Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Is Our Human Capital General Enough to Withstand the Current Wave of Technological Change

The degree to which modern technologies are able to substitute for groups of job tasks has renewed fears of near-future technological unemployment. We argue that our knowledge, skills and abilities (KSA) go beyond the specific tasks we do at the job, making us potentially more adaptable to technological change than feared. The disruptiveness of new technologies depends on the relationships between the job tasks susceptible to automation and our KSA. Here we first demonstrate that KSA are general human capital features while job tasks are not, suggesting that human capital is more transferrable across occupations than what job tasks would predict. In spite of this, we document a worrying pattern where automation is not randomly distributed across the KSA space – it is concentrated among occupations that share similar KSA. As a result, workers in these occupations are making longer skill transitions when changing occupations and have higher probability of unemployment.
Molecular Characterization of Brucella abortus and Brucella melitensis in Cattle and Humans at the North West of Pakistan

Received: Revised: Accepted: Published online: November 29, 2016 February 01, 2017 June 03, 2017 July 24, 2017 Brucellosis is a fatal zoonotic disease caused by members of the genus Brucella, resulting in significant reproductive losses in animals. The present study was designed to evaluate the prevalence of Brucella abortus and Brucella melitensis by screening the serum of the blood samples through Serum Plate Agglutination Test (SPAT) assay and by duplex PCR. Blood samples were randomly collected from cattle (n=200) and human (n=200), and were placed in two groups with respect to their contact (direct and indirect) with cattle. The overall prevalence of brucellosis in cattle and human through SPAT assay was 15 and 6%, respectively. Amongst human, the prevalence was 10% in female and 2% in the male. The high rate of infection was found in females than males due to their frequent contact with cattle compared to males in the study area. Molecular diagnosis using duplex PCR showed 13 and 4% prevalence of brucellosis in cattle and human, respectively. The duplex PCR revealed 6 and 2% positive cases in female and male, respectively (P>0.05). Collectively, these results suggested a high prevalence of the diseases in humans (females) having direct contact with cattle. Furthermore, the results infer that the optimized PCR approach is more efficacious, specific and reliable compared to the routine conventional SPAT assay. ©2017 PVJ. All rights reserved
Nonlinear Vibration of a Nonlocal Nanobeam Resting on Fractional-Order Viscoelastic Pasternak Foundations

In the present study, the nonlinear vibration of a nanobeam resting on the fractional order viscoelastic Winkler–Pasternak foundation is studied using nonlocal elasticity theory. The D’Alembert principle is used to derive the governing equation and the associated boundary conditions. The approximate analytical solution is obtained by applying the multiple scales method. A detailed parametric study is conducted, and the effects of the variation of different parameters belonging to the application problems on the system are calculated numerically and depicted. We remark that the order and the coefficient of the fractional derivative have a significant effect on the natural frequency and the amplitude of vibrations.
A PID Controller Approach for Stochastic Optimization of Deep Networks

Deep neural networks have demonstrated their power in many computer vision applications. State-of-the-art deep architectures such as VGG, ResNet, and DenseNet are mostly optimized by the SGD-Momentum algorithm, which updates the weights by considering their past and current gradients. Nonetheless, SGD-Momentum suffers from the overshoot problem, which hinders the convergence of network training. Inspired by the prominent success of proportional-integral-derivative (PID) controller in automatic control, we propose a PID approach for accelerating deep network optimization. We first reveal the intrinsic connections between SGD-Momentum and PID based controller, then present the optimization algorithm which exploits the past, current, and change of gradients to update the network parameters. The proposed PID method reduces much the overshoot phenomena of SGD-Momentum, and it achieves up to 50% acceleration on popular deep network architectures with competitive accuracy, as verified by our experiments on the benchmark datasets including CIFAR10, CIFAR100, and Tiny-ImageNet.
Occupational Health Hazards Associated with Continuous Exposure to Quarry Activities among Quarry Workers in Ebonyi State, South East Geopolitical Zone, Nigeria

