Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Assessing Commitment and Reporting Fidelity to a Text Message-Based Participatory Surveillance in Rural Western Uganda

Syndromic surveillance, the collection of symptom data from individuals prior to or in the absence of diagnosis, is used throughout the developed world to provide rapid indications of outbreaks and unusual patterns of disease. However, the low cost of syndromic surveillance also makes it highly attractive for the developing world. We present a case study of electronic participatory syndromic surveillance, using participant-mobile phones in a rural region of Western Uganda, which has a high infectious disease burden, and frequent local and regional outbreaks. Our platform uses text messages to encode a suite of symptoms, their associated durations, and household disease burden, and we explore the ability of participants to correctly encode their symptoms, with an average of 75.2% of symptom reports correctly formatted between the second and 11th reporting timeslots. Concomitantly we identify divisions between participants able to rapidly adjust to this unusually participatory style of data collection, and those few for whom the study proved more challenging. We then perform analyses of the resulting syndromic time series, examining the clustering of symptoms by time and household to identify patterns such as a tendency towards the within-household sharing of respiratory illness.
Rediscovering CSCL

In their penultimate sentence, Hakkarainen, Lipponen, and Järvelä correctly point out that CSCL researchers have a complex challenge because the educational use of new information/communication technologies is inextricably bound up with new pedagogical and cognitive practices of learning and instruction. The naïve, technology-driven view was that tools such as CSILE would make a significant difference on their own. The subsequent experience has been that the classroom culture bends such tools to its own interests, and that this culture must be transformed before new media can mediate learning the way we had hoped they would. So CSCL research has necessarily and properly shifted from the affordances and effects of the technology to concerns with the instructional context. Thus, the central conclusions of Chapters 3 and 4 focus on the teacher’s role and say little that pertains to the presence of CSILE.
Increased Efficacy of Zinc Complexes With Picolinic and Aspartic Acids Against Herpes Simplex Virus (HSV) Infection When Combined With the Pavine Alkaloid (-)-Thalimonine

Complexes of zinc with picolinic and aspartic acids inhibit key steps of HSV-1 replication affecting different virus-specific targets. As was recently demonstrated by us, the pavine alkaloid (-)-thalimonine irreversibly inhibits HSV-1 infection in cultured cells. The aim of the present study was the evaluation of the combined effect of zinc complexes and (-)-thalimonine on uninfected and HSV-1 infected cells. The data obtained have shown that zinc complexes and the alkaloid exert decreased cytotoxicity (antagonistic effect) and significantly increased anti-HSV-1 activity (synergistic effect) when applied in dual chess-board combinations as compared to the individual effects of compounds tested. These combinations are also effective against the infection caused by a resistant to acyclovir (ACV) HSV-1 mutant and the effect has been recognised as synergistic.
Large Overlaid Cognitive Radio Networks: From Throughput Scaling to Asymptotic Multiplexing Gain

We study the asymptotic performance of two multi-hop overlaid ad-hoc networks that utilize the same temporal, spectral, and spatial resources based on random access schemes. The primary network consists of Poisson distributed legacy users with density λ(p) and the secondary network consists of Poisson distributed cognitive radio users with density λ(s) = (λ(p))β (β > 0, β ≠ 1) that utilize the spectrum opportunistically. Both networks are decentralized and employ ALOHA medium access protocols where the secondary nodes are additionally equipped with range-limited perfect spectrum sensors to monitor and protect primary transmissions. We study the problem in two distinct regimes, namely β > 1 and 0 <; β <; 1. We show that in both cases, the two networks can achieve their corresponding stand-alone throughput scaling even without secondary spectrum sensing (i.e., the sensing range set to zero); this implies the need for a more comprehensive performance metric than just throughput scaling to evaluate the influence of the overlaid interactions. We thus introduce a new criterion, termed the asymptotic multiplexing gain, which captures the effect of inter-network interferences with different spectrum sensing setups. With this metric, we clearly demonstrate that spectrum sensing can substantially improve the overlaid cognitive network performances when β > 1. On the contrary, spectrum sensing turns out to be unnecessary when β <; 1 and employing spectrum sensors cannot improve the network performances.
Social Choice Theory and Recommender Systems: Analysis of the Axiomatic Foundations of Collaborative Filtering

The growth of Internet commerce has stimulated the use of collaborative filtering (CF) algorithms as recommender systems. Such systems leverage knowledge about the behavior of multiple users to recommend items of interest to individual users. CF methods have been harnessed to make recommendations about such items as web pages, movies, books, and toys. Researchers have proposed several variations of the technology. We take the perspective of CF as a methodology for combining preferences. The preferences predicted for the end user is some function of all of the known preferences for everyone in a database. Social Choice theorists, concerned with the properties of voting methods, have been investigating preference aggregation for decades. At the heart of this body of work is Arrow's result demonstrating the impossibility of combining preferences in a way that satisfies several desirable and innocuous-looking properties. We show that researchers working on CF algorithms often make similar assumptions. We elucidate these assumptions and extend results from Social Choice theory to CF methods. We show that only very restrictive CF functions are consistent with desirable aggregation properties. Finally, we discuss practical implications of these results.
A new perspective on word order preferences: the availability of a lexicon triggers the use of SVO word order

