Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Maternal body mass index, dietary intake and socioeconomic status: differential effects on breast milk zinc, copper and iron content.

BACKGROUND As breast milk micronutrients content are essential for health and growth of the infants, this study was conducted to determine the breast milk zinc, copper and iron concen-trations and their possible correlations with maternal nutritional status, dietary intakes as well as socioeconomic status. METHODS Breast milk samples and information on maternal anthropometric characteristics and dietary intake were collected from 90 Iranian lactating women with 3 different socioeco-nomic status who exclusively breastfed their infants. Concentrations of trace elements were analyzed using atomic absorption spectrophotometry. Nutritionist III program, Multiple Re-gression and ANOVA test were used for data analyses. RESULTS The mean milk zinc, copper, and iron concentrations were 1.93 ± 0.71, 0.58 ± 0.32, and 0.81 ± 0.2 mg/l, respectively. In all three SES groups only zinc mean level was lower than the recommended range. A significant difference was observed in breast milk zinc, copper and iron concentration between high and low SES groups (Zn (P<0.001), Cu (P<0.001) and Fe (P<0.044)) and also moderate and low SES groups (Zn (P<0.03), Cu (P<0.001) and Fe (P<0.049)). After adjusting for maternal body mass index (BMI), socioeconomic status, mean dietary energy, zinc, copper, and iron intakes, there was a negative and significant association between maternal age and breast milk zinc (β=-0.28, P<0.034), copper (β=-0.18, P<0.048), and iron (β=-0.22, P<0.04) concentrations. CONCLUSION In low socioeconomic group with lower mean age, breast milk mineral levels were higher than others and there was no significant correlation between mineral levels and dietary intake. Hence it is supposed that maternal age may be better predictor of breast milk mineral levels.
FACEBOOK : BRIDGING THE GAP BETWEEN CLASSROOM ENGLISH AND REAL WORLD READING FOR NON-NATIVE LEARNERS OF ENGLISH

Facebook, a social networking website, is used as a global multi-purpose cyber board in a variety of fields such as education, politics, entertainment, science, and business. Utilizing this easily accessible website in the EFL (English as a Foreign Language) or in the ESL (English as a Second Language) learning scenario could be crucial for the development of integrated English skills for EFL learners. From the researcher’s teaching experience, EFL classroom reading materials are limited to commercial textbooks or selected reading articles based on instructors’ interests. In order to promote extensive reading and strengthen reading skills, EFL learners should expose themselves to authentic reading outside the classroom and be provided with alternative sources of English learning materials. Based on the popularity of Facebook, this study therefore aimed to encourage extensive reading by employing the website as a cyber forum for EFL undergraduate students, who then shared their reading topics and their reflections on applying classroom reading strategies to reading English in real world contexts with other Facebook members. This eventually led to the main research question: To what extent did EFL undergraduate students develop their extensive reading on Facebook? The study methodology was designed for qualitative, action research conducted with a group of 31 undergraduate Thai students taking the course, “Reading and Discussion”. The data for the findings was derived from two sources: 1) from the articles, new words, reading strategies, reflections, and comments posted on Facebook during the 14 weeks of the university semester, and 2) from the responses to a structured interview questionnaire. The data was then qualitatively analysed and categorised relative to the main research question and other related aspects. The findings revealed that female participants were likely to read and post topics related to health care, beauty, and fashion, while males were more interested in current news and different content-based topics. Results on effective strategies included using context clues to guess the meaning of new words, and analyzing the first sentence of each paragraph of an article to scope the subject area, the topic or the direction of the article. In addition, new words, idioms, and expressions learned from each article were detailed. The main conclusions drawn from this study covered the advantages of using Facebook for bridging the gap between classroom English to authentic English reading in real world contexts. Discussions on the drawbacks and implications of Facebook were also included in the study.
Modeling Kicks from the Merger of Generic Black Hole Binaries

Recent numerical relativistic results demonstrate that the merger of comparable-mass spinning black holes has a maximum “recoil kick” of up to ~4000 km s−1. However, the scaling of these recoil velocities with mass ratio is poorly understood. We present new runs showing that the maximum possible kick perpendicular to the orbital plane does not scale as ~η2 (where η is the symmetric mass ratio), as previously proposed, but is more consistent with ~η3, at least for systems with low orbital precession. We discuss the effect of this dependence on galactic ejection scenarios and retention of intermediate-mass black holes in globular clusters.
The prime factors of Wendt’s binomial circulant determinant

