Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Counting results: performance-based financing and HIV testing among MSM in China

Abstract In this paper, I examine the use of performance-based financing to scale-up HIV testing in men who have sex with men, or MSM, by global health initiatives in China. This mechanism, which ties financing directly to the achievement of targets and indicators, assures that measurable results are produced from health interventions and accounts for financial spending. On the one hand, its adoption into HIV programming in China articulates with broader shifts in global health that place currency on particular forms of evidence. At the same time, performance-based financing reshapes how HIV interventions are carried out and what counts in these programmes. The suturing of financing to outputs directs what gets counted and how, and as a consequence leads to the production of measurable results as an end in and of themselves. Based on 22 months of ethnographic research carried out in China, I explore the effects of this mechanism and, in doing so, ask what gets left out in the pursuit of evidence. In particular, I demonstrate how the demand for outputs undermines HIV prevention in MSM, thus risking the very lives these interventions are intended to save.
Simulating Gait and Structural Effects of Aging for Improved Diversity in Virtual Crowds

In real human crowds, diversification is caused by many factors such as gender, age, skin color, clothing, walking style, psychology etc., yet most crowd simulation systems rely only on appearance related variables for diversification. This research explores improving crowd diversity by simulating the biomechanical effects of aging in humans within crowd characters. Simulated characters were reprogrammed to be able to predict their behavior through an aging parameter predictor using support vector regression respective to their age. Data from gerontology studies recording spinal curvature and walking pattern deterioration with age were used for training. A spatial diversity algorithm was designed and implemented to distribute the resulting variants evenly among each other. Evaluations were conducted to gauge the impact on the diversification of the crowd simulation. The results prove that simulating posture and walking pattern deterioration in older characters does significantly improve biomechanical diversity within a virtual human crowd.
Pengaruh Metode Pembelajaran Dan Kemampuan Berpikir Kritis Terhadap Kemampuan Literasi Sains

Abstract: This study aimed to find out the effect of the application of Creative Problem Solving method and problem Posing method and the ability to critical thinking to the science literacy. The study was conducted at the elementary School in city of Bengkulu. Reaserch design using experiment method with treatment by level 2x2. Data analysisof variance of two lanes (ANOVA). The result of this study indicate that (1) Literacy Science ability for Creative Problem Solving method is higher than Problem posing method; (2) there are interactions between method and the critical thinking ability to the Science Literacy ability; (3) Science Literacy ability for students was given Creative Problem Solving method with high critical thinking is higher than Science Literacy ability for students was given problem posing method with high critical thinking; (4) Science Literacy ability for students was given Creative Problem Solving method with low critical thinking is lower than Science Literacy ability for students was given problem posing method with low critical thinking Keywords: Creative Problem Solving learning method, critical thinking ability, Science Literacy ability Abstrak: Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk menemukan pengaruh penerapan metode Creative Problem Solving dan metode Problem Posing serta kemampuan berpikir kritis terhadap kemampuan literasi sains. Penelitian ini dilakukan pada siswa Sekolah Dasar Negeri Kota Bengkulu. Metode yang digunakanmetode eksperimen dengan desain treatment by level 2 x 2. Teknik analsis data adalah analisis varians dua jalur (ANAVA). Hasil penelitian ini menunjukkan bahwa (1). Kemampuan literasi sains antar kelompok siswa yang diajar menggunakan metode Creative Problem Solving lebih tinggi dari pada kelompok siswayang diajar menggunakan metode problem posing (2) terdapat pengaruh interaksi antara metode pembelajaran dengan kemampuan berpikir kritis terhadap kemampuan literasi sains. (3) kemampuan literasi sains antar siswa dengan kemampuan berpikir kritis tinggi yang diberikan metode Creative Problem Solving lebih tinggi dari pada siswa dengan kemampuan kritis tinggi yang diberikan perlakuan metode problem posing (4) kemampuan literasi sains antar siswa dengan kemampuan berpikir kritis rendah yang diberikan metode Creative Problem Solving lebih rendah dari pada siswa dengan kemampuan kritis rendah yang diberikan perlakuan metode problem posing. Kata kunci: Metode Creative Problem Solving dan metode Problem Posing, kemampuan berpikir kritis, kemampuan literasi sains
The Star Formation Demographics of Galaxies in the Local Volume