Quarry industry is among the many extractive industries implicated in the etiology of a myriad of occupational health hazards. This study brought forth the case of health hazards among quarry workers in Ebonyi State, southeast geopolitical zone of Nigeria. Simple randomized sampling technique was adopted in selection of 49 sites among 130 quarry sites, within Ebonyi state. A total of 392 participants were selected from the quarry workers and the same number of participants from non-quarry workers living within the same geographical location was selected as control. The test population was grouped into 3 categories according to the duration of exposure. Hazard assessment was carried out on the basis of clinical history, physical examination and assessment of lung function using Forced Expiratory Volume in one second (FEV1) as measured with a Peak-flow meter. Results show that 38.8% had mild cough, 6.6% severe persistent cough and 4.1% heamoptysis. 48.2% had FEV1 less than that of the control population. The average FEV1 of the studied population was 306.9ml and that of control group was 319.4ml, showing a difference of 12.5ml. When this was tested at 95% confidence level (t=10.59; C.V. = 1.96; P0.05) there was significant difference between the lung function (FEV1) of the study population and that of the control. Pulmonary function loss increased with years of exposure. Workers of 5-10 years of exposure showed a loss of about 39.5ml FEV1 and those with more than 10 years exposure showed a loss of 106.4ml FEV1. There was no significant difference in the pulmonary function of workers with less than 5years exposure and that of the control population. Occupational health hazards were both time and job-specifics dependent. There is a need for public enlightenment to all stakeholders (quarry workers, quarry industry owners, State/Federal Government and International Organizations) to put appropriate preventive measures in place.
A Pilot Study of Singapore’s Young Chinese Parent’s Perceptions, Attitude and Behaviours Towards Bilingual Learning

This study aims to study parents’ attitude, perceptions, and behaviours towards bilingual education in Singapore’s bilingual social context. The study involves 78 young Singapore’s Chinese parents, using mixed methodologies including multiple choice questionnaire, interview, checklist, and focus group discussion to collect data. Qualitative and quantitative researches have shown four important findings. First, young parents acknowledge the importance of learning mother tongue to maintain cultural heritage. They also realize that Chinese could become their next generation’s crucial social capital in the future. Those families have great potential in raising bilingual children. Second, more attention should be paid to the gap between young parents’ positive attitude and passive behaviour in supporting children’s bilingual learning. Third, there are some misunderstandings about bilingual learning. Some parents doubt or deny the possibilities of fostering bilingual children and simply think learning Chinse language would impede children’s English competence. Fourth, parents focus more on children’s primary school study rather than kindergarten period, including learning interest, reading, and writing of written language abilities. More in-depth researches are needed to examine the relevance of those four findings as well as propose a more comprehensive perspective for researches on Singapore’s future bilingual education reform and development.
Osteochondroma in a young cat infected by feline leukemia virus

Osteochondromas are primary bone tumors characterized by cartilage-covered bone projections involving single or multiple masses (osteochondromatosis). This study reports the clinical and pathological findings from a young domestic cat with osteochondroma in the humerus. During the clinical evaluation, the animal had pronounced right forelimb musculature atrophy and an increased distal humeral volume. Histopathological examination of the neoplasm revealed a proliferative lesion characterized mostly by endochondral ossification and peripheral foci of proliferating cartilage tissue. Further testing using immunohistochemical staining and polymerase chain reaction revealed the presence of feline leukemia virus antigens in the hematopoietic cells of the bone marrow and FeLV proviral DNA in the peripheral blood lymphocytes. Clinical and pathological findings are consistent with osteochondroma. This neoplasm occurred in an eight-month-old feline with humeral enlargement that had been present since two months old.
Hypertensive Patients: Self-Care Management Practices in Al-Taif, KSA

This descriptive cross sectional study aimed at determining the level of selfmanagement practices and to identify its associated factors among patients with hypertension at King Abdul Aziz Hospital and Al Hada Military hospital at al Taif City. One hundred and twenty four subjects were included. The research tool was a questionnaire consisted of demographic and health related characteristics data assessment form and hypertension selfmanagement behaviors questionnaire. Frequencies, means, standard deviations and analytic tests (Chi Square and T test) were used for data analysis. The results showed that an overall self-management behavior with hypertension was at moderate level (2.22 ± 0.528). For five sub-dimensions of self-management, the means of selfintegration, selfregulation, interaction, self-monitoring and adherence, were also at the moderate level. Adherence to recommended regimen had the highest score (2.45± 0.48) followed by Self-monitoring (2.39± 0.69). Women had significantly higher scores than men 2.47± 0.40 versus 2.08 ± 0.54), (P= 0.000). Middle aged and young adults had significantly higher self-management scores than older adults (P= 0.010). University educated subjects had higher selfmanagement score than less educated (P= 0.025). Subjects who live in rural areas had insignificantly lower self-management behavior scores than those lived in urban areas (P= 0.931). In addition the time since diagnosis was found to be significant (P= 0.038). This study offers proof that among Saudi patients with hypertension, there is a chance for improving their self-management behaviors. The study suggested that, antihypertensive therapy must take into consideration the patient’s awareness of the health-care provider’s advice and instructions, factors that may improve self-management behaviors, and the possibility that the patient will adhere to recommendations
Differentiable Monte Carlo ray tracing through edge sampling

