Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Probing secondary exposure and health data as a tool to improve public health in South Africa

The usefulness of secondary exposure and health data to improve public health in South Africa will be assessed. Given the tremendous health impact of air pollution exposure the focus of this thesis is on primary prevention, that is the identification of outdoor air pollution and the use of dirty fuels (wood, animal dung, crop residues, coal, paraffin) for cooking and heating as risk factors, whilst controlling for confounding. Hourly averaged outdoor PM10 mass, NO2, NO, SO2, O3 data (1 August 1998 31 July 2003) from Cape Town were analysed in a nonparametric Spearman’s Rho correlation analysis to determine the seasonal spatial correlation between the monitoring sites. Trend and descriptive analyses were conducted on the outdoor hourly and daily PM10 mass data to investigate the current and future health implications in the Khayelitsha sub-district, Cape Town. The 1998 South African Demographic and Health Survey (SADHS) data were analysed. The survey involved 13 826 individuals in 12 763 households. Univariate and multivariate logistic regression analyses generated crude and adjusted odds ratios and 95% confidence intervals in order to assess the influence of dirty fuel use for cooking and heating on adult (> 15 years) respiratory health, childhood (< 59 months) respiratory health and 1-59 month mortality. It was found that outdoor air pollution is not homogenously distributed in Cape Town during all seasons. Elevated PM10 mass concentrations are frequently present in the Khayelitsha sub-district. There is a strong case for acknowledging the large public health risk arising from air pollution exposure in South Africa, despite the limitations of the 1998 SADHS data. Not much progress has been made in air pollution epidemiology in the country during this investigation due to the identified limitations. Secondary exposure and health data are thus only useful in improving public health in South Africa by supplying baseline data for trend analysis or hypotheses generation. It is recommended that the country must develop environmental public health tracking networks, which incorporates various data sources from multi-sectoral collaborative intervention projects with analytic study designs, in all major cities in the country. University of Pretoria etd – Wichmann, J (2006) iv
Tagging L2 Writing: Learner Errors and the Performance of an Automated Part-of-Speech Tagger

This paper is concerned with the application of technologies developed in other disciplines, in particular with the use of text processing techniques to investigate the problems of second language learner writing in English. The question addressed is whether learner texts produced by L1-Malay learners at the University of Malaya can usefully be processed using the Constituent Likelihood Automatic Word-tagging System (CLAWS); a part-of-speech (POS) tagger developed for and trained on texts written by native speakers of the language. The study adopts the procedure employed by van Rooy and Schafer (2002). CLAWS was used to automatically POS tag a subset of the Malaysian Corpus of Learner English (MACLE), and the texts were then analyzed for tagging accuracy.CLAWS was found to perform less well on learner text than on native speaker texts, but still with an accuracy rate of over 90%. The sources of error are traced, and spelling errors are found to be the most common source. Closer inspection indicates that successful tagging is likely to lead to problems downstream in later processing, which suggests that to optimize performance, some modifications will be required in tagger design.
Home care attitude and expectations: a reflection on suggested guidelines for home care in the U.S.A

Home health care is less expensive than other care options, and is beneficial, for young through the elderly. Home health care for the elderly can lead to increased activities of daily living, improved mobility, and cognitive function. For home health care to be effective the health care providers must be proficient and able to meet the needs of the patient. Patients will benefit from a caregiver who is able to see the independence of the patient as a priority, while maintaining safety precautions to avoid any errors, including medications, accidental injury, or any form of abuse. This article details what the home caregiver and provider should know to effectively aide an individual in their home and cites literature on the benefits of home care.
The impact of a focused acceptance and commitment training workplace intervention : is less, less?

