Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Convergent Anthropocene Systems: Towards an Agile, System-of-Systems Engineering Approach

The greatest societal challenges are numerous, daunting, and seemingly unrelated, collectively spanning almost every discipline of science and engineering. Societies confronted with these complex challenges need to manage synergies and trade-offs across multiple systems, scales and levels of analysis. Unfortunately, if the goal is to overcome each of these challenges separately, we must embrace convergence as a means to merge disciplines, methodologies, and technologies, and we must do this for every one of the challenges, which is a truly daunting, and perhaps even impossible, task. Fortunately, however, societal challenges of the Anthropocene share the abstract common characteristics of broad scope, complex interdependencies, and multi-faceted causality, and also share several common systems. Seizing on this conceptual opportunity, we evaluate the “convergence potential” for systems-of-systems engineering methods. We then present a way forward that addresses the unique characteristics of Anthropocene systems by developing an agile systems-of-systems engineering framework and associated decision-support system to integrate fragmented data and disciplinary knowledge into a new systemic understanding. The proposed framework provides a fresh perspective on an entire family of societal challenges of the Anthropocene.
Integrating Crop Simulation and Machine Learning Models to Improve Crop Yield Prediction

Accurate crop yield prediction can contribute to the decision-making in farm management. In this paper, we propose a crop yield prediction model which integrates the outputs from a crop simulation model (APSIM). These outputs are included as features in the machine learning (ML) models to improve the transparency and an ensemble model then is designed for prediction. The proposed model is applied to predict the corn yield of 12 US Corn Belt States. RRMSE of 9.34%, 8.99%, and 9.52% was achieved after evaluating the model at the county level for the years 2018, 2019, and 2020 respectively. The proposed model has similar accuracy as the top-performing state-of-art prediction models while providing interpretability. Additional analyses have been conducted to understand the source of model errors. In this analysis, it has been identified that counties and crop reporting districts (CRD) with high cropland ratio have a lower error due to the high data availability in those regions.
The Attenuating Effect of Beta-Carotene on Streptozotocin Induced Diabetic Vascular Dementia Symptoms in Rats

This study investigated the ameliorative effects of beta-carotene (BC) on diabetes-associated vascular dementia and its action against biomolecule oxidation. The diabetic vascular dementia (VaD) was induced by administration of nicotinamide (NA; 50 mg/kg; i.p.) and streptozotocin (STZ; 50 mg/kg; i.p.). The test compound, BC (50 and 100 mg/kg; p.o.), and the reference compound, donepezil (DP) (1 mg/kg; p.o.), were administered for 15 consecutive days. Changes in learning and memory were assessed by escape latency time (ELT) and times spent in target quadrant (TSTQ) in the Morris water maze (MWM) test. The changes in neurotransmitter, i.e., acetylcholinesterase (AChE) and oxidative stress markers, i.e., thiobarbituric acid reactive substance (TBARS) and reduced glutathione (GSH), were estimated in hippocampal tissue of the rat brain. The administration of STZ caused significant deterioration of cognitive function (decreased ELT and raised the TSTQ) as compared to the normal group. Treatment with BC and DP diminished the increased AChE activity, TBARS level and decreased GSH level caused by STZ. Thus, BC ameliorates the diabetic vascular complications in VaD due to its potential anticholinergic, antioxidative and free radical scavenging actions.
Ultrasound Assessment of the Relevance of Liver, Spleen, and Kidney Dimensions with Body Parameters in Adolescents