Gradient-based methods are becoming increasingly important for computer graphics, machine learning, and computer vision. The ability to compute gradients is crucial to optimization, inverse problems, and deep learning. In rendering, the gradient is required with respect to variables such as camera parameters, light sources, scene geometry, or material appearance. However, computing the gradient of rendering is challenging because the rendering integral includes visibility terms that are not differentiable. Previous work on differentiable rendering has focused on approximate solutions. They often do not handle secondary effects such as shadows or global illumination, or they do not provide the gradient with respect to variables other than pixel coordinates. We introduce a general-purpose differentiable ray tracer, which, to our knowledge, is the first comprehensive solution that is able to compute derivatives of scalar functions over a rendered image with respect to arbitrary scene parameters such as camera pose, scene geometry, materials, and lighting parameters. The key to our method is a novel edge sampling algorithm that directly samples the Dirac delta functions introduced by the derivatives of the discontinuous integrand. We also develop efficient importance sampling methods based on spatial hierarchies. Our method can generate gradients in times running from seconds to minutes depending on scene complexity and desired precision. We interface our differentiable ray tracer with the deep learning library PyTorch and show prototype applications in inverse rendering and the generation of adversarial examples for neural networks.
Dispersive liquid-liquid microextraction using silver nanoparticles as electrostatic probes for preconcentartion and quantitative analysis of terazosin

An efficient dispersive liquid-liquid microextraction using tetraalkylammonium bromide coated silver nanoparticles (DLLME-AgNPs) prepared in chloroform has been successfully applied as electrostatic affinity probes to the microextraction and preconcentration of terazosin prior to spectrofluorimetry analysis. This technique is based on a ternary system of solvents, where appropriate amount of microextraction containing tetraalkylammonium bromide coated silver nanoparticles (AgNPs), and disperser solvents are directly injected into an aqueous solution containing terazosin. A cloudy mixture is formed, and terazosin in the aqueous matrix is extracted into the fine droplets of microextraction solvent containing AgNPs. The settled phase is collected and transferred into a micro-cell of fluorimeter for the determination of terazosin at excitation/emission wavelengths of 330/376 nm. The obtained results demonstrated that electrostatic attraction forces caused by AgNPs were much stronger than the hydrophobic attraction forces. Various factors influencing microextraction efficiency were studied and optimized. Under the optimum conditions, the method provided a relatively broad linear dynamic range of 0.25 to 100 mg mL−1, a detection limit of 0.075 mg mL−1 and a relative standard deviation of 1.9%. Finally, the method was successfully applied to terazosin determination in actual pharmaceutical formulations and human urine sample.
Learning to sample: exploiting similarities across environments to learn performance models for configurable systems

Most software systems provide options that allow users to tailor the system in terms of functionality and qualities. The increased flexibility raises challenges for understanding the configuration space and the effects of options and their interactions on performance and other non-functional properties. To identify how options and interactions affect the performance of a system, several sampling and learning strategies have been recently proposed. However, existing approaches usually assume a fixed environment (hardware, workload, software release) such that learning has to be repeated once the environment changes. Repeating learning and measurement for each environment is expensive and often practically infeasible. Instead, we pursue a strategy that transfers knowledge across environments but sidesteps heavyweight and expensive transfer-learning strategies. Based on empirical insights about common relationships regarding (i) influential options, (ii) their interactions, and (iii) their performance distributions, our approach, L2S (Learning to Sample), selects better samples in the target environment based on information from the source environment. It progressively shrinks and adaptively concentrates on interesting regions of the configuration space. With both synthetic benchmarks and several real systems, we demonstrate that L2S outperforms state of the art performance learning and transfer-learning approaches in terms of measurement effort and learning accuracy.
Subdural empyema: A review of 29 cases

In 1948, Schiller, Cairns, and Russell presented 33 cases of subdural empyema arising over 20 years most of which were treated in this department. Their paper dealt with the results of penicillin instillations into the subdural space and marked a major therapeutic advance in the treatment of this condition. We felt it would be of interest to review 29 subsequent cases and to note the present-day problems in their management. The history of the recognition of this condition has been outlined in detail by Kubik and Adams (1943) and by Courville (1944), and there is little to add to their accounts. Schiller et al. (1948) used the term 'purulent pachy meningitis interna' because of a supposed resemblance to peritonitis. 'Subdural abscess' is often used, but should only be applied when there is loculation and a membrane is formed. Subdural empyema is a better term, indicating pus in a pre-formed space.
Microelectrode recordings and deep brain stimulation surgery—reasoned discussion?