Word orders are not distributed equally: SOV and SVO are the most prevalent among the world's languages. While there is a consensus that SOV might be the “default” order in human languages, the factors that trigger the preference for SVO are still a matter of debate. Here we provide a new perspective on word order preferences that emphasizes the role of a lexicon. We propose that while there is a tendency to favor SOV in the case of improvised communication, the exposure to a shared lexicon makes it possible to liberate sufficient cognitive resources to use syntax. Consequently SVO, the more efficient word order to express syntactic relations, emerges. To test this hypothesis, we taught Italian (SVO) and Persian (SOV) speakers a set of gestures and later asked them to describe simple events. Confirming our prediction, results showed that in both groups a consistent use of SVO emerged after acquiring a stable gesture repertoire.
Could Seals Prevent Cod Recovery in the Baltic Sea?

Fish populations are increasingly affected by multiple human and natural impacts including exploitation, eutrophication, habitat alteration and climate change. As a result many collapsed populations may have to recover in ecosystems whose structure and functioning differ from those in which they were formerly productive and supported sustainable fisheries. Here we investigate how a cod (Gadus morhua) population in the Baltic Sea whose biomass was reduced due to a combination of high exploitation and deteriorating environmental conditions might recover and develop in the 21st century in an ecosystem that likely will change due to both the already started recovery of a cod predator, the grey seal Halichoerus grypus, and projected climate impacts. Simulation modelling, assuming increased seal predation, fishing levels consistent with management plan targets and stable salinity, shows that the cod population could reach high levels well above the long-term average. Scenarios with similar seal and fishing levels but with 15% lower salinity suggest that the Baltic will still be able to support a cod population which can sustain a fishery, but biomass and yields will be lower. At present knowledge of cod and seal interactions, seal predation was found to have much lower impact on cod recovery, compared to the effects of exploitation and salinity. These results suggest that dual management objectives (recovery of both seal and cod populations) are realistic but success in achieving these goals will also depend on how climate change affects cod recruitment.
Internal Structure of Kuttara Caldera, Hokkaido, Japan

A controlled-source audio-frequency magnetotelluric (CSAMT) survey was conducted across the caldera of Kuttara volcano, Hokkaido, Japan, to investigate its subsurface structure. The caldera is 3 km in diameter and contains a circular lake (Lake Kuttara) 2.5 km across. The CSAMT survey was conducted along a 12-km-long east‒west-trending transect that crossed the volcano and passed over the caldera. A total of 23 receiver stations were distributed along the survey line, including 7 stations in the caldera. Unique on-boat measurements were obtained at the surface of Lake Kuttara. A two-dimensional inversion of the CSAMT data, which revealed the resistivity structure to depths of up to 1000m beneath the caldera, suggested the existence of a low-resistivity region (<30Ω・m) beneath the eastern caldera floor, extending subvertically for>1000m and with a width of 1300-1500m. The structure is interpreted to be a region filled with lava blocks and pyroclasts, which subsided during collapse of the caldera and which has been affected by hydrothermal alteration. The location of the low-resistivity region corresponds to an oval basin in the eastern part of the lake, implying that caldera subsidence occurred mainly beneath this basin. The western part of the caldera floor tilts gently to the east and has a rugged surface, suggesting that the western caldera rim was significantly enlarged as a result of landsliding during caldera formation. We thus infer that the Kuttara caldera was produced by asymmetric caldera collapse, which is attributed to the geological heterogeneity of the Kuttara volcano, with an eastern part comprised mainly of andesitic lavas and a western part comprised mainly of dacitic pyroclastic deposits.
Interleukin-10 gene promoter polymorphisms influence the clinical outcome of diffuse large B-cell lymphoma.

