Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Household Knowledge of Antimicrobials and Antimicrobial Resistance in the Wake of an Accredited Drug Dispensing Outlet (ADDO) Program Rollout in Tanzania

Introduction Private sector drug shops are an important source of medicines in Tanzania. In 2003, the government introduced the accredited drug dispensing outlet (ADDO) program to improve access to good-quality medicines in rural and peri-urban areas that have frequent drug shortages in public health facilities and few or no registered pharmacies. However, increasing access may also contribute to antimicrobial resistance (AMR) due to the potential overuse and misuse of drugs. Methods We conducted a cross-sectional household survey in four regions in mainland Tanzaniato characterize consumer care-seeking habits and medicines use and to determine the extent to which members of the community are knowledgeable about antimicrobials and AMR. Within the regions, we applied a multistage cluster sampling design, cascading from districts, wards, and villages to households. Multivariate logistic analysis was done to determine variables influencing knowledge of antimicrobials and AMR, while controlling for confounding factors. Variables included age, occupation, level of education, membership in an insurance scheme, and wealth status. Results and Discussion We revealed that communities in four Tanzanian regions have low levels of knowledge of the concepts of antimicrobials and their use and AMR. Level of public understanding rose with wealth status and education. Only one-third of 1,200 respondents (33.6%) had ever heard of a medicine called an antimicrobial, and 5–15% could name at least one antimicrobial spontaneously. Some thought other medicines, such as paracetamol were antimicrobial (7.5%). People were equally likely to agree that pneumonia should be treated with an antimicrobial (21.4%) as well as common cold (28.4%). Understanding of AMR risks was better, particularly related to HIV and AIDS (32.2%) and malaria (38.6%)—most likely due to information campaigns focused on those two diseases. The level of knowledge decreased the further away respondents lived from an ADDO (p = 0.0001) and where ADDO density was lower (p = 0.001), which supports the use of ADDO dispensers as sources of community information and change agents for more appropriate medicine use. Conclusion Lack of knowledge about antimicrobials and AMR in Tanzanian communities needs to be addressed through multi-pronged strategies that focus on prescribers and the public—especially those who are poorer and less educated.
Evaluating Greek Equity Funds Using Data Envelopment Analysis

This study assesses the relative performance of Greek equity funds employing a non-parametric method, specifically Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA). Using an original sample of cost and operational attributes we explore the effect of each variable on funds' operational efficiency for an oligopolistic and bank-dominated fund industry. Our results have significant implications for the investors' fund selection process since we are able to identify potential sources of inefficiencies for the funds. The most striking result is that the percentage of assets under management affects performance negatively, a conclusion which may be related to the structure of the domestic stock market. Furthermore, we provide evidence against the notion of funds' mean-variance efficiency.
Cosmological tests of generalized RS brane‐worlds with Weyl fluid

A class of generalized Randall‐Sundrum type II (RS) brane‐world models with Weyl fluid are confronted with the Gold supernovae data set and BBN constraints. We consider three models with different evolutionary history of the Weyl fluid, characterized by the parameter α. For α = 0 the Weyl curvature of the bulk appears as dark radiation on the brane, while for α = 2 and 3 the brane radiates, leaving a Weyl fluid on the brane with energy density decreasing slower than that of (dark) matter. In each case the contribution Ωd of the Weyl fluid represents but a few percent of the energy content of the Universe. All models fit reasonably well the Gold2006 data. The best fit model for α = 0 is for Ωd = 0.04. In order to obey BBN constraints in this model however, the brane had to radiate at earlier times.
Lowering the Overhead of Nonblocking Software Transactional Memory

Recent years have seen the development of several dierent systems for software transactional memory (STM). Most either employ locks in the underlying implementation or depend on thread-safe general-purpose garbage collection to collect stale data and metadata. We consider the design of low-overhead, obstruction-free software transactional memory for non-garbage-collected languages. Our design eliminates dynamic allocation of transactional metadata and co-locates data that are separate in other systems, thereby reducing the expected number of cache misses on the common-case code path, while preserving nonblocking progress and requiring no atomic instructions other than single-word load, store, and compare-and-swap (or load-linked/store-conditional). We also employ a simple, epoch-based storage management system and introduce a novel conservative mechanism to make reader transactions visible to writers without inducing additional metadata copying or dynamic allocation. Experimental results show throughput significantly higher than that of existing nonblocking STM systems, and highlight significant, application-specific dierences among conflict detection and validation strategies.
Seminars on Software Maintenance and Evolution: An Empirical Study of the Background Factors Affecting Student Success

