Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Modified Parallel Tunicate Swarm Algorithm and Application in 3D WSNs Coverage Optimization

As the application of Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) in today’s society becomes more and more extensive, and the status is getting higher and higher, the node layout of sensors has also begun to attract social attention. In reality, the coverage of WSNs in 3D space is particularly important. Therefore, it is worth investigating an efficient way to find out the maximum coverage of WSNs. In this paper, a Modified Parallel Tunicate Swarm Algorithm (MPTSA) is proposed based on modified parallelism, which can improve the convergence of the algorithm and optimal global solution. Next, the proposed MPTSA is implemented and tested on 23 benchmark functions to verify the algorithm performance. Finally, a WSNs network layout scheme based on MPTSA is proposed to improve the coverage of the whole network. Experimental results show that, compared with the traditional PSO (Particle Swarm Optimization), improved PSO (PPSO and APSO), GBMO (Gases Brownian Motion Optimization) and traditional TSA, MPTSA family algorithms show better performance in WSNs network layout.
Platelets, Bacterial Adhesins and the Pneumococcus

Systemic infections with pathogenic or facultative pathogenic bacteria are associated with activation and aggregation of platelets leading to thrombocytopenia and activation of the clotting system. Bacterial proteins leading to platelet activation and aggregation have been identified, and while platelet receptors are recognized, induced signal transduction cascades are still often unknown. In addition to proteinaceous adhesins, pathogenic bacteria such as Staphylococcus aureus and Streptococcus pneumoniae also produce toxins such as pneumolysin and alpha-hemolysin. They bind to cellular receptors or form pores, which can result in disturbance of physiological functions of platelets. Here, we discuss the bacteria-platelet interplay in the context of adhesin–receptor interactions and platelet-activating bacterial proteins, with a main emphasis on S. aureus and S. pneumoniae. More importantly, we summarize recent findings of how S. aureus toxins and the pore-forming toxin pneumolysin of S. pneumoniae interfere with platelet function. Finally, the relevance of platelet dysfunction due to killing by toxins and potential treatment interventions protecting platelets against cell death are summarized.
Climate-induced fire regime amplification in Alberta, Canada

Acting as a top-down control on fire activity, climate strongly affects wildfire in North American ecosystems through fuel moisture and ignitions. Departures from historical fire regimes due to climate change have significant implications for the structure and composition of boreal forests, as well as fire management and operations. In this research, we characterize the relationship between trends in climate and fire regime characteristics, for a study area predominantly in Alberta, Canada. We examined trends of fire and climate in northwestern boreal forests using time series analysis of downscaled historical annual climate, fire history (1970–2019), and fire severity (the impacts of wildfire on plants and organic biomass; 1985–2018). We represented fire severity using the relativized burn ratio (RBR) calculated from multispectral Landsat imagery. The climate of the study area has significantly warmed and dried over the past 50 years. Over the same period the annual number of large wildfires, area burned, and fire sizes in the study area significantly increased. Furthermore, the likelihood, area, and number of extreme short-interval reburns (≤15 years between fires; 1985–2019) also significantly increased. During the study period, the portion of forested unburned islands within fire perimeters significantly declined, and fire severity (RBR) increased in open conifer and mixedwood forests. These fire regime changes are significantly correlated with annual climate variability, and a path analysis supports the hypothesis that annual climate patterns have led to fire regime shifts. The increasing fire activity in this region has implications for forest ecology and habitat availability, as the disruption of the fire regime is likely to alter forest recovery. Managers may face increasing challenges to fire suppression if the observed trends of increasing hotter and drier annual climate in the study area persist, driving extreme fire activity.
Improved Segmentation of Cardiac MRI Using Efficient Pre-Processing Techniques

