Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Housing and Urbanization in Africa: Unleashing a Formal Market Process

The accumulation of decent housing matters both because of the difference it makes to living standards and because of its centrality to economic development. The consequences for living standards are far-reaching. In addition to directly conferring utility, decent housing improves health and enables children to do homework. It frees up women's time and enables them to participate in the labor market. More subtly, a home and its environs affect identity and self-respect. Commentary on the emergence of an African middle class has become common, but it is being defined in terms of discretionary spending and potential for consumer markets. A politically more salient definition of a middle class will be in terms of home ownership and the consequent stake in economic stability. This paper examines why such a process has not happened in Africa. The hypothesis is that the peculiarity of housing exposes it to multiple points of vulnerability not found together either in private consumer goods or in other capital goods. Each point of vulnerability can be addressed by appropriate government policies, but addressing only one or two of them has little payoff if the others remain unresolved. Further, the vulnerabilities faced by housing are the responsibility of distinct branches of government, with little natural collaboration. Unblocking multiple impediments to housing therefore requires coordination that can come only from the head of government: ministries of housing have neither the political weight nor the analytic capacity to play this role effectively. Yet in Africa, housing has never received such high political priority. This in turn is because the centrality of housing in well-being and of housing investment in development has not been sufficiently appreciated.
Fast Automatic Precision Tree Models from Terrestrial Laser Scanner Data

This paper presents a new method for constructing quickly and automatically precision tree models from point clouds of the trunk and branches obtained by terrestrial laser scanning. The input of the method is a point cloud of a single tree scanned from multiple positions. The surface of the visible parts of the tree is robustly reconstructed by making a flexible cylinder model of the tree. The thorough quantitative model records also the topological branching structure. In this paper, every major step of the whole model reconstruction process, from the input to the finished model, is presented in detail. The model is constructed by a local approach in which the point cloud is covered with small sets corresponding to connected surface patches in the tree surface. The neighbor-relations and geometrical properties of these cover sets are used to reconstruct the details of the tree and, step by step, the whole tree. The point cloud and the sets are segmented into branches, after which the branches are modeled as collections of cylinders. From the model, the branching structure and size properties, such as volume and branch size distributions, for the whole tree or some of its parts, can be approximated. The approach is validated using both measured and modeled terrestrial laser scanner data from real trees and detailed 3D models. The results show that the method allows an easy extraction of various tree attributes from terrestrial or mobile laser scanning point clouds.
Classroom-based Inequalities and Achievement Gaps in First Grade: The Role of Classroom Context and Access to Qualified and Effective Teachers

Background An enduring question about achievement gaps is, which aspects of schools contribute most? At the early grade levels, when children spend the vast majority of their school day in a single classroom with a single teacher, school inequities that correlate with achievement gaps likely originate within the classroom. This study examined the degree to which three potential sources of classroom-based inequality contribute to reading and math achievement gaps that develop during first grade, including classroom context, access to a qualified teachers, and access to an effective teacher. The study also estimated the degree to which these effects are manifested among classrooms within the same school and between classrooms at different schools, which has implications for policy and practice. Population A nationally representative sample of first graders from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study was used. An important feature of ECLS data is that students were administered reading and math achievement tests near the beginning and near the end of first grade. This sampling design allows for the estimation of student achievement gains during first grade that does not include the summer period, which has confounded past efforts to study achievement gaps. Research Design Multilevel models were used to estimate classroom-specific and school-specific random effects (i.e., residuals), which are conceptualized as within- and between-school classroom effects. These random effects were then used as outcomes to estimate the degree to which within- and between-school classroom effects contribute to Black–White and Hispanic– White achievement gaps that develop during first grade. Covariates for classroom context, access to a qualified teacher, and access to an effective teacher were entered into the model hierarchically to isolate their effects on the gaps. Conclusions Classroom inequality within and between schools contributed substantially to achievement gaps that developed during first grade. Inequality in contextual aspects of classrooms was the most prominent school-based factor, the majority of which originated from classrooms in different schools rather than classrooms in the same school. However, compared to White children attending the same school, Black children tended to be members of a classroom with more negative contextual characteristics and a less effective teacher. This within-school inequity likely stems from non-random assignment of students to teachers. Finally, Black and Hispanic children were slightly less likely to be taught by a highly qualified teacher. However, that inequity did not significantly contribute to achievement gaps.
Security and Privacy Considerations for IoT Application on Smart Grids: Survey and Research Challenges

