Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Physical Science Teachers’ Self-efficacy Beliefs on Conducting Laboratory Experiments

Abstract This non-experimental exploratory quantitative study examined secondary school Physical Scienceteachers’ self-efficacy beliefs in conducting selected key experiments. The respondents were 190 Physical Scienceteachers (males = 54.6%, teaching experience ranging from 1 to more than 30 years) from the central province ofSouth Africa. They completed a science teaching efficacy belief scale and a self-rating scale on how confident theyare in conducting the selected experiments. Data was analyzed for rank-order in different outlined experiments forGrade 10 to 12 as prescribed by the Curriculum and Assessment Policy Statement (CAPS) of the Physical Sciences.The influence of demographic factors on confidence to conduct practical work and self-efficacy beliefs was alsoestablished. Findings suggest that the teachers’ confidence to perform experiments was higher for Physics than forChemistry, and that self-efficacy to perform experiments was influenced by demographic factors, mostly forChemistry experiments rather than for Physics experiments.
Discriminatory Attitudes and Practices by Health Workers toward Patients with HIV/AIDS in Nigeria

Background Nigeria has an estimated 3.6 million people with HIV/AIDS and is home to one out of every 11 people with HIV/AIDS worldwide. This study is the first population-based assessment of discrimination against people living with HIV/AIDS in the health sector of a country. The purpose of this study was to characterize the nature and extent of discriminatory practices and attitudes in the health sector and indicate possible contributing factors and intervention strategies. The study involved a cross-sectional survey of 1,021 Nigerian health-care professionals (including 324 physicians, 541 nurses, and 133 midwives identified by profession) in 111 health-care facilities in four Nigerian states. Methods and Findings Fifty-four percent of the health-care professionals (550/1,021) were sampled from public tertiary care facilities. Nine percent of professionals reported refusing to care for an HIV/AIDS patient, and 9% indicated that they had refused an HIV/AIDS patient admission to a hospital. Fifty-nine percent agreed that people with HIV/AIDS should be on a separate ward, and 40% believed a person's HIV status could be determined by his or her appearance. Ninety-one percent agreed that staff and health-care professionals should be informed when a patient is HIV-positive so they can protect themselves. Forty percent believed that health-care professionals with HIV/AIDS should not be allowed to work in any area of health-care that requires patient contact. Twenty percent agreed that many with HIV/AIDS behaved immorally and deserve the disease. Basic materials needed for treatment and prevention of HIV were not adequately available. Twelve percent agreed that treatment of opportunistic infections in HIV/AIDS patients wastes resources, and 8% indicated that treating someone with HIV/AIDS is a waste of precious resources. Providers who reported working in facilities that did not always practice universal precautions were more likely to favor restrictive policies toward people with HIV/AIDS. Providers who reported less adequate training in HIV treatment and ethics were also more likely to report negative attitudes toward patients with HIV/AIDS. There was no consistent pattern of differences in negative attitudes and practices across the different health specialties surveyed. Conclusion While most health-care professionals surveyed reported being in compliance with their ethical obligations despite the lack of resources, discriminatory behavior and attitudes toward patients with HIV/AIDS exist among a significant proportion of health-care professionals in the surveyed states. Inadequate education about HIV/AIDS and a lack of protective and treatment materials appear to contribute to these practices and attitudes.
Particulate Emissions: Health Effects and Labour Market Consequences

The objective of this study was to analyse the productivity cost savings associated with mitigation of particulate emissions, as an input to a cost-benefit analysis. Reduced emissions of particulate matter (PM2.5) may reduce the incidence of diseases related to air pollution and potentially increase productivity as a result of better health. Based on data from epidemiological studies, we modelled the impact of air pollution on four different diseases: coronary heart disease, stroke, lung cancer, and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. We identified individuals with these diseases and modelled changes in disease incidence as an expression of exposure. The labour market affiliation and development in wages over time for exposed individuals was compared to that of a reference group of individuals matched on a number of sociodemographic variables, comorbidity, and predicted smoking status. We identified a productivity cost of about 1.8 million EURO per 100,000 population aged 50–70 in the first year, following an increase in PM2.5 emissions. We have illustrated how the potential impact of air pollution may influence social production by application of a matched study design that renders a study population similar to that of a trial. The result suggests that there may be a productivity gain associated with mitigation efforts.
The development and evaluation of an emotional support algorithm for carers

