Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Non-communicable diseases in South Asia: contemporary perspectives.

INTRODUCTION Non-communicable diseases (NCDs) such as metabolic, cardiovascular, cancers, injuries and mental health disorders are increasingly contributing to the disease burden in South Asia, in light of demographic and epidemiologic transitions in the region. Home to one-quarter of the world's population, the region is also an important priority area for meeting global health targets. In this review, we describe the current burden of and trends in four common NCDs (cardiovascular disease, diabetes, cancer and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease) in South Asia. SOURCES OF DATA The 2010 Global Burden of Disease Study supplemented with the peer-reviewed literature and reports by international agencies and national governments. AREAS OF AGREEMENT The burden of NCDs in South Asia is rising at a rate that exceeds global increases in these conditions. Shifts in leading risk factors-particularly dietary habits, tobacco use and high blood pressure-are thought to underlie the mounting burden of death and disability due to NCDs. Improvements in life expectancy, increasing socioeconomic development and urbanization in South Asia are expected to lead to further escalation of NCDs. AREAS OF CONTROVERSY Although NCD burdens are currently largest among affluent groups in South Asia, many adverse risk factors are concentrated among the poor, portending a future increase in disease burden among lower income individuals. GROWING POINTS There continues to be a notable lack of national surveillance data to document the distribution and trends in NCDs in the region. Similarly, economic studies and policy initiatives addressing NCD burdens are still in their infancy. AREAS TIMELY FOR DEVELOPING RESEARCH Opportunities for innovative structural and behavioral interventions that promote maintenance of healthy lifestyles-such as moderate caloric intake, adequate physical activity and avoidance of tobacco-in the context of socioeconomic development are abundant. Testing of health care infrastructure and systems that best provide low-cost and effective detection and treatment of NCDs is a priority for policy researchers.
Does Organizational Work–Family Support Benefit Temporary and Permanent Employees Equally in a Work–Family Conflict Situation in Relation to Job Satisfaction and Emotional Energy at Work and at Home?

This study examined whether work–family support (WF support) buffers permanent and temporary workers similarly against the negative effects of work–family conflict as regard job satisfaction and emotional energy level at work and at home. A total of 1,719 Finnish nurses participated in this study in 2009. The results revealed that high coworker WF support protected temporary workers against the negative effects of high work–family conflict on emotional energy at work. Furthermore, temporary workers with low coworker WF support were at greater risk of job dissatisfaction and diminished emotional energy at home than were their permanent colleagues in the presence of high work–family conflict. Temporary workers may benefit more from coworker WF support if they experience work–family conflict. This should be considered in developing family-friendly practices in organizations where temporary contracts are relatively common.
Effect of Thermopriming on Germination in Rapeseed ( Brassica napus L . )

In many crops pre-soaking or priming causes improvement in germination and seedling establishment. Seed priming has been successfully demonstrated to improve germination and emergence in seeds of many crops, particularly seeds of vegetables and small seeded grasses. In order to determine the impact of thermopriming on germination of basil seeds, an experiment was conducted at Islamic Azad University, Shahr-e-Qods Branch, Tehran, Iran in 2011 by a completely randomized design with three replications, seed viability was determined by Tetrazolium test method. The factors studied included different time thermopriming (non-primed, 10 and 20 minutes) through the placing seeds were exposed to oven. The results showed that the effect of thermopriming was non-significant on germination percentage, seedling dry weight, seedling vigour and seedling length. Mean comparison showed that the highest germination percentage (99 %) came up to 20 minutes thermopriming and highest seedling dry weight (0.03 gr), seedling vigour (2.86) and seedling length (3.33) were achieved by non-primed. Therefore, use of thermopriming shouldn't be in seeds of rapeseed under laboratory condition.
Ad Hominem Arguments