We read with great interest the study by Biundo et al. investigating the neural correlates of impulse control disorders (ICDs) in patients with Parkinson’s disease (PD) by means of structural 1.5T MRI. The investigators observed significant cortical thinning in frontostriatal circuitry, specifically in the right superior orbitofrontal, left rostral middle frontal, bilateral caudal middle frontal region, and corpus callosum, as well as volume reduction in the right accumbens and increase in the left amygdala. They suggested that “the mesolimbic and cortical-cortical pathways are involved in ICDs occurrence in PD, and that their severity is associated with gray matter alterations in regions linked to the reward and control networks. ” Several neuropsychological studies investigated cognitive dysfunctions associated with ICDs in PD and provided different results. Siri et al. found that the occurrence of pathological gambling (PG) was associated with preserved executive functions. In contrast, we have demonstrated that PG in PD was associated with severe derangements of some frontal lobe functions, such as set-shifting and cognitive flexibility (assessed by means of part B of the Trail Making Test and by a phonological fluency task, respectively). Such findings were confirmed in a further neuropsychological study in which we systematically explored and compared cognitive profiles of PD patients affected by PG, hypersexuality (HS), or compulsive eating (CE) alone or in combination. With respect to patients with PG, patients affected by HS showed more severe impairments of inhibitory control and verbal learning, whereas patients with CE evidenced a somewhat intermediate pattern. On this basis, we suggested that PG and other ICDs are behavioral symptoms that might arise from difficulty in monitoring one’s own behavior and in shifting from negative to positive conduct; differences among subtypes of ICDs may reflect differential involvement of the neural substrates devoted to process intrinsic (e.g., sex and feeding) or learned rewards (e.g., money). Bentivoglio et al. further supported our findings and suggested that onset of ICDs in PD might be the result of a selective impairment in top-down regulation of behavior, likely related to dysfunction of an anatomical and functional loop, including several prefrontal areas and subcortical structures in combination with dopamine replacement therapy. Taking into account the above-mentioned evidences, we wonder that the investigators did not find any significant difference in neuropsychological profile between patients with and without ICDs. Nevertheless, their finding of altered cortical thickness support our observations of a cognitive impairment of both frontal/executive and memory dysfunctions in PD patients with ICDs. It is possible that discrepancies between cognitive results in our and their studies might be owing to the fact that they considered the ICD as a whole without differentiating among the different types. It would be interesting to explore also cortical thickness in the different ICD types.
Corporate Social Responsibility Reporting and Earnings Management: The Role of Political Costs

Recently, Francis, Nanda and Olsson (2008) proposed that earnings quality influence firms’ disclosure decisions. We examine whether Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) disclosure is related to earnings management and if the relationship is mitigated by political cost considerations or by the firm’s ethical predisposition. We argue that the relationship between CSR reporting and earnings management is contextspecific and we consider one particular context, the political environment. We test our hypotheses by regressing earnings management on CSR disclosure while controlling for other factors that may affect the level of earnings management. We find a significant relationship between CSR reporting and earnings management, and more specifically, we find evidence of a negative (complementary) relationship in the oil and gas industry while we find evidence of a positive (substitutive) relationship in the food industry. The evidence supports the view that the relationship between CSR reporting and earnings management is affected by the political environment and not by ethical considerations.
On Side Information Generation for Wyner-Ziv Video Coding

Distributed video coding (DVC) is a new video coding paradigm, which allows a reverse complexity codec in which the complexity is shifted from the encoder toward the decoder. Many DVC implementations have to make a prediction of the encoded frame at the decoder side using only the other frames as reference, in a process called side information (SI) generation. This process is crucial to any DVC framework a better SI will lead to a better rate distortion performance. In this work, we propose a linear motion mode to produce SI associated with, and a way to deal with the common problems of this model. Results are presented to support the proposed method. Keywords—Side Information, Wyner-Ziv Video Coding, Motion Compensation Frame Interpolation.
Retention of Foetal Membranes in a Non-Descript Doe: A Case Report

Retention of foetal membranes (RFM) is one of the major periparturient complications among the reproductive disorders in dairy goats which negatively influence health, reproductive efficacy and welfare of the animal (Ahmed et al., 2006; Djuricic et al., 2015). It causes significant economic losses in the herd due to decreased milk production, treatment cost and decreased market value of the animal if not treated adequately and promptly. In does, RFM is defined as the failure of the foetal membrane expulsion within 6–8 h after kidding (Noakes et al., 2009; Samardzija et al., 2010). Normally the foetal membranes are expelled 1–4 h after kidding. Immediate Veterinary attention is essential if the expulsion is not made within 12 h (Matthews, 2009) as contraction of the uterus and closure of the cervix will soon prevent manual removal of the RFM. The reported incidence of RFM ranged from 2 to 10% depending on herd (Durrani and Kamal 2009; Mude et al., 2010; Ameen and Ajayi, 2013; Djuricic et al., 2015) which shows the case as a rare occurrence. Expulsion of fetal membrane being the third and final stage of parturition depends on various factors mainly the hormonal level. The hormonal processes that lead to the normal placental separation are multifactorial and begun before parturition International Journal of Current Microbiology and Applied Sciences ISSN: 2319-7706 Volume 7 Number 03 (2018) Journal homepage: http://www.ijcmas. com