We examine the connections between the current global star formation activity, luminosity, dynamical mass, and morphology of galaxies in the Local Volume, using Hα data from the 11 Mpc Hα and Ultraviolet Galaxy Survey (11HUGS). Taking the equivalent width (EW) of the Hα emission line as a tracer of the specific star formation rate, we analyze the distribution of galaxies in the MB-EW and rotational velocity (Vmax)-EW planes. Star-forming galaxies show two characteristic transitions in these planes. A narrowing of the galaxy locus occurs at MB ∼ − 15 and Vmax ∼ 50 km s−1, where the scatter in the logarithmic EWs drops by a factor of 2 as the luminosities/masses increase, and galaxy morphologies shift from predominately irregular to late-type spiral. Another transition occurs at MB ∼ − 19 and Vmax ∼ 120 km s−1, above which the sequence turns off toward lower EWs and becomes mostly populated by intermediate- and early-type bulge-prominent spirals. Between these two transitions, the mean logarithmic EW appears to remain constant at 30 Å. We comment on how these features reflect established empirical relationships, and provide clues for identifying the large-scale physical processes that both drive and regulate star formation, with emphasis on the low-mass galaxies which dominate our approximately volume-limited sample.
Gated Softmax Classification

We describe a "log-bilinear" model that computes class probabilities by combining an input vector multiplicatively with a vector of binary latent variables. Even though the latent variables can take on exponentially many possible combinations of values, we can efficiently compute the exact probability of each class by marginalizing over the latent variables. This makes it possible to get the exact gradient of the log likelihood. The bilinear score-functions are defined using a three-dimensional weight tensor, and we show that factorizing this tensor allows the model to encode invariances inherent in a task by learning a dictionary of invariant basis functions. Experiments on a set of benchmark problems show that this fully probabilistic model can achieve classification performance that is competitive with (kernel) SVMs, backpropagation, and deep belief nets.
A study of student behavior in accepting the Blackboard Learning System: A Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) approach

This paper tried to examine the students' acceptances for the use of Blackboard Learning System using Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) as an analysis approach. Four factors of TAM namely Perceived Ease of Use, Perceived Usefulness, Attitude, Behavior Intention, and Perceived Interactivity as an additional factor were used as the evaluation model factors to measure the students' technology acceptance and a total of six hypotheses were proposed. An online questionnaire was conducted to extract the information from students of National Taiwan University of Science and Technology (NTUST) and a total of 302 respondents were collected. A Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) is used to analyze the model. The analysis result explained that a value of 36 percent of student' acceptance to use Blackboard Learning System can be described by the evaluated factors. Our findings illustrated that the five factors mentioned have intercorrelated effect to explain the students' behavior and Perceived Interactivity was determined as the key factor.
Differentiation between two biologically distinct classes of group A streptococci by limited substitutions of amino acids within the shared region of M protein-like molecules

Group A streptococci can be categorized into two classes (I and II) based on immunodeterminants contained within a surface-exposed, conserved region (C repeat domain) of the major virulence factor, M protein. Previous studies have shown that several biological properties correlate strongly with streptococcal class, and thus, there is a strong impetus to precisely define the antigenic epitopes unique to class I and II M proteins. Using synthetic peptides, the binding sites of two class I-specific mAbs were mapped to distinct epitopes within the C repeat region of type 6 M protein (class I). A class II M protein- like gene (type 2) was cloned and sequenced, and the predicted amino acid sequence was compared for homology to class I and II molecules, whose sequences were previously reported. For a given C repeat block 35 amino acid residues in length, 20 residue positions were conserved among all sequences analyzed. Of the 15 variable amino acid positions, only four were class specific, and three of the four positions were localized in the area to which the class I-specific mAbs bound. The predicted secondary structures of class I and II C repeat blocks reveals that they are alpha-helical, except for a single area of disruption. In the class I molecules, the area of disruption corresponds to the class I-specific mAb binding sites. Importantly, the predicted conformational characteristics of this disruption differs for class I and II molecules. The data suggest that only limited changes in amino acid residues differentiate between class I and II molecules in the C repeat region. Therefore, selective (biological) pressures may have contributed to the evolution of these two classes of molecules.
Near-best basis selection algorithms with non-additive information cost functions

Search algorithms for finding signal decompositions called near-best bases using decision criteria called non-additive information costs are proposed for selecting bases in wavelet packet transforms. These new methods are compared with the best bases and additive information costs of Coifman and Wickerhauser (see IEEE Trans. Information Theory, vol.38, p.713-18, 1992). All near-best and best bases were also compared with the matching pursuit decomposition of Mallat and Zhang (see IEEE Trans. Signal Processing, vol.41, p.3397-3415, 1993). Preliminary experiments suggest that for the application of time-frequency analysis, a wide variety of results can be obtained with the different methods, and that for the application of data compression, the near-best basis selected with non-additive costs may outperform the best basis selected with additive costs. <<ETX>>
Flower image segmentation based on color analysis and a supervised evaluation