The emergence and evolution of Internet of Things (IoT) offers great advantages to improve substantially the management over electricity consumption and distribution to the benefit of consumers, suppliers and grid operators. However, introducing IoT related devices and technologies in smart grids might lead to new security and privacy challenges. Though necessary technological innovations to ensure secure communication are being developed, more work is still required towards more secure standards for communication between devices and Smart Grids. This paper provides an overview about the security and privacy challenges of IoT applications in smart grids. Furthermore, we highlight and analyze some solutions and practices being used to cope with security and privacy requirements for IoT on deployment and management of smart grid. We address three types of challenge domains: customer domain, information and communication domain, and the grid domain.
Swimming Metabolism of Yearling and Adult Harbor Seals Phoca vitulina

The swimming metabolism of yearling and adult harbor seals was measured by indirect calorimetry in a flow channel at speeds ranging from 0.5 to 1.4 m·s−1. Minimum resting metabolic rates in still water were 5.1 and 4.6 ml O2·min−1·kg−1 for the two yearling seals (body mass [Mb] = 33 kg) and one adult seal (Mb = 63 kg), respectively. Minimum resting metabolic rates were about 1.1 × the predicted standard metabolic rate for mammals of equivalent size. During steady-state swimming, metabolism increased curvilinearly with speed and was best described by the equation V̇o2 (ml O2·min−1·kg−1) = 5.1 + 6.25 velocity (m·s−1)1.42 for the yearling seals and V̇o2 = 4.6 + 3.1 velocity1.42 for the adult seal. Stroke frequency increased linearly as a function of swimming speed. Cost of transport decreased asymptotically with swim velocity, approaching a minimum at 1.0–1.4 m·s−1 of 3.6 J·m−1·kg−1 for yearling and 2.3 J·m−1·kg−1 for adult seals. The minimum cost of transport was less than for other semiaquatic birds and mammals but 3–4 × the predicted value for salmonid fish of equivalent size at 25 C.
THE STUDIES ON THE PHYSICO-CHEMICAL AND ORGANOLEPTIC CHARACTERISTICS OF APRICOT ( PRUNUS ARMENIACA L.) PRODUCED IN RAWALAKOT, AZAD JAMMU AND KASHMIR DURING STORAGE

A highly significant effect (p<0.05) of storage period on physico-chemical characteristics and sensory parameters of Apricot fruit produced in Rawalakot areas of Azad Jammu and Kashmir was investigated at ambient temperature (Relative humidity 60-63% and temperature 28-30 C). The physicoo chemical characteristics such as weight loss, total soluble solids, titratable acidity, ascorbic acid and sensory parameters like color, texture, taste, flavour and overall acceptability were studied at an interval of 2 days (0, 2 , 4 , 6 , 8 and 10 day) for a total period of 10 days during storage. It was observed that there nd th th th th was an increasing trend of weight loss (0.00% at 1 day to 12.68% at 8 day of storage), gradual increase st th in TSS (11.8% at 1 day to 12.63% at 8 day of storage and then decreased to 5.22% at 10 day), decreasing st th th trend of titratable acidity (0.94% at 1 day to 0.10% at 10 day) and ascorbic acid (14 mg/100 g at 1 day to st th st 3.760 mg/100 g at 10 day). The organoleptic characteristics showed a gradual increase of colour scores th (4.00 at 1 day to 5.25 at 8 day and at later stage this score was decreased to 1.97 at 10 day of storage), st th th decrease of texture scores (7 at 1 day to 1.97 at 10 day) whereas, taste was increased to maximum st th scores (6.53 at 4 day and then decreased to 2.27 at 8 day of storage period), the flavour score was th th increased (5.00 at 1 day to 6.77 at 6 day and then decreased to 2.41 at 10 day of storage). The overall st th th acceptability score was decreased with the passage of storage period and the highest overall acceptability score was 7.5 at 1 day in the fresh fruit that was reduced to a score 2.1 at the end of 10 day of storage. st th
Photoevaporation of Circumstellar Disks Due to External Far-Ultraviolet Radiation in Stellar Aggregates

