Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Factors associated with long-term antiretroviral therapy attrition among adolescents in rural Uganda: a retrospective study

As access to antiretroviral therapy (ART) increases, the success of treatment programmes depends on ensuring high patient retention in HIV care. We examined retention and attrition among adolescents in ART programmes across clinics operated by The AIDS Support Organization (TASO) in Uganda, which has operated both facility‐ and community‐based distribution models of ART delivery since 2004.
Axial Length Measurement Failure Rates with the IOLMaster and Lenstar LS 900 in Eyes with Cataract

Purpose To evaluate axial length (AL) measurement failure rate with the IOLMaster (Carl Zeiss AG, Germany) and Lenstar LS 900 (Haag-Streit AG, Switzerland) in eyes with cataract. Methods Two hundred and ninety-six eyes of 170 patients with cataract were enrolled. Cataract type and severity were graded using the Lens Opacities Classification System III (LOCS III) and AL measurements were attempted with IOLMaster (version 5.4) and Lenstar LS 900 (version 1.1). Chi-squared analysis was used to assess if the difference in AL measurement acquisition rate was statistically significant between the two devices. The association of the different cataract types and severity with the AL measurement acquisition rate was evaluated with logistic regression analysis. Results AL measurements were obtained in 184 eyes (62.16%) using the IOLMaster and 191 eyes (64.53%) using the Lenstar, which corresponds to a failure rate of 37.84% and 35.47% respectively. Chi-square analysis indicated no significant difference between the Lenstar and IOLMaster for AL measurement failure rate (x2 = 0.356, P = 0.550). Logistic regression analysis indicated no association between acquisition rates and cortical or nuclear cataracts with either device. There was a statistically significant association between acquisition rates and increasing severity of posterior subcapsular cataracts with the IOLMaster (β = -1.491, P<0.001) and Lenstar LS 900 (β = -1.507, P<0.001). Conclusion The IOLMaster and Lenstar LS 900 have similar AL measurement failure rates (35–38%) for Chinese public hospital cataract patients. Increasing severity of posterior subcapsular cataracts was problematic for both devices.
Distributed Tree Kernels

In this paper, we propose the distributed tree kernels (DTK) as a novel method to reduce time and space complexity of tree kernels. Using a linear complexity algorithm to compute vectors for trees, we embed feature spaces of tree fragments in low-dimensional spaces where the kernel computation is directly done with dot product. We show that DTKs are faster, correlate with tree kernels, and obtain a statistically similar performance in two natural language processing tasks.
The Multiple Filter Test for Change Point Detection in Point Processes with Weakly Dependent Life Times

Empirical point processes such as neuronal spike trains can show changes in the rate at multiple time scales. In order to test the null hypothesis of constant rate and to estimate the change points, a multiple filter test (MFT) has been proposed by Messer et al. (2014) that uses filtered derivative processes and that can be applied under the assumption of independent life times. Here we extend the MFT to point processes with ergodic life times associated with short range dependencies. For practical application, we derive local parameter estimators under m-dependence. Our simulations illustrate the necessity of incorporating correlation estimators within the MFT as well as good performance when local parameter estimators are used. We also discuss principles of estimating m in practice, suggesting that it can be preferable to neglect small serial correlations for the sake of variability reduction when using finite analysis windows in practice. Finally, we estimate m and apply the extended MFT to an empirical data set of spike trains that show serial correlations of low order.
What Ethical Conduct Expectations Do Legislators Have for the Career Bureaucracy?

Abstract Administrative ethics is a principal concern of the ethics-in-govemment movement, yet there is little empirical research ascertaining the expectations of elected officials for civil servants. This article reports legislator preferences for (1) virtues taken from the public administration literature, (2) overarching bureaucratic and democratic frameworks, and (3) administrative accountability. Significant partisan and gender differences are highlighted, and the resultant implications, especially for the American Society of Public Administration Code of Ethics, are suggested.
Older People Meet Robots : Three Case Studies on the Domestication of Robots in Everyday Life

