Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Mitigating Interference and Blockage Through Fingerprinting in Mmwave-Enabled HetNets

One of the most critical challenges of future generation cellular networks is to meet the unprecedented cellular traffic demands from mobile applications. mmWave has large chunks of spectrum and is a promising candidate to satisfy the ever-increasing traffic demand. Unfortunately, the characteristic that mmWaves have high attenuation against physical objects and even atmosphere hinder its feasibility. High gain directional antennas are required to combat the attenuation. However, user mobility might change the signal direction, introducing physical objects in the line-of-sight of the signal. Additionally, user mobility might also make two directional signals interfere with each other. The blockage and interference incidents must be handled with care. In this paper, we propose to predict blockage and interference incidents so that countermeasures can be applied in advance. We let the cells collect the fingerprints, which are transmission parameters when blockage and interference incidents happen. The cells attempt to predict blockage and interference incidents by matching their current transmission parameters with the collected fingerprints. When a user is moving, and the cell's transmission parameters are approaching a fingerprint, the HetNet takes necessary actions to mitigate interference or avoid disconnection before it happens. Our results show that for typical indoor scenarios, most of the blockage and interference can be predicted, and taking countermeasures in advance improves overall performance.
Speckle Tracking as Predictor of Coronary Artery Disease in Diabetic Female with Acute Chest Pain

Background: Cardiovascular disease is the most common reason of mortality and morbidity all-over the world and is the major complication of diabetes. Diabetes mellitus (DM) has reached epidemic proportions worldwide and the consequences of its diagnosis are as severe as a diagnosis of coronary artery disease (CAD). Females are more likely to develop atypical symptoms of coronary CAD than males later in life. Imaging of deformation by two-dimensional speckle-tracking echocardiography (2DSTE) has developed as a highly effective method for quantification of the function of myocardium. This research aimed to evaluate the accuracy of diagnosis using speckle tracking for prediction of the existence or absence of severe CAD in diabetic female with acute chest pain by using two-dimensional echocardiography. Methods: This study is a cohort prospective research which was carried out at the department of cardiology, Tanta University Hospitals and National Heart Institute from the duration of October 2019 to September 2020 on 60 diabetic female patients above 18 years old with acute chest pain may be prolonged for > 20 minutes or transient, changes in ECG in the form of depression of ST segment and/or inversion of T wave (ECG may be normal) and cardiac biomarkers (troponin and CKMB) may be elevated or normal. Results: 2D speckle tracking was good predictor for multi-vessels disease with 95% total accuracy, then for single vessels disease with 85% total accuracy and finally for double vessel disease stenosis with 80% accuracy as shown in table. Among Non-STEMI group, 2D speckle tracking was good predictor for multi-vessels disease with 95% total accuracy, then for single vessels disease with 80% total accuracy and finally for double vessel disease stenosis with 75% accuracy as shown in table. Conclusions: We found that speckle tracking is effective in predicting presence of CAD in diabetic female patients had acute chest pain and in prediction of affected vessels depending on the distribution of affected segments in longitudinal strain by GLS. In addition, it can be used as non-invasive test for patients with acute coronary syndrome.
Introduction: methodology and non-ideal theory in Christine Hobden’s Citizenship in a Globalised World

ABSTRACT This contribution examines the methodology of Christine Hobden’s Citizenship in a Globalised World. It introduces some concepts, themes, and arguments that arise in the discussion by the three commentators Ashwini Vasanthamukar, Anna Stilz, and Shuk Ying Chan in this book symposium. It then examines Hobden’s approach to non-ideal political theorising and her proposal for citizens’ responsibilities.
Bidirectional Maximum Entropy Training With Word Co-Occurrence for Video Captioning

Video captioning aims to generate natural language descriptions for a given video, which is a more challenging task than static image captioning since it requires a more diverse and exhaustive result. Meanwhile, it is also important that the generated captions should be consistent with the language habits of people at a fine granularity. In this work, unlike most recent works enhancing performance with additional data modalities or complex model designs, we focus on optimizing the training process of video captioning models. Firstly, to generate a more diverse video caption, we propose the bidirectional maximum entropy (BME) training, which directly optimizes the probability distribution of neighboring words under a reinforcement learning (RL) framework. Secondly, to search for more human-like captions in the larger search space created by BME, we introduce the word co-occurrence (WCO) weighting. It adaptively guides RL algorithms with co-occurrence statistics in the training corpus. Our method can be deployed on existing captioning models in a plug-and-play manner without introducing any extra parameters. Experimental results show that our method yields up to 5.8% and 7.0% improvements considering the CIDEr score on MSVD and MSR-VTT, respectively.
The effects of increasing preservative uptake by microwave pre-treatment on the microstructure and mechanical properties of Oriental spruce wood

