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Optimizing Emotional Insight through Unimodal and Multimodal Long Short-term Memory Models
Full text linkThe field of multimodal emotion recognition is increasingly gaining popularity as a research area. It involves analyzing human emotions across multiple modalities, such as acoustic, visual, and language. Emotion recognition is more effective as a multimodal learning task than relying on a single modality. In this paper, we present an unimodal and multimodal long short-term memory model with a class weight parameter technique for emotion recognition on the CMU-Multimodal Opinion Sentiment and Emotion Intensity dataset. In addition, a critical challenge lies in selecting the most effective fusion method for integrating multiple modalities. To address this, we applied four different fusion techniques: Early fusion, late fusion, deep fusion, and tensor fusion. These fusion methods improved the performance of multimodal emotion recognition compared to unimodal approaches. With the highly imbalanced number of samples per emotion class in the MOSEI dataset, adding a class weight parameter technique leads our model to outperform the state of the art on all three modalities — acoustic, visual, and language — as well as on all the fusion models. The challenges of class imbalance, which can lead to biased model performance, and using an effective fusion method for integrating multiple modalities often result in decreased accuracy in recognizing less frequent emotion classes. Our proposed model shows 2–3% performance improvement in the unimodal and 2% in the multimodal over the state-of-the-art achieved results
Factors contributing to vitamin D deficiency in Erbil, Iraq: A statistical investigation
Full text linkBackground & Aims
Scientific evidence supports vitamin D's ability to prevent and treat a wide range of diseases, and its physiological importance extends to calcium balance and bone health. This study aimed to find the factors associated with vitamin D deficiency in Erbil, Iraq.
Methods
For the study, data was gathered through a questionnaire in some private laboratories in Erbil, Iraq, between October 2020 and October 2021. Three sections make up the study: questions about demographics, questions regarding vitamin D, and questions about the effects of vitamin D insufficiency on the human body. Descriptive statistics, an independent sample test, a chi square test, a one-way ANOVA, and factor analysis were utilized to determine vitamin D deficiency using SPSS Version 28.
Results
The core findings demonstrated that while the mean vitamin D measurement for smokers was greater than for non-smokers, the mean vitamin D measurement for outside house sun exposure was higher than inside house sun exposure. People believe that low vitamin D levels are to blame for their tooth loss, Alzheimer's disease, weight gain, and dizziness, respectively.
Conclusion
This study highlights the significant role of vitamin D in maintaining overall health and well-being. It reveals that factors such as smoking and outdoor sun exposure are associated with varying vitamin D levels. Additionally, public perceptions link low vitamin D levels to conditions like tooth loss, Alzheimer's disease, weight gain, and dizziness. This underscores the importance of addressing vitamin D deficiency as a potential preventive measure against various health issues in the population of Erbil, Iraq
Green synthesis and characterization of Ag nanoparticles using fresh and dry Portulaca Oleracea leaf extracts: Enhancing light reflectivity properties of ITO glass
Full text linkSilver (Ag) nanoparticles (NPs) are perceiving remarkable progress during the past few periods due to its exclusive properties in many applications. Recently, green synthesis method of NPs is racing against traditional chemical and physical methods by avoiding the use of many toxic chemicals, and expensive devices. Accordingly, in this study, dry and fresh Portulaca-oleracea L. leaf extract has been employed for producing AgNPs as a reducing, capping and stabilizing agents. This process is simple, eco-friendly and green. UV–vis spectra showed the formation of AgNPs represented by the change of a colorless liquid to brownish solution. The crystallinity of the AgNPs, was confirmed by X-ray diffraction (XRD). The contribution of the available functional groups of the leaf extract in the reduction and capping process of NPs was demonstrated using Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR). This study showed that fresh Portulaca-oleracea L. leaf extract provides better NPs in terms of stability, purity, degree of crystallinity and spherical shape. The biosynthesized AgNPs from both procedures were coated on the indium tin oxide (ITO) glass substrates to enhance the reflectivity property. It has been shown that the utilized AgNPs, from fresh Portulaca-oleracea L. extract, has smaller size and negligeable agglomeration, consequently lower light transmittance
Foregrounded Aspects in Dylan Thomas' Especially When the October Wind: A Stylistic Analysis