This thesis explores how older people construct meaning, use and make sense of three kinds of robots in their homes. The exploration is undertaken in empirical studies of an assistive robot, an eHealth system, and robotic vacuum cleaners. The research draws on data collected through interviews and observations of older people in relation to three robots. The results show that older people’s domestication of robots cannot be condensed into one universal formula that fits all older people and all robots. The domestication of a robot is a process of constant shaping through negotiations with other people, other technologies, everyday life practice, society, and in relation to and with the robot and ourselves. For robots to be meaningfully and seamlessly integrated into older people’s everyday lives they need to be easy to use and desirable. But they also need to fit into the participants’ home practices. These include older person’s household activities, hobbies, interests, network of people, and the technology cluster in which the older person is situated. The usage of a robot needs to make sense to the older person; she needs to feel that she is in control of the robot and that the level of maintenance is reasonable. If the usage of a robot makes sense to the older person she will be willing to alter stable practices and routines. An important insight that emerged is how stereotypes of older people as weak, ill and housebound are embodied in robots intended for older people. These stereotypes are also constructed or reinforced by society, developers and older people themselves. The research presented demonstrates how this understanding of older people is situated in the home trials and shaped and maintained through them, which has powerful implications for the future development of robots. The findings further demonstrate that there is a difference between what older people say and what they do. The constructed and socially pervasive image of older people as weak, ill and housebound is apparent in how the older participants talk about robots and their potential. They incorporated robots into their everyday lives (as well as other technologies) that made sense to them, but they were unable to do so with robots that did not make sense to them. Instead the “practice of trying out a robot at home” ran parallel with the practices of everyday life during the home trials and became an end in itself. The main finding is not the serious implications of the stereotypical image of older people per se, but rather an understanding of how this stereotype is situated, shaped and maintained in the development. The thesis argues that by recognising the form older people’s participation and influence takes in current robotic developments, we can gain an understanding of the aspects that need to be scrutinised in order to find alternatives to current robotic developments. (Less)
Genetic Polymorphisms Influence the Ovarian Response to rFSH Stimulation in Patients Undergoing In Vitro Fertilization Programs with ICSI

Introduction Obtaining an adequate number of high-quality oocytes is a major challenge in controlled ovarian hyperstimulation (COH). To date, a range of hormonal and clinical parameters have been used to optimize COH but none have significant predictive value. This variability could be due to the genetic predispositions of single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs). Here, we assessed the individual and combined impacts of thirteen SNPs that reportedly influence the outcome of in vitro fertilisation (IVF) on the ovarian response to rFSH stimulation for patients undergoing intracytoplasmic sperm injection program (ICSI). Results Univariate analysis revealed that only FSHR, ESR2 and p53 SNPs influenced the number of mature oocytes. The association was statistically significant for FSHR (p=0.0047) and ESR2 (0.0017) in the overall study population and for FSHR (p=0.0009) and p53 (p=0.0048) in subgroup that was more homogeneous in terms of clinical variables. After Bonferroni correction and a multivariate analysis, only the differences for FSHR and ESR2 polymorphisms were still statistically significant. In a multilocus analysis, only the FSHR and AMH SNP combination significantly influenced oocyte numbers in both population (p<0.01). Discussion We confirmed the impact of FSHR and ESR2 polymorphisms on the IVF outcome. Furthermore, we showed for the first time that a p53 polymorphism (which is already known to impact embryo implantation) could influence the ovarian response. However, given that this result lost its statistical significance after multivariate analysis, more data are needed to draw firm conclusions. Only the FSHR and AMH polymorphism combination appears to influence mature oocyte numbers but this finding also needs to be confirmed. Materials and Methods A 13 gene polymorphisms: FSHR(Asn680Ser), p53(Arg72Pro), AMH(Ile49Ser), ESR2(+1730G>A), ESR1(−397T>C), BMP15(−9C>G), MTHFR1(677C>T), MTHFR2(1298A>C), HLA-G(−725C>G), VEGF(+405G>C), TNFα(−308A>G), AMHR(−482 A>G), PAI-1 (4 G/5 G), multiplex PCR assay was designed to genotype women undergoing ICSI program. We analyzed the overall study population (n=427) and a subgroup with homogeneous characteristics (n=112).
Making and remaking the political: Lessons from the US experience of civic and political engagement in the teaching of political science

This article sets out the case for the need for a greater level of academic debate by UK political scientists with regard to the teaching of civic and political engagement. Drawing on lessons from the United States, the article notes the relative absence of debate by UK scholars on these matters. This is despite similar concerns about levels of civic and political activity within society. The article argues that a greater focus on civic and political engagement in the teaching of political science would improve the overall health of the discipline, enhance levels of student knowledge and understanding, as well as responding to wider societal concerns.
Comparison of Ease of Falsification of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder Diagnosis Using Standard Behavioral Rating Scales

The purpose of this study was to explore the ability of college students to falsify a positive Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) diagnosis after reading the DSM-IV-TR criteria for the disorder. Introductory psychology students at UCLA were given one of four commonly used diagnostic batteries and asked to answer as if they were afflicted with the disorder. The four batteries used were the Wender Utah Rating Scale (WURS), the Conners Adult ADHD SelfReport of Symptoms (CAARS), the Brown Adult ADHD Scale (BAAS), and the ADHD Rating Scale (ARS). It is expected that the Conners and Brown scales will be more effective in preventing a falsified diagnosis than the other three measures, but the results indicated that all four batteries were significantly falsifiable. The Wender scale and ARS were found to be somewhat less conducive to diagnosis falsification than the Brown scale. Hyperactivity was found to be the most crucial factor in diagnosis determination of both the ARS and Conners scales. While gender did not seem to be significant in determining the diagnosis for the ARS, the Conners scale, or the Brown scale, it was found to be the primary factor within the Wender scale. The results of this study may have implications in future methods of diagnosis of ADHD for the purpose of qualification for services for students with disabilities.
Taking Routers Off Their Meds : Unstable Routers and the Buggy BGP Implementations That Cause Them