Nearly two decades of research has supported the effectiveness of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy when applied to the workplace. Known as Acceptance and Commitment Training (ACT) in workplace settings, research has shown promising results for both health and performance. The purpose of this study is to provide a systematic review of ACT training interventions in the workplace. Our review identified 14 studies that met the criteria specified. Findings indicate that approaches to the implementation of ACT vary. To date, only public sector and voluntary populations have been targeted in earnest. There are encouraging signs in terms of ACT’s ability to ameliorate distress in working populations, particularly with high-stress populations. There is also evidence that ACT can be effective in improving a wide range of performance-related outcomes. This fits the theory behind ACT – that it targets the fundamental processes of both human suffering and effectiveness. The evidence is broadly supportive that ACT training is effective because it improves psychological flexibility – a key process or mechanism of change in human flourishing. Due to the variety of implementation in terms of the content and design of interventions, it is not possible to draw firm conclusions about the most effective format of ACT training. In future it may be necessary to experiment with shorter interventions to see if they can still yield positive outcomes, whilst maintaining clarity over the mechanisms of change. Further research may also be required with different cohorts, in particular looking at its efficacy when implemented across whole organisations.
Unmanned aerial vehicle close formation cooperative control based on predatory escaping pigeon-inspired optimization

A cooperative control method for unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) based on predatory escaping pigeon-inspired optimization is proposed in this paper. The outer controller is designed by the potential field method, which convert the UAV close formation to an abstract motion in potential field. The inner controller is devised by pigeon-inspired optimization (PIO) to optimize the control inputs. The structure of PIO has been adjusted on the basis of the basic PIO thoughts. The predatory escape behavior mechanism is adopted to solve the problem of falling into local optimum. Series of comparative experiments with basic PIO, particle swarm optimization (PSO) are conducted, and the experimental results verified the feasibility, validity and superiority of our proposed method.
Time-limited therapy in a general practice setting : how to help within six sessions

PART ONE The Management of a Counselling Service in General Practice Evaluation of the Service Time-Limited Therapy PART TWO Counselling for Anxiety and Depression Counselling People under Stress Counselling People with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder Counselling for Bereavement, Loss and Death Counselling Individuals or Couples with Relationship Difficulties Counselling People with Eating Disorders Counselling Adults Abused as Children Counselling Individuals within Dysfunctional Families Counselling People with Medical Conditions Counselling People with Mental Health Difficulties
A Logistic Factorization Model for Recommender Systems With Multinomial Responses

Abstract In this article, we propose a two-way multinomial logistic model for recommender systems for categorical ratings. Specifically, we treat the possible ratings as mutually exclusive events, whose probability is determined by the latent factor of the users and the items through a two-way multinomial logistic function. The proposed method has a compatibility with categorical ratings and the advantage of incorporating both the covariate information and the latent factors of the users and items uniformly. We show numerically that the proposed method performs consistently better than five commonly used collaborative filtering methods, namely, the restricted singular value decomposition, the soft-impute matrix completion method, the regression-based latent factor models, the restricted Boltzmann machine, and the group-specific recommender system on various simulation setups and on MovieLens data. Supplementary materials for this article are available online.
An investigation into the relationships between synaptic biochemistry, clinical symptoms and pathology in the Lewy body dementias and Alzheimer's disease

Dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB) and Parkinson’s disease dementia (PDD) are, combined, the second most common type of dementia in the elderly but remain both poorly understood and researched. Diagnosis is based upon clinical symptoms yet there is considerable overlap between DLB, PDD and Alzheimer’s disease (AD), in terms of clinical presentation and pathology. Synapses are critical for neuronal communication and form the basis of memory and behaviour. The loss of zinc transporter 3 (ZnT3) has been implicated in age-related cognitive decline (based upon work in ZnT3knockout mice), an observation corroborated by reports of reduced cortical zinc and ZnT3 in the brains of individuals with AD. This project utilised a cohort of AD, PDD, DLB and control brains with cognitive data and semiquantitative scores for key behavioural symptoms (depression, agitation, hallucinations, persecution) and the principal pathologies (amyloid-beta, tau and alpha-synuclein). Semiquantitative Western blotting was used to investigate key synaptic proteins; zinc transporter 3, PSD95, beta-III-tubulin and synaptophysin in three cortical regions. The major findings of this project were the occurrence of a loss of regulation of synaptic zinc, which predicted cognitive decline, depression and severity of amyloid-beta, tau and alpha-synuclein pathology in different cortical areas. Differences were also demonstrated in synaptic biochemistry between DLB and PDD cases, with PDD cases having a greater synaptic dysfunction. Important outcomes of this study include the potential for zinc modulation as a new target for the treatment of depression and cognitive decline in LBD, possibly through a modification of pathology, and the potential for synaptic proteins to be utilised as biomarkers for the differentiation of DLB and PDD.
Eosinophilic rhinitis and nasal epithelial remodeling in mice episodically exposed to ozone