We propose a flower segmentation schema which overcomes some limits of previous works. Indeed, it does not involve any interaction with the user, or make assumptions based on the domain knowledge. To achieve segmentation, we used OTSU thresholding on Lab color space. The thresholding was performed, separately, on the three component L, a and b, and the best result is selected relatively to the ground truth. The experimentation of the proposed method, performed using the dataset from the Oxford flower collection, make better the results, while consuming less CPU time, than the method proposed by Nilsback and Zisserman[5].
The Role of Facial Mimicry in the Recognition of Affect

How do you decide whether the emotion expressed on another person’s face is positive or negative? Emotions may be perceived via two routes. The longer (slower) route involves matching visual input with stored knowledge about emotions. The shorter (faster) route involves empathic emotions that serve as proprioceptive cues in emotion recognition. In line with embodiedcognition theory (Barsalou, Niedenthal, Barbey, & Ruppert, 2003), we propose that mimicry may result in faster emotion recognition because it facilitates use of the shorter route. To test this idea, we studied the effect of constraining mimicry on speed of emotion recognition. Consistent with the present view, perceivers spontaneously mimic facial expressions of emotions (Dimberg, 1990), and their own experienced emotions are affected accordingly (Stel, Van Baaren, & Vonk, in press). Freezing the face reduces the experience of emotional empathy (Stel et al., in press). Blairy, Herrera, and Hess (1999) failed to demonstrate a link between mimicry and accuracy of emotion recognition. However, we propose that mimicry facilitates the short route of one’s access to others’ emotions, which means that mimicry should affect speed, but not accuracy, of emotion recognition. We hypothesized that participants will recognize a briefly exposed facial expression of emotion more slowly when they are unable to mimic facial expressions than when they are free to mimic the expression. Moreover, we expect this effect to be more pronounced for women than for men: Women are more facially expressive than are men (LaFrance & Hecht, 2000), and facial feedback may be more important in emotion-related processing for women than it is for men. METHOD
CONSCIÊNCIA AMBIENTAL E SUA INFLUÊNCIA SOBRE O COMPORTAMENTO DE COMPRA COM VISTAS À PREOCUPAÇÃO AMBIENTAL

This study aims to determine the influence of environmental awareness of the conscious purchasing behavior. Therefore, quantitative approach was adopted and survey with a sample of 526 respondents. Data analysis was used Confirmatory Factor Analysis and Structural Equation Modeling, resulting in two constructs. The construct “Environmental Awareness” includes the dimensions of consciousness to nature and Limited Resources and the “Purchase Behavior” consists of four dimensions, Products Less Harmful, Recycled Products, Natural Products and Packaging. The results provide empirical evidence that environmental awareness was not significantly related to purchasing behavior. While there is some support in the literature for such a relationship, this study uses an integrative perspective to test the relationship. The model can be used as a measuring instrument for future research on environmental awareness.
Dead code elimination for web systems written in PHP: Lessons learned from an industry case

Web systems undergo constant evolution. This makes them prone to accumulating dead code. In turn, dead code is commonly understood to inhibit software evolution. The only way out of this vicious circle is the careful analysis of the web system, identifying unused features, and eliminating them. However, modern web systems are often built with server side scripting languages such as PHP. Their inherent dynamic features render traditional static dead code identification approaches useless. We describe the technical issues involved in detecting dead PHP code, and propose an identification and removal approach based on dynamic analysis. Further, we describe the examination of our approach in an industry-scale web system, and discuss our lessons learned.
Structure-based and template-based automatic speech recognition - comparing parametric and non-parametric approaches

This paper provides an introductory tutorial for the Interspeech07 special session on “Structure-Based and Template-Based Automatic Speech Recognition”. The purpose of the special session is to bring together researchers who have special interest in novel techniques that are aimed at overcoming weaknesses of HMMs for acoustic modeling in speech recognition. Numerous such approaches have been taken over the past dozen years, which can be broadly classified into structured-based (parametric) and templatebased (non-parametric) ones. In this paper, we will provide an overview of both approaches, focusing on the incorporation of long-range temporal dependencies of the speech features and phonetic detail in speech recognition algorithms. We will provide a high-level survey on major existing work and systems using these two types of “beyond-HMM” frameworks. The contributed papers in this special session will elaborate further on the related topics.
and absence of plasma-based hemoglobin Erythrocyte consumption of nitric oxide in presence

[PDF] [Full Text] [Abstract] , March 1, 2004; 286 (3): H1043-1056. Am J Physiol Heart Circ Physiol N. M. Tsoukias, M. Kavdia and A. S. Popel amplitude-dependent control of cGMP formation A theoretical model of nitric oxide transport in arterioles: frequencyvs. [PDF] [Full Text] [Abstract] , December 1, 2004; 287 (6): F1189-F1203. Am J Physiol Renal Physiol W. Zhang, T. Pibulsonggram and A. Edwards Determinants of basal nitric oxide concentration in the renal medullary microcirculation
The Ancestral Pedigree of a Branching Process

