Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Effect of aqueous extract of Azadirachta Indica leaves on hepatotoxicity induced by antitubercular drugs in rats

Objective: To assess the hepatoprotective activity of Azadirachta indica (AI) aqueous leaf extract on antitubercular drugs-induced hepatotoxicity in albino rats. Methods: Hepatotoxicity was induced in rats by combination of isoniazid, rifampicin and pyrazinamide given orally as suspension for 30 days. Treatment groups received Al aqueous leaf extract along with antitubercular drugs. In the second phase of study the effect of Al aqueous leaf extract on established hepatotoxicity was studied by giving the extract for 20 days after withdrawal of antitubercular drugs. Liver damage was assessed by biochemical and histological parameters. Results: Alaqueous leaf extract significantly (P<0.05) prevented changes in the serum levels of bilirubin, protein, alanine aminotransferase, aspartate aminotransferase and alkaline phosphatase. Similarly it significantly prevented the histological changes as compared to the group receiving antitubercular drugs. It also significantly reversed the biochemical and histological changes. Conclusion: Al aqueous leaf extract significantly prevents and reverses the hepatotoxic damage induced by antitubercular drugs in rats.
The Future of Volunteers in Crisis Hotline Work

Background: Crisis hotlines play an important part in suicide prevention by providing a service where individuals contemplating suicide can be immediately, and confidentially, connected with a caring person trained in crisis intervention. Historically, the caring people staffing crisis hotlines were community volunteers. The past decade has been characterized by the professionalization of crisis hotline work, which has led to the development of best practices and enabled hotlines to increase their effectiveness in serving their communities. At the same time, the number of crisis hotlines staffed by paid phone workers has increased while the number of volunteer-staffed crisis hotlines has declined. Objective: The goal of this study is to describe a sample of crisis hotlines that use volunteers, to assess the strengths and limitations of using volunteers in crisis hotline work, and to determine where these programs are most in need of support. Methods: Semi-structured interviews were conducted with hotline staff to explore the experience of staffing a hotline with volunteers. The interviews were recorded and transcribed. The transcript data was analyzed using a general inductive approach. Results: Eight people were interviewed and six summary categories emerged from the interview data: Hotline Administration, Professionalization, Training, Supporting Volunteers, Maintaining a Volunteer Corps, and Volunteer Performance. Conclusions: In order to stay viable, crisis hotlines need to leverage their assets, including phone services and training programs, to generate funds and/or engage in strategic collaborations. Providing sufficient support for volunteers, including onsite supervision, and promoting a culture of connectedness will enable hotlines to cultivate a robust volunteer corps. Public Health Significance: Suicide is a complex public health problem that accounts for more than 35,000 deaths in the United States annually and affects countless others who have lost a loved one to suicide or who have attempted suicide themselves. Community volunteers who serve on crisis hotlines play an important role in suicide prevention by conducting interventions on the hotline and also acting as “ambassadors for suicide prevention” out in the community when they are not working on the hotline.
Medical Student Demographics and Attitudes as Predictors for Future Rural Practice

Introduction: American medical schools are struggling to identify students who would consider a career in rural health. The deficiency of healthcare professionals in rural locations is widespread across the U.S., and it is projected that the shortage will worsen at the current rate which students are going into rural practice. The lack of easy access to health care for rural residents is of public health significance. The purpose of this study was to examine changes in medical student interests and attitudes relating to rural location and its needed specialists medical students over time, as well as identifying which demographic information, interests, and attitudes that significantly predict interest in future rural practice. Methods: The study participants were first and second year medical students at an allopathic medical school in the U.S. who were enrolled in an introductory clinical skills course. We sought to identify differences in survey responses between first-year and second-year medical students at the beginning and end of Academic Year 2010 on items relating to work setting, motivations for pursuing a medical career or specialty, interest in underserved populations, and attitudes toward primary care. Principle components analysis was used to extract linear composite variables (LCV) from responses to each group of questions; ordinary least squares (OLS) regression was then used to identify potential demographic and attitudinal predictors for future rural practice. Results: Interest in rural health and its needed specialties significantly declined over the pre-clinical years. Rural background, interest in generalist specialties, and idealistic motivations were consistent positive predictors for future rural practice. Marital status and being female were also found to positively predict interest in rural practice, while being in the second year of medical school was found to decrease interest in future rural practice. Importance of money, prestige, and lifestyle in choice of career was found to negatively impact the likelihood of rural practice. Conclusion: The results support previous research suggesting rural background, interest in generalist specialties, and idealistic motivations are positive predictors for future rural practice. Female gender and white race were inconsistent in their significance as predictors, and should be studied further.
Drone challenge: A platform for promoting programming and robotics skills in K-12 education