When stars form within small groups (with N* ≈ 100-500 members), their circumstellar disks are exposed to relatively little extreme-ultraviolet (EUV; hν > 13.6 eV) radiation but a great deal of far-ultraviolet (FUV; 6 eV < hν < 13.6 eV) radiation (~103 times the local interstellar FUV field) from the most massive stars in the group. This paper calculates the mass-loss rates and evaporation timescales for circumstellar disks exposed to external FUV radiation. Previous work treated large disks and/or intense radiation fields in which the disk radius rd exceeds the critical radius rg where the sound speed in the FUV heated surface layer exceeds the escape speed; it has often been assumed that photoevaporation occurs for rd > rg and is negligible for rd < rg. Since rg ≳ 100 AU for FUV heating, this would imply little mass loss from the planet-forming regions of a disk. In this paper we focus on systems in which photoevaporation is suppressed because rd < rg and show that significant mass loss still takes place as long as rd/rg ≳ 0.1-0.2. Some of the gas extends beyond the disk edge (or above the disk surface) to larger distances where the temperature is higher, the escape speed is lower, and an outflow develops. The resulting evaporation rate is a sensitive function of the central stellar mass and disk radius, which determine the escape speed, and the external FUV flux, which determines the temperature structure of the surface layers and outflowing gas. Disks around red dwarfs, low-mass stars with M* ≲ 0.5 M☉, are evaporated and shrink to disk radii rd ≲ 15 AU on short timescales t ≲ 10 Myr when exposed to moderate FUV fields with G0 = 3000 (where G0 = 1.7 for the local interstellar FUV field). The disks around solar-type stars are more durable. For intense FUV radiation fields with G0 = 30,000, however, even these disks shrink to rd ≲ 15 AU on timescales t ~ 10 Myr. Such fields exist within about 0.7 pc of the center of a cluster with N* ≈ 4000 stars. If our solar system formed in the presence of such strong FUV radiation fields, this mechanism could explain why Neptune and Uranus in our solar system are gas-poor, whereas Jupiter and Saturn are relatively gas-rich. This mechanism for photoevaporation can also limit the production of Kuiper Belt objects and can suppress giant planet formation in sufficiently large clusters, such as the Hyades, especially for disks associated with low-mass stars.
Interest Rate Determination in the Interbank Market

The purpose of this paper is to study the determinants of equilibrium in the market for daily funds. We use the EONIA panel database which includes daily information on the lending rates applied by contributing commercial banks. The data clearly shows an increase in both the time series volatility and the cross section dispersion of rates towards the end of the reserve maintenance period. These increases are highly correlated. With respect to quantities, we find that the volume of trade as well as the use of the standing facilities are also larger at the end of the maintenance period. Our theoretical model shows how the operational framework of monetary policy causes a reduction in the elasticity of the supply of funds by banks throughout the reserve maintenance period. This reduction in the elasticity together with market segmentation and heterogeneity are able to generate distributions for the interest rates and quantities traded with the same properties as in the data.
On the Role of Helpers in Peer-to-Peer File Download Systems: Design, Analysis and Simulation