EOSINOPHILIC RHINITIS AND NASAL EPITHELIAL REMODELING IN MICE EPISODICALLY EXPOSED TO OZONE By Chee Bing Ong Ozone is an oxidant air pollutant in photochemical smog. Though nasal epithelial remodeling has been well-documented in laboratory animals repeatedly exposed to ozone, associated inflammatory responses have not been fully characterized. In this study, I investigated if the onset of ozone-induced nasal epithelial remodeling is related to temporal changes in granulocytic influx and cytokine gene expression. Mice exposed to 24 weekdays of inhaled ozone developed marked eosinophilic rhinitis with epithelial hyperplasia, mucous cell metaplasia and hyalinosis. Repeated subacute ozone exposures in mice induced an eosinophilic rhinitis with epithelial remodeling that resembled the pathology of human eosinophilic rhinitis. Ozone-induced eosinophilic rhinitis was associated with an initial T helper cell 1 (Th1)-inflammatory response, followed by T helper cell 2 (Th2)-inflammatory response. Based on these findings, a study was conducted to investigate the role of lymphocytes (hypothesized cellular sources of Th1and Th2cytokines) in the development of eosinophilic rhinitis and associated nasal epithelial remodeling. In Rag2 x common gamma chain (γc) deficient [RAG2(-/-) x γc(-/-)] mice, which lack Tand Blymphocytes as well as NK cells, ozone nasal epithelial remodeling and eosinophilic rhinitis did not develop, thus supporting the hypothesis that lymphocytes are a crucial component to ozone induced eosinophilic rhinitis and associated epithelial changes in mice. These results suggest that chronic exposure to air pollutants, like ozone, may contribute to rising incidence of eosinophilic rhinitis.
Laboratory Insight Into Seismic Estimates of Energy Partitioning During Dynamic Rupture: An Observable Scaling Breakdown

We investigate energy partitioning using seismological methods of seismic ruptures with estimated submicron levels of slip in the laboratory. Estimates inferred from recorded seismic waves are founded on microscale phenomenological friction experiments in the laboratory and appear to be constrained by inherent assumptions. In this concerted study, we build on the methods used to absolutely calibrate an array of piezoelectric transducers in a direct shear laboratory apparatus. We found that flat‐broadband sensor behavior allowed us to study source extent parameters using spectral source models that are typically used to interpret small to moderate‐sized earthquakes. We computed the corner frequencies, low‐frequency plateaus, and high‐frequency spectral falloff exponent using single‐station assumptions. Moment magnitude ranged from −9
Open-Charm Hadron Measurements in Au+Au Collisions at √sNN = 200 GeV by the STAR Experiment