The development of skills related to computer programming and robotics and the introduction of computational thinking principles in high schools are worldwide trends today. An effective way of initiating young students in this world consists in proposing them stimulating challenges. This work presents a robotic platform that has been successfully used to develop a competition (called Drone Challenge) in which students had to program the navigation system for a simulated unmanned aerial vehicle (or drone). Both the competition and the supporting platform are described in detail. In particular, the article provides a deep technical description of the main components of the platform, namely the drone simulator and the navigation development framework. The results of the survey conducted after the challenge point to the suitability of the working platform deployed.
Joint agency in Human-Machine Interactions: How to design more cooperative agents ? (Agentivité conjointe lors des Interactions Homme-Machine : comment concevoir des agents plus coopératifs ?)

A travers l’automatisation des systemes, les mutations technologiques ont progressivement eloigne l’operateur humain des actions et des effets generes par les machines. Ce phenomene de « sortie de boucle » (Kaber, Onal, & Endsley, 2000) a genere un ensemble de difficultes pour l’operateur humain qui reste encore aujourd’hui difficile a apprehender et compenser. Au cours de cette these, nous avons propose le cadre theorique de l’Agentivite pour tenter d’expliquer et de compenser ces difficultes. De maniere interessante, il a ete montre qu’au cours des interactions humaines, les individus pouvaient ressentir un sens d’agentivite pour des actions et effets generes par autrui (ou « sens d’agentivite conjoint »). En revanche, la capacite a developper un sens d’agentivite conjoint et a se representer les actions generees par une machine semble alteree lors des interactions homme-machine (Obhi & Hall, 2011b). La premiere partie de la these a consiste a examiner les mecanismes de cette perte d’agentivite lors de tâches conjointes avec des systemes automatises, aux niveaux comportemental (Experience 1) et cerebral (Experience 2). La deuxieme partie de la these visait a determiner sur quelles proprietes de la machine il etait possible d’agir pour recreer un sens d’agentivite conjoint, en utilisant une approche top-down (Experience 3) puis bottom-up (Experience 4). Les implications de nos resultats sont discutees au regard de la litterature sur l’Agentivite et de la problematique operationnelle du phenomene de « sortie de boucle ».
A generic housing grammar for the generation of different housing languages : a generic housing shape grammar for Palladian villas, Prairie and Malagueira houses

Shape grammars have traditionally described a design language and replicated it using a procedure. In the majority of existing studies, one language corresponded to one grammar and vice versa; the generative procedure was univocal and language specific. Generic grammars, which are capable of describing multiple design languages, potentially allow greater flexibility and help describe not only languages but relationships between languages. This study proposes a generic housing process based on a parametric shape grammar, and uses this to investigate relationships between several grammars or families of designs. A study case of three single housing grammars was selected using the Palladian villas, Prairie and Malagueira houses. Specific parameterisation confers the sense of style required to define a language. From the generated corpora two methods were exercised to explore two research questions: 1. A qualitative method tested how the parametric space of a shape grammar corresponded with our intuition of similarities and differences amongst designs. This was performed using a set of questionnaires posed to both laymen and expert observers. 2. A quantitative method was used to test how well the parametric space of a shape grammar coincided with the design space expressed by the different corpora. Principal Components Analysis was used to inform if the set of parameters used to design the solutions would group into clusters. Results indicate that the expected relationships between individual designs are captured by the generic grammar. The design solutions generated by the generic grammar were also naturally perceived by observers and clustering was identified amongst language related design solutions. A tool such as a generic shape grammar captures the principles of design as described by the generative shape rules and its parameterisation, which can be used in academia, practice or analysis to explore design.
SINDBAD SAILS: A service architecture for inductive learning schemes

The paper presents SINDBAD SAILS (Service Architecture for Inductive Learning Schemes), a Web Service interface to the inductive database SINDBAD. To the best of our knowledge, it is the first time a Web Service interface is provided for an inductive database. The combination of service-oriented architectures and inductive databases is particularly useful, as it enables distributed data mining without the need to install specialized data mining or machine learning software. Moreover, inductive queries can easily be used in almost any kind of programming language. The paper discusses the underlying concepts and explains a sample program making use of SINDBAD SAILS.
2011 National Survey of School Counselors: Counseling at a Crossroads.