Carers - people who provide regular support for a friend or relative who could not manage without them - frequently report high levels of stress. Good emotional support could help relieve this stress. This study uses seven scenarios that depict different types of stress and acquires emotional support messages for them. We then categorize and evaluate the emotional support for different types of stress. We found that telling the carer they are appreciated and offering support are the best types of emotional support. Additionally, we found that how well a supporter sympathises with a situation affects the type of support they consider suitable. We describe and evaluate an algorithm that selects different categories of support to be used by an intelligent virtual agent to provide emotional support to carers experiencing different types of stress.
Energy Efficient Resource Allocation in Large Scale Distributed Systems

Global warming and climate change trends call for urgent action to manage information and communication technologies in a sustainable manner by minimizing energy consumption and utilizing resources more efficiently. Distributed computing environments have become the de facto platforms for many applications. These systems bring a range of heterogeneous resources that should be able to function continuously and autonomously. However, distributed systems expend a lot of energy which raises a range of important research issues related to the use and virtualization of ICT resources in a way offers significant potential to contribute to the goal of what has been described as ‘green computing’. This paper will review some of the important questions related to the development of new algorithms and tools for energy–aware resource allocation for large–scale distributed systems enabling these systems to become environmentally friendly.
A Biological Basis for Expected and Non-expected Utility

Abstract A biological model is developed here to determine the fittest attitude to risk. With a fixed environment, the type maximizing expected offspring is selected. This yields the expected utility theorem when translated into a criterion for evaluating gambles over commodities. With a random environment, however, the type selected is strictly less averse to idiosyncratic risk than to risk which is correlated across all individuals. The implied criterion for choice over gambles does not satisfy the expected utility theorem and may induce choice of a gamble which is first-order stochastically dominated. Journal of Economic Literature Classification Number: D81.
Plasticity after perceptual narrowing for voice perception: reinstating the ability to discriminate monkeys by their voices at 12 months of age

Differentiating individuals by their voice is an important social skill for infants to acquire. In a previous study, we demonstrated that the ability to discriminate individuals by voice follows a pattern of perceptual narrowing (Friendly et al., 2013). Specifically, we found that the ability to discriminate between two foreign-species (rhesus monkey) voices decreased significantly between 6 and 12 months of age. Also during this period, there was a trend for the ability to discriminate human voices to increase. Here we investigate the extent to which plasticity remains at 12 months, after perceptual narrowing has occurred. We found that 12-month-olds who received 2 weeks of monkey-voice training were significantly better at discriminating between rhesus monkey voices than untrained 12-month-olds. Furthermore, discrimination was reinstated to a level slightly better than that of untrained 6-month-olds, suggesting that voice-processing abilities remain considerably plastic at the end of the first year.
Changes in the distribution of the 34-kdalton tyrosine kinase substrate during differentiation and maturation of chicken tissues

We examined the distribution of the 34-kilodalton (34-kD) tyrosine kinase substrate in tissues of adult and embryonic chicken using both a mouse monoclonal antibody and a rabbit polyclonal antibody raised against the affinity purified 34 kD protein. We analyzed the localization by immunoblotting of tissue extracts, by immunofluorescence staining of frozen tissue sections, and by staining sections of paraffin-embedded organs by the peroxidase antiperoxidase method. The 34-kD protein was present in a variety of cells, including epithelial cells of the skin, gastrointestinal, and respiratory tracts, as well as in fibroblasts and chondrocytes of connective tissue and mature cartilage, and endothelial cells of blood vessels. The 34-kD protein was also found in subpopulations of cells in thymus, spleen, bone marrow, and bursa. The protein was not detected in cardiac, skeletal, or smooth muscle cells, nor in epithelial cells of liver, kidney, pancreas, and several other glands. Although most neuronal cells did not contain the 34-kD protein, some localized brain regions did contain detectable amounts of this protein. The 34-kD protein was not detected in actively dividing cells of a number of tissues. Changes in the distribution of the 34-kD protein were observed during the differentiation or maturation of cells in several tissues including epithelial cells of the skin and gastrointestinal tract, fibroblasts of connective tissue, and chondroblasts.
Human action recognition using PEM histogram

In this paper, a new action feature descriptor PEM (PCRM-EOH-MOH) is proposed for fast human action recognition. This descriptor is constructed based on three information channels: Pixel Change Ratio Map (PCRM), Edge Orientation Histogram (EOH) and Motion Orientation Histogram (MOH) features. A video sequence is first represented as a collection of PEM features. Then, video representations are constructed in PEM features and integrated with the linear Support Vector Machines (SVM) classification schemes for recognition. Finally, our method is tested on two challenging dataset: the KTH [8] human action dataset and our own dataset including six types of actions. Experimental results demonstrate the effectiveness of our proposed method.
Deep near-IR variability survey of pre-main-sequence stars in ρ Ophiuchi