Objective Ultrasound is a practical imaging modality for screening and identification of anomalies in the organs. This study used ultrasonography to examine the association between body parameters and dimensions of the normal liver, spleen, and kidney in adolescents based on ultrasound examination results. Methods A total of 300 junior and senior high school teenagers receiving routine health check-ups in our hospital from January 2020 to January 2021 were included. Their height and weight were measured, and their body surface area (BSA) and body mass index (BMI) were calculated. Ultrasound imaging was employed to obtain information such as the length and volume of the liver, gallbladder, spleen, and kidney. Besides, the correlation of body parameters such as gender, age, height, weight, BSA, and BMI with visceral dimension was investigated using the Pearson test and multiple regression analysis, respectively. Results We observed that the abdominal organs of adolescents were enlarged with age. The span and volume of the liver and the length and volume of the right kidney were significantly larger in boys than in girls. The age, BSA, and BMI were positively correlated with the liver span and spleen length, as well as the left and right kidney lengths. Additionally, age, BSA, and BMI were identified as important predictors for dimensions of the spleen, liver, and kidney. Conclusions Body parameters are notably associated with the dimensions of the liver, spleen, and kidney and could be utilized as predicting factors for the liver, spleen, and kidney dimensions.
Implementation of One Health Approach for Malaria Zoonotic Control in Indonesia: Past, Present, and Future

Malaria zoonotic, Plasmodium knowlesi threatens the global development of malaria elimination. Even though current control efforts have been implemented, the prevalence of malaria zoonotic in Indonesia cannot be ignored. Conventional measures to control malaria in humans ignore the transmission of residual P. knowlesi between hosts and natural primate vectors. Attempting to manage Plasmodium knowlesi transmission should try applying the One Health approach theme, which focuses on the management of the infectious disease agent to be researched at the man-animal-ecosystem interface. This review will present a brief history of malaria knowlesi in Indonesia, risk factors, and the application of the one health approach that has been carried out in the past until now. Furthermore, the efforts to optimize the one health approach in the future, especially in controlling and eradicating malaria, were presented. This condition suggests an integrative control strategy through improving surveillance methods and understanding the risks associated with disease transmission in line with the One Health approach. It is also recommended that Indonesian policymakers facilitate multidisciplinary collaborative research on incidence rates, clinical spectrum, clusters, and geographical distribution of Plasmodium knowlesi transmission. They impose ecological regulations that restrict forest transformation and encourage ecosystem regeneration. Hence, combining solitary protective measures, promoting malaria control strategies that improve health insurance, mosquitobased food traps, and biocontrol strategies in synergy with current control practices are expected to minimize transmission capacity.
The State of the Art of Cooperative and Connected Autonomous Vehicles from the Future Mobility Management Perspective: A Systematic Review

Cooperative and connected autonomous vehicles (CCAVs) are considered to be a promising solution for addressing congestion and other operational deficiencies, as part of a holistic future mobility management framework. As a result, a significant number of studies have recently been published on this topic. From the perspective of future mobility management, this review paper discusses three themes, which are traffic management, network performance, and mobility management, including congestion, and incident detection using the PRISMA methodology. Three databases were considered for this study, and peer-reviewed primary studies were selected that were published within the last 10 years in the English language, focusing on CCAV in the context of the future transportation and mobility management perspective. For synthesis and interpretation, like-for-like comparisons were made among studies; it was found that extensive research-supported information is required to ensure a smooth transition from conventional vehicles to the CCAVs regime, to achieve the projected traffic and environmental benefits. Research investigations are ongoing to optimize these benefits and associated goals via the setting of different models and simulations. The tools and technologies for the testing and simulation of CCAV were found to have limited capacity. Following the review of the current state-of-the-art, recommendations for future research have been discussed. The most notable is the need for large-scale simulations to understand the impact of CCAVs beyond corridor-based and small-scale networks, the need for understanding the interactions between the drivers of CCAVs and traffic management centers, and the need to assess the technological transition, as far as infrastructure systems are concerned, that is necessary for the progressive penetration of CCAVs into traffic streams.
Review of Water Treeing in Polymeric Insulated Cables

Since discovering the water treeing phenomenon (WT) in polymeric cables in the early 1970s, water treeing has been presumed to be the main cable degradation mechanism for polymeric cables and has been extensively researched up to the late 90s. Historically, different theories were proposed to describe this phenomenon's mechanism. The two most prominent theories link the initiation and growth of WTs to (i) Environmental stress cracking (ESC) and (ii) Stress-induced chemical degradation (SIED). Additionally, different experimental investigations were conducted to highlight the correlation between different operating conditions and the initiation and growth of WTs. Despite that it has been challenging to determine or agree upon a particular water treeing mechanism, it is generally accepted that there are main factors that can influence the inception and growth of water trees and can possibly steer the water tree growth mechanism to adhere ESC or SIED theories. This paper presents a comprehensive review of different selected papers and technical reports between 1969-2020 on the topic of water treeing in polymeric cables with an emphasis on the development of standing theories and operation factors that influence the initiation and growth of WTs.
The introduction of anti-tax evasion legislation in Thailand: an institutional theoretical perspective

