Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A Spatial Biarc Method for Inverse Kinematics and Configuration Planning of Concentric Cable-Driven Manipulators

Superior dexterity and extreme flexibility are typical advantages for concentric cable-driven manipulators working in confined spaces. However, its inverse kinematics and configuration planning are very complicated. In this article, we propose a spatial biarc method for the above problem. The distinguishing feature of this method is that input parameters are two positions and two direction vectors in three-dimensional (3-D) space, and the output is a reasonable spatial biarc for controlling a concentric cable-driven manipulator in 3-D space. This method has the following three advantages. First, the positions and direction vectors of the base and inner distal tip are considered simultaneously. In addition, the length and ratio of the overlapped section and separated section can be adjusted by changing the length of the direction vectors. Furthermore, by judging the angular value of the direction vectors, one can predetermine whether the spatial configuration of the entire arm is C- or S-shaped. The proposed method realizes the parameterization of a concentric cable-driven manipulator, which makes it convenient to intuitively control the manipulator to achieve interference-free motion trajectory planning in confined spaces. Finally, trajectory tracking inspections are simulated and experimentally executed. It can be seen from results that the proposed spatial biarc method can provide reasonable solutions for concentric cable-driven manipulators. The method is especially favorable in terms of 3-D-pose-determination problem and trajectory-planning problem. It can also be applied to other manipulators with similar configurations. Without loss of generality, when the given points and direction vectors are coplanar, the proposed spatial biarc method can be transformed to a planar biarc method.
Women cry, men get angry: how street-level bureaucrats respond when clients exhibit counter-stereotypical behavior

Abstract How do street-level bureaucrats perceive a client and react when the client exhibits behavior deviating from gender-stereotypical expectations? Introducing a new approach to the study of gender bias in citizen-state interactions, this article focuses on the intersection between clients’ demographic characteristics, behavior, and gender-stereotypical expectations. Using data from a randomized laboratory experiment among child visitation rights caseworkers in Denmark, we examine caseworker responses to two distinct audio vignettes from a meeting in which a client exhibits emotion-based behavior characterized by gender-stereotypical expectations. The two vignettes capture the act of crying and the showing of anger, respectively. We find that caseworkers perceive counter-stereotypical client behavior as more pronounced than stereotypical client behavior: An angry female client is perceived as angrier and more aggressive than an angry male client. Moreover, caseworkers are more inclined to react negatively when female relative to male clients elicit emotion-based behavior that is counter gender-stereotypical.
SUPLEMENTASI DOCOSAHEXAENOIC ACID (DHA) SEBAGAI USAHA PREVENTIF IBU HAMIL DENGAN RISIKO PREEKLAMPSIA

Hypertension in pregnancy is one of the main cause of maternal death in the world. Hypertensive disorders in pregnancy, including preeclampsia, have a broad spectrum of conditions associated with maternal and fetal morbidity and mortality. Preeclampsia is a syndrome characterized by new onset of hypertension at ≥20 weeks of gestation, in pregnant women who were previously normotensive and accompanied by proteinuria. This paper aims to determine the effectiveness of docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) in pregnant women to prevent the risk of preeclampsia. This research method is to review the articles published in the last 10 years with the keywords preeclampsia, therapy, preventive, and docosahexaenoic acid (DHA). The data show that administration of docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) can reduce the risk of preeclampsia with minimal side effects for both maternal and the fetus. DHA on the other hand is still insignificant in preventing preeclampsia in high-risk pregnant women and prescribing the high dose of DHA is not recommended for pregnant women. DHA will be more effective in preventing preeclampsia if given in early pregnancy, especially in the first trimester of pregnancy
Design in the Spectral Music of Tristan Murail