Wendt’s binomial circulant determinant, W„, is the determinant of an m by m circulant matrix of integers, with (i, j)th entry (i, ™.i) whenever 2 divides m but 3 does not. We explain how we found the prime factors of Wm for each even m < 200 by implementing a new method for computations in algebraic number fields that uses only modular arithmetic. As a consequence we prove that if p and q = mp + l are odd primes, 3 does not divide m, and m < 200, then the first case of Fermat’s Last Theorem is true for exponent p. © 1991 American Mathematical Society.
Per-flow Queuing Memory Management without Per-flow Queues in High Speed Routers

Packet buffering in high speed routers requires a memory management unit to maintain the structure of the queues. With the dramatic increase in link speed and number of traffic flows, per-flow queuing becomes more and more challenging for the memory management unit since millions of queues should be maintained. To address this issue, a scheme called Dynamic Queue Sharing (DQS) is proposed in this paper. DQS is based on the following observation: at any specific moment in a high speed router, the packet buffers are occupied only by a few flows. In DQS only a few physical queues are implemented in hardware and they are shared by all the flows. Theoretical analysis and extensive simulations of the DQS scheme show that the number of physical queues implemented in hardware can be greatly reduced to hundreds in high speed routers. Cost and power consumption of the memory management unit can be significantly reduced accordingly. Keywords-Packet Buffers; Memory Management; Per-flow Queuing
Personality and Dietary Intake – Findings in the Helsinki Birth Cohort Study

Background Personality traits are associated with health outcomes including non-communicable diseases. This could be partly explained by lifestyle related factors including diet. The personality traits neuroticism, extraversion, openness, agreeableness, and conscientiousness are linked with resilience, meaning adaptability in challenging situations. Resilient people usually comply with favorable health behaviors. Objective Our objective was to explore the associations between food and nutrient intake, personality traits and resilience. Design A validated semi-quantitative food frequency questionnaire was used to measure diet and the NEO-personality inventory to assess personality in 1681 subjects. Linear regression analysis was used to explore diet-personality associations and cluster analysis to define resilient and non-resilient personality profiles. Results Adjusting for age, education and energy intake, and applying Bonferroni corrections, openness in men was associated with higher vegetable (14.9 g/d for 1 SD increase in the personality score, PBonf <0.01) and lower confectionery and chocolate (−2.8 g/d, PBonf <0.01) intakes. In women, neuroticism was associated with lower fish (−4.9 g/d, PBonf <0.001) and vegetable (−18.9 g/d, PBonf <0.01) and higher soft drink (19.9 g/d, PBonf <0.001) intakes. Extraversion, in women, associated with higher meat (5.9 g/d, PBonf <0.05) and vegetable (24.8 g/d, PBonf<0.001) intakes, openness with higher vegetable (23.4 g/d, PBonf <0.001) and fruit (29.5 g/d, PBonf <0.01) intakes. Agreeableness was associated with a lower soft drink (−16.2 g/d, PBonf <0.01) and conscientiousness with a higher fruit (32.9 g/d, PBonf<0.01) intake in women. Comparing resilient and non-resilient subjects, we found resilience in women to be associated with higher intakes of vegetables (52.0 g/d, P<0.001), fruits (58.3 g/d, P<0.01), fish (8.6 g/d, P<0.01) and dietary fiber (1.6 g/d, P<0.01). Conclusion Personality traits are associated with dietary intake and especially subjects with resilient personality profiles had healthier dietary intakes. These associations were stronger in women than in men.
Direction matters: hand pose estimation from local surface normals

We present a hierarchical regression framework for estimating hand joint positions from single depth images based on local surface normals. The hierarchical regression follows the tree structured topology of hand from wrist to finger tips. We propose a conditional regression forest, i.e., the Frame Conditioned Regression Forest (FCRF) which uses a new normal difference feature. At each stage of the regression, the frame of reference is established from either the local surface normal or previously estimated hand joints. By making the regression with respect to the local frame, the pose estimation is more robust to rigid transformations. We also introduce a new efficient approximation to estimate surface normals. We verify the effectiveness of our method by conducting experiments on two challenging real-world datasets and show consistent improvements over previous discriminative pose estimation methods.
The turbulent destruction of clouds – I. A k–ε treatment of turbulence in 2D models of adiabatic shock–cloud interactions