Software maintenance and evolution (SME) is an important but challenging topic area for university-level computer science education. Seminars can be used to provide students with versatile and up-to-date knowledge on scien- tifically relevant issues. We organized three systematic university-level seminars on SME. In these seminars 127 groups have each been assigned the task of analyzing one scientific SME article. The main results concern background factors re- lating to the students, groups and articles as these affect student success in the seminars. This paper presents a strict statis- tical analysis and a discussion of these factors. Fourteen hypotheses were set and tested regarding the relation of various background factors and a student's success in the seminar. The results indicate a clear relation between some of the factors and success. Most of the student- and group-related factors clearly affected student success, whereas most of the article- related factors did not. The study also revealed many important ancillary results. The results support organizing, studying, and improving feasible seminars in this area.
Der Einfluss personaler und interaktiver Kontexttinformationen auf die Diagnose und Bewertung argumentativer (Un-)Integrität

Starting with the empirically well established assumption that the evaluation of an argument as unfair requires the presence of an argumentational rule violation as well as some degree of intentionality (two basic components of the unfairness verdict), we tested in two quasi-experimental designs, if and how selected context variables modify the weight of an (un-)fairness evaluation (attribution of intentionality and guilt). Our results show that the conditions excuses and no excuses, good intents and bad intents high competence (of the speaker) and low competence proved to be most effective. On a more general level our study gives evidence that the evaluation of argumentational (un-)fairness depends on the two basic components as long as no further context variables are present. If, however, context variables become salient, the (un-)fairness evaluations are modified in a guilt-increasing or guilt-decreasing manner
Superorbital variability in hard X-rays

We present the results of a study with the Swift Burst Alert Telescope in the 14-195 keV range of the long-term variability of five low-mass X-ray binaries with reported or suspected superorbital periods - 4U 1636-536, 4U 1820-303, 4U 1916-053, Cyg X-2 and Sco X-1. No significant persistent periodic modulation was detected around the previously reported periods in the 4U 1916-053, Cyg X-2 or Sco X-1 light curves. The ∼170-d period of 4U 1820-303 was detected up to 24 keV, consistent with variable accretion due to the previously proposed triple system model. The ∼46-d period in 4U 1636-536 was detected up to 100 keV, with the modulation in the low- and high-energy bands found to be phase shifted by ∼180° with respect to each other. This phase shift, when taken together with the near-coincident onset of the ∼46-d modulation and the low/hard X-ray state, leads us to speculate that the modulation could herald transient jet formation.
Cost, Benefit, Tonic, Phasic

Abstract: The role of dopamine in decision making has received much attention from both the experimental and computational communities. However, because reinforcement learning models concentrate on discrete action selection and on phasic dopamine signals, they are silent as to how animals decide upon the rate of their actions, and they fail to account for the prominent effects of dopamine on response rates. We suggest an extension to reinforcement learning models in which response rates are optimally determined by balancing the tradeoff between the cost of fast responding and the benefit of rapid reward acquisition. The resulting behavior conforms well with numerous characteristics of free‐operant responding. More importantly, this framework highlights a role for a tonic signal corresponding to the net rate of rewards, in determining the optimal rate of responding. We hypothesize that this critical quantity is conveyed by tonic levels of dopamine, explaining why dopaminergic manipulations exert a global affect on response rates. We further suggest that the effects of motivation on instrumental rates of responding are mediated through its influence on the net reward rate, implying a tight coupling between motivational states and tonic dopamine. The relationships between phasic and tonic dopamine signaling, and between directing and energizing effects of motivation, as well as the implications for motivational control of habitual and goal‐directed instrumental action selection, are discussed.
Functional Properties of Perigeniculate Inhibition of Dorsal Lateral Geniculate Nucleus Thalamocortical Neurons In Vitro

The properties of the inhibitory influence of neurons in the perigeniculate (PGN) nucleus on thalamocortical cells were examined with intracellular recordings in the ferret geniculate slice maintainedin vitro. Activation of PGN neurons with the local application of glutamate caused IPSPs in thalamocortical neurons that were mediated by both GABAA and GABABreceptors, as well as the activation of spindle waves. With low intensity stimulation of the PGN, local application of bicuculline to the dorsal lateral geniculate nucleus (LGNd) strongly inhibited evoked and spindle-associated IPSPs, indicating that these are largely mediated by GABAA receptors. The generation of GABAB receptor-mediated IPSPs in thalamocortical cells that were large enough to generate rebound low threshold Ca2+ spikes required substantially increased activation of the PGN with glutamate. The activation of synchronous bicuculline-induced slowed oscillations in thalamocortical neurons required the block of GABAAreceptors in the LGNd as well as in the PGN. These results indicate that bursts of action potentials in PGN neurons can result in the activation of both GABAA and GABAB receptors in thalamocortical neurons, with the strong activation of GABAB receptors requiring an intense, simultaneous discharge of a number of PGN neurons. Functionally, these results suggest that PGN neurons inhibit thalamocortical cells preferentially through the activation of GABAA receptors, although the strong activation of GABAB receptors may occur under pathological conditions and contribute to the generation of abnormal, synchronous slow oscillations.
A Zika virus-associated microcephaly case with background exposure to STORCH agents