This paper wants to highlight the creation process in the spectral music of Tristan Murail that supposes a special sound design. The spectral music uses the sound spectrum, i.e. the sound components (overtones) as material that give to a sound its timbre. The spectrum is based on the frequencies, which can be calculated with the computer. The aim of this paper is to describe some aspects of the work of Tristan Murail, which are in connection with the design, notions that himself uses describing his compositions, as material, models, modeling, object, process. The material is the sonority itself. The models are the technological ones taken from the electronic music as echo, reverberation, frequency modulation, etc. and translated in the instrumental (or/and electronic) music. After the analysis of a sound, which is decomposed in sine waves, follows the sound modeling through recombining the sound components, doing distortions or other effects borrowed from the electronic music. In this way new sounds are synthesized, which can be seen as more complex and sophisticated objects. The composer deals with an amount of sounds, therefore the computer is important in the compositional process to calculate a great number of sound combinations. The compositional conception of Murail has changed with the development of the computer technology and music informatics. In this way, I should mention the role of computer in the sound design of Murail. The process is an integral part both of the composing and of the composition. The composition evolves over time as the sound does: it is in a continuous changing. Sound evolution is also a model for Murail to shape the form of his compositions.
Concurrent use of Chinese herbal medicine and anticoagulants may reduce major bleeding events

Background This retrospective cohort study investigated the risk of major bleeding events during the concurrent use of Chinese herbal medicine (CHM) and anticoagulants in clinical practice. Methods A total of 4,470 patients receiving anticoagulant drugs were selected from Taiwan’s National Health Insurance Research Database (NHIRD). Half (n = 2,235) were also using CHMs (CHM cohort); the other half were not (non-CHM cohort). Each cohort was matched 1:1 using the propensity score. Chi-square testing and the Student’s t-test were used to examine differences between two cohorts. Cox proportional hazard regression analysis assessed the risks for major bleeding events in each cohort, as well as bleeding risks associated with specific CHM formulas and herbs. Cumulative incidence curves for major bleeding events were calculated using Kaplan-Meier analysis. Results Compared with the non-CHM cohort, the CHM cohort had a lower risk of overall bleeding events (p < 0.001) including hemorrhagic stroke (p = 0.008), gastrointestinal (GI) bleeding (p < 0.001), urogenital bleeding (p ≤ 0.001) and nasal/ear/eye bleeding (p = 0.004). Single herbs, such as Glycyrrhiza uralensis et Rhizoma, Panax notoginseng, Panax ginseng, Platycodon grandiflorum, Eucommia ulmoides Oliver and formulas, such as Shu Jing Huo Xue Tang, Shao Yao Gan Cao Tang and Ji Sheng Shen Qi Wan were associated with a lower risk of major bleeding events. Conclusion Using CHMs with anticoagulants appeared to decrease the risk of major bleeding, especially CHMs products containing Glycyrrhiza uralensis et Rhizoma, Panax notoginseng, Panax ginseng, Platycodon grandiflorum and Eucommia ulmoides Oliver. Further investigations are needed to determine whether CHM can maintain the therapeutic efficacy of anticoagulants while simultaneously reducing potential side effects.
Development of Indium Titanium Zinc Oxide Thin Films Used as Sensing Layer in Gas Sensor Applications

InTiZnO gas sensors with different oxygen ratios were fabricated by RF sputtering at room temperature. The sensing responses for five different gases, including ethanol, isopropanol (IPA), acetone (ACE), CO, and SO2, were reported. The InTiZnO gas sensor with the MSM (metal–semiconductor–metal) structure generated a higher sensing response when the O2/Ar ratio was increased to 10%. It also revealed high selectivity among these gases and good repeatability. Moreover, the UV light-activated InTiZnO gas sensors were also studied, which could reduce the operating temperature from 300 °C to 150 °C and did not seem to damage the sensing film, demonstrating long-term stability. The high response and selectivity revealed that InTiZnO thin films possess high potential to be applied in gas sensing technology.
A nonlinear model predictive controller based on the gravitational search algorithm