Both academic research and historical incidents have shown the impact of unstable BGP speakers on network performance and reliability. A large amount of time and energy has been invested improving router stability. In this paper, we show how an adversary in control of a BGP speaker in a transit AS can cause a victim router in an arbitrary location on the Internet to become unstable. Through experimentation with both hardware and software routers, we examine the behavior of routers under abnormal conditions and come to four conclusions. First, routers placed in certain states behave in anything but a stable manner. Second, unexpected but perfectly legal BGP messages can place routers into those states with disconcerting ease. Third, an adversary can use these messages to disrupt a victim router to which he is not directly connected. Fourth, modern best practices do little to prevent these attacks. These conclusions lead us to recommend more rigorous testing of BGP implementations, focusing as much on protocol correctness as software correctness.
Geometry-Based Region Proposals for Real-Time Robot Detection of Tabletop Objects

We present a novel object detection pipeline for localization and recognition in three dimensional environments. Our approach makes use of an RGB-D sensor and combines state-of-the-art techniques from the robotics and computer vision communities to create a robust, real-time detection system. We focus specifically on solving the object detection problem for tabletop scenes, a common environment for assistive manipulators. Our detection pipeline locates objects in a point cloud representation of the scene. These clusters are subsequently used to compute a bounding box around each object in the RGB space. Each defined patch is then fed into a Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) for object recognition. We also demonstrate that our region proposal method can be used to develop novel datasets that are both large and diverse enough to train deep learning models, and easy enough to collect that end-users can develop their own datasets. Lastly, we validate the resulting system through an extensive analysis of the accuracy and run-time of the full pipeline.
ARTSTAR : A Supervised Adaptive Resonance Classifier

This work was supported by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC) and by a grant from the Institute for Robotics and Intelligent Systems (IRIS). A new neural network architecture, ARTSTAR, is presented as a supervised modular extension to the ART2 network. ART2 suffers from deficiencies in terms of consistency and overall capability when applied to classification tasks. ARTSTAR uses a layer of INSTAR nodes to supervise and integrate multiple ART2 modules. Supervision takes the form of feedback to the ART2 output layer whenever a data pattern’s true classification is known. This feedback technique may take a variety of forms and can model the supervision implemented in existing supervised extensions to ART networks. A more robust classification performance occurs when several ART2 networks are trained in a supervised manner, each under different conditions, and their outputs integrated during testing. These results are demonstrated in tests of ARTSTAR using handdrawn and computer generated digits. The general functionality of ARTSTAR is extensive, and several further modifications to it are discussed. ARTSTAR: A Supervised Adaptive Resonance Classifier
Teacher work environments are toddler learning environments: teacher professional well-being, classroom emotional support, and toddlers’ emotional expressions and behaviours

ABSTRACT The current study examines the professional well-being of teachers, the classroom emotional support, and the emotional experiences of toddlers in their care. Professional well-being of teachers is conceptualized to include teacher feelings about their work, autonomy in decision-making, actual wages, and perceptions of fairness of wages within the programme as well as within the early childhood profession at large. The study empirically supports relationships among teacher professional well-being, classroom emotional support, and the emotional expressions and behaviours of toddlers. Early childhood policy implications regarding teacher professional well-being and toddler classroom emotional environments are discussed.
Cyberbullying Among Adolescents: A General Strain Theory Perspective

ABSTRACT Cyber bullying has become more pervasive as a result of advances in communication technology such as email, text messaging, chat rooms, and social media sites. Despite the growth in research on correlates associated with engagement in cyber bullying, few studies test the applicability of criminological theories to explain engagement in cyber bullying. This study applies data from the 2009/2010 Health Behavior in School-Aged Children (HBSC) study to examine whether individual and social factors associated with general strain theory explain why children engage in cyber bullying. Multivariate logistic regression analyses were conducted to identify significant factors associated with engagement in cyber bullying. The multivariate logistic regression results show that students who experienced strain engage in cyber bullying. The regression analysis also shows a positive relationship between participation in traditional bullying and engagement in cyber bullying.
Not(ch) Your Average Tax System: Corporate Taxation Under Weak Enforcement