ABSTRACT In the microwave (MW) pre-treatment process, a constant MW energy intensity of 2158 MJ/m3 was applied by using 925 W (3700 sec.), 1295 W (2640 sec.) and 1850 W (1850 sec.) powers. Tanalith-E preservative material was used to determine the increase in impregnability of MW pre-treated wood. The mechanical properties of the treated wood specimens were tested to determine the degradation caused by exposure to the MW radiation. Additionally, scanning electron microscope (SEM) was used to determine the changes in wood microstructure with the effect of microwave pre-treatment. According to the impregnations, the average preservative material retention rates increased 62% for the specimens with MW groups, compared to the reference specimens. The mechanical properties of the MW pre-treated specimens decreased by (average) 5% in compression strength, 12% in the bending strength and 16% in the modulus of elasticity. SEM observations of the reference specimens showed that there were many aspirated bordered pits before MW pre-treatment. After the MW pre-treatment, parts of the pit membranes were damaged. The torus ruptured and cracked, while the structure of the micro-fibrils on the margo remained intact. In the observations of the intercellular microstructure of wood, it was observed that micro cracks with a width of 1–10 μm were formed.
Construction of QC-LDPC Codes from Sidon Sequence Using Permutation and Segmentation

By utilizing a Sidon sequence, two new methods are proposed to construct quasi-cyclic (QC) low-density parity-check (LDPC) codes. The first method yields a QC-LDPC code without 4-cycles and the second method gives a QC-LDPC code without 4-cycles and 6-cycles. In the literature there are two methods which employ mathematical objects somewhat resembling a Sidon sequence to remove 4-cycles, and there are two explicit constructions which guarantee the absence of 4-cycles and 6-cycles. Compared with the former, our first method is much more flexible in selecting parameters while providing identical or better performance. Compared with the latter, our second method provides much better performance.
On the other side of the fence: Property rights and productivity in the United States

Can well-defined access rights to publicly owned land be as effective as privatization in increasing productivity and wealth? In this paper, I evaluate the impact of public property rights using the 1934 Taylor Grazing Act, which determined secure access rights for ranchers to newly created, large grazing districts in the Western US. Using satellite-based vegetation data, I exploit spatial discontinuities across grazing district boundaries and find that public lands with well-defined access rights for ranchers are at least 10% more productive than lands without. Immediately after establishing grazing districts, ranchers inside these districts held more cattle, reported higher income and farm values than their counterparts outside. Despite ranchers being unable to invest in publicly-owned lands, these magnitudes are similar to outright privatization. Instead, I argue that secure access rights resolve uncertainty around future usage and align the incentives of ranchers and regulators, thus incentivizing sustainable and profitable usage. I provide two results supporting this hypothesis: Areas with stronger pre-reform state capacity show larger increases in vegetation; and, monthly patterns on vegetation are consistent with the adoption of productivity-increasing fallowing practices. I investigate alternative explanations, and find no empirical support for differential initial productivity; negative spillovers; or systematic local manipulation of boundaries.
300-meter Long-Range Optical Camera Communication on RGB-LED-equipped Drone and Object-Detecting Camera

Large-scale disaster occurs all over the world frequently, disconnects telecommunications, and destroys communication equipment. In recent years, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) network systems have been studied to work on the reconstruction activities safely and flexibly. The more means of telecommunication, the better because the UAV networks are used for emergency communication. Therefore, this paper studies optical camera communication (OCC) systems using RGB-LED-mounted drones and a high-speed camera for disaster recovery and proposes the RGB-LED-mounted drone’s detection scheme and the signal equalization technique to suppress the RGB interference. We detect the drone using the algorithm of a deep neural network (DNN) based object detection called YOLOv3. This paper adds a new function to reduce the frame rate in object detection. Consequently, the proposed scheme reduces the frame rate to a rate that can conduct real-time operations less than 20 fps from 600 fps. Moreover, the experimental results indicate the feasibility of the proposed scheme that can communicate in error-free operation at a 300-m distance.
Speaker Diarization and Identification from Single Channel Classroom Audio Recordings Using Virtual Microphones