Essential to an understanding of argumentation and logic, Ad Hominem Arguments is a vital contribution to legal theory and media and civic discourse. In the 1860s, northern newspapers attacked Abraham Lincoln's policies by attacking his character, using the terms "drunk," "baboon," "too slow," "foolish," and "dishonest. " Steadily on the increase in political argumentation since then, the argumentum ad hominem, or personal attack argument, has now been carefully refined as an instrument of "oppo tactics" and "going negative" by the public relations experts who craft political campaigns at the national level. In this definitive treatment of one of the most important concepts in argumentation theory and informal logic, Douglas Walton presents a normative framework for identifying and evaluating ad hominem or personal attack arguments. Personal attack arguments have often proved to be so effective, in election campaigns, for example, that even while condemning them, politicians have not stopped using them. In the media, in the courtroom, and in everyday confrontation, ad hominem arguments are easy to put forward as accusations, are difficult to refute, and often have an extremely powerful effect on persuading an audience. Walton gives a clear method for analyzing and evaluating cases of ad hominem arguments found in everyday argumentation. His analysis classifies the ad hominem argument into five clearly defined subtypes--abusive (direct), circumstantial, bias, "poisoning the well," and tu quoque ("you're just as bad") arguments--and gives methods for evaluating each type. Each subtype is given a well-defined form as a recognizable type of argument. The numerous case studies show in concrete terms many practical aspects of how to use textual evidence to identify and analyze fallacies and to evaluate argumentation as fallacious or not in particular cases.
emoji2vec: Learning Emoji Representations from their Description

Many current natural language processing applications for social media rely on representation learning and utilize pre-trained word embeddings. There currently exist several publicly-available, pre-trained sets of word embeddings, but they contain few or no emoji representations even as emoji usage in social media has increased. In this paper we release emoji2vec, pre-trained embeddings for all Unicode emoji which are learned from their description in the Unicode emoji standard. The resulting emoji embeddings can be readily used in downstream social natural language processing applications alongside word2vec. We demonstrate, for the downstream task of sentiment analysis, that emoji embeddings learned from short descriptions outperforms a skip-gram model trained on a large collection of tweets, while avoiding the need for contexts in which emoji need to appear frequently in order to estimate a representation.
Prevalence of consumption of addictive substances amongst Moroccan fishermen.

BACKGROUND The prevalence of toxic habits is constantly increasing in developing countries and all professional sectors are concerned. Seafarers are a particular target because of the dangerousness and complexity of their work. However, few studies have investigated toxic habits in this population. The aim of the study was to determine the prevalence of the use and misuse of addictive substances in seafarers and to appreciate poly-consumptions according to socio-demographic and occupational characteristics. MATERIALS AND METHODS This cross-sectional study was conducted amongst 1,219 fishermen. Subjects filled a questionnaire during their medical examination. The questionnaire covered socio-demographic and occupational characteristics, toxic habits (tobacco, alcohol, cannabis and others psychotropic substances). The misuse was assessed by specific tests: dependence on smoking tobacco (Fagerstrom), Cannabis Abuse Screening Test (CAST) and Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test (AUDIT). RESULTS The prevalence of consumption was 58.5% for smoking tobacco, 36.2% for cannabis, and 36.5% for alcohol. Amongst consumers, the prevalence of dependence or misuse was 49% for smoking tobacco, 61.2% for cannabis and 86% for alcohol. Only 115 (9.4%) people had no toxic habit. 56.4% had one toxic habit, 20.4% had two toxic habits, 11.9% had three toxic habits and 1.9% had four toxic habits. The most frequent associations were tobacco-cannabis (10.5%) and tobacco-alcohol (6.1%). CONCLUSIONS In this sector, occupational health physicians have to play a key role in raising awareness and fighting against toxic habits.
Using sustainability themes and multidisciplinary approaches to enhance STEM education