Cardiac Magnetic Resonance Imaging is a popular non-invasive technique used for assessing the cardiac performance. Automating the segmentation helps in increased diagnosis accuracy in considerably less time and effort. In this paper a novel approach has been proposed to improve the automated segmentation process by increasing the accuracy of segmentation and laying focus on efficient pre-processing of the cardiac Magnetic Resonance (MR) image. The pre-processing module in the proposed method includes noise estimation and efficient denoising of images using discrete total variation based Non local means method.Segmentation accuracy is evaluated using measures such as average perpendicular distance and dice similarity coefficient. The performance of all the segmentation techniques is improved. Further segmentation comparison has also been performed using other state-of-the art noise removal techniques for pre-processing and it was observed that the proposed pre-processing technique outperformed other noise removal techniques in improving the segmentation accuracy.
A Study on Apatite from Mesozoic Alkaline Intrusive Complexes, Central High Atlas, Morocco

There are abundant phosphate mines in the High Atlas Mountains of Morocco. Gem-quality apatite is produced at the Anemzi deposit, but its associated gem mineralogy is relatively poorly studied. In this study, apatite from the Anemzi mine in Morocco was analysed using standard gemmological characterisation methods, including basic tests (hardness, relative density, microscopy, etc.), spectroscopic tests (infrared, Raman, and ultraviolet–visible spectroscopy), and chemical analyses (electron probe and laser ablation inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry). This paper explores the gemmological characteristics of Moroccan apatites and the information on diagenesis recorded for apatites by comparing them with apatites from other sources. Apatite from the Anemzi deposit is an igneous fluorapatite. The relatively high Cl content of the apatite suggests that the magma in the area has a high Cl content, whereas the high Cl/F ratio may indicate that the deposit formed in a slab subduction environment. The characteristics of the major and trace elements indicate high oxygen and sulphur escapes in the apatite-forming magma.
Real-Time Multi-Label Upper Gastrointestinal Anatomy Recognition from Gastroscope Videos

Esophagogastroduodenoscopy (EGD) is a critical step in the diagnosis of upper gastrointestinal disorders. However, due to inexperience or high workload, there is a wide variation in EGD performance by endoscopists. Variations in performance may result in exams that do not completely cover all anatomical locations of the stomach, leading to a potential risk of missed diagnosis of gastric diseases. Numerous guidelines or expert consensus have been proposed to assess and optimize the quality of endoscopy. However, there is a lack of mature and robust methods to accurately apply to real clinical real-time video environments. In this paper, we innovatively define the problem of recognizing anatomical locations in videos as a multi-label recognition task. This can be more consistent with the model learning of image-to-label mapping relationships. We propose a combined structure of a deep learning model (GL-Net) that combines a graph convolutional network (GCN) with long short-term memory (LSTM) networks to both extract label features and correlate temporal dependencies for accurate real-time anatomical locations identification in gastroscopy videos. Our methodological evaluation dataset is based on complete videos of real clinical examinations. A total of 29,269 images from 49 videos were collected as a dataset for model training and validation. Another 1736 clinical videos were retrospectively analyzed and evaluated for the application of the proposed model. Our method achieves 97.1% mean accuracy (mAP), 95.5% mean per-class accuracy and 93.7% average overall accuracy in a multi-label classification task, and is able to process these videos in real-time at 29.9 FPS. In addition, based on our approach, we designed a system to monitor routine EGD videos in detail and perform statistical analysis of the operating habits of endoscopists, which can be a useful tool to improve the quality of clinical endoscopy.
Overexpression of F-box and WD repeat domain containing 7 prevents tumor growth of bladder cancer cells through regulating SREBP1a

