy was small airway-centered fibrosis, including constrictive bronchiolitis and MUC5AC overexpression in all patients. Patients who ceased vaping had a partial, but not complete, reversal of disease over 1 to 4 years. CONCLUSIONS After thorough evaluation for other potential etiologies, vaping was considered to be the most likely common causal etiology for all patients due to the temporal association of symptomatic chronic lung disease with e-cigarette use and partial improvement in symptoms after e-cigarette cessation. In this series, we associate the histopathologic pattern of small airway-centered fibrosis, including constrictive bronchiolitis, with vaping, potentially defining a clinical and pathologic entity associated with e-cigarette use. (Funded in part by the National Institutes of Health.).
Strategies of promoting sustainable use and conservation of indigenous chicken breeds in Zambia: lessons from low-income countries

This review explores innovative and sustainable strategies for conservation and use of village or indigenous chickens (IC) ( Gallus domesticus) in Zambia with lessons in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). Small scale farmers (SSF) have kept IC for hundreds of years to meet their households’ nutritional needs, incomes, social-cultural and religious uses. The commitment exhibited by SSF to keeping indigenous animals has made them the major custodians of essential animal genetic resources in most low-income regions. Between 1991 and 2012, private breeders invested over US$95 million in Zambia’s commercial poultry sector resulting in over 100% increase in the annual production of day-old chicks to 65 million. However, high production costs and low market access hindered the participation of rural farmers hence their continued dependence on IC breeds. The future of IC genetic resources is threatened due to their rapid erosion. In the 2015 biodiversity status report, the Food and Agriculture Organisation, an international body of the United Nations highlighted that over 3.5% of chicken breeds were extinct, nearly 33% were at high risk, and over 67% were of unknown status. Poultry diseases, lack of sustainable conservation strategies and poor use have significantly contributed to these losses. For example, in 2012, 60% of village chickens were reportedly diseased in parts of SSA. If these challenges are not mitigated, the loss of IC genetic resources and the adverse impact on rural communities is inevitable. Further, future research and breeding programs on commercial chickens may be limited due to the erosion of IC genetic resources. This paper reviews lessons and contributes to previous studies that demonstrated how community-based breeding programs and researcher-community-stakeholder engagements potentially enhanced sustainability, adoption of innovative ideas and conservation of local animal genetic resources in selected low-income countries. Further, suggest strategies to promote judicious use and conservation of IC breeds in Zambia.
LightBot: A Multi-Light Position Robotic Acquisition System for Adaptive Capturing of Cultural Heritage Surfaces

Multi-light acquisitions and modeling are well-studied techniques for characterizing surface geometry, widely used in the cultural heritage field. Current systems that are used to perform this kind of acquisition are mainly free-form or dome-based. Both of them have constraints in terms of reproducibility, limitations on the size of objects being acquired, speed, and portability. This paper presents a novel robotic arm-based system design, which we call LightBot, as well as its applications in reflectance transformation imaging (RTI) in particular. The proposed model alleviates some of the limitations observed in the case of free-form or dome-based systems. It allows the automation and reproducibility of one or a series of acquisitions adapting to a given surface in two-dimensional space.
MPC Based Navigation of an Omni-directional Mobile Robot under Single Actuator Failure

— This paper presents the modeling and Model Predictive Controller (MPC) design for an omni-directional robot during a single actuator failure. A fault estimation method is used to identify the actuator failure, and thereby, the kinematic model of the mobile robot is reformulated to account for the fault. The controllability of the modified model during a single actuator failure is verified using Lie algebra. Finally, in the event of unforeseen combinations of single actuator failures, a Nonlinear MPC is designed for trajectory tracking and obstacle avoidance. Simulation results are used to demonstrate the robustness of the system to actuator failure.
Bring Your Own Device - Providing Reliable Model of Data Access

Abstract The article presents a model of Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) as a model network, which provides the user reliable access to network resources. BYOD is a model dynamically developing, which can be applied in many areas. Research network has been launched in order to carry out the test, in which as a service of BYOD model Work Folders service was used. This service allows the user to synchronize files between the device and the server. An access to the network is completed through the wireless communication by the 802.11n standard. Obtained results are shown and analyzed in this article.
Hexapoda Yearbook (Arthropoda: Mandibulata: Pancrustacea) Brazil 2020: the first annual production survey of new Brazilian species

