Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A Multi-Agent Reinforcement Learning Approach for Massive Access in NOMA-URLLC Networks

Ultra-reliable low-latency communication (URLLC) enables diverse applications with rigorous latency and reliability requirements. To provide a wide range of services, the future beyond fifth (B5G) systems are expected to support a large number of URLLC users. In this paper, we propose a joint sub-channel allocation and power control method to support massive access for non-orthogonal multiple access aided URLLC (NOMA-URLLC) networks. We model the problem of maximizing the number of successful access users as a multi-agent reinforcement learning problem. A deep Q-network-based multi-agent reinforcement learning (DQN-MARL) algorithm is proposed to tackle the problem while guaranteeing reliability and latency requirements of URLLC services. Simulation results show that the proposed DQN-MARL algorithm significantly improves the successful access probability in massive access scenarios compared with the existing schemes.
Management of Degenerative Lumbar Spine Disease by Posterior Lumbar Interbody Fusion and Percutaneous Pedicular Fixation

Background: Management of degenerative lumbar spine by percutaneous pedicle screw fixation and posterior interbody fusion is another technique instead of standard open techniques. This study aimed to evaluate outcome of using percutaneous fixation and interbody fusion in management of symptomatic spondylolisthesis. Methods: Once these methods are known, though, they provide a secure, minimally invasive, and trauma-free way to conduct fusion. Patients and Methods: This paper has illustrated in detail how to do this surgery, including ten patients, 2 males and 8 females, nine patients were L5-S1 and one was L4-L5 . 7 patients were grade 2 spondylolisthesis and 3 patients were grade 3 Spondylolisthesis with follow up three months, six months and one year. Result: Comparison of preoperative VAS of back pain, VAS of leg pain and ODI among the operated patients (N=10) with 6 weeks, 6 months and final outcome, there was significant change among them with follow, as measured by the ODI. In the study the SVA showed a change from the range of (-65.1 to 110) to (-29 to 35) mm. there was 2 patients with SVA more than 50mm preoperative. All patients were balanced post-operative. The fusion rate was about 95.8% with only one case showed non-union. Conclusion: For the treatment of spondylolisthesis, percutaneous pedicular fixation and interbody fusion is a promising alternative. The majority of surgeons prefer less invasive techniques, using minimally invasive pedicle screw systems, due to the morbidity caused by excessive paraspinal muscle stripping.
The Association of Moral Injury and Healthcare Clinicians’ Wellbeing: A Systematic Review

Research focused on elucidating moral injury amongst healthcare workers (HCWs) is essential due to the deep connection with morality and individuals’ overall wellbeing. Examining moral injury provides an avenue through which researchers can connect individual experiences with systemic level causes (i.e., structural power imbalances between clinicians and health systems) to better study workplace wellbeing. The omnipresence of the COVID-19 pandemic has amplified the need to study moral injury. This paper describes a systematic review conducted using PRISMA-P guidelines to answer the question, “what is the association between moral injury and professional wellbeing and mental health amongst healthcare workers. ” Twelve databases were searched to identify specified studies. This study’s criteria included: (1) articles published through December 2022; (2) qualitative and quantitative empirical studies; (3) articles written in English; (4) articles including moral injury; and (5) articles including at minimum one other measure of professional or personal wellbeing. The initial search produced 248 articles, and 18 articles were ultimately included in the final review. To confirm that no articles were left out of this study, the first author of each included article was contacted to inquire about any additional works that met the inclusion criteria of this study. The elements of the 18 included articles described in this review are discussed. The results indicate that moral injury is associated with both professional wellbeing factors and mental health outcomes. Further theoretical development, including (professional- and identity-based) exploratory research on moral injury, and evidenced-based interventions for moral injury are needed.
Sprachliche Defizite von bilingualen und demenziell veränderten Personen und der Mehrwert der Mehrsprachigkeit

s In dieser Studie wird mithilfe des Stroop Tests untersucht, welche kognitiv protektiven Effekte Mehrsprachigkeit auf die Inhibition hat, indem Daten von deutsch und deutsch-polnischen von Demenz betroffenen Personen (n=19) erhoben werden. Für die Vergleichbarkeit der Ergebnisse werden zudem ein Sprachstandstest (Gagarina et al. 2010) und ein Screening für Exekutivfunktio-nen durchgeführt (Lubitz/Niedeggen 2018). Eine deskriptive Analyse zeigt, dass die mehrsprachi-gen Probanden trotz höherer kognitiver Defizite besser in dem Stroop Test abschneiden als die monolinguale Vergleichsgruppe. Die Ergebnisse stützen die Annahme, dass der positive Effekt von langjähriger Mehrsprachigkeit den längeren Erhalt der Inhibition fördert. In this study, the Stroop test is used to investigate the cognitive protective effects of multilingualism on inhibition by collecting data from German and German-Polish individuals affected by dementia (n=19). For comparability of results, a language proficiency test (Gagarina et al. 2010) and a screening for executive functions are also conducted (Lubitz/Niedeggen 2018). A descriptive analysis shows that the multilingual subjects perform better on the Stroop test than the monolingual comparison group despite higher cognitive deficits. The results support the assumption that the positive effect of longstanding multilingualism promotes a longer conservation of inhibition skills.
Determinants of Learning Achievement and Efficiency Considerations