A heuristic nonlinear model predictive controller is proposed, based on the gravitational search algorithm. The proposed method models a constrained nonlinear model predictive control problem in the form of a dynamic optimization and uses a set of virtual particles, moving within the search space, to find the best control sequence in an online manner. Particles affect the movement of each other through the gravitational forces. The optimality of the points, experienced by the particles, is evaluated by a cost function. This function reduces the tracking error, control effort, and control chattering. The better control sequence a particle finds, the more mass is assigned to that particle. Therefore, it will apply more gravitational force to the other particles and will absorb them more strongly. Stability of the new controller is investigated. Finally, performance of the controller is evaluated in two nonlinear benchmark problems as well as an experimental attitude control of a quadrotor as a nonlinear multi‐input multi‐output system with input constraints. Results confirm successful performance of the proposed controller.
Atherosclerosis amelioration by allicin in raw garlic through gut microbiota and trimethylamine-N-oxide modulation

Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is strongly associated with the gut microbiota and its metabolites, including trimethylamine- N -oxide (TMAO), formed from metaorganismal metabolism of ʟ-carnitine. Raw garlic juice, with allicin as its primary compound, exhibits considerable effects on the gut microbiota. This study validated the benefits of raw garlic juice against CVD risk via modulation of the gut microbiota and its metabolites. Allicin supplementation significantly decreased serum TMAO in ʟ-carnitine-fed C57BL/6 J mice, reduced aortic lesions, and altered the fecal microbiota in carnitine-induced, atherosclerosis-prone, apolipoprotein E-deficient (ApoE −/− ) mice. In human subjects exhibiting high-TMAO production, raw garlic juice intake for a week reduced TMAO formation, improved gut microbial diversity, and increased the relative abundances of beneficial bacteria. In in vitro and ex vivo studies, raw garlic juice and allicin inhibited γ-butyrobetaine (γBB) and trimethylamine production by the gut microbiota. Thus, raw garlic juice and allicin can potentially prevent cardiovascular disease by decreasing TMAO production via gut microbiota modulation.
Pulp And Paper Mill Effluents

During the past year, a significant amount of research was conducted on the treatment of various effluents from pulp and paper mills. Presented below is a review of approximately 125 publications that report on the results from this research. The review is divided into five sections: aerobic biological treatment, anaerobic biological treatment, physicochemical treatment, process waste stream treatment and/or reuse and management of treatment residuals. The review on aerobic, anaerobic and physicochemical systems considers the treatment of the combined effluent from pulp and paper mills. The review on process waste stream treatment and/or reuse considers internal process modifications for the reuse of selected process waste streams within a mill. The review on the management of treatment residuals deals with the handling and treatment of the by-products resulting from the biological treatment of various effluents from pulp and paper mills.
Effects of SIME/DIME on Changes in Employment Status

Ways in which heads of families in the Seattle and Denver Income Maintenance Experiments reduce their labor supply are analyzed in this paper. By estimating transition rates of leaving and entering employment, the authors calculate the effect of the experiment on such measures as the average length of nonemployment, the likelihood of being employed at a given time, the number of entries into and exits from employment within a given period, and the average length of spells of employment. Results indicate that heads of families on experimental negative income tax (NIT) programs have a greater tendency than controls to leave employment. The results also indicate that the NIT programs substantially lengthen spells of nonemployment for all groups studied. All groups also experience a significant decline in the probability of employment as a result of the NIT treatments.
Interdisciplinary Skills for STEAM Entrepreneurship Education

This research seeks to understand which skills entrepreneurs in the different STEAM disciplines are using in their careers and if these skills differ from those being used by workers who major in STEAM fields but do not become entrepreneurs. The empirical analysis uses a large sample of more than 99,000 people from the restricted use National Science Foundation’s (NSF) Scientists and Engineers Statistical Data System (SESTAT). This work investigates the skills actually being used by entrepreneurs with undergraduate degrees in the STEAM disciplines to better inform what is being taught in the undergraduate classroom and to make sure learning objectives are in line with student career goals. This paper argues the need for more interdisciplinary skills to be taught in STEAM entrepreneurship curriculums.
Phenotype and Virulence Assessment of a Burkholderia pseudomallei Soil Isolate from Malaysia