The interaction of a shock with a cloud has been extensively studied in the literature, where the effects of magnetic fields, radiative cooling and thermal conduction have been considered. In many cases, the formation of fully developed turbulence has been prevented by the artificial viscosity inherent in hydrodynamical simulations. This problem is particularly severe in some recent simulations designed to investigate the interaction of a flow with multiple clouds, where the resolution of individual clouds is necessarily poor. Furthermore, the shocked flow interacting with the cloud has been assumed to be completely uniform in all previous single-cloud studies. In reality, the flow behind the shock is also likely to be turbulent, with non-uniform density, pressure and velocity structure created as the shock sweeps over inhomogeneities upstream of the cloud (as seen in recent multiple cloud simulations). To address these twin issues we use a subgrid compressible k–� turbulence model to estimate the properties of the turbulence generated in shock–cloud interactions and the resulting increase in the transport coefficients that the turbulence brings. A detailed comparison with the output from an inviscid hydrodynamical code puts these new results into context. Despite the above concerns, we find that cloud destruction in inviscid and k–� models occurs at roughly the same speed when the post-shock flow is smooth and when the density contrast between the cloud and intercloud medium, χ 100. However, there are increasing and significant differences as χ increases. The k–� models also demonstrate better convergence in resolution tests than inviscid models, a feature which is particularly useful for multiple-cloud simulations. Clouds which are over-run by a highly turbulent post-shock environment are destroyed significantly quicker as they are subject to strong ‘buffeting’ by the flow. The decreased lifetime and faster acceleration of the cloud material to the speed of the ambient flow leads to a reduction in the total amount of circulation (vorticity) generated in the interaction, so that the amount of vorticity may be self-limiting. Additional calculations with an inviscid code where the post-shock flow is given random, grid-scale, motions confirm the more rapid destruction of the cloud. Our results clearly show that turbulence plays an important role in shock–cloud interactions, and that environmental turbulence adds a new dimension to the parameter space which has hitherto been studied.
A system-level investigation into the cellular toxic response mechanism mediated by AhR signal transduction pathway

MOTIVATION Viewing a cellular system as a collection of interacting parts can lead to new insights into the complex cellular behavior. In this study, we have investigated aryl hydrocarbon receptor (AhR) signal transduction pathway from such a system-level perspective. AhR detects various xenobiotics, such as drugs or endocrine disruptors (e.g. dioxin), and mediates transcriptional regulation of target genes such as those in the cytochrome P450 (CYP450) family. On binding with 2,3,7,8-tetrachlorodibenzo-p-dioxin (TCDD), however, AhR becomes abnormally activated and conveys toxic effects on cells. Despite many related studies on the TCDD-mediated toxicity, quantitative system-level understanding of how TCDD-mediated toxicity generates various toxic responses is still lacking. RESULTS Here, we present a manually curated TCDD-mediated AhR signaling pathway including crosstalks with the hypoxia pathway that copes with oxygen deficiency and the p53 pathway that induces a DNA damage response. Based on the integrated pathway, we have constructed a mathematical model and validated it through quantitative experiments. Using the mathematical model, we have investigated: (i) TCDD dose-dependent effects on AhR target genes; (ii) the crosstalk effect between AhR and hypoxia signals; and (iii) p53 inhibition effect of TCDD-liganded AhR. Our results show that cellular intake of TCDD induces AhR signaling pathway to be abnormally up-regulated and thereby interrupts other signaling pathways. Interruption of hypoxia and p53 pathways, in turn, can incur various hazardous effects on cells. Taken together, our study provides a system-level understanding of how AhR signal mediates various TCDD-induced toxicities under the presence of hypoxia and/or DNA damage in cells.
THE MOTIVATIONS FOR CHANGE TOWARDS E-GOVERNMENT ADOPTION : CASE STUDIES FROM SAUDI ARABIA

E-government is a new wave in the information revolution. More and more governments around the world pursue this phenomenon hoping to reduce costs, improve services for citizens and to increase effectiveness and efficiency in the public sector. E-government represents a fundamental change in the whole public sector structure, values, culture and the ways of conducting business. It is about a radical change within government and in the relationship between a government and its citizens. However, e-government adoption is surrounded by political, cultural, organisational, technological and social issues which must be considered and treated carefully to enable this transformation. Therefore, there is no universal model for e-government adoption which can be applicable for all countries to ensure success. This paper aims to investigate the motivations behind the change towards e-government systems. In addition, the understanding of these motivations can help decision-makers appreciate the success and risk factors in e-government adoption. E-government characteristics therefore are discussed, and then the motivations for this change are investigated through empirical case studies from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
On the energy of domain walls in ferromagnetism

In the theory of micromagnetics, the magnetization of a ferromagnetic sample has an energy that is the sum of four components. We study the asymptotic behaviour of this functional when a parameter (the so-called exchange length) tends to 0. The interaction of two of the components of the energy permits the use of well-known methods from the theory of phase transitions. In the limit this gives rise to a division of the sample into domains of constant magnetization, separated by domain walls. We examine the contribution of a third energy (the energy of the stray field) to the limiting problem. In particular, we derive an estimate for the energy density on the domain walls.
Can invasions occur without change? A comparison of G-matrices and selection in the peach-potato aphid, Myzus persicae