SUMMARY What are the most efficient means to ensure basic learning competencies for a high number of children? This question is analyzed on the basis of the exceptionally rich data set provided by the “Program on the Analysis of Education Systems” (PASEC), standardized and comparable for the five countries Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Cote d’Ivoire, Madagascar and Senegal. A Hierarchical Linear Model (HLM) is used to assess the individual, school level, and national characteristics determining fifth grade students’ achievement in French and mathematics. Special consideration is given to institutional factors. A further question addressed is the possibility of a trade-off between enrolment and education quality. 1 The author would like to thank Paul Coustere and Luc Beghagel of the PASEC technical team, Dakar, for giving her access to the PASEC data set and for their help with the interpretation of the data. She would also like to thank Christian Morrisson for having guided this work, from the beginning, with many useful suggestions, as well as Jean-Marc Bernard, Ulrich Hiemenz, Marcello Soto and Kristen Neymark for all their helpful comments. This work was started at the OECD Development Centre while the author was a staff member of this institution.
Patients’ Satisfaction with Attitude of Health Workers in a State Teaching Hospital Eye Clinic, Enugu, Nigeria

Aims: To assess patients’ satisfaction with attitude of health workers, in a state teaching hospital Eye clinic in Enugu, Nigeria. Study Design: Observational, descriptive, cross-sectional study design was used. Place and Duration of Study: The study was conducted in Eye clinic of a teaching hospital in Enugu state, Nigeria; and lasted for eight weeks in October and November, 2022. Methodology: Interviewer-administered questionnaire was used to collect information from 348 respondents on their perception of attitude of key health workers, rating of time spent with the doctor, satisfaction with doctor’s explanation, and perception of privacy provided during consultation. Results: More females (63.5%) than males (36.5%), participated in the study; with 50.0% of all respondents being 50 years and above, while 50.0% were below 50 years of age. Highest percentage of respondents (87.1%) perceived the attitude of the doctor as being “friendly/very friendly”, followed by nurses (83.6), and finally records staff (78.5%). Many respondents (84.8%) rated time they spent with the doctor as “adequate/very adequate”, while 85.3% were “satisfied/very satisfied” with the doctor’s explanation of their eye condition, and 60.1% felt that there was “reasonable privacy/complete privacy” when they were consulting the doctor. Conclusion: Overall perception of attitude of health workers in the study eye clinic was very good. Over 80.0% of patients also gave very good perception for time spent with the doctor, and satisfied with explanation of their health conditions given by the doctor. However, perception of the privacy provided in the clinic was just 60.1%.
Topology Optimization of Fluid Dynamics Devices

Facing a design related problem often means to search among a set of possible options to find the one which meets certain requirements and satisfies one or more optimum criteria. A typical design problem is the research of the optimal geometry of some device that has to accomplish a task (be it a structural one, or regarding heat and mass transfer etc.); it's clear that an optimization method able to explore the whole set of possible configurations with little or no limitation will approach better the real optimal design. When using topology optimization methods, very little a priori knowledge of the domain in which the physical phenomenon of concern takes place; though the great majority of these methods was developed (and applied) in the field of structural mechanics, their extension to other disciplines is very attractive. In the fluid mechanics field, shape optimization methods (the control parameter is the boundary of the domain in which the flow takes place) are well-tested (see e.g. [1]. However, this kind of optimization requires to choose the domain topology a priori; moreover, the number of parameters controlling the boundary shape can't be excessively high in order to keep the setting of constraint condition on their reciprocal position to a reasonable level of simplicity. The feasible design set which is actually explored is therefore limited and it can be difficult to assure the mesh quality needed to obtain a valid result from the underlying numerical simulation. In this context, the design resulting from topology optimization can be used as a reasonably good starting point for the shape optimization step, whose purpose will be to refine an already well-performing design and which will probably require a reduced number of iterations to reach convergence. The topology optimization algorithm used in this paper can be considered as an extension to fluid dynamics of the popular (in structural mechanics) material distribution method (see [2]); the absence or presence of fluid is related to the value assumed by a variable γ which control a penalty term directly proportional to the fluid velocity added to the momentum equation. This approach was firstly proposed by Borrvall and Petersson in [3] for Stokes (creeping) flow and succesively extended to (low Reynolds) Navier-Stokes flow in [4]. Each iteration of the optimization process requires the solution of a boundary conditions problem, followed by the sensitivity analysis of the objective function w.r. t. the control variable and by the updating of this variable by means of the MMA algorithm [5]. A constraint on the total amount of fluid
Spatio-Temporal Hyper Graph Partition Clustering Ensemble: An Overview

