Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Comparison of multimedia system and conventional method in patients’ selecting prosthetic treatment

Background and Aims: Selecting an appropriate treatment plan is one of the most critical aspects of dental treatments. The purpose of this study was to compare multimedia system and conventional method in patients ’ selecting prosthetic treatment and the time consumed. Materials and Methods: Ninety patients were randomly divided into three groups. Patients in group A, once were instructed using the conventional method of dental office and once multimedia system and time was measured in seconds from the beginning of the instruction till the patient had came to decision. The patients were asked about the satisfaction of the method used for them. In group B, patients were only instructed using the conventional method, whereas they were only exposed to soft ware in group C. The data were analyzed using Paired-T-test (in group A) and T-test and Mann-Whitney test (in groups B and C). Results: There was a significant difference between multimedia system and conventional method in group A and also between groups B and C (P<0.001). In group A and between groups B and C, patient's satisfaction about multimedia system was better. However, in comparison between groups B and C, multimedia system did not have a significant effect in treatment selection score (P=0.08). Conclusion: Using multimedia system is recommended due to its high ability in giving reliable answers to a large number of patient ’ s questions as well as in terms of marketing.
Data source combination for tourism demand forecasting

Search engine data are of considerable interest to researchers for their utility in predicting human behaviour. Recently, search engine data have also been used to predict tourism demand (TD). Models developed based on such data generate more accurate forecasts of TD than pure time-series models. The aim of this article is to examine whether combining causal variables with search engine data can further improve the forecasting performance of search engine data models. Based on an artificial neural network framework, 168 observations during 2005–2018 for short-haul travel from Hong Kong to Macau are involved in the test, and the empirical results suggest that search engine data models with causal variables outperform models without causal variables and other benchmark models.
Is It Better To Elicit Quantile Or Probability Judgments to Estimate a Continuous Distribution? Elicit Both and Create an Inner Crowd.

Managers frequently rely on the judgment of an expert to estimate a probability distribution for a continuous random variable. Two elicitation methods are commonly used to gather this information: (i) quantile judgments for a set of fixed probability values, or (ii) cumulative probability judgments for a set of fixed variable values, but a consensus on which format yields more accurate distribution estimates has not been reached. We report results from a series of experiments conducted with participants with a range of quantitative backgrounds to compare these elicitation formats for a variety of variables, including synthetically generated numbers displayed in a video, daily high and low temperatures, the ages of people in the U.S. with a given name, commute times, home prices, and household incomes. We find that, although the two elicitation formats returned individual points with similar calibration and error magnitudes, quantile judgments provided more accurate estimates of the full distribution. We show that this relative advantage can be largely explained by the control afforded by the quantile elicitation format to place judgments in appropriately-spaced-apart positions on an individual’s subjective probability distribution.
Arabic–Chinese Neural Machine Translation: Romanized Arabic as Subword Unit for Arabic-sourced Translation

Morphologically rich and complex languages such as Arabic, pose a major challenge to neural machine translation (NMT) due to the large number of rare words and the inability of NMT to translate them. Unknown word (UNK) symbols are used to represent out-of-vocabulary words because NMT typically operates with a fixed vocabulary size. These rare words can be effectively encoded as sequences of subword units by using algorithms, such as byte pair encoding (BPE), to tackle the UNK problem. However, for languages with highly inflected and morphological variations, such as Arabic, the aforementioned method has its own limitations that make it not effective enough for translation quality. To alleviate the UNK problem and address the inconvenient behavior of BPE when translating the Arabic language, we propose to utilize a romanization system that converts Arabic scripts to subword units. We investigate the effect of our approach on NMT performance under various segmentation scenarios and compare the results with systems trained on original Arabic form. In addition, we integrate Romanized Arabic as an input factor for Arabic-sourced NMT compared with well-known factors, namely, lemma, part-of-speech tags, and morph features. Extensive experiments on Arabic-Chinese translation demonstrate that the proposed approaches can effectively tackle the UNK problem and significantly improve the translation quality for Arabic-sourced translation. Additional experiments in this study focus on developing the NMT system on Chinese-Arabic translation. Before implementing our experiments, we first propose standard criteria for the data filtering of a parallel corpus, which helps in filtering out its noise.
Counting the Cost: The Reserve Price Scheme for Wool 1970‐200