We present a case of microcephaly associated with Zika virus (ZIKV) in a chronological, multimodal imaging approach, illustrating the hallmarks of this disease on intrauterine morphological ultrasound, transfontanelar ultrasound, computed tomography (CT) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). We also determined the serological e immunological status of the mother and newborn. Noticeably, there was evidence for maternal infection by ZIKV, cytomegalovirus (CMV), herpes simplex virus (HSV), dengue virus (DENV) and Toxoplasma gondii, which indicates a possible role of previous exposures to STORCH agents and possibly comorbidities in the severe fetal congenital manifestation. Author Summary Zika virus (ZIKV) is an emerging mosquito-borne arbovirus causing dengue-like symptoms. In humans the illness is characterized by malaise and cutaneous rash and absent or short-termed fever. Recently, the Brazilian Ministry of Health reported an outbreak of microcephaly in Brazil as a delayed effect of the 2014-2015 outbreak of ZIKV in the Northeast of Brazil. A 20-fold increase in the notifications of newborns with microcephaly was documented during the second semester of 2015. This increase was almost immediately found to be associated with ZIKV infections, both in Brazil and, retrospectively, in French Polynesia. Herein we report a case of microcephaly associated with ZIKV and we also present evidence of other maternal infections. Our results indicated that, both mother and microcephaly infant had immunologic status compatible with previous exposure (in the mother) by STORCH agents. These indicate a possible role of previous exposures and possibly comorbidities in the severe fetal congenital manifestation. □
Topics in Cosmology Topics in Cosmology Topics in Cosmology 2. Inflationary Cosmology: the Current Paradigm 3. Theory of Cosmological Perturbations: a Short Review 3.2 Perturbations about Minkowski Space-time

These lectures present a brief review of inflationary cosmol ogy, provide an overview of the theory of cosmological perturbations, and then focus on the concep tual roblems of the current paradigm of early universe cosmology, thus motivating an exploratio n of the potential of string theory to provide a new paradigm. Specifically, the string gas cosmolo gy model is introduced, and a resulting mechanism for structure formation which does not requir e a period of cosmological inflation is discussed.
A Solution to the Ecological Inference Problem: Reconstructing Individual Behavior from Aggregate Data . By Gary King. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1997. 342p. $55.00 cloth, $16.95 paper.

from skepticism. Liberalism stresses the role of the selfdirecting, free individual as the authentic subject of political deliberation and action because, given the limitations to human knowledge advocated by skepticism, it is only a free, self-directing human being who can generate enough data concerning human needs, ends, and wants to satisfy the requirements of political deliberation and action. Skepticism faces a serious challenge of consistency, however. It cannot be formulated without engulfing, and therefore also undermining, itself. The version of skepticism that manages to escape these strictures is a generalized agnosticism, an agnostic approach extended across the whole map of knowledge, beyond the philosophy of religion; it facilitates the cultivation of an indefinite openness toward the future, an endless deferral of final crystallization of responses to the supreme questions of life and to the balances that should subsist among them.
Dynamical Effects of Self-Generated Magnetic Fields in Cosmic-Ray-modified Shocks

Recent observations of greatly amplified magnetic fields (δ B/B ∼ 100) around supernova shocks are consistent with the predictions of the nonlinear theory of particle acceleration (NLT), if the field is generated upstream of the shock by cosmic-ray-induced streaming instability. The high acceleration efficiencies and large shock modifications predicted by NLT need however to be mitigated to confront observations, and this is usually assumed to be accomplished by some form of turbulent heating. We show here that magnetic fields with the strength inferred from observations have an important dynamical role on the shock, and imply a shock modification substantially reduced with respect to the naive unmagnetized case. The effect appears as soon as the pressure in the turbulent magnetic field becomes comparable with the pressure of the thermal gas. The relative importance of this unavoidable effect and of the poorly known turbulent heating is assessed. More specifically we conclude that even in the cases in which turbulent heating may be of some importance, the dynamical reaction of the field cannot be neglected, as is usually done in most current calculations.
Real-time Targeted Influence Maximization for Online Advertisements