Speaker diarization refers to methods for identifying speakers from audio recordings. An important application comes from the need to assess student interactions in collaborative learning environments. Diarization is very difficult in these environments where a single microphone is used to record multiple voices. Although there have been advancements in this field, little progress has been made in the case of noisy and disorganized multi-speaker environments. Current state-of-the-art methods based on Deep Learning require large training databases and can suffer from significant noise interference and bias due to the speaker’s accent, age, and gender. In this paper, we are proposing a new method to identify speakers that does not require the use of large training sets. To this end, we use a virtual array of microphones. The signal at the virtual microphones is simulated by extracting the spatial information of the speakers from a single channel audio recording using approximate speaker geometry observed from a video recording. The Room Impulse Responses (RIRs) at the virtual microphones are then estimated using acoustic scene simulations. The RIRs are then used to compute a cross-correlation matrix of possible audio sources. Speaker diarization is performed using the cross-correlation matrices as input to a classifier. For the task of identifying active student speakers in classroom audio, the proposed method significantly outperformed diarization methods performed by Google Cloud and Amazon AWS services.
Biopesticides: A healthy alternative of hazardous chemical pesticides, current development and status in China

To provide the safe and healthy food to the increasing world population in China and all over the world, the development of modern research based scientific system of organic farming is a dire need of time. Fertilizers, high yielding crop varieties and use of chemicals are key tools to ensure plentiful supply of high yielding agriculture products in China. To cope with these issues, quick and easy use of synthetic chemicals is creating several problems such as, severely health hazardous chemicals on food, environmental pollution and residual effects in land and water resources. In addition, to overcome pesticides resistance in insects, pest resurgence, secondary pest outbreak, the biologically safe and environment friendly pesticides are utmost needed. So, in current system biopesticides are good alternatives of chemical agro-inputs which are less toxic to health, ecofriendly, target specific, biodegradable, suitable for integrated pest management tool, non-phytotoxic and are easily implemented in organic farming. Biopesticides production in China is increasing rapidly by the interest of government and China's plan of zero growth of pesticides consumption to 2025. This is the key plan of biopesticides production and development to replace health hazardous chemical pesticides in China and world together. Hence, this article reviews the present status of health friendly biopesticides development and formulation for future prospects in China as healthy alternative of hazardous synthetic chemicals.
Religiosity and happiness inter generation of labor in Indonesia

If people are religious, are they happier? This study tries to answer the preceding question and to determine the factors affecting happiness among Indonesian labor. The dummy generation variable was used to know whether Gen X, Gen Y, and baby boomers can affect happiness. Several variables were also examined related to happiness. This study can be categorized as empirical research using ordinary least squares. The data were sourced from the Indonesian Family Life Survey 2014 (IFLS5). The number of samples selected was 21,919 individuals with the criteria of individuals aged 15 years and over who worked and earned income. The data analysis technique used OLS regression to prove the factors that influence happiness. The results of the research showed that religiosity, education, ownership of assets, social, job satisfaction, and the dummy generation have a positive and significant effect on people’s happiness. This study has confirmed that religiosity is a factor that can affect people’s happiness. Another factor, the generation the person belongs to, also affects happiness.
Antibiotic Suscepibility Studies on Escherichia coli O157:H7 Isolated from Vegetables Sold at Sokoto, North Western, Nigeria