About the Kresge Foundation The Kresge Foundation is a $2.9 billion private, national foundation that seeks to influence the quality of life for future generations through its support of nonprofit organizations in six fields of interest: arts and culture, community development, education, the environment, health, and human services. Fostering greater access to and success in postsecondary education for low-income, minority and first-generation college students is the focus of Kresge's Education grantmaking. In 2010, Kresge awarded more than $23 million in grants to support higher education in the United States and South Africa.
Clients satisfactions in ISO certified health clinic in Klinik Kesihatan Bandar Baru Bangi, Selangor and its associated factors

Background : All healthcare services are moving towards quality management system including ISO 9000 due to pressure from various stakeholders involves and also to improve healthcare quality. The objective of this study was to measure the satisfaction level among the outpatients in ISO Certified Klinik Kesihatan Bandar Baru Bangi, Selangor. Also to identify the relations of patient’s satisfaction with the sociodemographic factors and service dimensions such as general satisfactions, technical quality of clinic staffs, interpersonal aspect of clinic staffs, time with doctors, communications with clinic staffs and availability/accessibility of clinic. Methodology : A cross sectional study was carried out from February 2008 to Jun 2008 and a total of 240 respondents in the clinic were selected using universal sampling. Only those who are Malaysians aged 18 and above and complied with the inclusions criteria’s were selected as the respondents to fill up the Patient’s Satisfaction Questionnaire III. Result : The study found that the satisfaction level of the respondents in Klinik Kesihatan Bandar Baru Bangi, Selangor were remarkable with 78.8%. It has been shown that the predictor factors of total patient’s satisfaction were general satisfaction (AOR=5.06, CI= 1.51-16.96), technical quality of clinic staff (AOR = 3.09, CI= 1.13-8.43), interpersonal aspect of clinic staff (AOR = 2.96,CI= 1.04-8.42), availability/accessibility of clinic (AOR = 9.38, CI= 9.37-87.95) and communication of clinic staff ( AOR=17.90, CI=3.74-85.73) with the R2 = 67.7%. Conclusion : The satisfaction level among the respondents in Klinik Kesihatan Bandar Baru Bangi, Selangor were remarkable with percentages of 78.8%. The study has shown that service dimensions factor influenced the patient’s satisfaction such as general satisfaction, interpersonal aspect of staff, communication of staff, technical quality of clinic staff and availability/accessibility of clinic. It could have also been contributed by the implementation of ISO and it can only be confirmed by carrying out a comparison study of patient’s satisfaction in clinics with and without ISO certification.
A Profile of Counselor Educators at Council for the Accreditation of Counseling and Related Educational Program Institutions.

ABSTRACT There is considerable interest in the issue of accrediting counselor education programs and in examining the contributions of faculty members to their profession. To investigate the characteristics of the faculty in accredited counselor education programs, a survey was sent to all faculty members in 22 accredited institutions. Data were collected on their general characteristics, teaching load, areas of primary interest, and state and national credentials. An analysis of the results showed that the majority of faculty members are white, middle-aged males. Fifty-three percent hold the Doctor of Philosophy degree and 46% hold Doctor of Education degrees. The majority are tenured professors in counselor education. Teaching was indicated as the preferred professional activity of the respondents. Thirty-five percent of the group are licensed and 19% hold counselor certification. The majority have professional memberships in a variety of counseling related associations. A total of 50% have published between 0 and 11 articles, while 23% have published 20 or more articles. Eighty-three percent of the respondents have engaged in paid consulting activities. These findings provide baseline data to facilitate meaningful comparisons of faculty members at accredited and non-accredited counselor education programs. (BL)
Beyond Pixel Norm-Balls: Parametric Adversaries using an Analytically Differentiable Renderer

Many machine learning image classifiers are vulnerable to adversarial attacks, inputs with perturbations designed to intentionally trigger misclassification. Current adversarial methods directly alter pixel colors and evaluate against pixel norm-balls: pixel perturbations smaller than a specified magnitude, according to a measurement norm. This evaluation, however, has limited practical utility since perturbations in the pixel space do not correspond to underlying real-world phenomena of image formation that lead to them and has no security motivation attached. Pixels in natural images are measurements of light that has interacted with the geometry of a physical scene. As such, we propose the direct perturbation of physical parameters that underly image formation: lighting and geometry. As such, we propose a novel evaluation measure, parametric norm-balls, by directly perturbing physical parameters that underly image formation. One enabling contribution we present is a physically-based differentiable renderer that allows us to propagate pixel gradients to the parametric space of lighting and geometry. Our approach enables physically-based adversarial attacks, and our differentiable renderer leverages models from the interactive rendering literature to balance the performance and accuracy trade-offs necessary for a memory-efficient and scalable adversarial data augmentation workflow.
Lexical hybridization of English and German elements: a comparison between spoken German and the language of the German newsmagazine Der Spiegel