Advertising in social network has become a multi-billion-dollar industry. A main challenge is to identify key influencers who can effectively contribute to the dissemination of information. Although the influence maximization problem, which finds a seed set of k most influential users based on certain propagation models, has been well studied, it is not target-aware and cannot be directly applied to online advertising. In this paper, we propose a new problem, named Keyword-Based Targeted Influence Maximization (KB-TIM), to find a seed set that maximizes the expected influence over users who are relevant to a given advertisement. To solve the problem, we propose a sampling technique based on weighted reverse influence set and achieve an approximation ratio of (1 − 1/e − e). To meet the instant-speed requirement, we propose two disk-based solutions that improve the query processing time by two orders of magnitude over the state-of-the-art solutions, while keeping the theoretical bound. Experiments conducted on two real social networks confirm our theoretical findings as well as the efficiency. Given an advertisement with 5 keywords, it takes only 2 seconds to find the most influential users in a social network with billions of edges.
A stochastic image denoising algorithm using 3-D block filtering under a non-local means framework

In this paper, we propose an iterative approach for image denoising using random sampling and 3-D transforms. To denoise an image block first we form an array of similar blocks followed by a sparse 3-D transform. Thresholding in 3-D transform domain followed by non-local means approach reconstructs the denoised image block. By processing all overlapping blocks and aggregating them using suitable weights we obtain the denoised estimate. To measure the completeness of the denoising process we apply a robust median estimator to estimate the output noise. The above steps are iterated till the output noise is minimum. By comparing with the state-of-the-art algorithms, we show that the proposed method outperforms the competing algorithms in terms of PSNR, structural similarity index and visual similarity.
Deep nonlinear metric learning with independent subspace analysis for face verification

Face verification is the task of determining by analyzing face images, whether a person is who he/she claims to be. It is a very challenge problem, due to large variations in lighting, background, expression, hairstyle and occlusion. The crucial problem is to compute the similarity of two face vectors. Metric learning has provides a viable solution to this problem. Until now, many metric learning algorithms have been proposed, but they are usually limited to learning a linear transformation (i.e. finding a global Mahalanobis metric). In this brief, we propose a nonlinear metric learning method, which learns an explicit mapping from the original space to an optimal subspace, using deep Independent Subspace Analysis network. Compared to kernel methods, which can also learn nonlinear transformations, our method is a deep and local learning architecture, and therefore exhibits more powerful ability to learn the nature of highly variable dataset. We evaluate our method on the LFW benchmark, and results show very comparable performance to the state-of-art methods (achieving 92.28% accuracy), while maintaining simplicity and good generalization ability.
Teenage and Young Adult Cancer-Related Fatigue Is Prevalent, Distressing, and Neglected: It Is Time to Intervene. A Systematic Literature Review and Narrative Synthesis.

PURPOSE Cancer-related fatigue in adults has been the subject of considerable recent research, confirming its importance as a common and debilitating symptom, and establishing a number of evidence-based interventions. There has, however, been limited focus on the fatigue suffered by teenagers and young adults with cancer, a group recognized as having unique experiences and developmental needs. We have undertaken a systematic review of the literature to provide a comprehensive overview of studies evaluating fatigue in this younger patient group in order to guide clinical practice and future research. METHOD We searched MEDLINE, EMBASE, PsycINFO, and CINAHL databases for literature containing data relating to any aspect of fatigue in patients aged 13-24 at cancer diagnosis or treatment. RESULTS Sixty articles were identified, of which five described interventional clinical trials. Cancer-related fatigue was consistently one of the most prevalent, severe, and distressing symptoms, and it persisted long-term in survivors. It was associated with a number of factors, including poor sleep, depression, and chemotherapy. There was little evidence for the effectiveness of any intervention, although exercise appears to be the most promising. Importantly, fatigue was itself a significant barrier to physical and social activities. CONCLUSION Cancer-related fatigue is a major and disabling problem in young cancer patients. Effective management strategies are needed to avoid compounding the dependence and social isolation of this vulnerable patient group. Future research should focus on providing evidence for the effectiveness of interventions, of which activity promotion and management of concurrent symptoms are the most promising.
A qualitative study of speech and gestures in the vocabulary explanations of one efl teacher

A QUALITATIVE STUDY OF SPEECH AND GESTURES IN THE VOCABULARY EXPLANATIONS OF ONE EFL TEACHER MIQUÉIAS RODRIGUES UNIVERSIDADE FEDERAL DE SANTA CATARINA 2005 GLORIA GIL SUPERVISOR The study presented in this thesis seeks to identify the linguistic strategies and the gestures used by one English as a foreign language (EFL) teacher in her elaboration of unplanned vocabulary explanations. Additionally, the present work attempts to unveil the relations between gestures and speech in the context investigated. Finally, particular attention is given to the potential contribution that the study of gestures might bring to the understanding of EFL classroom explanatory discourse. The results point to the fact that the relation between gestures and speech is of a semantic and pragmatic nature (McNeill, 1992). Furthermore, gestures have been found to perform important functions in the episodes of vocabulary explanation studied. Those functions include illustrating and/or highlighting the content of speech, and establishing cohesion within the discourse event. Number of pages: 77 Number of words: 18.800