How should developing countries tax corporate income? This paper studies this question in Costa Rica, where firms face discontinuously higher average tax rates on profits when their revenue marginally increases. The paper combines a discontinuity and a bunching design to estimate the profit elasticity and separate it into revenue and cost elasticities. Faced with higher tax rates, firms slightly reduce revenue but considerably increase costs, generating a large elasticity of profits. In this context, the revenue maximizing rate for profit taxation is below 25 percent and broadening the tax base while lowering the rate can increase revenue for these firms by 80 percent.
Development and Design of Large Infrastructure Projects: Disregarded Alternatives and Issues of Spatial Planning

The Dutch Parliamentary Commission on Infrastructural Projects has conducted a parliamentary inquiry into the decisionmaking process and implementation control in two major infrastructural projects: the Betuwe Freight Line between Rotterdam and Germany, and the HSL - Zuid— the high-speed rail link which will connect Amsterdam with Belgium and France. The commission proposes a new assessment framework which gives parliament better control of the decisionmaking process for future large projects. In this contribution I discuss the development and design of large infrastructure projects, including the way the territorial impact of these projects is mitigated. I observe that problems are often approached from extremely narrow terms of reference, from one favourite solution, whereby countless potentially worthwhile alternative solutions are dismissed out of hand or enter the picture too late. In addition, problems concerning the mitigation of territorial impacts of infrastructure are misjudged in the beginning, and lead to cost overruns at a later stage. There is too much focus on the infrastructure track and not enough focus on area development. Also, the operation of the infrastructure project is misjudged and attention is too narrowly focused on the investment aspects of the project. I formulate some lessons for the future, not only for the Netherlands, but also for other modern countries. The timely generation and acknowledgement of infrastructure alternatives enhances the democratic process and quality of public decisionmaking.
Insights into learning profiles and learning outcomes within introductory accounting

ABSTRACT This paper reports an empirical study aiming to explore aspects of learning and studying introductory accounting in Portuguese higher education. It specifically provides insight into patterns of learning and learning outcomes. To do so, it draws on qualitative data collected from students’ answers to a semi-structured interview about their learning experiences, particularly within introductory accounting. In addition, it examines students’ learning outcomes related to several accounting concepts. The findings suggest a pattern of poor learning outcomes and surface or dissonant learning profiles. This exploratory qualitative study highlights fruitful areas for future qualitative and quantitative research on various aspects of learning and teaching introductory accounting.
Increased Sialylation of Anti-Thomsen-Friedenreich Antigen (CD176) Antibodies in Patients with Gastric Cancer: A Diagnostic and Prognostic Potential

Aim. To study whether alterations in the sialylation of antibodies (Ab) specific to the Thomsen-Friedenreich (TF) glycotope have a diagnostic and prognostic potential in gastric cancer. Methods. Serum samples were taken from patients with gastric carcinoma (n = 142) and controls (n = 61). The level of TF-specific antibodies and their sialylation was detected using ELISA with synthetic TF-polyacrylamide conjugate as antigen and sialic acid-specific Sambucus nigra agglutinin (SNA). Results. The level of TF-specific IgM was significantly decreased in cancer compared with controls (P ≤ 0.001). Cancer patients showed a higher level of SNA binding to anti-TF IgM and IgA (P ≤ 0.001) irrespective of disease stage, tumor morphology, and gender. Changes in the SNA/Ab index demonstrated moderate sensitivity (66–71%) and specificity (60–73%) for stomach cancer. The best diagnostic accuracy (100%) was achieved in 29% patients with high SNA binding and low anti-TF IgM level. This subset of patients demonstrated the poorest survival. Conclusion. Our findings are the first evidence that the increased sialylation of TF-specific Abs combined with a low level of anti-TF IgM is strongly linked to gastric cancer and patients survival, which can be used as a novel biomarker for cancer detection and prognosis.
The Contact‐Prejudice Relationship Among Ethnic Minorities: Examining the Facilitative Influence of Religiosity*

Objectives The pioneers of intergroup contact research suggested that the positive impact of face-to-face interaction might fail among “intolerant” participants. To challenge this view, the present study extends previous research by examining religiosity as a boundary condition of intergroup contact among ethnic minority members. Methods The results were generated in a regression analysis of a Danish national probability sample from 2006 (N = 3,958). Results Analyses show that: (a) the ability of intergroup contact to reduce prejudice is strongest among the most religious and (b) that contact reduces prejudice at all levels of religiosity. Conclusions These findings support the general claim that intergroup contact is sufficiently powerful to produce positive outcomes, even among the most “intolerant. ” Additionally, the findings suggest that intergroup contact is not necessarily seriously infected by selection biases, as the most intolerant do not systematically avoid contact. The concluding section discusses the theoretical implications of the findings.