Full text linkIn Thomas' poetry, vivid imagery and linguistic features are crucial to understand literary value and appreciation of his poems. The study concentrates on one the most important poems, Especially When the October Wind for a detailed analysis. The study is important as it combines both foregrounding theory and the Checklist. The study seeks to find out how and why various linguistic features are available in the poem as well as the most frequent foregrounding aspects. Regarding this, the study employs qualitative descriptive analysis depending on stylistic analysis and foregrounding theory supplemented by Leech and Short's Checklist (2007). Eventually, the findings reveal that Thomas has used linguistic elements and foregrounding features systematically and coherently to convey significance and theme as well as relate content and form. Finally, the study ends with a conclusion and a list of references
Advancements of Polymer-Based Transdermal Drug Delivery Systems in Drug Bioavailability and Patient Compliance in United States
Full text linkTransdermal drug delivery system (TDDS) helps in overcoming drug molecule barriers such as particle size, lipophilicity, permeability, and transports the medication directly to the blood circulation by employing physical and chemical penetration enhancers using polymers. The use of skin as a drug delivery route is challenging due to the stratum corneum's barrier properties that restrict the therapeutic bioavailability of the medications. Both, natural and synthetic polymers are used in TDDS to transport the medication into circulation via diffusion, and swelling control. TDDS is generally achieved by using transdermal patches containing one or more pharmaceutical active entities that are placed on unbroken skin for delivering active entities directly to the bloodstream by crossing the skin barrier. TDDS is the trendiest -delivery system as it is painless, non-invasive, self-administrative, avoids hepatic first-pass metabolism, and delivers poorly soluble drugs and increases the bioavailability. An overview of TDDS is provided in this review article, including its advantages over traditional dosage forms, limitations, different components of transdermal patches, modern techniques as well as transdermal products available in US market
Intersectionality of Gender, Ethnicity, and Religion Against Political Prisoners the Last Days of Hannah Senesh and Laila Qasim
Full text linkHannah Senesh and Laila Qasim were two political activists, one Jewish and the other Kurdish, whose identities were manipulated by previous regimes in the early and late twentieth centuries: the Nazi and the Iraqi governments. As a result, the narratives of these women have been recounted in terms of historical incidents. In this article, however, we seek to examine the factors behind Senesh and Qasim’s imprisonment and death sentences through philosophical lenses and literary theories – intersectionality (Kimberlé Crenshaw), women’s identity (Simone de Beauvoir), sexual politics (Kate Millett) and subaltern discourse (Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak). We also highlight the theoretical aspects and present the manufactured political ideologies from different ethnic and religious backgrounds that constructed gender identities in the context of these women. Our close reading of these issues shows the existential aspect and also the constructed ideologies that discriminated against women and led to these women being placed behind bars
Effects of Stocking Density on the Growth Performance, Physiological Parameters and Antioxidant Status of Juvenile Common Carp (Cyprinus carpio L.) Reared in the Cage system
Full text linkStocking density is one of the most important factors influencing growth performance, health status and welfare of fish in aquaculture. This research was carried out to investigate the effect of different stocking densities on growth performance, feed utilization, survival rate, haematology, serum biochemistry and serum antioxidants enzyme responses in common carp juveniles (Cyprinus carpio L.) reared in outdoor cage culture. The fish were randomly stocked in four density groups; 7F fish/0.2m3 (Control group), 14F fish/0.2m3, 21F fish/0.2m3 and 28F fish/0.2m3 in 12 cylindrical cages (0.2m3) in concrete pond, with three cages in each density for 84 days. The results of the 14f density group significantly improved the FW, WG, SGR, FCR, FCE, PER, FI, PI, WBC, RBC, Hct, GSH and SOD activities. The 21F and 28F had significant impacts on FW, WG, SGR, FCR, FCE, PER, FI, PI, glucose, cortisol, ALT, AST, ALP, TG, MDA and GSH increased significantly with increasing stocking density. In contrast, the survival rate, TP, TG, HDL, GPx and SOD activities were significantly decreased. In general, the results demonstrated that the best stocking density is 14F fish/0.2m3 which provided a better growth performance and health status of C. carpio cultured in the cage in the concrete pond