Most evolutionary research on biological invasions has focused on changes seen between the native and invaded range for a particular species. However, it is likely that species that live in human-modified habitats in their native range might have evolved specific adaptations to those environments, which increase the likelihood of establishment and spread in similar human-altered environments. From a quantitative genetic perspective, this hypothesis suggests that both native and introduced populations should reside at or near the same adaptive peak. Therefore, we should observe no overall changes in the G (genetic variance–covariance) matrices between native and introduced ranges, and stabilizing selection on fitness-related traits in all populations. We tested these predictions comparing three populations of the worldwide pest Myzus persicae from the Middle East (native range) and the UK and Chile (separately introduced ranges). In general, our results provide mixed support for this idea, but further comparisons of other species are needed. In particular, we found that there has been some limited evolution in the studied traits, with the Middle East population differing from the UK and Chilean populations. This was reflected in the structure of the G-matrices, in which Chile differed from both UK and Middle East populations. Furthermore, the amount of genetic variation was massively reduced in Chile in comparison with UK and Middle East populations. Finally, we found no detectable selection on any trait in the three populations, but clones from the introduced ranges started to reproduce later, were smaller, had smaller offspring, and had lower reproductive fitness than clones from the native range.
Procedures in the refinement calculus: a new approach?

We examine the use of procedures in the refinement calculus and show that the traditional approach leads to certain problems when programs are not constructed in a strictly top-down manner. These problems arise because a procedure name becomes associated with the implementation when the procedure body is refined, and we examine some ways in which they may be avoided. We argue that, because procedures are not required in order to express procedural abstractions, the primary purpose of using procedures in program refinement is to do with packaging the final program, and that decisions about how a program is packaged into procedures should be made separately from algorithm design decisions. We present an alternative approach based on this rationale which avoids the aforementioned problems, and discuss ways in which it can be supported by a refinement tool.
Recognition Using Specular Highlights

We present a novel approach to pose estimation and model-based recognition of specular objects in difficult viewing conditions, such as low illumination, cluttered background, large highlights, and shadows that appear on the object of interest. In such challenging conditions, conventional features are unreliable. We show that under the assumption of a dominant light source, specular highlights produced by a known object can be used to establish correspondence between its image and the 3D model, and to verify the hypothesized pose and the identity of the object. Previous methods that use highlights for recognition make limiting assumptions such as known pose, scene-dependent calibration, simple shape, etc. The proposed method can efficiently recognize free-form specular objects in arbitrary pose and under unknown lighting direction. It uses only a single image of the object as its input and outputs object identity and the full pose. We have performed extensive experiments for both recognition and pose estimation accuracy on synthetic images and on real indoor and outdoor images.
THE ENABLING ENVIRONMENT FOR MOBILE BANKING IN AFRICA

FOREWORD The project required collaboration among a number of entities on three continents: the Financial Sector Team within the Policy Division of DFID UK financed and supported the main project (Justin Highstead); and two country financial sector programmes, FSD in Kenya (David Ferrand) and FinMark Trust in South Africa (Jeremy Leach), financed and facilitated the country-level information gathering processes. Country correspondents Keith Smith (South Africa) and Stefan Staschen (Kenya) played a vital information gathering and facilitation role in each of the pilot countries. We collaborated throughout with a parallel and related CGAP project on branchless distribution in financial services, of which mobile banking is an emerging part. The CGAP team led by Tim Lyman and Gautam Ivatury provided valuable insights and context from their reference countries. In addition, the Central Bank of Kenya convened a project team to complete the country template, and then hosted a country workshop in Nairobi, Kenya in March 2006. Various providers completed questionnaires during the projects, and participated with regulators and support agencies at the final overall project workshop in Johannesburg in late March 2006. Tim Manion and Chris Lee assisted me with the background research in Boston. My thanks are due to all these for their help and support throughout. The rapid spread of mobile phones means that the number of mobile users may already exceed the number of banked people in many low income countries. Mobile phones can also offer a communications channel for initiating and executing on-line financial transactions. This channel may not only reduce the cost of financial transactions for provider and customer, but also allow new entrants to the financial sector, and new relationships to be formed for distributing services. These changes hold the prospect of accelerating access to financial services on the back of the mobile infrastructure. This report investigates the extent to which the expansion of mobile telephony is likely to lead to the expansion of access to appropriate financial services in developing countries, especially Africa. In particular, it seeks to answer two main questions: • Which models of mobile banking are emerging globally, and especially in Africa, and are they likely to be accelerate access? • Will it happen spontaneously or is enablement required for this to happen? If so, what forms of enablement? To answer these questions, the report investigates emerging models and trajectories of development in m-payments and m-banking through interviews with emerging African providers …