Context. Variability is a common characteristic of pre-main-sequence stars (PMS). Near-IR variability surveys of young stellar objects (YSOs) can probe stellar and circumstellar environments and provide information about the dynamics of the ongoing magnetic and accretion processes. Furthermore, variability can be used as a tool to uncover new cluster members in star formation regions. Aims. We hope to achieve the deepest near-IR variability study of YSOs targeting the ρ Ophiuchi cluster. Methods. Fourteen epochs of observations were obtained with the Wide Field Camera (WFCAM) at the UKIRT telescope scheduled in a manner that allowed the study of variability on timescales of days, months, and years. Statistical tools, such as the multi-band cross correlation index and the reduced chi-square, were used to disentangle signals of variability from noise. Variability characteristics are compared to existing models of YSOs in order to relate them to physical processes, and then used to select new candidate members of this star-forming region. Results. Variability in the near-IR is found to be present in 41% of the known population of ρ Ophiuchi recovered in our sample. The behaviours shown are several and can be associated with the existence of spots on the stellar surface, variations in circumstellar extinction, or changes in the geometry of an accretion disc. Using variability, a new population of objects has been uncovered that is believed to be part of the ρ Ophiuchi cluster.
Data Mining Application in Customer Relationship Management for Hospital Inpatients

Objectives This study aims to discover patients loyal to a hospital and model their medical service usage patterns. Consequently, this study proposes a data mining application in customer relationship management (CRM) for hospital inpatients. Methods A recency, frequency, monetary (RFM) model has been applied toward 14,072 patients discharged from a university hospital. Cluster analysis was conducted to segment customers, and it modeled the patterns of the loyal customers' medical services usage via a decision tree. Results Patients were divided into two groups according to the variables of the RFM model and the group which had significantly high frequency of medical use and expenses was defined as loyal customers, a target market. As a result of the decision tree, the predictable factors of the loyal clients were; length of stay, certainty of selectable treatment, surgery, number of accompanying treatments, kind of patient room, and department from which they were discharged. Particularly, this research showed that when a patient within the internal medicine department who did not have surgery stayed for more than 13.5 days, their probability of being a classified as a loyal customer was 70.0%. Conclusions To discover a hospital's loyal patients and model their medical usage patterns, the application of data-mining has been suggested. This paper suggests practical use of combining segmentation, targeting, positioning (STP) strategy and the RFM model with data-mining in CRM.
Genome-Wide Association Mapping in Dogs Enables Identification of the Homeobox Gene, NKX2-8, as a Genetic Component of Neural Tube Defects in Humans

Neural tube defects (NTDs) is a general term for central nervous system malformations secondary to a failure of closure or development of the neural tube. The resulting pathologies may involve the brain, spinal cord and/or vertebral column, in addition to associated structures such as soft tissue or skin. The condition is reported among the more common birth defects in humans, leading to significant infant morbidity and mortality. The etiology remains poorly understood but genetic, nutritional, environmental factors, or a combination of these, are known to play a role in the development of NTDs. The variable conditions associated with NTDs occur naturally in dogs, and have been previously reported in the Weimaraner breed. Taking advantage of the strong linkage-disequilibrium within dog breeds we performed genome-wide association analysis and mapped a genomic region for spinal dysraphism, a presumed NTD, using 4 affected and 96 unaffected Weimaraners. The associated region on canine chromosome 8 (pgenome = 3.0×10−5), after 100,000 permutations, encodes 18 genes, including NKX2-8, a homeobox gene which is expressed in the developing neural tube. Sequencing NKX2-8 in affected Weimaraners revealed a G to AA frameshift mutation within exon 2 of the gene, resulting in a premature stop codon that is predicted to produce a truncated protein. The exons of NKX2-8 were sequenced in human patients with spina bifida and rare variants (rs61755040 and rs10135525) were found to be significantly over-represented (p = 0.036). This is the first documentation of a potential role for NKX2-8 in the etiology of NTDs, made possible by investigating the molecular basis of naturally occurring mutations in dogs.
‘Shaking Hands with Money’: The Phenomenon of Gap in Modern Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan

Abstract This study examines gap—traditional reciprocal associations common in Central Asia. Gap is an unofficial, regular get-together of people of similar age bound by socially acknowledged ties. The study argues that gap represents a communal type of civil society featuring many differences from analogous groups in Western liberal societies. Gap may effect social consciousness and facilitate mobilisation. The study also analyses modern forms of gap such as joint savings funds, female-only get-togethers, and internet-based gap.
ON THE REGULARITY OF SEMIPERMEABLE SURFACES IN CONTROL THEORY WITH APPLICATION TO THE OPTIMAL EXIT-TIME PROBLEM (PART II)

In control theory, a semipermeable surface is an (in general nonsmooth) oriented surface that, on one hand, contains solutions (the so-called barrier solutions) of the controlled system and, on the other hand, may be crossed by the solutions of this system in only one direction. Without making any assumption on the regularity of the boundary of the semipermeable surface, we show that the barrier solutions contained in this semipermeable surface satisfy the Pontryagin principle, that this surface is a Lipschitz manifold, and that it is, locally, the graph of a semiconcave function. Applying these results to the optimal exit-time function from a given open set yields, without any controllability assumption at the boundary of the open set, that this function is semiconcave on an open dense subset of its domain.
Truly agent-oriented coupling of an activity-based demand generation with a multi-agent traffic simulation

This paper describes how the typical method to couple activity-based demand generation (ABDG) and dynamic traffic assignment (DTA) are time-dependent origin destination matrices. With that coupling method, the individual traveler's information gets lost. Delays at one trip do not affect later trips. It is, however, possible to retain the full agent information from the ABDG by writing out all agents' “plans”, instead of the origin and destination (OD) matrix. A plan is a sequence of activities, connected by trips. Since that information is typically already available inside the ABDG, this is fairly easy to achieve. MATSim takes such plans as input. It iterates between the traffic flow simulation (sometimes called network loading) and the behavioral modules. The currently implemented behavioral modules are route finding, and time adjustment. Activity re-sequencing or activity dropping are conceptually clear but not yet implemented. Such a system will react to a time-dependent toll by possibly re-arranging the complete day; in consequence, it goes far beyond DTA (which just does route adaptation). Our paper will report the status of our current Berlin implementation. The initial plans are taken from an ABDG, originally developed by Kutter; to our knowledge, this is the first time that traveler-based information (and not just OD matrices) is taken from an ABDG and used in a multi-agent simulation. The simulation results are compared against real world traffic counts from about 100 measurement stations.
Use of Granulocyte Colony-Stimulating Factor for the Treatment of Thin Endometrium in Experimental Rats

Granulocyte colony-stimulating factor (G-CSF) induces stem cells to mobilize to the injury site, which have beneficial effect on tissue repair. The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of G-CSF on the thin endometrium in rat models. In the present study, rats with thin endometrium were divided into 4 groups (experimental group I: administrated with G-CSF (40 µg/kg/d) 4–6 hours post-modeling; control group I: administrated with saline 4–6 hours post-modeling; experimental group II: administrated with G-CSF (40 µg/kg/d) 12 days post-modeling; control group II: administrated with saline 12 days post-modeling. The agentia was given once daily and last for 5 days. Endometrial morphology was analyzed by Hematoxylin-Eosin staining, and the regeneration of endometrial cells was evaluated by immunohistochemistry and western-blot with cytokeratin and vimentin. We found that endometrial thickness and morphology presented a significant difference between experimental groups and control groups. No matter when we start with G-CSF, there was a significantly thicker endometrium and stronger expression of cytokeratin/vimintin in the experimental groups compared with the control groups (P<0.01). There were significant thicker endometrial lining and stronger expression of cytokeratin/vimintin in experimental group I than that of experimental group II (P<0.05), but there was no difference in the endometrial lining and the expression of cytokeratin/vimintin between the two control groups (P>0.05). In conclusion, G-CSF can promote the regeneration of endometrial cells in animal research, especially when the G-CSF was administrated earlier.
Risk Judgments in Climbers: The Role of Difficulty, Meteorological Conditions, Confidence and Appropriate Tools

ABSTRACT Risk perception among climbers is a factor that can contribute to injury prevention. The purpose of this study was to analyze how expert climbers make judgments about potential risks to their safety. Specifically, we studied how climbers combine the available information on environmental conditions and personal resources in order to arrive at risk judgments. Sixteen distinct scenarios were presented to 134 climbers, and their risk perception related to each situation was recorded. Findings revealed that all variables were highly relevant for determining risk perception. When all variables were present at the same time, confidence was found to minimize the perception of risks caused by environmental conditions, such as difficult climbing. We conclude that an understanding of how expert climbers combine relevant information in order to judge risk can offer ways for them to take more effective preventive measures against injuries, specifically to identify hazards and their combined effects.