The social neuroscience of persuasion approach to the religious intercultural communication: A conceptual evidence from Sidhwa’s novel ‘An American Brat’
Full text linkThe study aims to understand the influence of religio-cultural right-wing persuasion in intercultural communication, as exhibited in a novel representing Pakistani national culture and Parsee minority culture. The methodology involves directed qualitative content analysis of Bapsi Sidhwa’s novel “An American Brat,” using a conceptual model/framework adapting/extracting coding protocol from Morin and Renvoisé’s model to analyze communication within a social neuroscience context. The research delves into the curated message of cultural diversity. Furthermore, it explains the insight of the situation into cultural and religio-cultural persuasion by the writer, which she represented in the context of three cultures, American, Pakistani, and Parsee. The characters’ communication seemed dominant, reflecting the communication regarding Pakistani Islamic cultural values due to its impact and dominance, specifically on personal and contrastive stimuli of the characters’ intuitive knowledge. Likewise, the other persuasive elements from the conceptual model/framework of Morin and Renvoisé are also reflected in the characters’ communication, which interprets any communication in a social neuroscience context. The innovative understudy of intercultural communication shows how social neuro-persuasion succeeds in reconnecting characters to their subconscious fundamental brain-rooted cognitive, cultural, and social identity. Hence, cognitive changes in stimuli often would not change or get easily influenced at teenage on conceptual, theoretical, or biological levels. According to the researchers’ conceptual arguments, future studies may utilize the present model within the textual quotations from the novel’s original text, as the present research was only delimited to qualitative content analysis. However, the theoretical/conceptual framework of the neuroscience of persuasion needs to be verified
Assessing the Impact of Modified Initial Abstraction Ratios and Slope Adjusted Curve Number on Runoff Prediction in the Watersheds of Sulaimani Province.
Full text linkA popular way for describing the link between storm rainfall depth and direct runoff is the curve number (CN) method. It is a straightforward approach that has been extensively studied and widely adopted. However, there has been less focus on the impact of slope and the initial abstraction ratio, which is a crucial factor for accurately estimating direct runoff when utilizing the soil conservation service- Curve Number (SCS-CN) method. The initial abstraction ratio is typically assumed to be 0.20, as initially proposed by the method's developers. In this study, we analyzed daily rainfall data from seventeen watersheds in different physiographic locations in the Kurdistan region of Iraq, recorded between 2022 and 2023. Our aim was to assess the effect of slope adjusted curve number and modified the initial abstraction ratio (0.1) on estimation of direct runoff. The results demonstrated that adjusting the CN for slope and using a modified initial abstraction ratio increased the estimated runoff compared to the original method (without adjustment for slope and initial abstraction ratio=0.2). Therefore, when applying the SCS-CN method, it is crucial to correct the CN for slope in steeper areas and consider the initial abstraction ratio rather than relying on the suggested value of 0.2. this study highlights the importance of considering local conditions and estimating the initial abstraction ratio based on specific watershed characteristics to enhance the accuracy of direct runoff estimation using the CN method
Biosynthesis Of Gold Nanoparticles With Four Different Lactobacillus Species
Full text linkExopolysaccharide production by many lactic acid bacteria of diverse genera and species has been widely explored. In this study, the biosynthesis of gold nanoparticles using cell-free culture supernatant of bacterial species was explored. A total of 500 saliva samples were obtained from the oral cavity, then the samples were cultured and examined. The 500 saliva samples contained 19 oral bacteria, which included Lactobacillus fermentum, Lactobacillus plantarum, Lactobacillus casei, and Lactobacillus paracasei, that extracellularly produced gold nanoparticles when exposed to chloroauric acid (HAuCl4). Biosynthesis of gold nanoparticles made by reducing HAuCl4 using the cell-free culture supernatant of the four different species of Lactobacillus. Characterizations of the gold nanoparticles were identified by Ultraviolet-Visible Spectroscopy, Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy, Particle Size Analyzer (Dynamic Light Scattering), Zeta Potential, X-Ray Powder Diffraction, Transmission Electron Microscopy, Energy Dispersive X-Ray Analysis, and Atomic Force Microscopy. Given that Lactobacillus species are engaged in the formation of gold nanoparticles, this method may be more useful than chemical and physical methods, as it is cost-effective and eco-friendly