Background This study aimed to explore the effect of F-box and WD repeat domain containing 7 (FBXW7) overexpression on bladder cancer, and to determine the regulatory effect of FBXW7 on sterol regulatory element-binding protein 1a (SREBP1a) in bladder cancer. Methods The function of F-box and FBXW7 in tumor growth of bladder cancer cells was investigated using in vivo and in vitro models. We constructed and transfected FBXW7 overexpression vectors into T24 and J82 bladder cancer cells. After transfections, the expression of FBXW7 at messenger RNA (mRNA) and protein levels in human bladder cancer cells was confirmed. To verify the effect of FBXW7 on tumor growth, cell proliferation and migration were detected in the tumor cells after overexpression of FBXW7. Additionally, an in vivo tumor model was produced by inoculating the tumor cells and the effect of FBXW7 was evaluated. Finally, the regulation mechanisms were determined. Results Our data showed that overexpression of FBXW7 in J28 and T24 cells significantly inhibited the migration and proliferation of J82 and T24 cells, arrested the cells at G0/G1 phase, and up-regulated phosphorylation of glycogen synthase kinase-3β, while suppressing SREBP1a expression. In vivo data also showed that FBXW7 overexpression triggered apoptosis of tumor cells, prevented the pathological changes of tumor tissues, up-regulated p-GSK3β expression, and suppressed SREBP1a expression. In addition, an interaction between FBXW7 and SREBP1a was confirmed by co-immunoprecipitation. Conclusions Together, our data indicate that overexpression of FBXW7 prevents tumor growth of bladder cancer cells, likely through suppressing SREBP1a expression.
Phototherapy induced hypocalcemia in neonatal hyperbilirubinemia and correlation of hypocalcemia with the duration of phototherapy

Background: Neonatal hyperbilirubinemia is common morbidity in the first week of life. Approximately 5-10% of them requires intervention like phototherapy and even exchange transfusion. Phototherapy has various adverse effects and hypocalcemia is one of them. Thus assessment of serum calcium levels after phototherapy should be done in neonates with jaundice. Background: Neonatal hyperbilirubinemia is common morbidity in the 1st week of life. Approximately 5-10% of them requires intervention like phototherapy and even exchange transfusion. Phototherapy has various adverse effects and hypocalcemia is one of them. Thus, assessment of serum calcium levels after phototherapy should be done in neonates with jaundice. Objectives were to study prevalence of hypocalcemia in neonates with unconjugated hyperbilirubinemia receiving phototherapy and to observe association of hypocalcemia with duration of phototherapy.Methods: This was a prospective observational study conducted over a period of 18 months among 75 neonates (both term and preterm) in the neonatal intensive care unit of Manipal teaching hospital, Pokhara. Total serum calcium level was measured at 0 hours (control), 12 hours, and after 48 hours and data were analyzed using statistical package for social sciences version 21.Results: Hypocalcemia was found only in term neonates (n=8; 14%). Of those who had hypocalcemia, the majority experienced hypocalcemia after 48 hours of starting phototherapy. The mean difference of total serum calcium level before and after phototherapy in preterm and term neonates was found to be statistically significant. Hypocalcemia was not found to be associated with the duration of phototherapy.Conclusions: The present study concludes that though there is a reduction in the serum calcium with increased duration of phototherapy, however, it does not fall to the level where treatment is required. Hence it is not recommended to monitor serum calcium levels in neonates receiving phototherapy.
Factors affecting retained fetal membrane and its therapeutic management in dairy cows

Retention of fetal membrane (RFM) in dairy cows is a common complication after parturition due to failure of the separation of villi of fetal cotyledon from crypts of maternal caruncles and affects on reproductive cycle. The present study was conducted in 594 cows of 15 different dairy farms of Sylhet district. The data was collected by direct interviewing of the farmers in a prescribed questionnaires data sheet and data record from the register of the contracted farms. The overall incidence of retained placenta was 17.51 %. The cross bred dairy cows had higher incidence (14.14%) of RFM compared to local one (3.04%) and differ significantly ( p <0 .05). The parity and age of the animals had substantial effect on retention of fetal membrane in dairy cows. The incidence of RFM had notably increased from 1 st parity (10.04 %) to 7 th parity (57.14 %) and the highest observation was found at more than 7 years and lowest at the age below 3 years of age. The season, sex of calves, body condition of the animals and level of vitamin AD3E before parturition had significant effect on incidence of RFM in dairy cows. The RFM affected cows were treated either with intra muscular injection of oxytocin or herbal drug Eutoklin and manually removing the retained membrane. RFM affected post partum first estrus, service per conception, days open and calving interval significantly on parturated cows compared to normal delivered cows. Younger healthy cows, supply of balanced diet, sufficient daily exercise; comfortable calving areas should be maintained to reduce the incidence of RFM. International Journal of Natural Sciences (2015), 5(2) 93-97
Very Flat Optical Frequency Comb Generation based on Polarization Modulator and Recirculation Frequency Shifter