On 26 April 2016, Thailand introduced new tax evasion legislation which was enacted by Parliament in April 2017. The Act amended previous anti-money laundering legislation, transferred prosecution of serious tax evasion cases from the Revenue Department to an anti-money laundering unit and permitted the seizure of an accused ’ s assets once criminal proceedings had been initiated. Drawing on institutional theory, our study examines why this legislation was introduced. It focusses on the formal institutions and legitimacy. Speci ﬁ cally, it reports on 35 interviews with a range of stakeholders to ascertain their views about the reasons behind this legal change. The results suggest that external and internal legitimacy concerns acted as catalysts for the change. These results have practical implications for those investigating the issue of tax evasion and policy implications for those examining whether legislation will impact the incidence of tax evasion within a country.
Accumulo: Application Development, Table Design, and Best Practices

Get up to speed on Apache Accumulo, the flexible, high-performance key/value store created by the National Security Agency (NSA) and based on Googles BigTable data storage system. Written by former NSA team members, this comprehensive tutorial and reference covers Accumulo architecture, application development, table design, and cell-level security.With clear information on system administration, performance tuning, and best practices, this book is ideal for developers seeking to write Accumulo applications, administrators charged with installing and maintaining Accumulo, and other professionals interested in what Accumulo has to offer. You will find everything you need to use this system fully.Get a high-level introduction to Accumulos architecture and data modelTake a rapid tour through single- and multiple-node installations, data ingest, and queryLearn how to write Accumulo applications for several use cases, based on examplesDive into Accumulo internals, including information not available in the documentationGet detailed information for installing, administering, tuning, and measuring performanceLearn best practices based on successful implementations in the fieldFind answers to common questions that every new Accumulo user asks
Online Traffic Allocation Based on Percentile Charging for Practical CDNs

With the explosion of data transmitted over the Internet, Content Delivery Networks (CDNs) carry massive network traffic globally and suffer an increasingly higher bandwidth cost. A critical issue for CDN service providers is how to allocate network traffic among CDN facilities to reduce the total bandwidth cost without violating the quality of service. This work studies online traffic allocation in CDNs to minimize the bandwidth cost under the 95th percentile charging model. Specifically, we here take into account practical deployment issues in large-scale CDN systems, e.g., allocation granularity and deviation. We first theoretically prove the approximation hardness of the traffic allocation problem. We then propose a novel prediction-based algorithm named OnTPC, which effectively addresses constraints raised in practical deployment. Extensive experiments demonstrate that OnTPC outperforms state-of-the-art baselines and is expected to save over a million dollars per month for our large-scale commercial CDN collaborator. Moreover, the performance of OnTPC is consistently outstanding under various settings, and specifically robust to large allocation deviation.
Heterojunctions of rGO/Metal Oxide Nanocomposites as Promising Gas-Sensing Materials—A Review