This paper provides a policy commentary on the collapse in 1991 of the Australian Reserve Price Scheme for wool. A key cause of the collapse in the Scheme was a change in the RPS's governance arrangements, which led to increased political pressures to raise prices to unsustainable levels. In addition, in this paper an estimation has been made of the direct, upfront costs of the operation of the scheme, drawing on the financial accounts of the various agencies operating the RPS and subsequent wool stockpile. This was undertaken to determine the scale of the policy failure.
Constructing a risk management indicator model for travel agencies: a resource integration perspective

ABSTRACT This study integrated resource-based theory and resource dependence theory, and introduced risk management on Taiwan's travel agencies. First, through in-depth interviews with experts and content analysis, preliminary items were generated. Second, using the modified Delphi method to converge expert consensus, and 7 facets with 37 items was formulated. Next, the criteria in the various levels were weighted through the Analytic Hierarchy Process and ranked. This study result showed that priority operating risks for Taiwan's travel agencies were financial risks, competing risks and supply chain risks. This study found can be used by travel agencies in risk management and competitive strategies.
Improving Care of Assisted Living Residents with Dementia Through a Competency-Based Behavioral Training Curriculum for Assisted Living Caregivers

Behavioral and psychological symptoms of dementia (BPSD) are common among residents of assisted living facilities. Inadequately managed symptoms of BPSD can lead to problematic behaviors with significant consequences for patients and caregivers. Non-pharmacologic approaches to the management of problematic behaviors in individuals with dementia are the preferred management option. Caregiver training and education to enhance knowledge and skills in managing behavioral and psychological symptoms for assisted living caregivers is indicated to provide optimum care for patients with dementia. The purpose of this doctor of nursing practice (DNP) project was to develop and implement a caregiver-training workshop utilizing a competency-based behavioral training curriculum to improve the care of dementia residents and ultimately enhance the physical and mental well-being of both the residents and caregivers. Fifteen assisted living caregivers attended a two-hour training workshop, individualized onsite monitoring, and follow-up. Overall implementation of this quality improvement project resulted in a high level of satisfaction among participating staff. Upon completion of the training workshop, a considerable increase was evident in self-perceived knowledge of dementia and related behaviors (87%), behavior management skills (94%), inter-professional communication skills (73%), and comfort level in managing behavior problems (74%), relative to self-reported pre-training levels. In contrast, an overall reduction appeared in perceived competencies regarding the same four components six weeks after training. These results suggest that this may be an effective model for a training intervention for assisted living caregivers of dementia residents with behavioral symptoms. Additional follow-up concept review and staff support may be required to sustain the changed practice behavior and maintain the benefits of the training.
A Deep Residual Network for Large-Scale Acoustic Scene Analysis

Many of the recent advances in audio event detection, particularly on the AudioSet data set, have focused on improving performance using the released embeddings produced by a pretrained model. In this work, we instead study the task of training a multi-label event classifier directly from the audio recordings of AudioSet. Using the audio recordings, not only are we able to reproduce results from prior work, we have also confirmed improvements of other proposed additions, such as an attention module. Moreover, by training the embedding network jointly with the additions, we achieve an mAP of 0.392 and an AUC of 0.971, surpassing the state of the art without transfer learning from a large data set. We also analyze the output activations of the network and find that the models are able to localize audio events when a finer time resolution is needed.
The place of skin cancer screening in heart transplant recipient follow-up protocols: a case series

Objectives For solid organ transplant recipients the risk of skin cancer is markedly increased due to immunosuppression. Many studies propose an annual, or more frequent, skin screening program by a dermatologist. As the number of transplant recipients increases and survival times improve, the need for screening and rapid response (as required) access is increasing. Design In a quality control study we retrospectively examined the medical records of patients participating in an annual screening program between 1997 and 2012. A total of 69 medical records were studied and we here describe the program and present the findings. Results We found malignant melanoma in 3 cases. Cutaneous squamous cell carcinoma occurred in 16 patients and basal cell carcinoma in 12 patients. The most frequent skin lesions were actinic keratoses, reported in 20 patients. Conclusions Incidence rates for all diagnoses were elevated compared to the general population. Awareness of the increased risk for skin malignancies is of importance to those involved in the care of solid organ transplant recipients. Routines for early discovery of skin tumors are needed both in the form of screening, which can also establish risk group status and give preventive education, and as rapid response access for skin lesion diagnosis and treatment.
Breast feeding and sexuality: behaviour, beliefs and taboos among the Gogo mothers in Tanzania.