Burkholderia pseudomallei, a Gram-negative soil saprophyte, is the causative agent of life-threatening melioidosis. B. pseudomallei from soil and water remains a common source of human and animal infection via skin abrasions, ingestion or inhalation. Despite the reported sero-prevalence in healthy individuals among Malaysian rice farmers, there are limited reports on B. pseudomallei isolated from water or soil around the country. In this study, we characterized a B. pseudomallei soil isolate and compared it to local clinical isolates. 16s rRNA sequencing was adopted to confirm the identity of the soil isolate, NC20. B. pseudomallei NC20 colony morphology, in vitro growth rate and antibiotic sensitivity were examined and compared to two B. pseudomallei clinical isolates, UM6 and D286. Virulence properties such as biofilm formation and infection in a nematode host were also examined. The soil isolate NC20 exhibited distinguishable features of B. pseudomallei, comparable growth rate and similar antibiotic resistance profile to UM6 and D286. Additionally, NC20 is a medium-level biofilm producer with levels similar to D286, where the amount of biofilm produced was much less relative to UM6. Interestingly, NC20 exhibited weaker killing of the Caenorhabditis elegans infection model relative to the clinical isolates. The comparison between soil-derived and clinical isolates of B. pseudomallei demonstrated that both soil and clinical isolates shared certain phenotypic properties but the soil isolate was somewhat less virulent than the clinical isolates used in this study.
A Hybrid EEG-based Emotion Recognition Approach Using Wavelet Convolutional Neural Networks and Support Vector Machine

Introduction: Nowadays, deep learning and convolutional neural networks (CNNs) have become widespread tools in many biomedical engineering studies. CNN is an end-to-end tool, which makes the processing procedure integrated, but in some situations, this processing tool requires to be fused with machine learning methods to be more accurate. Methods: In this paper, a hybrid approach based on deep features extracted from wavelet CNNs (WCNNs) weighted layers and multiclass support vector machine (MSVM) was proposed to improve the recognition of emotional states from electroencephalogram (EEG) signals. First, EEG signals were preprocessed and converted to Time-Frequency (T-F) color representation or scalogram using the continuous wavelet transform (CWT) method. Then, scalograms were fed into four popular pre-trained CNNs, AlexNet, ResNet-18, VGG-19, and Inception-v3 to fine-tune them. Then, the best feature layer from each one was used as input to the MSVM method to classify four quarters of the valence-arousal model. Finally, the subject-independent leave-one-subject-out criterion was used to evaluate the proposed method on DEAP and MAHNOB-HCI databases. Results: Results showed that extracting deep features from the earlier convolutional layer of ResNet-18 (Res2a) and classifying using the MSVM increased the average accuracy, precision, and recall by about 20% and 12% for MAHNOB-HCI and DEAP databases, respectively. Also, combining scalograms from four regions of pre-frontal, frontal, parietal, and parietal-occipital and two regions of frontal and parietal achieved the higher average accuracy of 77.47% and 87.45% for MAHNOB-HCI and DEAP databases, respectively. Conclusion: Combining CNN and MSVM increased the recognition of emotion from EEG signals and the results were comparable to state-of-the art studies.
Survival Analysis and Prognostic Factors for Prostate Cancer Patients at Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia Medical Centre, Kuala Lumpur