The aim of the study was to investigate whether interleukin-10 (IL-10) genetic polymorphisms influence this cytokine production as well as the incidence and outcome of diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL). The frequency of IL-10(-1082G) allele was found to be higher in 199 patients with DLBCL as compared with 112 control subjects (0.47 versus 0.39, P =.043). Increased serum levels of IL-10 were associated with adverse prognostic factors and poor DLBCL outcome. The frequencies of IL-10(-819T) and IL-10(-592A) alleles were lower in patients with elevated IL-10 serum levels (0.155 versus 0.32, P =.14). As compared with patients carrying the IL-10(-1082AA) genotype, patients with the IL-10(-1082G) allele (IL-10(-1082GG/GA) genotypes) had higher complete remission rate (78% [confidence interval (CI), 71%-85%] versus 65% [CI, 52%-78%], P =. 07), 5-year freedom from progression (FFP) (60% [CI, 52%-68%] versus 40% [CI, 27%-53%], P =.013), and overall survival (OS) (63% [CI, 55%-71%] versus 33% [CI, 20%-45%], P =.0009). Among factors of the International Prognostic Index, IL-10(-1082G) allele remained an independent variable, predicting longer freedom from progression (FFP) (RR [relative risk] =.76, P =.00035) and OS (RR =.78, P =.0015). These results indicate that IL-10 production contributes to the clinical course of DLBCL and that this phenomenon involves a substantial genetic component.
Congestion avoidance and control

In October of '86, the Internet had the first of what became a series of 'congestion collapses'. During this period, the data throughput from LBL to UC Berkeley (sites separated by 400 yards and three IMP hops) dropped from 32 Kbps to 40 bps. Mike Karels<supscrpt>1</supscrpt> and I were fascinated by this sudden factor-of-thousand drop in bandwidth and embarked on an investigation of why things had gotten so bad. We wondered, in particular, if the 4.3BSD (Berkeley UNIX) TCP was mis-behaving or if it could be tuned to work better under abysmal network conditions. The answer to both of these questions was “yes”. Since that time, we have put seven new algorithms into the 4BSD TCP:<list><item>round-trip-time variance estimation </item><item>exponential retransmit timer backoff </item><item>slow-start </item><item>more aggressive receiver ack policy </item><item>dynamic window sizing on congestion </item><item>Karn's clamped retransmit backoff </item><item>fast retransmit Our measurements and the reports of beta testers suggest that the final product is fairly good at dealing with congested conditions on the Internet. </item></list> This paper is a brief description of (<italic>i</italic>) - (<italic>v</italic>) and the rationale behind them. (<italic>vi</italic>) is an algorithm recently developed by Phil Karn of Bell Communications Research, described in [KP87]. (<italic>viii</italic>) is described in a soon-to-be-published RFC. Algorithms (<italic>i</italic>) - (<italic>v</italic>) spring from one observation: The flow on a TCP connection (or ISO TP-4 or Xerox NS SPP connection) should obey a 'conservation of packets' principle. And, if this principle were obeyed, congestion collapse would become the exception rather than the rule. Thus congestion control involves finding places that violate conservation and fixing them. By 'conservation of packets' I mean that for a connection 'in equilibrium', i.e., running stably with a full window of data in transit, the packet flow is what a physicist would call 'conservative': A new packet isn't put into the network until an old packet leaves. The physics of flow predicts that systems with this property should be robust in the face of congestion. Observation of the Internet suggests that it was not particularly robust. Why the discrepancy? There are only three ways for packet conservation to fail:<list><item>The connection doesn't get to equilibrium, or </item><item>A sender injects a new packet before an old packet has exited, or </item><item>The equilibrium can't be reached because of resource limits along the path. In the following sections, we treat each of these in turn. </item></list>
Generational garbage collection for Haskell

This paper examines the use of generational garbage collection techniques for a lazy implementation of a non-strict functional language. Detailed measurements which demonstrate that a generational garbage collector can substantially out-perform non-generational collectors, despite the frequency of write operations in the underlying implementation, are presented. Our measurements are taken from a state-of-the-art compiled implementation for Haskell, running substantial benchmark programs. We make measurements of dynamic properties (such as object lifetimes) which affect generational collectors, study their interaction with a simple generational scheme, make direct performance comparisons with simpler collectors, and quantify the interaction with a paging system. The generational collector is demonstrably superior. At least for our benchmarks, it reduces the net storage management overhead, and it allows larger programs to be run on a given machine before thrashing ensues.
Biodiversity of Echinodermata in Marsegu Island

Echinoderms are key species that govern the structure and balance of communities and influence the sustainability of other organisms in different types of ecosystems in sea water. This research aimed at examining the biodiversity of echinoderms, and environmental physical-chemical factors that affect the diversity of echinoderms in coastal waters of Marsegu Island. The data were collected with direct observation and all research variables were recorded. The data collection of echinodermata type was done on each plot in the middle intertidal zone and the lower intertidal zone. The results of this research found that the population of echinoderms in coastal water of Marsegu Island was composed of 4 classes, namely Ophiuroidea, Asteroidea, Echinoidea and Holothuriodea. The most common type found was Asteroidea which consisted of 3 families, 4 genera and 4 species. The results of observation showed there was a difference in echinoderm species found in the middle intertidal zone and the lower intertidal zone. The number of echinoderms species found in the middle intertidal zone was 8 species, while in the lower intertidal zone was 10 species, and there were some species that were not found in the middle intertidal zone, but they were found in the lower intertidal zone, namely Ophiopholis aculeafa, Linckia laevagata and Protoreaster nodusus. The Synapta maculata species was found in the lower intertidal zone, but it was not found in the midle intertidal zone. About 52% variation in echinoderms diversity can be explained by the regression equation model, while the remaining 48% was the influence of other factors that could not be explained by the regression equation model.
Paraoxonase and susceptibility to organophosphorus poisoning in farmers dipping sheep.