The influence of English on German has resulted in not only the direct importation of a vast number of English loanwords but also their hybridization with native German elements. The most common types of language hybrids, or loanblends, using Haugen’s (1950) terminology, in German include blended compounds containing one element from the source language and another from the receptor language (e.g. Businessbereich ‘business sector’ and Krafttraining ‘strength training’) in addition to blended derivations where autochthonous derivational affixes are attached to English stems (e.g. sportlich ‘sporty’ and rumsurfen ‘to surf around’). This paper contributes to the investigation of how, and to what extent, English elements become morphologically embedded into German by analyzing the English-German hybrid formations from a corpus of everyday spoken German (42,429 types and 1,280,773 tokens) and the texts appearing in the Spiegel newsmagazine from the year 2000 (287,301 types and 5,202,583 tokens). General findings indicate that the most common form of hybridization is the compounding of English specifiers with German heads and much less the attachment of German morphemes (both derivational affixes and semi-affixes) to English stems in both spoken and written texts. These forms of hybridization demonstrate both the productive word formation processes of German as well as its contact-induced lexical enrichment beyond the mere direct borrowing of loanwords. However, when analyzed separately, the most frequently-occurring specifiers and heads were anglicisms. A slight preference for German affixation (affixes and semi-affixes) was found in the spoken corpus with the Spiegel corpus containing more English semi-affixes.
Making Schools Smarter: A System for Monitoring School and District Progress. Second Edition.

Introduction Making Schools Smarter PART ONE: BASIC ASSUMPTIONS ABOUT SCHOOLS AND DISTRICTS Clarifying Assumptions Three Perspectives What Is a Learning Organization? PART TWO: EDUCATIONAL INPUTS AND OUTPUTS What Are Schools Given to Work with? What Ought to Be Accomplished? PART THREE: CRITICAL PROCESSES AND CONDITIONS Mission and Goals, Organizational Culture The Core Tasks of Planning, Managing, Leading, and Instructing Structure and Organization, Information Collection, and Decision Making Policies and Procedures, Community Partnerships PART FOUR: USING SCHOOL AND DISTRICT MONITORING INFORMATION Guidelines for Ensuring Productive Use of Monitoring Information PART FIVE: THE SURVEYS AND THEIR APPLICATION Collecting, Analyzing, and Interpreting Monitoring Information The District Surveys The School Surveys
Measurements in the Early Stage Software Start-ups: A Multiple Case Study in a Nascent Ecosystem

Abstract Context: Software measurement is crucial to stay competitive and deliver quality software products. Problem: While much research has been done on measurement in large companies in developed countries, there is limited research on measurement in start-ups. So far there are no studies on whether these results apply to nascent ecosystems, such as those in East Africa. Goal: The aim of this study is to understand the use and perceived benefits of measurement in software start-ups in East Africa. Method: We performed a multi-case study on 19 software start-ups in hubs in Uganda and Kenya, through conducting semi-structured interviews. We transcribed and analyzed them using the content analysis technique. Results: We identified that start-ups are using a number of business and product-oriented metrics. Furthermore, we found no evidence on the use of design-oriented metrics. Nonetheless, start-ups have considerable expectations on the benefits of measuring. Finally, metrics found in this study partially differ from metrics used in start-ups in developed countries. Conclusion: There is a need to create a more inclusive characterization for measurement as early start-ups in East Africa cannot yet be represented with known models.
Lenthening of Tibia in CPT by Ilizarov's Method

Abstarct A case of Congenital Pseudarthrosis of Tibia (CPT) with 24 centimetres shortening in a young boy of eighteen years treated by Ilizarov’s method is presented. No features of neurofibromatosis like cafe-aulait spots or skin nodules were seen. Excision of Pseudarthrosis site, deformity correction and the lengthening was done by Ilizarov’s apparatus, through upper tibial metaphysis. The follow up of two years showed sound union. It gives credence to Ilizarov’s as being one of the best methods for treatment of CPT and large shortening.