Whereas in western countries breastfeeding is an uncontroversial, purely personal issue, in most parts of the world mother and baby form part of a network of interpersonal relations with its own rules and expectations. In this study, the author examines the cultural and social context of breastfeeding among the Gogo women of the Cigongwe's village in Tanzania, as part of the Paediatric Programme of Doctors with Africa, based in Padua. The focus is on mothers' behaviour and post partum taboos as key elements in Gogo understanding of the vicissitudes of the breast feeding process. This nutritional period is subject to many different events both physical and social that may upset the natural and intense link between mother and child. Any violation of cultural norms, particularly those dealing with sexual behaviour, marriage and reproduction, can, in the eyes of the Gogo, put at risk the correct development of an infant with serious consequences both for the baby's health as well as for the woman's image as mother and wife. Mara Mabilia teaches at the Intercultural Studies Master's Programme as well as Cultural Anthropology with a sub-field in Cooperation and Development at the Faculty of Education, both at University of Padua. She also lectures in other Postgraduate programmes (University of Brescia and University of Rome). She prepares doctors who serve as volunteers in Africa at C.U. A.M.M. Doctors with Africa - International College for Health Cooperation in Developing Countries, Padua.
WATER SCARCITY: EMPIRICAL EVIDENCE FROM ETHIOPIA

This article investigates the relationship between insecure property rights and land disputes using farm household panel data from the highlands of Ethiopia. Our identification strategy relies on the gradual rollout of a land certification program.We find that tenure security significantly reduces the likelihood for a farm household to experience land disputes. We further document that water scarcity during the rainy seasons is an important determinant of land disputes. However, farm households that have been certified are significantly less likely to experience land disputes triggered by water scarcity than farm households without land certification.
How Costly Is Turnover? Evidence from Retail

We estimate turnover costs in small retail sales teams using daily sales data and an advance notice requirement to address endogeneity concerns. In addition to short-staffing and onboarding costs, we identify two less familiar sources of turnover costs: incumbent workers’ recruitment activities and reductions in team morale after a departure is announced. Our estimates of total turnover costs are relatively modest, however: 10% higher turnover is about as costly as a 0.6% wage increase. We attribute these low costs to a set of complementary personnel policies that ensure that only 25% of departures result in a short-staffing spell.
Is There a Non-Linear Relationship of Market Value with Cash and Ownership?

The paper provides new evidence on the way that both the cash and ownership influence firms‟ market value in the Athens Stock Exchange (ASE) within the Eurozone (2000-2015). Based on corporate governance theory and critical analysis we use the dynamic panel data econometrics, in order to get consistent estimations of the impact of firms‟ cash and ownership upon either the return on equity or the Tobin‟s Q ratio. It is confirmed the dominance of the ownership pattern on these determinants of firms‟ value. Actually, we have found an inverse-U-shape value-ownership relationship, while practically, there‟s no-effect of cash on business efficiency. Unlike the previous studies, the findings support not only the interest alignment hypothesis, or the ownership could be a substitute for weak legal and institutional environment, but also the expropriation of outright majority ownership (large shareholder) against the minority one. In addition, the constantly changing optimal level of cash due to the unstable economic environment is a possible explanation of the insignificant cash variable. The estimated 40% of the equity as optimal level of ownership concentration maximizing market value of firms in the ASE could be useful for candidate investors. JEL Classification: C58, G32, G34.
Formal Analysis of Network Routing Protocols

The use of wireless networks has been on the rise for some time now, from the ubiquitous smart phones and laptops in use everywhere, to sensor networks collecting large amounts of data. In this dissertation, we focus on contemporary wireless technologies, in particular Wireless Mesh Networks (WMNs): self-organising and self-healing wireless networks that support broadband communication without requiring any wired infrastructure. A significant factor for the reliability and flexibility of such networks is provided by the routing protocols. The current approaches used for analysing routing protocols, e.g., test-bed experiments and simulation techniques, are expensive, time consuming and resource-intensive. Additionally, these techniques cannot, in general, guarantee the reliability and flexibility of such systems. In order to address these challenges, the use of formal methods is growing, i.e., for the purpose of reasoning about wireless mesh network routing protocols. However, the mathematical foundation of formal techniques is considered as a challenging task for protocol designers, and therefore, this level of development (reliability and flexibility analysis) is often skipped. The objective of this dissertation is to study different routing protocols of wireless mesh networks using formal techniques as well as to propose a generic framework to formally model, analyse and verify such protocols as our ultimate goal. The proposed framework can help the protocol designers to verify their routing protocols prior to implementing them in real-case scenarios and to avoid consequent costs. We employ classical model checking (via the Uppaal tool), statistical model checking (via the Uppaal SMC tool) and theorem proving in Event-B (via the Rodin platform) to carry out our study and deal with both quantitative and qualitative analysis of such systems. Our generic and reusable framework is developed employing the Uppaal SMC as the tool support.
Essays on the Health Economics of Pharmaceuticals