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to report on the Multidisciplinary Sustainability Education Project (MSEP) as a framework using sustainability-themed education modules to introduce students to the need for multidisciplinary approaches to solving twenty-first-century problems while retaining traditional course strengths and content. Design/methodology/approach – The MSEP uses sustainability-themed education models and a multidisciplinary approach to link courses across disciplines. Modules are identified by an overarching question with activities designed to address the overarching question from course-specific perspectives, resulting in students writing short technical reports summarizing their results. Students then read and evaluate technical reports from other classes, and complete a summary activity designed to connect perspectives from different disciplines. Findings – The multi-method assessment identified no loss or gain in discipline-specific learning; increased understanding about the char.
Accommodating Emotionally Handicapped Children through a Literature-Based Reading Program.

But as he was being shoved into the crate, he looked up at Charlotte and gave her a wink. She knew he was saying good-bye in the only way he could. And she knew her children were safe. "Good-bye! " she whispered. Then she sum moned all her strength and waved one of her front legs at him. She never moved again (Char lotte's Web, E.B. White, 1952). The sound of my voice faded slowly into silence. The group of four children sat still. Then Ernie began to sniffle quietly. No one laughed. The moment was pure, and the feel ings of the group were united. All were touched by the sadness of Charlotte's death. Charlotte's Web is a children's classic.
Unit Commitment for Systems With Significant Wind Penetration

The stochastic nature of wind alters the unit commitment and dispatch problem. By accounting for this uncertainty when scheduling the system, more robust schedules are produced, which should, on average, reduce expected costs. In this paper, the effects of stochastic wind and load on the unit commitment and dispatch of power systems with high levels of wind power are examined. By comparing the costs, planned operation and performance of the schedules produced, it is shown that stochastic optimization results in less costly, of the order of 0.25%, and better performing schedules than deterministic optimization. The impact of planning the system more frequently to account for updated wind and load forecasts is then examined. More frequent planning means more up to date forecasts are used, which reduces the need for reserve and increases performance of the schedules. It is shown that mid-merit and peaking units and the interconnection are the most affected parts of the system where uncertainty of wind is concerned.
Extraction of Oil from Wheat Germ by Supercritical CO2

This study examined the supercritical fluid extraction of wheat germ oil. The effects of pressure (200-300 bar at 40 °C) and extraction time on the oil quality/quantity were studied. A comparison was also made between the relative qualities of material obtained by SFE and by organic solvent extraction. The extracts were analyzed for α-tocopherol and polyunsaturated fatty acid content. The maximum wheat germ oil yield at about 9% was obtained with supercritical carbon dioxide extraction at 300 bar, while fatty acid and α-tocopherol composition of the extracts was not remarkable affected by either pressure or the extraction method.
Methylmercury levels in predatory fish species marketed in Canada

Mercury was detected in all analysed samples of swordfish, marlin, shark and tuna purchased from major supermarket outlets and fish retailers in three cities across Canada. Total mercury and methylmercury levels ranged up to 3845 and 2346 ng g−1, respectively. Swordfish contained the highest levels, followed by shark, fresh/frozen tuna and marlin. Levels in canned tuna were considerably less than the other examined samples. Methylmercury was extracted with toluene from enzymatically hydrolysed samples after the addition of sulphuric acid and potassium bromide. An L-cysteine back-extraction was used to separate the methylmercury from most organic co-extractives. Analysis of methylmercury (as methylmercury bromide) was by gas chromatography with pulsed discharge detection.
Microstructural Characterization of Consolidant Products for Historical Renders: An Innovative Nanostructured Lime Dispersion and a More Traditional Ethyl Silicate Limewater Solution