OBJECTIVES Human serum paraoxonase (PON1) hydrolyses organophosphate pesticides (OPs) entering the blood circulation and tissue fluid thus limiting toxicity. The PON1 coding region has two polymorphisms involving the amino acids at position 55 (Lt<--M) and 192 (Qt<--R), giving rise to isoenzymes which differ in their catalytic rate for the hydrolysis of OPs. We therefore hypothesized that individuals inheriting low activity isoforms of PON1 would be more liable to report symptoms of OP toxicity. METHODS We have therefore investigated the relationship between PON1 genetic polymorphisms and PON1 activity in farmers reporting chronic ill health which they attributed to OP exposure whilst sheep dipping (cases) and farmers who carried out similar activities, but remained well (controls). Diazoxon, paraoxon and phenylacetate were used as substrates for PON1. Diazoxon is the active metabolite of diazinon, the sheep dip most commonly used in the UK. RESULTS Cases were found to be more likely to have the R192 allele ( 0.01) and to have the L55 allele ( 0.05) than the controls. This combination of R and L genotypes was associated with lower PON1 activity towards diazoxon in both cases and controls. Farmers in the lowest quintile for the rate of serum diazoxon hydrolysis had a greater risk of being a case i.e. of reporting ill health (odds ratio 2.47 (95% CI 1.35-2.82)), than the other four quintiles of diazoxon hydrolysis. The rate of serum hydrolysis of paraoxon was greatest in cases and controls with the R/L haplotype (both 0.001). CONCLUSIONS The farmers reporting chronic ill health due to organophosphate exposure have a higher proportion of the PON1-192R polymorphism associated with lower rates of diazoxon hydrolysis and lower rates of diazoxon hydrolysis than the controls and that their ill health may be explained by a lower ability to detoxify diazoxon.
Spectrum Sharing in Dynamic Spectrum Access Networks: WPE-II Written Report

A study by Federal Communication Commission shows that most of the spectrum in current wireless networks is unused most of the time, while some spectrum is heavily used. Recently dynamic spectrum access (DSA) has been proposed to solve this spectrum inefficiency problem, by allowing users to opportunistically access to unused spectrum. One important question in DSA is how to efficiently share spectrum among users so that spectrum utilization can be increased and wireless interference can be reduced. Spectrum sharing can be formalized as a graph coloring problem. In this report we focus on surveying spectrum sharing techniques in DSA networks and present four representative techniques in different taxonomy domains, including centralized, distributed with/without common control channel, and a real case study of DSA networks --DARPA neXt Generation (XG) radios. Their strengths and limitations are evaluated and compared in detail. Finally, we discuss the challenges in current spectrum sharing research and possible future directions. Comments University of Pennsylvania Department of Computer and Information Science Technical Report No. MSCIS-09-11. This technical report is available at ScholarlyCommons: http://repository.upenn. edu/cis_reports/907 Spectrum Sharing In Dynamic Spectrum Access Networks WPE-II Written Report
Prime numbers considered useful: ontology encoding for efficient subsumption testing

Multiple inheritance hierarchies are frequently used for the classification of concepts into a taxonomy, to model software by organizing classes into an inheritance hierarchy, for querying object-oriented databases, for knowledge representation, policy enforcement, and subtyping of service interfaces for safe composition and substitution. All these areas apply hierarchies and share the same concern of being able to compute inheritance or subsumption relationships efficiently. In this report, we elaborate on encoding multiple inheritance hierarchies for representing subsumption relationships between concepts defined in ontologies to enable efficient matching mechanisms for context-aware service discovery, composition and substitution, and other application domains. We present several encoding techniques originating from the programming languages domain for the subtyping of classes in multiple inheritance hierarchies and argue why these encoding techniques are not feasible for achieving efficient subsumption testing in ontologies. We developed a prime-based encoding technique for subsumption of concepts and properties that outperforms several well-known ontology reasoners for this particular problem, both in terms of having a compact representation of the encoding and being able to compute the subsumption relationship efficiently. Our algorithm also offers an interesting alternative for the class subtyping encoding techniques, as it yields a new way of compaction without the need for changing old conflicting codes during incremental encoding.