Monitoring environmental hazards and pollution control is vital for the detection of harmful toxic gases from industrial activities and natural processes in the environment, such as nitrogen dioxide (NO2), ammonia (NH3), hydrogen (H2), hydrogen sulfide (H2S), carbon dioxide (CO2), and sulfur dioxide (SO2). This is to ensure the preservation of public health and promote workplace safety. Graphene and its derivatives, especially reduced graphene oxide (rGO), have been designated as ideal materials in gas-sensing devices as their electronic properties highly influence the potential to adsorb specified toxic gas molecules. Despite its exceptional sensitivity at low gas concentrations, the sensor selectivity of pristine graphene is relatively weak, which limits its utility in many practical gas sensor applications. In view of this, the hybridization technique through heterojunction configurations of rGO with metal oxides has been explored, which showed promising improvement and a synergistic effect on the gas-sensing capacity, particularly at room temperature sensitivity and selectivity, even at low concentrations of the target gas. The unique features of graphene as a preferential gas sensor material are first highlighted, followed by a brief discussion on the basic working mechanism, fabrication, and performance of hybridized rGO/metal oxide-based gas sensors for various toxic gases, including NO2, NH3, H2, H2S, CO2, and SO2. The challenges and prospects of the graphene/metal oxide-based based gas sensors are presented at the end of the review.
Enhancing Zinc Biofortification of Wheat through Integration of Zinc, Compost, and Zinc-Solubilizing Bacteria

Zinc (Zn) deficiency is a fairly widespread agronomic constraint in many of the world’s cereal (wheat, rice, corn, barley, etc.) production regions. Zinc is an imperative micronutrient required for optimum plant growth and development. Low Zn availability in about 50% of global land has resulted in Zn deficiency in cereal grains. A two-year field experiment was conducted at the Agronomy Research Farm, The University of Agriculture, Peshawar, during Rabi season 2018–19 (Y1) and 2019–20 (Y2) to study the impact of Zn levels (0, 5, 10 and 15 kg Zn ha−1), compost types (control, composted sheep manure (SMC), composted poultry manure (PMC) and farmyard manure compost (FYMC), and Zn-solubilizing bacteria (ZnSB) (with (+) and without (-) on Zn biofortification in order to overcome Zn deficiency. The experiment was set up in three replications in a randomized complete block design. The wheat variety “Pirsabak-2013” was planted in a 30 cm row-to-row spacing. The plot size was kept at 9 cm2, with 10 rows plot−1, and the seed was sown at a rate of 100 kg ha−1. The results showed that ZnSB application increased ShZnC (shoot Zn concentration) to a maximum level of 29.3 mg kg−1, ShZnUp (shoot Zn uptake) to 176.0 g ha−1, SZnUp (straw Zn uptake) to 116.67 g ha−1, and TZnUp (total Zn uptake) to 230.3 g ha−1. In the case of compost types, PMC resulted in maximum grain Zn uptake (GZnUp) (28.9 mg kg−1), ShZnUp (192.9 g ha−1), GZnC (33.4 mg kg−1), GZnUp (125.06 g ha−1), SZnUp (125.26 g ha−1), and TZnUp (250.3 g ha−1). In the case of Zn levels, higher ShZnC (31.5 mg kg−1), ShZnUp (191.3 g ha−1), GZnC (34.4 mg kg−1), SZnC (23.5 mg kg−1), GZnUp (128.98 g ha−1), SZnUp (129.29 g ha−1), and TZnUp (258.3 g ha−1) were calculated with the use of the highest rate of 15 kg Zn ha−1, which was either statistically similar to or followed by 10 kg Zn ha−1. A strong positive correlation was found among uptake by different plant parts (ZnG, ZnS, ShZnUp, GZnUp, SZnUp, and TZnUp). It was concluded that the combined application of PMC and 10 kg Zn ha−1 along with ZnSB (+) improved Zn biofortification and uptake in wheat crop under Zn-deficient soils.
3D Miniaturization Method and its Application to a Wearable Vivaldi Antenna

This work describes an antenna miniaturization method that utilizes meandering in the third dimension. The radiator of the antenna is designed on a corrugated substrate. Semi-cylindrical, triangular, and rectangular corrugations are tried. The method is applied to an Ultra-wideband Vivaldi antenna. The antenna is proposed to be 3D printed on IBT, a flexible and biocompatible resin, for the first time in the literature. By this method, three different miniaturized Vivaldi antennas are designed, and up to 22.1% reduction in the volume is achieved.
Cross-cultural mentoring in higher education: the use of a cultural identity development model