A logistic (regulated population size) branching process is presented, and compared to a regular branching process and the Wright-Fisher model for properties including the coalescent time and the shape of the coalescent process. The similarity of these properties for the logistic branching process and the Wright-Fisher and regular banching process models indicates that these models are reasonable approximations for each other. In particular, the branching process is a reasonable approximation for the Wright-Fisher model even when alleles are not rare. The shape of the coalescent process (i.e., ancestral pedigree) confirms that most mutations should be of recent origin, hence rare. Whether the logistic branching process (or even an unconstrained branching process) is a more realistic model than the WrightFisher model is not discussed.
A Data-Driven Coaching Model Used to Promote Students’ Response to Early Reading Intervention

Given the importance of early reading performance as a foundational prerequisite for student achievement, schools have allocated significant attention over the past decade to training teachers to assess and monitor students’ reading progress and to implement instruction or interventions targeting early reading skills (e.g., Fletcher & Vaughn, 2009; Glover & Vaughn, 2010; Parisi, Ihlo, & Glover, 2014). Professional development in early reading has often been provided within the context of a multitiered prevention model wherein students’ performance relative to predefined benchmarks is identified through systematic screening; data are used to guide decisions about the appropriateness of evidence-based instruction and Tier 2 (targeted, group-based) and Tier 3 (intensive, individualized) intervention; and intervention planning is adjusted based on students’ progress (e.g., Glover & Vaughn, 2007). Within this context, professional development supports teachers in using data to guide classroom practices to optimize students’ response to early reading interventions (early reading RTI).
Current Application of Continuous Glucose Monitoring in the Treatment of Diabetes

The ultimate goal of diabetes technology is to create an artificial pancreas, or closed-loop system. In the early 1970s, the first prototypes became available (1). Although recent advances are promising, the closed-loop system is currently confined to the clinical research center (2). The continuous subcutaneous insulin infusion (CSII) pump became commercially available in the 1980s, and it is now a common and accepted way of providing insulin (3,4). The emergence of continuous glucose monitoring (CGM) followed in the 1990s, with the first reports on CGM by microdialysis in 1992 (5,6). Retrospective needle-type CGM systems were introduced just before the turn of the century (7–10). Currently, there are four subcutaneous CGM systems on the market that have real-time glucose values on display every 1–5 min and feature an alarm function for hypo- and hyperglycemia: the Freestyle Navigator (Abbot Diabetes Care, Alameda, CA), the Guardian Real-Time (Medtronic MiniMed, Northridge, CA), the Dexcom SEVEN (Dexcom, San Diego, CA), and the GlucoDay (Menarini Diagnostics). The first three are needle-type CGMs and the latter is a microdialysis-type sensor. All of these measure glucose via the glucose-oxidase reaction. In this article, we will discuss the pros and cons of the current application of CGM in the treatment of diabetes. From the Diabetes Control and Complications Trial and the UK Prospective Diabetes Study, we learned that lowering HbA1c reduces morbidity and mortality (11,12) and that tight glycemic control is associated with an increased rate of severe hypoglycemic episodes. We therefore should judge the pros of CGM by its HbA1c-lowering potency and its influence on severe hypoglycemia rates. Table 1 summarizes all intervention trials that have been performed with real-time CGM regarding HbA1c and the incidence of severe hypoglycemia. View this table: Table 1 CGM trials in type 1 diabetes The …
Consumed by Identity: The Role of Psychosocial Development in the Consumption Constellations of Emerging Adults

CONSUMED BY IDENTITY: THE ROLE OF PSYCHOSOCIAL DEVELOPMENT IN THE CONSUMPTION CONSTELLATIONS OF EMERGING ADULTS Scott Connors University of Guelph, 2013 Co-Advisors: Dr. Timothy Dewhirst & Dr. Karen Gough Literature suggests that consumers perceive collective symbolic meaning in a set of products and brands and they associate this meaning with social roles or lifestyles that form consumption constellations. Such constellations exist as cognitive associative frameworks in consumers’ minds, which possess varying levels of accessibility. This thesis uses a multi-method approach to investigate how consumer perception and accessibility of consumption constellations is shaped by the psychosocial development that occurs during the transitional period of emerging adulthood. More specifically, two studies examine the role of the key drivers of psychosocial development at this stage: ego identity exploration and commitment. Study 1 employs a long interview methodology to provide insight into the dynamic nature of identity development during the period of emerging adulthood and its influence on perceptions of social roles and associated products and brands that comprise consumption constellations. Study 2 uses a response latency methodology to examine how emerging adults’ accessibility of consumption constellations is impacted by identity exploration and commitment, with hypotheses being partially supported. For aspirational constellations, high identity commitment participants displayed greater accessibility, with no significant differences based upon identity exploration as hypothesized.