Abstract We propose and experimentally demonstrate a novel scheme to generate a flat and stable optical frequency comb by using recirculation frequency shifter (RFS) loop and polarization-modulator based single-side-band modulator (PSSBM). An ultra-flat 5-carriers generated by a polarization modulator is set as the seed light source of the recirculating loop, and the recirculation times is greatly reduced compared with the regular scheme based on RFS. Through theoretical analysis and experiment simulations, it is shown that the optical frequency comb of high quality with 50 spectral lines and the flatness fluctuation of less than 1 dB can be achieved.
Cognitive Computing: Building a Smarter Planet

Cognitive co mputing is the simulat ion of human thought processes in a co mputerized model. Cognitive systems are co mplex informat ion processing ones, capable of acquiring info rmation, putting it in to action and transmitting knowledge. Cognitiv e computing involves self-learning systems that use data min ing, pattern recognition and natural language processing to mimic the way the human brain works. Cognitive Systems will require innovation breakthroughs at every layer of info rmation technology, starting with nanotechnology and progressing through computing systems design, information management, programming and mach ine learning, and, finally, the interfaces between mach ines and humans. Advances on this scale will require remarkable efforts and collaboration, calling forth the best minds—and the combined resources–of academia, government and industry.
SPICE Modelling of Photoluminescence and Electroluminescence Based Current-Voltage Curves of Solar Cells for Concentration Applications

Quantitative photoluminescence (PL) or electroluminescence (EL) experiments can be used to probe fast and in a non-destructive way the currentvoltage (IV) characteristics of individual subcells in a multi-junction device, information that is, otherwise, not available. PL-based IV has the advantage that it is contactless and can be performed even in partly finished devices, allowing for an early diagnosis of the expected performance of the solar cells in the production environment. In this work we simulate the PLand ELbased IV curves of single junction solar cells to assess their validity compared with the true IV curve and identify injection regimes where artefacts might appear due to the limited in-plane carrier transport in the solar cell layers. We model the whole photovoltaic device as a network of sub-circuits, each of them describing the solar cell behaviour using the two diode model. The subcircuits are connected to the neighbouring ones with a resistor, representing the in-plane transport in the cell. The resulting circuit, involving several thousand sub-circuits, is solved using SPICE.
Hyper-Labeled Transition System and Its Application to Planning Under Linear Temporal Logic Constraints

Recently, formal methods have been paid much attention to in planning. We often leverage a labeled transition system (LTS) with a set of atomic propositions as a model of an environment. However, for example, in a flexible manufacturing system where an assembling machine has several functions that are performed exclusively, we need several states labeled by different sets of atomic propositions to discriminate the functions explicitly. This letter aims to reduce the number of the states. We introduce an extension of the LTS, called a hyperLTS, the labeling function of which assigns a set of sets of atomic propositions to each state. Then, we propose linear encodings for the hyperLTS to represent a sequence of pairs of a state and a selected set of atomic propositions. The hyperLTS-based modeling is consequently applied to a planning problem with one hard constraint and several soft constraints, thereby converting it into an integer linear programming problem. The effectiveness of the proposed modeling is illustrated through an example of a path planning problem of a mobile robot in a manufacturing system.
Realizing the Promise of RFID: Insights from Early Adopters and the Future Potential