While BitTorrent has been successfully used in peerto-peer content distribution, its performance is limited by the fact that typical internet users have much lower upload bandwidths than download bandwidths. This asymmetry in bandwidth results in the overall average download speed of a BitTorrent-like file download system to be bottle-necked by the much lower upload capacity. This motivates our approach in which we utilize idle users’ spare upload capacity to significantly improve the download speed beyond what can be achieved in a conventional BitTorrent network. We show that this is possible even if these idle users (or helpers) download only a tiny fraction of the file. In fact, in terms of uplink utilization, these helpers can be almost as effective as seeders for medium to large swarms. In this work, we design such a system that is fully compatible with the existing clients who conform to the BitTorrent protocol, analyze its steady-state performance and present simulation results.
Outcomes and costs of implementing a community-based intervention for hypertension in an urban slum in Kenya

Abstract Objective To describe the processes, outcomes and costs of implementing a multi-component, community-based intervention for hypertension among adults aged > 35 years in a large slum in Nairobi, Kenya. Methods The intervention in 2012–2013 was based on four components: awareness-raising; improved access to screening; standardized clinical management of hypertension; and long-term retention in care. Using multiple sources of data, including administrative records and surveys, we described the inputs and outputs of each intervention activity and estimated the outcomes of each component and the impact of the intervention. We also estimated the costs associated with implementation, using a top-down costing approach. Findings The intervention reached 60% of the target population (4049/6780 people), at a cost of 17 United States dollars (US$) per person screened and provided access to treatment for 68% (660/976) of people referred, at a cost of US$ 123 per person with hypertension who attended the clinic. Of the 660 people who attended the clinic, 27% (178) were retained in care, at a cost of US$ 194 per person retained; and of those patients, 33% (58/178) achieved blood pressure control. The total intervention cost per patient with blood pressure controlled was US$ 3205. Conclusion With moderate implementation costs, it was possible to achieve hypertension awareness and treatment levels comparable to those in high-income settings. However, retention in care and blood pressure control were challenges in this slum setting. For patients, the costs and lack of time or forgetfulness were barriers to retention in care.
Strict Ideal Completions of the Lambda Calculus

The infinitary lambda calculi pioneered by Kennaway et al. extend the basic lambda calculus by metric completion to infinite terms and reductions. Depending on the chosen metric, the resulting infinitary calculi exhibit different notions of strictness. To obtain infinitary normalisation and infinitary confluence properties for these calculi, Kennaway et al. extend $\beta$-reduction with infinitely many `$\bot$-rules', which contract meaningless terms directly to $\bot$. Three of the resulting B\"ohm reduction calculi have unique infinitary normal forms corresponding to B\"ohm-like trees. In this paper we develop a corresponding theory of infinitary lambda calculi based on ideal completion instead of metric completion. We show that each of our calculi conservatively extends the corresponding metric-based calculus. Three of our calculi are infinitarily normalising and confluent; their unique infinitary normal forms are exactly the B\"ohm-like trees of the corresponding metric-based calculi. Our calculi dispense with the infinitely many $\bot$-rules of the metric-based calculi. The fully non-strict calculus (called $111$) consists of only $\beta$-reduction, while the other two calculi (called $001$ and $101$) require two additional rules that precisely state their strictness properties: $\lambda x. \bot \to \bot$ (for $001$) and $\bot\,M \to \bot$ (for $001$ and $101$).
A LINE-OF-SIGHT GALAXY CLUSTER COLLISION: SIMULATED X-RAY OBSERVATIONS

Several lines of evidence have suggested that the galaxy cluster Cl 0024+17, an apparently relaxed system, is actually a collision of two clusters, the interaction occurring along our line of sight. In this paper, we present a high-resolution N-body/hydrodynamics simulation of such a collision. We have created mock X-ray observations of our simulated system using MARX, a program that simulates the on-orbit performance of the Chandra X-ray Observatory. We analyze these simulated data to generate radial profiles of the surface brightness and temperature. At later times, t = 2.0–3.0 Gyr after the collision, the simulated surface brightness profiles are better fit by a superposition of two β-model profiles than a single profile, in agreement with the observations of Cl 0024+17. In general, due to projection effects, much of the post-collision density and temperature structure of the clusters is not seen in the observations. In particular, the observed temperatures from spectral fitting are much lower than the temperature of the hottest gas. We determine from our fitted profiles that if the system is modeled as a single cluster, the hydrostatic mass estimate is a factor ∼2–3 less than the actual mass, but if the system is modeled as two galaxy clusters in superposition, a hydrostatic mass estimation can be made which is accurate to within ∼10%. We examine some implications of these results for galaxy cluster X-ray surveys.
Five-year follow-up of bilateral stimulation of the subthalamic nucleus in advanced Parkinson's disease.