To classify spatio-temporal databases with improving robustness, stability and accuracy of unsupervised classification solutions, we including ensemble clustering using hybrid graph based partition technique.Traditional cluster ensemble approaches have different limitations. First,they do not make use of priorknowledge of thedatasets given by experts. Second, most of the conventional cluster ensemble methods cannot obtain satisfactory results when handling large amount of data. For this reason we are introducing an ensemble clustering using hybrid graph partitioning algorithm for spatio-temporal databases which makes use of randomly initialized k-means algorithm for generation step, hyper graph partitioning for consensus function on spatio-temporal datasets.
Tuning surface Dirac valleys by strain in topological crystalline insulators

A topological crystalline insulator has an even number of Dirac cones (i.e., multiple valleys) in its surface band structure, thus potentially leading to valleytronic applications such as graphene. Using the density-functional-theory method, we systematically investigate the strain-induced evolution of topological surface states on the SnTe(111) surface. Our results show that compressive strain can shift the Dirac cones at the $\overline{\mathrm{\ensuremath{\Gamma}}}$ and $\overline{M}$ valleys to different extents (even oppositely) in energy, while the tensile strain can induce different band gaps at the valleys due to the enhanced penetration depths of surface states. Exploiting a strain-induced nanostructure with well-defined edges on the (111) surface, we demonstrate strong valley-selective filtering for massless Dirac fermions by dynamically applying local external pressure. Our findings may pave the way for strain-engineered valley-resolved manipulation of Dirac fermions with high tunability and scalability.
Incidence and Predictors of Diabetic Retinopathy among Newly Diagnosed Type 2 Diabetic Patients at Chronic Follow-Up Clinic of University of Gondar Specialized Hospital: A Retrospective Follow-Up Study

Background: Diabetic retinopathy is a complication of type 2 diabetes resulting from long-term accumulated damage to retinal blood vessels and one of the life-threatening complications and is the most common cause of acquired blindness in adults and it affects 93 million people worldwide. DR is the principal cause of blindness in adults of working age and responsible for a worsening in quality of life despite preventable and treatable causes. To date, most of the epidemiological research on DR in Ethiopia has been limited to prevalence estimates from cross-sectional studies. This study determined the incidence of retinopathy and its predictors among type 2 diabetic patients Methods: Hospital-based retrospective follow-up study was conducted among 420 adults with newly diagnosed type 2 diabetic patients from January 1, 2014, to December 31, 2019. Data were extracted from medical records and entered into Epi info version7.2. 2.6and exported to Stata 14 for analysis. Bivariable and multivariable Cox proportional hazard model were used to identify predictors of diabetic retinopathy. In a multivariable analysis variable having a p-value < 0.05 in the Cox; PH model was considered as predictors of diabetic retinopathy. Results: Overall, 19.5% (95% CI; 16.2-23.8) of the study population developed diabetic retinopathy, with a median survival time of 30.4 months. Congestive heart failure [AHR: 2.53 (95% CI; 1.49, 4.29)], chronic kidney disease [AHR: 5.02(95% CI; 2.73, 9.26)], hypertension [AHR: 2.07(95% CI; 1.17, 2.89)], and HBA1c [AHR: 10.5 (95% CI; 5.6, 19.6)] were found to be predictors of diabetic retinopathy.
Adaptive Neural Network Force Tracking Control of Flexible Joint Robot With an Uncertain Environment

In this article, a control scheme of the flexible joint robot contacting with an unknown environment is proposed to realize force tracking. Tracking performance is ensured by designing the force-based outer loop and the position-based inner loop of the controller. The reference trajectory is obtained from the outer loop based on interaction force error and the estimated environment stiffness. The inner loop controller of the flexible joint robot based on the singular perturbation method is designed to achieve precise position tracking performance, and neural network is utilized to compensate for uncertainties in robotic dynamics. The stability of the control system is strictly proven by the Lyapunov method. The effectiveness of the proposed method is verified by simulations and experiments on the flexible joint robot.
Design and Comparative Analysis of an Ultra-Highly Efficient, Compact Half-Bridge LLC Resonant GaN Converter for Low-Power Applications