This chapter touches on some basics on RFID and covers business opportunities as well as some of the relevant challenges to be faced. Although it is a new technology, standard obstacles of organizational and technological barriers still have to be overcome and mediums crossed that were previously not traversed as on warehouse and distribution center floors yield for challenging environments from a busi - ness process as well as a technological adoption perspective. It provides a combined outlook sprinkled with key lessons from early adopters and service providers close to some of the emerging trends and implementations happening in the field. A range of benefits will evolve with the adoption of RFID within an organization and especially across the entire supply network. For now, the value is only slowing coming into focus. Various industry segments, like pharmaceutical and military applications, will provide a smoother supply chain trail for others to follow.
An Open Trial on the Feasibility and Efficacy of a Mindfulness-Based Intervention with Psychoeducational Elements on Atopic Eczema and Chronic Itch

(1) Background: Mindfulness-based interventions (MBI) are psychological group interventions conducted over several weeks. Their effects on reducing stress and improving physical and psychological health have been proven in various clinical populations. Growing evidence suggests that MBIs might be beneficial for dermatology patients. This article reports on a novel Mindfulness-based Training for chronic Skin Conditions (MBTSC) with psychoeducational elements that was developed with the goal of improving self-regulation including stress management and emotion regulation in patients and to help in coping with disease symptoms such as itch and scratching. The intervention was tested in a pilot efficacy trial in order to examine feasibility and to collect preliminary data on the effectiveness of the intervention on disease severity including itch perception and on psychological distress in an atopic dermatitis (AD) sample. (2) Methods: Following an uncontrolled pre-test-post-test design based on standardized self-report measures, nine adult AD patients were recruited from a dermatology clinic. Data were collected at baseline, post-treatment and 3 month follow-up. Patients completed questionnaires assessing disease severity, itch perception, stress, anxiety and depression, mindfulness and intervention acceptability. The 7 week intervention included seven weekly sessions and a daily home-practice requirement, supported by guided audio-meditations and reading material. (3) Results: Quantitative data showed improvements in disease severity, itch perception and stress levels with small to medium effect sizes. Psychological distress increased at post-treatment—significantly in the case of depression. Qualitative data highlighted the mixed effects of MBTSC on symptoms. Treatment acceptability was high and 100% of the participants completed the intervention; (4) Conclusions: These data indicate that MBTSC is feasible and that it might be a useful tool as adjunct therapy for AD. Further studies with larger samples and control groups are needed.
High power LED array for thin c-Si carrier lifetime measurements

Crystalline silicon solar cells are very sensitive to carrier recombination. Minority carrier lifetime is then one of the key parameters to measure in order to develop their efficiency. Commercial setup is available in the department for this measurements. However, light spectrum does not suit thin c-Si wafers. The idea is to change the flash lamp that comes with the equipment by a LED array that could help in accurate measurements of thin c-Si wafers.
Topological BF Description of 2D Accelerated Chiral Edge Modes

In this paper, we consider the topological abelian BF theory with radial boundary on a generic 3D manifold, as we were motivated by the recently discovered accelerated edge modes on certain Hall systems. Our aim was to research if, where, and how the boundary keeps the memory of the details of the background metrics. We discovered that some features were topologically protected and did not depend on the bulk metric. The outcome was that these edge excitations were accelerated, as a direct consequence of the non-flat nature of the bulk spacetime. We found three possibilities for the motion of the edge quasiparticles: same directions, opposite directions, and a single-moving mode. However, requiring that the Hamiltonian of the 2D theory is bounded by below, the case of the edge modes moving in the same direction was ruled out. Systems involving parallel Hall currents (for instance, a fractional quantum Hall effect with ν=2/5) cannot be described by a BF theory with the boundary, independently from the geometry of the bulk spacetime, because of positive energy considerations. Thus, we were left with physical situations characterized by edge excitations moving with opposite velocities (for example, the fractional quantum Hall effect with ν=1−1/n, with the n positive integer, and the helical Luttinger liquids phenomena) or a single-moving mode (quantum anomalous Hall). A strong restriction was obtained by requiring time reversal symmetry, which uniquely identifies modes with equal and opposite velocities, and we know that this is the case of topological insulators. The novelty, with respect to the flat bulk background, is that the modes have local velocities, which correspond to topological insulators with accelerated edge modes.