This paper provided a list of all new Brazilian Hexapoda species described in 2020. Furthermore, based on the information extracted by this list, we tackled additional questions regarding the taxa, the specialists involved in the species descriptions as well as the journals in which those papers have been published. We recorded a total of 680 new Brazilian species of Hexapoda described in 2020, classified in 245 genera, 112 families and 18 orders. These 680 species were published in a total of 2019 articles comprising 423 different authors residing in 27 countries. Only 30% of these authors are women, which demonstrates an inequality regarding sexes. In relation to the number of authors by species, the majority of the new species had two authors and the maximum of authors by species was five. We also found inequalities in the production of described species regarding the regions of Brazil, with Southeast and South leading. The top 10 institutions regarding productions of new species have four in the Southeast, two at South and with one at North Region being the outlier of this pattern. Out of the total 219 published articles, Zootaxa dominated with 322 described species in 95 articles. The average impact factor was of 1.4 with only seven articles being published in Impact Factors above 3, indicating a hardship on publishing taxonomic articles in high-impact journals. The highlight of this paper is that it is unprecedent, as no annual record of Hexapoda species described was ever made in previous years to Brazil.
Noise in a signaling model

Individuals invest in education to signal innate abilities to future employers. The ability certi…cates (school diplomas and university degrees) are, however, a noisy measure of educational attainment. The curricula do not always test the quali…cations required by the employers and because cheating can not be fully prevented the exam grades do not always show the true abilities within the tested discipline. In this paper we extend the standard two type Spence model with a noisy signaling technology. Moreover, we assume the certi…cation institution –signal intermediary - to be an independent player in the game with it’s own objectives. We show that, with perfectly informed students pro…t maximising universities, maximise also social welfare, although at the expense of other players.
Political campaigning in West Bengal: violence, professionalisation, and communalisation

ABSTRACT This study examines the evolving dynamics of political campaigning in the state of West Bengal in eastern India. West Bengal offers an ideal case to trace the rise of the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in India and the implications of this development for political campaigning since, until recently, the political culture of the state, profoundly shaped by 34 years of continuous Left rule from 1977 to 2011, had, at least institutionally and organizationally, eschewed open expressions of identity-based politics. Nonetheless, West Bengal now stands at the cusp of a major political transformation with the emergence of the BJP as the main opposition party in the state. Our analysis identifies two crucial ways in which the rise of the BJP has altered the dominant mode of political campaigning in the state since the 2016 state assembly elections. First, the state has witnessed a dramatic professionalization of campaigns, with the BJP being a clear frontrunner on this dimension. Second, political violence, a distinctive aspect of campaigns in the state since independence, has taken a sharp communal turn in the post-2016 period, departing from the partisan violence of elaka dokhol (area domination) that was the hallmark of the pre-2016 period. We argue that both these shifts were facilitated by a rapid increase in smartphone usage for consuming news, with the BJP leveraging the technological shock to streamline its organizational resources, and by extension, to set the tone of campaigns. We note that these trends have been accentuated during the recently concluded 2021 state assembly elections.
Water Ecosystems Tool (WET) 1.0 – a new generation of flexible aquatic ecosystem model

Abstract. We present the Water Ecosystems Tool (WET) – a new generation of open-source, highly customizable aquatic ecosystem model. WET is a completely modularized aquatic ecosystem model developed in the syntax of the Framework for Aquatic Biogeochemical Models (FABM), which enables coupling to multiple physical models ranging from zero to three dimensions, and is based on the FABM–PCLake model. The WET model has been extensively modularized, empowering users with flexibility of food web configurations, and incorporates model features from other state-of-the-art models, with new options for nitrogen fixation and vertical migration. With the new structure, features and flexible customization options, WET is suitable in a wide range of aquatic ecosystem applications. We demonstrate these new features and their impacts on model behavior for a temperate lake for which a model calibration of the FABM–PCLake model was previously published and discuss the benefits of the new model.
Secure Data Transmission in Wireless Sensor Networks with Secure System for Identification of Trusted Route with Node Behavior Analysis

The Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) is a novel and demanding technology that requires little processing and computational capabilities. In the WSN, security is a serious issue. Because of its wireless nature, it is vulnerable to a wide range of assaults and data packet loss. Secure routing is critical to avoid problems like this. When it comes to data delivery to other nodes, routing is one of the most important WSN method to provide security to the network. Based on the expected trust value, the routing process's trust mechanism prevents/includes nodes in routing. This research examines security objectives for routing the sensor networks and presents an Extreme Trust Factor for Route Identification with Prime Node (ETFRI-PN). The Prime Node (PN) examines each node's behavior throughout the delivery process, as well as computers' ability to detect malicious assaults, and assigns a trust factor to each node involved in data transmission along with Alphanumeric Inimitable Label (AIL) for every node. The proposed model is in contrast to previous models, and the results show that the proposed model outperforms traditional models.
Deciphering the Molecular Mechanism Underlying African Animal Trypanosomiasis by Means of the 1000 Bull Genomes Project Genomic Dataset

Simple Summary Climate change is increasing the risk of spreading vector-borne diseases such as African Animal Trypanosomiasis (AAT), which is causing major economic losses, especially in sub-Saharan African countries. Mainly considering this disease, we have investigated transcriptomic and genomic data from two cattle breeds, namely Boran and N‘Dama, where the former is known for its susceptibility and the latter one for its tolerance to the AAT. Despite the rich literature on this disease, there is still a need to investigate underlying genetic mechanisms to decipher the complex interplay of regulatory SNPs (rSNPs), their corresponding gene expression profiles and the downstream effectors associated with the AAT disease. The findings of this study complement our previous results, which mainly involve the upstream events, including transcription factors (TFs) and their co-operations as well as master regulators. Moreover, our investigation of significant rSNPs and effectors found in the liver, spleen and lymph node tissues of both cattle breeds could enhance the understanding of distinct mechanisms leading to either resistance or susceptibility of cattle breeds. Abstract African Animal Trypanosomiasis (AAT) is a neglected tropical disease and spreads by the vector tsetse fly, which carries the infectious Trypanosoma sp. in their saliva. Particularly, this parasitic disease affects the health of livestock, thereby imposing economic constraints on farmers, costing billions of dollars every year, especially in sub-Saharan African countries. Mainly considering the AAT disease as a multistage progression process, we previously performed upstream analysis to identify transcription factors (TFs), their co-operations, over-represented pathways and master regulators. However, downstream analysis, including effectors, corresponding gene expression profiles and their association with the regulatory SNPs (rSNPs), has not yet been established. Therefore, in this study, we aim to investigate the complex interplay of rSNPs, corresponding gene expression and downstream effectors with regard to the AAT disease progression based on two cattle breeds: trypanosusceptible Boran and trypanotolerant N’Dama. Our findings provide mechanistic insights into the effectors involved in the regulation of several signal transduction pathways, thereby differentiating the molecular mechanism with regard to the immune responses of the cattle breeds. The effectors and their associated genes (especially MAPKAPK5, CSK, DOK2, RAC1 and DNMT1) could be promising drug candidates as they orchestrate various downstream regulatory cascades in both cattle breeds.
A Vision-based Correction of Inertial Measurement of Human Motion for Robot Programming by Demonstration

—We propose in this work an original approach consisting in correcting inertial human hand trajectory with vision-based object tracking in a context of programming by demonstration (PbD) of pick-and-place tasks. One challenge in PbD is to record human demonstrations accurately enough, in an easy way which does not limit human motion. Merging inertial-based and vision-based technologies may take advantage of both and fulfill the requirement of a PbD process. Our method is based on the identification of Positions of Interest (POIs) from object and hand data, corresponding to picking or placing actions. Then objects POIs are paired with hand POIs to modify the human hand trajectory. The method is implemented on a Sawyer robot with Xsens IMU sensors. Pick-and-place tasks with different complexity have been recorded and reproduced by the robot. The robot succeeds to reproduce the demonstrated tasks which validates our method.
Dark Side or Bright Side: The Impact of Alcohol Drinking on the Trust of Chinese Rural Residents