Aim: The study was aimed at antibiotic susceptibility studies on Escherichia coli O157: H7 isolated from vegetables sold at Sokoto Central Market, Northwestern, Nigeria. Study Design: The study is a cross-sectional study involving sampling of vegetables sold at Central Market, Sokoto, Sokoto State, Nigeria. Place and Duration of Study: The study area is Shehu Shagari Central Market Sokoto were sample are collected and analyzed at central Laboratory, Department of Medical Microbiology, Usmanu Danfodiyo University, Sokoto, Nigeria. The research was conducted over a period of six (6) months (January, 2019 – June, 2019). Methodology: A cross-sectional study involving sampling of vegetables sold at Central Market, Sokoto, Sokoto State, Nigeria. Vegetable samples were processed and inoculated unto sorbiol MacConkey’s agar (SMAC) at a pH of 7.2 for the isolation of Escherichia coli by streaking method. Antibiotic susceptibility test was carried out on Escherichia coli which were isolated from the samples analyzed using Kirby-Bauer disc diffusion technique. Isolates DNA was extracted using MiniPrep kit (Zymo research (ZR) California, USA) and then samples were amplified in separate reactions using the GeneAmp PCR (Polymerised chain reaction) System 9700 thermocycler for Escherichia coli O157: H7 specific gene detection. Results: The presence of E. coli O157:H7 in vegetable samples was 2 (1.25%) and significantly low. High sensitivity patterns were observed against ofloxacin, ciprofloxacin, ceftazidine and cefuroxine. Resistance was found to be high for amoxycillin-clavulanic acid and gentamicin. Conclusion: Although there was significantly low prevalence of E. coli O157:H7 in vegetable samples, investigation of non-0157 shiga toxin producing E. coli (STEC) is therefore required.
Application-layer QOS metrics to aid network performance monitoring and diagnostics for encrypted traffic

Most of the network statistics do not capture the impact of network conditions on user's applications and their quality of experience (QoE). Active measurements can help but their results may not accurately reflect the QoE at end users. In this work, a low complexity non-intrusive method is proposed to estimate application-layer Quality of Service (QoS) metrics experienced by end-users. The method passively and continuously monitors user's traffic from a vantage point within the ISP network. These metrics accurately capture the network conditions experienced by end user's devices or internet applications. The approach is designed for encrypted traffic but can also be applied to unencrypted traffic. The metrics, together with existing set of network statistics, provide more accurate network performance monitoring. We also demonstrate that the metrics can be used for detecting degraded network performance and finding the root cause. Our top-down approach from user perspective complements the usual bottom-up technique using network component statistics and alerts.
Physical accessibility in Malaysian higher educational institutions: Voices of students with disabilities

In Malaysia, inclusiveness for people with disabilities in higher education remains a challenge. This study addresses the perception of 52 students with disabilities of their campuses’ physical accessibility. The survey shows partial dissatisfaction with facilities, with seniors displaying the highest discontent. In addition, interviews with 14 students reveal opinion discrepancies between students with visual impairments and those with other physical disabilities. The overall findings imply that inclusive education for students with disabilities is far from achieved. Thus, Malaysian social work has a critical role in intervening and advocating for inclusiveness in higher education.
Troublemakers in the Streets? A Framing Analysis of Newspaper Coverage of Protests in the UK 1992–2017

Research indicates that when mainstream news media report about demonstrations, protesters often face delegitimizing coverage. This phenomenon, known as the “(journalistic) protest paradigm,” is thought to be a default mindset that leads journalists to emphasize the method of protesters over their message. However, empirical work has so far limited itself to specific protest movements or events and only covers brief periods. This study first identifies and then codes the main frames in all reports about domestic protest in the United Kingdom. Analysing data that covers eight national newspapers during a 26 year period (N = 27,496), I provide a more systematic understanding of how the mainstream news media in liberal democracies report about protests. The analysis shows that a stable majority of articles uses frames linked to the protest paradigm throughout the time period. However, a substantial and growing number of articles employ legitimizing frames—either on their own or co-existing with delegitimizing framing.
Essays on using weather derivatives in dairy production

Dairy farms confront unique risks from weather conditions. Hot and humid weather induces heat stress, which brings a series of risks to dairy farm operations including reductions in milk production and pregnancy rate and increases in cull rate and death rate. Traditional heat abatement technologies control the environment through ventilation, misting or evaporative cooling. Adoption of abatement equipment, however, is hindered by its high initial cost and possibly long payback period, especially for smalland medium-scale firms. Moreover, although the abatement equipment is only seasonally useful, it is fixed asset whose price rises with efficacy. Weather derivatives provide an alternative method of risk management for dairy producers. Instead of reducing production losses, weather derivatives make payments based upon observed weather conditions over a period of time so that they offer the potential to offset profit losses caused by adverse weather events. Chapter 2 tests the risk management value of weather derivatives acting as a substitute for traditional abatement technologies within a utility maximization framework. The results suggest that weather derivatives offer an opportunity to improve the efficient portfolio frontier, and simultaneously using weather derivatives and abatement equipment is more favorable than using each of them alone. Previous research has identified the problem of basis risk in weather derivatives (Turvey, 2001; Vedenov and Miranda, 2001). Little theoretical or empirical work