BACKGROUND Although the short-term benefits of bilateral stimulation of the subthalamic nucleus in patients with advanced Parkinson's disease have been well documented, the long-term outcomes of the procedure are unknown. METHODS We conducted a five-year prospective study of the first 49 consecutive patients whom we treated with bilateral stimulation of the subthalamic nucleus. Patients were assessed at one, three, and five years with levodopa (on medication) and without levodopa (off medication), with use of the Unified Parkinson's Disease Rating Scale. Seven patients did not complete the study: three died, and four were lost to follow-up. RESULTS As compared with base line, the patients' scores at five years for motor function while off medication improved by 54 percent (P<0.001) and those for activities of daily living improved by 49 percent (P<0.001). Speech was the only motor function for which off-medication scores did not improve. The scores for motor function on medication did not improve one year after surgery, except for the dyskinesia scores. On-medication akinesia, speech, postural stability, and freezing of gait worsened between year 1 and year 5 (P<0.001 for all comparisons). At five years, the dose of dopaminergic treatment and the duration and severity of levodopa-induced dyskinesia were reduced, as compared with base line (P<0.001 for each comparison). The average scores for cognitive performance remained unchanged, but dementia developed in three patients after three years. Mean depression scores remained unchanged. Severe adverse events included a large intracerebral hemorrhage in one patient. One patient committed suicide. CONCLUSIONS Patients with advanced Parkinson's disease who were treated with bilateral stimulation of the subthalamic nucleus had marked improvements over five years in motor function while off medication and in dyskinesia while on medication. There was no control group, but worsening of akinesia, speech, postural stability, freezing of gait, and cognitive function between the first and the fifth year is consistent with the natural history of Parkinson's disease.
Some effects of physical abuse on children being treated by the N.S.P.C.C.

The total sample studied consists of 26 children who had sustained physical injury at the hands of their parents and whose families were receiving social work treatment, mostly from the N. S. P. C. C. The children were all under 4 years old on referral, but by the time of this research a few were aged up to 6 years. The research was carried out in 1972-3 when there was still very little information on the effects of child abuse, and so the aims of the research were broadly based, It set out to investigate 2 main areas: levels of cognitive development, and the personal functioning of the child within his family, nursery and at play. Wherever possible comparisons were made with uninjured matched controls. The research instruments for the cognitive assessments were the Bayley Scales of Infant Development, the Stanford-Binet Form L-M, and the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test. The Family Relations Test was used to determine the child's perception of his position in the family, behaviour rating schedules were filled in by staff of a therapeutic nursery on each child and his mother, and a doll play sequence further investigated the child's reactions to various pretend domestic events. The results of the developmental tests showed that on referral most abused children were developmentally retarded, with those under 2 years of age receiving the lowest scores. After several years of treatment most achieved normal levels, with those children in a therapeutic nursery receiving the highest scores. The P. P. V. T. results were below the norm even after prolonged treatment, and therefore speech therapy is recommended in future treatment programmes. The Family Relations Test showed that abused children, particularly boys, had distorted relationships within their families, indicated by a low involvement with their mothers, and a tendency to deny hostility towards or from her. In contrast, their relationships with fathers and siblings seemed more realistic and affectionate. The doll play sequence suggested that abused children were more aggressive than their controls, while the schedules revealed behavioural problems in all children, which lessened, but did not cease, after a therapeutic nursery placement.