Abstract The conservation and durability of historical renders must be carried out through compatible techniques and materials. An important operation is the restitution of historical renders cohesion, turned friable by the loss of binder, usually due to physical and/or chemical actions. Surface consolidation is based on the use of materials with aggregating properties. This operation is reached usually through the application of organic or mineral consolidants, but inorganic consolidants are becoming preferred due to better compatibility and durability. In this article two mineral compatible consolidation products were studied: a commercial suspension of calcium hydroxide nanoparticles in propanol and a limewater dispersion of ethyl silicate. Microscopy (optical and scanning electron microscopy) and X-ray microanalyses of the consolidation products and of the consolidated mortar specimens were carried out. To assess the mechanical properties and product's efficacy, analyses of the compression, flexural strength, and superficial hardness were performed. Microscopy results show that limewater dispersion of ethyl silicate forms platelike silica gels, which can interfere in product penetration. Otherwise, nanolime particles permit homogeneous distribution and optimum penetration on the treated substrate, improving cementing action and the agglomeration process.
Experimentally testing the role of foundation species in forests: the Harvard Forest Hemlock Removal Experiment

1. Problem statement– Foundation species define and structure ecological systems. In forests around the world, foundation tree species are declining due to overexploitation, pests and pathogens. Eastern hemlock (Tsuga canadensis), a foundation tree species in eastern North America, is threatened by an exotic insect, the hemlock woolly adelgid (Adelges tsugae). The loss of hemlock is hypothesized to result in dramatic changes in assemblages of associated species with cascading impacts on food webs and fluxes of energy and nutrients. We describe the setting, design and analytical framework of the Harvard Forest Hemlock Removal Experiment (HF‐HeRE), a multi‐hectare, long‐term experiment that overcomes many of the major logistical and analytical challenges of studying system‐wide consequences of foundation species loss.
Shannon Entropy in a European Seabass (Dicentrarchus labrax) System during the Initial Recovery Period after a Short-Term Exposure to Methylmercury

Methylmercury (MeHg) is an environmental contaminant of increasing relevance as a seafood safety hazard that affects the health and welfare of fish. Non-invasive, on-line methodologies to monitor and evaluate the behavior of a fish system in aquaculture may make the identification of altered systems feasible—for example, due to the presence of agents that compromise their welfare and wholesomeness—and find a place in the implementation of Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points and Fish Welfare Assurance Systems. The Shannon entropy (SE) of a European seabass (Dicentrarchus labrax) system has been shown to differentiate MeHg-treated from non-treated fish, the former displaying a lower SE value than the latter. However, little is known about the initial evolution of the system after removal of the toxicant. To help to cover this gap, the present work aims at providing information about the evolution of the SE of a European seabass system during a recuperation period of 11 days following a two-week treatment with 4 µg·MeHg/L. The results indicate that the SE of the system did not show a recovery trend during the examined period, displaying erratic responses with daily fluctuations and lacking a tendency to reach the initial SE values.
Open Versus Closed Treatment of the Fibula in Maissoneuve Injuries

Background: Masissoneuve fractures of the proximal half of the fibula are infrequently reported with only a few reports existing recommending closed reduction of the syndesmosis and percutaneous syndesmotic fixation. The purpose of this study was to compare the reduction obtained with open and closed reduction techniques of the fibular fracture with screw fixation of the syndesmosis. Materials and Methods: Twelve patients with acute displaced fibula fractures in the proximal one-half with syndesmotic disruption were enrolled in the study. One orthopedic traumatology team at the time of the study routinely treated these injuries with open reduction of the fibular fracture site with screw fixation of the syndesmosis. The other orthopedic traumatology service routinely treated these patients with a closed reduction of the syndesmosis and percutaneous syndesmotic screw fixation. All syndesmotic injuries were treated with two stainless steel screws. Postoperative reduction was analyzed with a CT scan and plain radiographs to assess rotation, AP translation of the distal fibula, medial and lateral joint space (talofibular space), talocrural angle and superior ankle joint space. Control data from 20 normal ankle CT scans collected in a previous study were used for comparison. Results: There were eight patients in the closed group and four in the open treatment group. A statistically significant difference in the reduction of the syndesmosis was found with the open group showing anatomic or near anatomic reductions in all patients while the closed fibular reduction group showed variable reductions. The talocrural angle was 12.8 degrees in the open group and 9.9 degrees in the closed group. Conclusion: Proximal fibular fractures with syndesmotic disruption can be difficult to treat, especially with closed reduction and percutaneous fixation of the syndesmosis. In this limited series of patients, we found an unacceptable rate of malreduction with closed reduction and percutaneouso fixation and have now abandoned this technique. Level of Evidence: III, Retrosepctive Case Control Study
An Incremental Algorithm for Transition-based CCG Parsing