The e ects of pharmaceutical treatment on patient health, pricing of pharmaceuticals and their regulation are the backbone of my research. My work re ects two current trends used to advance our knowledge in the eld: the use of dynamic structural models that is supplemented by detailed administrative individual-level data. This thesis consists of three chapters that address a number of policy-relevant questions in health economics using both individualand market-level outcomes. In the rst chapter I take a market-level approach to look at the e ect of mergers between insurance companies on Medicare Part D plan premiums and generosity of coverage. In the following two chapters I study the e ects of ADHD treatment on children's health and behavioral outcomes. The rst chapter focuses on the insurance design and pricing of insurance plans that cover prescription drugs. We examine horizontal mergers amongst Medicare Part D insurers with the aim of decomposing market power, cost e ciency, and bargaining power merger e ects. We apply a di erences-in-di erences identi cation strategy to panel data on plans o ered between 2006 and 2012 to document the e ects of mergers on plan premiums and drug coverage characteristics. The results indicate substantial market power as plans a ected by a merger increase premiums on average. But, premiums fall and drug coverage improves for merging insurers that restructure plans and renegotiate contracts with drug suppliers by consolidating existing plans. We attribute these e ects to improved cost e ciencies and increased bargaining power. In the second and third chapters I look at the individual-level outcomes following medical treatment of Attention-de cit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). In the U.S. the incidence of ADHD diagnosis among children increased signi cantly over the past decade. The most recent National Survey of Children's Health 2011/12 reports that over 5 million children aged 2-17 (7.9%) have been diagnosed with ADHD. Over 68% of these children are taking medications for the disorder. However, little is known about the existing prescribing practices, physician learning process, and
Quantifying Expectation Modulation in Human Speech Processing

The mismatch between top-down predicted and bottom-up perceptual input is an important mechanism of perception according to the predictive coding framework (Friston, [1]). In this paper we develop and validate a new information-theoretic measure that quantifies the mismatch between expected and observed auditory input during speech processing. We argue that such a mismatch measure is useful for the study of speech processing. To compute the mismatch measure, we use naturalistic speech materials containing approximately 50,000 word tokens. For each word token we first estimate the prior word probability distribution with the aid of statistical language modelling, and next use automatic speech recognition to update this word probability distribution based on the unfolding speech signal. We validate the mismatch measure with multiple analyses, and show that the auditory-based update improves the probability of the correct word and lowers the uncertainty of the word probability distribution. Based on these results, we argue that it is possible to explicitly estimate the mismatch between predicted and perceived speech input with the cross entropy between word expectations computed before and after an auditory update.
Nutrition monitoring and assessment.

This collection of papers by experts in the field, discusses succinctly what indicators and techniques can be used to monitor nutrition, with what level of accuracy and under what field conditions. Departments of Nutrition, Health Organization; Dieticians; Institutes/Departments of Public Health; students of social and preventive medicine and paediatrics.
Profile of the Psychiatric Inpatient Population in a Major Naval Hospital

Abstract : Archival records were examined for enlisted Navy personnel admitted to the psychiatric service of a major naval hospital. A larger proportion of patients was diagnosed psychotic and smaller proportions were diagnosed neurotic or Personality Disorder than was true in earlier studies. Greatest stability in diagnosis from admission to discharge was noted for the psychotics and least for the neurotics. Number of days hospitalized was considerably less for most diagnostic groups than was reported previously. When patients were grouped by discharge diagnosis specific profiles emerged. Those diagnosed Personality Disorder were very young men and women, in the lower pay grades, and with the fewest months of service. They were most likely to be recommended for administrative separation and had the lowest effectiveness rate following release from the hospital. Those receiving Adjustment Reaction, Neurosis, or Alcohol diagnosis were older, had more time in service, were of higher pay grade, and had effectiveness rates of 60% or greater. The implications of the findings are discussed including the need for comparative studies with other hospitalized populations.