Prostate cancer is the third commonest type of cancer in Malaysian men with the incidence of 1,807 in 2018 compared to 1,186 cases reported in 2014. Prostate cancer is also known to cause disease, economic burden and lead to significant financial implications for the healthcare system. This study aimed to measure the rate of survival and to determine the prognostic factors for prostate cancer patients at Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia Medical Centre, Kuala Lumpur. This was a retrospective study design involving prostate cancer patients who had been diagnosed and had sought treatment at Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia Medical Centre from 2008 to 2017. Data were obtained from the patients’ medical records based on TRUS biopsy. The study period was from July 2017 to December 2018. Survival probabilities were estimated using Kaplan-Meier, and differences were compared using the log-rank test. The adjusted hazard ratio (HR) for variables was estimated after fitting the Cox proportion hazard model. Patients' death status due to prostate cancer was the endpoint of the survival analysis. A total of 283 patients’ data were analysed. Total five-year and ten-year survival rates of prostate cancer patients were 77.8 and 65.5%, respectively, regardless of the stage and treatment. The predictor factors for survival age were ≥75 years (HR = 8.49, 95% C.I: 1.16-62.13), Gleason score ≥8 (HR = 2.36, 95% C.I: 1.18-4.73) and cancer metastasis complications (HR = 5.26, 95% C.I: 2.88-9.63). Survival rates and prognostic factors of prostate cancer in the study were almost similar to those in nearby countries in the region. Preventive actions such as prostate cancer screening, early detection of cancer and early treatment should be empowered to improve the survival rate of prostate cancer patients in this hospital.
Kallar grass (Leptochloa fusca L. Kunth) as a feedstock for ethanol fermentation with the aid of response surface methodology

In this study, Leptochloa fusca L. Kunth or Kallar grass (KG) was thermochemically (0.625M NaOH solution followed by steam treatment at 121°C for 1 h) pretreated and utilized as a substrate for ethanol production in simultaneous saccharification and fermentation process. A four‐factor, full factorial, rotatable central composite design of response surface methodology was used to develop a statistical model for the optimization of process variables such as substrate concentration, enzyme concentration, temperature, and time. Analysis of variance for ethanol production and the substrate conversion efficiency (SCE) by Kluyveromyces marxianus demonstrated that 10% pretreated KG, 0.6 mg/mL enzyme concentration, 40°C temperature and 48 h of simultaneous saccharification and fermentation time were the optimized variables. At optimum factor setting, predicted values of ethanol production and SCE were 30 g/L and 82%, respectively. The Experimental/validation experiment was in close agreement with the predictive model and the results obtained was 40 g/L and 83.74% for ethanol production and SCE, respectively. © 2017 American Institute of Chemical Engineers Environ Prog, 37: 569–576, 2018
LAYING PERFORMANCE, HEALTH STATUS and SOME PHYSIOLOGICAL TRAITS of MANDURAH LAYING CHICKENS AFFECTED BY THE ADDITION OF DIFFERENT LEVELS of ANISE AND CARAWAY SEED POWDER

This study was conducted to evaluate the effects of varying levels of Anise and Caraway seeds powder on laying performance, some blood constituents, egg quality traits, yolk cholesterol content, immunity response and total count aerobic bacteria of Mandurah laying chicken. For this purpose, a total number of 140 Mandurah laying chickensat 26 weeks of age were used in this experiment having a completely randomized design, with 7 equal treatment groups, which replicated 4 times with 5 hens per replicate. Each bird was housed in individual wire cage measuring (50 × 50 × 45Cm2), where each bird in each cage allowing 510 Cm2 space/hen). A basal control diet was formulated and supplemented with 0.1, 0.2 and 0.3 % Anise and 0.1, 0.2 and 0.3 % Caraway seeds in powder form. Birds were fed on isocaloric (2751 Kcal ME /Kg) and isonitrogenous (16.14% CP) diets. Results showed that laying performance significantly (P<0.05) improved when inclusion Anise and Caraway seeds powder compared with the control group. However, it was clearly observed that plasma lipids were significantly reduced (P <0.05) by supplementing diets with different levels of anise and caraway seeds. In the same trend, the addition of Anise and Caraway seeds powder led to a clear and significant decrease in egg yolk and blood cholesterol compared with the control group (P<0.05). However, Anise and Caraway seed powder incorporation caused positive effects on the parameters related to immune response and overall total antioxidant capacity (TAC) compared with the control group. While, total count aerobic bacteria significantly (P < 0.05) decreased for birds fed diets inclusion Anise and Caraway seeds powder as compared with the control group. Conclusively, Anise and Caraway seeds powder can be included in the diet of laying hens as a safe and effective feed additive to improve laying performance and reduce total blood lipids and thus reduce cholesterol content in egg yolk.