Incremental parsers have potential advantages for applications like language modeling for machine translation and speech recognition. We describe a new algorithm for incremental transition-based Combinatory Categorial Grammar parsing. As English CCGbank derivations are mostly right branching and non-incremental, we design our algorithm based on the dependencies resolved rather than the derivation. We introduce two new actions in the shift-reduce paradigm based on the idea of ‘revealing’ (Pareschi and Steedman, 1987) the required information during parsing. On the standard CCGbank test data, our algorithm achieved improvements of 0.88% in labeled and 2.0% in unlabeled F-score over a greedy non-incremental shift-reduce parser.
Development of a thermographic laser calorimeter.

A thermographic laser calorimeter for the measurement of absorptance in optical coatings is described. The heat transport equation is solved for a laser-heated disk with a thin-film coating. The solutions are used to calculate the output characteristics of the thermographic scanning system. The absorption and the thermal conductivity of oxide coatings (SiO2, TiO2, HfO2, Al2O3, and Ta2O5) were measured. Results lead to the conclusion that there is a considerable difference between the thermal properties of the coating and the corresponding bulk material.
Progenitor cells divide symmetrically to generate new colony‐forming cells and clonal heterogeneity

Summary. Self‐renewal is the most fundamental property of haemopoietic stem and progenitor cells. However, because of the need to produce differentiated cells, not all cell divisions involve self‐renewal. We have used a colony replating assay to follow the fates of individual haemopoietic progenitor cell clones. For this, human myeloid colony‐forming cells (CFCs) were cultured by standard methodology. Onset of proliferation and growth rates were established by a video recording method. Individual colonies were replated several times to document the rate of clonal extinction, and the numbers of secondary, tertiary and quaternary CFCs. The clonogenic population exhibited similar kinetics in terms of onset of proliferation and growth rate. Clonal extinction was progressive so that only 30 ± 7% (mean ± standard error of the mean; n = 4) of the original primary colonies formed quaternary colonies after the third replating step. However, individual primary CFCs that produced colonies throughout the experiment generated, on average, 40 ± 8 secondary and tertiary CFCs overall. The values obtained in standard culture conditions were modified when granulocyte colony‐stimulating factor (G‐CSF) or G‐CSF plus interleukin 3 were used to stimulate colony growth, showing that the kinetics of colony formation respond to extrinsic regulation. Examination of the replating potential of individual secondary colonies in the clones demonstrated that they generated different numbers of tertiary colonies. The data best fit a stochastic model of haemopoietic cell development where event probabilities can be modified by extracellular factors.
The Basis of Shooter Biases

White police officers and undergraduate students mistakenly shoot unarmed Black suspects more than White suspects on computerized shoot/don’t shoot tasks. This bias is typically attributed to cultural stereotypes of Black men. Yet, previous research has not examined whether such biases emerge even in the absence of cultural stereotypes. The current research investigates whether individual differences in chronic beliefs about interpersonal threat interact with target group membership to elicit shooter biases, even when group membership is unrelated to race or cultural stereotypes about danger. Across two studies, participants with strong beliefs about interpersonal threats were more likely to mistakenly shoot outgroup members than ingroup members; this was observed for unfamiliar, arbitrarily formed groups using a minimal group paradigm (Study 1) and racial groups not culturally stereotyped as dangerous (Asians; Study 2). Implications for the roles of both group membership and cultural stereotypes in shaping decisions to shoot are discussed.