For low-power applications, this paper presents the development and design of a compact and ultra-highly efficient half-bridge LLC resonant converter. By using Galium Nitride (GaN) devices and high-efficient magnetics, the efficiency and power density of resonant converters can be improved. Compared to Silicon MOSFETs, GaN high-electron-mobility transistors (GaN HEMT) have a lower output capacitance and gate charge, resulting in lower driving loss and shorter dead times. Consequently, the proposed LLC converter based on GaN devices has excellent performance characteristics such as ultra-high efficiency, low switching losses, compact size, high voltage endurance, high operating temperature and high operating frequency. Furthermore, the proposed resonant converter features soft switching properties that ensure that the switches and diodes on the primary side are always switched at zero voltage and current. By doing so, LLC resonant converter switching losses are significantly reduced by up to 3.1%, and an overall efficiency of 98.5% is achieved. The LLC resonant converter design with GaN HEMT has great advantages over Si MOSFET solution regarding efficiency, overall losses, switching loose and power factor correction. A 240 W, 240 V to 60 V half-bridge GaN HEMT LLC resonant converter is simulated with a switching frequency of 75 KHz, along with the comparative analysis of the Si metal oxide semiconductor field effect transistor (MOSFET) solution. Moreover, the design and analysis of highly efficient magnetics with a power factor of 0.99 at full load is presented. A 240-Watt single stage LED driver with power factor correction is also designed to verify and compare the performance of proposed LLC resonant converter.
On time-variation of the fundamental constants

Recently, evidence indicating that the fine structure constant, α, might vary in time was observed. In this thesis it is investigated what consequences such a variation might have and how the variation may be explained. It is sometimes stated that time-variation of dimensionful constants, like the velocity of light c, can be detected. It is argued here that it is meaningless to talk about variation of dimensionful constants unless we specify what units we use.
Market share and efficiency: Causality test in Indonesian general insurance industry

This study aims to analyze the relationship between market share and technical efficiency in the Indonesian general insurance industry. The data for the period 2010-2020 is used, which was obtained from the Indonesian Financial Services Authority (OJK). The results show that efficient companies emerged from the category of industry possessing comparatively higher and lower market shares. Furthermore, the panel Granger-causality test indicates a one-way direction of causality, where only the market share has an impact on the technical efficiency score. The panel regression using the Feasible Generalized Least Square (FGLS) model shows that market share has a negative impact on technical efficiency scores. Other variables, such as the age of the industry, merger, and acquisition are listed in the stock exchange and do not have a significant effect on the efficiency score. Based on the aforementioned findings, it can be inferred that the quiet-life hypothesis is applicable within the Indonesian general insurance sector. Consequently, the government must foster competition among the businesses operating within the industry.
A POPULATIONAL PARTICLE COLLISION ALGORITHM APPLIED TO A NUCLEAR REACTOR CORE DESIGN OPTIMIZATION

The Particle Collision Algorithm (PCA) is a recently introduced metaheuristic conceptually similar to Simulated Annealing, without, though, the necessity of estimating the free parameters as in the latter algorithm. It is loosely inspired by the physics of nuclear particle collision reactions, particularly scattering and absorption. A “particle” that reaches a promising area of the search space is “absorbed”, while one that hits a low-fitness region is “scattered”. PCA is also a Metropolis algorithm, as a solution worse than the currently best may be accepted with a certain probability. In this article, we introduce a populational version of the Particle Collision Algorithm, the Populational PCA (PopPCA), which is a hybridization of the PCA and the genetic algorithm (GA). At the end of a generation, the particles reproduce and the fittest individuals survive. We apply the new algorithm to an optimization problem that consists in adjusting several reactor cell parameters, such as dimensions, enrichment and materials, in order to minimize the average peakfactor in a three-enrichment-zone reactor, considering restrictions on the average thermal flux, criticality and sub-moderation. The populational PCA is compared to other metaheuristics previously applied to the problem and shows to perform better than them, thus demonstrating its potential for other applications and further development.
Phenolic compounds, antioxidant capacity, and α‐amylase and α‐glucosidase inhibitory activity of ethanol extracts of perilla seed meal

Abstract Perilla frutescens is a medicinal herb that is commonly cultivated in Asian countries. Perilla seed is extensively pressed for cooking oil extraction. However, phenolic chemicals are still abundant in pressed perilla seed meal (PSM), which was previously thought to be useless after oil extraction. In our study, PSM was extracted using five solvents (water and 25%, 50%, 75%, and 100% ethanol) based on different ethanol concentrations, and its antioxidant activity, phenolic compounds, and inhibitory effects against key enzymes related to diabetes mellitus were evaluated. The 75% ethanol extract had higher phenolic (105.58 mg GAE/g DW) and flavonoid (66.52 mg QE/g DW) contents and showed better antioxidant and inhibitory effects against α‐glucosidase and α‐amylase. Analysis of the phenolic compounds of the five extracts by HPLC indicated the presence of apigenin, rosmarinic acid, benzoic acid, caffeic acid, and vanillic acid. Therefore, because of its high antioxidant activity and inhibitory capacity against enzymes relevant to diabetes, the 75% ethanol extract of perilla seed meal has the most potential to be used as a functional or nutraceutical food in the prevention and treatment of oxidation and diabetes.