ABSTRACT The purpose of this article is to examine the role that cultural identity development plays in understanding cross-cultural mentoring encounters between White faculty and faculty of color. The authors apply a theory adaptation to present the components of a conceptual framework for developing mentoring approaches that consider a person’s cultural identity stage of development. Using a systematic approach, the authors consider the fundamental principles of cultural identity development theory combined with higher education contextual conditions, resulting in an approach by which mentors and protégés could govern their interactions. We conclude with implications for mentoring program administrators, faculty, and leaders in higher education.
Surface cysteine to serine substitutions in IL-18 reduce aggregation and enhance activity

Background Interleukin-18 (IL-18) is prone to form multimers resulting in inactive aggregates, making this cytokine unstable for clinical use. Therefore, mutations have been introduced into recombinant IL-18 to overcome this issue. Methods To prevent the formation of disulfide bonds between the IL-18 molecules, multiple mutations targeting surface cysteines (C38, C68, C76, and C127) were introduced into our previously modified human IL-18 double mutant E6K+T63A (IL-18 DM) by direct gene synthesis. The open reading frames of IL-18 wild-type (WT), IL-18 DM, and IL-18 multiple mutant E6K+T63A+C38S+C68S+C76S+C127S (IL-18 DM1234) were inserted in the pET28a expression vector and transformed into Escherichia coli Rosetta2 (DE3) pLysS cells for protein production. The inclusion bodies of WT and mutated IL-18 were extracted by sonication and refolded by stepwise dialysis using 8 M urea as the starting concentration. The refolded IL-18 proteins were tested for aggregation using the ProteoStat protein aggregation assay. Their activity was also investigated by treating NK-92MI cells with each IL-18 at concentrations of 75, 150, and 300 ng/ml with 0.5 ng/ml of human IL-12 and interferon-gamma (IFN-γ) levels in the supernatant were evaluated using ELISA. The structure of modified IL-18 was visualized using molecular dynamics (MD) simulations. Results IL-18 DM1234 exhibited the lowest aggregation signal, approximately 1.79- and 1.63-fold less than that of the WT and IL-18 DM proteins. Additionally, the IFN-γ inducing activity of IL-18 DM1234 was about 10 and 2.8 times higher than that of the WT and IL-18 DM, respectively. MD simulations revealed that binding site I of IL-18 DM1234 was altered mainly due to surface cysteine replacement with serine (C-to-S substitution). This is the first report showing that C-to-S substitutions in IL-18 improved its activity and stability, suggesting the use of this modified IL-18 for medical purposes in the future.
Investigating Quantum Cause-Effect Graphs

Cause-effect graphs have shown promising results in identifying relations among causes and effects of classical software systems, followed by designing effective test cases from them. Towards this end, we investigate the use of cause-effect graphs for quantum pro-grams. Classical cause-effect graphs apply classical logic (e.g., AND, OR) to express these relations, which might not be practical for describing similar relations in quantum programs due to quantum superposition and entanglement. Thus, we propose an extension of cause-effect graphs, where quantum logic inspired functions (e.g., Hadamard) and their generalizations are defined and applied. Moreover, we present a metamodel describing various forms of cause-effect graphs. Finally, we demonstrate a possible method for generating test cases from a quantum cause-effect graph applied to a Bell state quantum program. Lastly, the design and utility of the resulting testing method is discussed, along with future prospects for general quantum cause-effect graphs.
Terminal Breakdown Voltage Degradation by Avalanche Stress Induced Hot-Hole Injection in Split Gate Trench Power MOSFET

A terminal breakdown voltage (BV) degradation of split gate trench power MOSFET (SGT-MOSFET) is studied in this work. High electric field and impact ionization generation rate (IIG) will increase the hot-hole injection at the interface of Si/SiO2 under avalanche stress, which leads to the destruction of charge balance and is characterized as BV degradation. The typical ΔBV failure rate (PF) is more than 36.5% on a wafer, which is random and unacceptable. Based on this, the most probable position is located and key parameters are discussed by simulations of a typical terminal. Furthermore, an SGT-MOSFET with optimized trench end mesa (m1) and trench depth (dtr) is experimentally implemented, which possesses a wider design margin and robust BV. The experiment realizes a PF reduced to 0.5%.