Existing studies have explored the causal effect of social capital on harmful drinking, while the effect of drinking habits on trust is scant. In China, drinking rituals and drinking culture are considered important ways of promoting social interaction and trust, especially in rural areas where traditional culture is stronger. Based on a field survey in rural China in 2019, this paper explores the relationship between drinking habits and trust. First, we found a negative relationship between drinking habits and trust, indicating that those people who drink alcohol are more likely to have a lower trust. Second, we found significant heterogeneity in the effect of alcohol consumption on social trust across various groups. Specifically, the negative effects of alcohol consumption on trust were stronger for the females than for males; drinking alcohol did not reduce the level of trust among the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in rural China; compared with the Han nationality, we found that the effect of drinking on trust was not significant for the ethnic minority. Third, we observed that the negative effects of alcohol consumption on trust had thresholds across age and income. Among people under 51, the risk of trust from drinking was greater than for those over 51; the negative effect of drinking on residents’ trust was more obvious in low-income families, but not significant in the group with an annual household income of more than CNY 40,000. Our empirical study provides a deeper understanding of drinking culture in rural China from a dialectical perspective.
Genome-Wide Identification and Evolution Analysis of the Gibberellin Oxidase Gene Family in Six Gramineae Crops

The plant hormones gibberellins (GAs) regulate plant growth and development and are closely related to the yield of cash crops. The GA oxidases (GAoxs), including the GA2ox, GA3ox, and GA20ox subfamilies, play pivotal roles in GAs’ biosynthesis and metabolism, but their classification and evolutionary pattern in Gramineae crops remain unclear. We thus conducted a comparative genomic study of GAox genes in six Gramineae representative crops, namely, Setaria italica (Si), Zea mays (Zm), Sorghum bicolor (Sb), Hordeum vulgare (Hv), Brachypodium distachyon (Bd), and Oryza sativa (Os). A total of 105 GAox genes were identified in these six crop genomes, belonging to the C19-GA2ox, C20-GA2ox, GA3ox, and GA20ox subfamilies. Based on orthogroup (OG) analysis, GAox genes were divided into nine OGs and the number of GAox genes in each of the OGs was similar among all tested crops, which indicated that GAox genes may have completed their family differentiations before the species differentiations of the tested species. The motif composition of GAox proteins showed that motifs 1, 2, 4, and 5, forming the 2OG-FeII_Oxy domain, were conserved in all identified GAox protein sequences, while motifs 11, 14, and 15 existed specifically in the GA20ox, C19-GA2ox, and C20-GA2ox protein sequences. Subsequently, the results of gene duplication events suggested that GAox genes mainly expanded in the form of WGD/SD and underwent purification selection and that maize had more GAox genes than other species due to its recent duplication events. The cis-acting elements analysis indicated that GAox genes may respond to growth and development, stress, hormones, and light signals. Moreover, the expression profiles of rice and maize showed that GAox genes were predominantly expressed in the panicles of the above two plants and the expression of several GAox genes was significantly induced by salt or cold stresses. In conclusion, our results provided further insight into GAox genes’ evolutionary differences among six representative Gramineae and highlighted GAox genes that may play a role in abiotic stress.
How to Lemmatize German Words with NLP-Spacy Lemmatizer?

Simple algorithms for the lemmatization process have been developed to recognize changes in a word as a result of grammatical processes and changes. Lemmatizer tools can analyze the types of word changes in the German language. Thus, this paper aims at investigating how the lemmatization of German words is aided by the Lemmatizer software. NLP Lemmatizer spacy, in cooperation with Python and Visual Studio Code, is utilized to find out the primary form of the word changes in German language. Based on the lemmatization analysis results, Lemmatizer SpaCy can analyze the shape of token, lemma, and PoS-tag of words in German. However, there are some errors identified during the process of finding out the word changes in German language.
Aprender lógica combinacional jugando

Games have always been used to motivate learning at early ages. But during teen years/adolescence, playing games has often been stigmatized by being considered a waste of time. However, the phenomenon of gamification has become recently a methodological trend with a relevant presence in the classroom. In this article, the state of art of gamification in educational contexts, using Information and Communication Technologies (ICT), is firstly reviewed and a number of experiences are described as well, selected according to their innovative traits. Secondly, some cases are analysed which harness gamification as a means to teach logic gates and digital circuits. Finally, this article aims at providing a description of the 1El término gamificación es un anglicismo que puede definirse como el uso de técnicas, elementos y dinámicas propias de los juegos y el ocio en actividades no recreativas con la finalidad de potenciar la motivación y de reforzar la conducta para solucionar un problema o alcanzar un objetivo. experience carried out at a secondary school in Barcelona where a program has been implemented ad hoc to teach, in a playful way, contents of digital systems.