Study of the open-charm hadron production in heavy-ion collisions is crucial for understanding the properties of the Quark-Gluon Plasma. In these papers, we report on a selection of recent STAR measurements of open-charm hadrons in Au+Au collisions at s NN = 200 GeV , using the Heavy-Flavor Tracker. In particular, the nuclear modification factors of D 0 and D ± mesons, elliptic and directed flow of D 0 mesons, D s /D 0 and Λ c / D 0 yield ratios are discussed. The observed suppression of D 0 and D ± mesons suggests strong interactions of the charm quarks with the QGP. The measured elliptic flow of D 0 mesons is large and follows the NCQ scaling, suggesting that charm quarks may be close to thermal equilibrium with the QGP medium. Both D s /D 0 and Λ c / D 0 yield ratios are found to be enhanced in Au+Au collisions. The enhancement can be explained by models incorporating coalescence hadronization of charm quarks. In addition, the directed flow of the D 0 mesons is measured to be negative and larger than that of light-flavor mesons which is in a qualitative agreement with hydrodynamic model predictions with a tilted QGP bulk.
Smooth Open Channel with Increasing Aspect Ratio: Influence on Secondary Flow

A high-resolution particle image velocitmetry system is used to investigate the relationship between secondary flow and aspect ratio in a straight channel. Considering the symmetry of open channel flow, the flow parameters in half of the flume are measured. Since the variation of the aspect ratio has a direct impact on the intensity and structure of secondary flows, this study was conducted in a smooth open channel to study the influence of aspect ratio on the structure and strength of secondary flows with aspect ratio change from 3 to 7.5 under supercritical flow condition. Profiles and contour-maps of time-averaged stream-wise and vertical velocities were acquired using precise measuring instruments. The results show that there are several secondary flow cells in the cross section, and their structure affects the velocity distribution and energy distribution, which makes the velocity distribution deviate from the traditional logarithmic distribution, and the maximum velocity occur below the surface. The flow intensity of secondary flows is different under different aspect ratios. Results show great agreement with classical theory.
How Early Should We Worry? Weekly Classroom Predictors of Academic Success and University Retention in an Introductory Microeconomics Course

With increasing financial pressure on higher education, concern for student retention is growing. Most previous work on retention focused on factors unobservable to a faculty member, including measures of social, academic, and financial support. This study uses weekly data on attendance, low-impact high-frequency assignments, and high-impact low-frequency exam performance to model course performance and retention. The models confirm the value of an early warning system for course performance (e.g., midterm grades) after the first high impact exam. The models suggest potential value in adding an end-of-semester warning system for retention based on performance on low-impact high frequency assignments.
Development of a novel sacrificial‐energy dissipation outrigger system for tall buildings

The frame‐core tube‐outrigger structural system is widely used in tall buildings, in which outriggers coordinate the deformation between the core tube and the moment frame, leading to a larger structural lateral stiffness. Existing studies indicate that outriggers can be designed as “fuses” of tall buildings through dissipating seismic energy after yielding, to protect the main structure. To date, both conventional and buckling‐restrained brace (BRB) outriggers have been applied in practice. Subjected to the maximum considered earthquake (MCE), the hardening effect of BRB outriggers increases the damage of other structural components. Meanwhile, conventional outriggers are difficult to repair, owing to the local buckling‐induced severe deterioration and damage. To overcome these problems, this study proposes a novel sacrificial‐energy dissipation outrigger (SEDO) to improve the seismic resilience of tall buildings. The chords of SEDO are made of high‐strength steel and remain elastic. The inclined braces of the SEDO are composed of a sacrificial part and an energy‐dissipating part. Therefore, the SEDO remains elastic under design‐based earthquakes (DBEs) and dissipates inelastic energy under MCEs. Moreover, the detailing of this novel SEDO is proposed on the basis of experimental studies. The optimal strength ratio between the sacrificial part and the energy‐dissipating part is determined in the range of 6:4 to 4:6 on the basis of nonlinear time history analyses (THAs) and parametric studies. Afterwards, the SEDOs are used in an actual tall building to verify their seismic performances through nonlinear THAs. The results indicate the proposed SEDO is able to protect other structural components and effectively improve the seismic resilience of tall buildings.
Nutrition Information at the Point of Selection in High Schools Does Not Affect Purchases.

Please note that this study was published before the implementation of Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010, which went into effect during the 2012-13 school year, and its provision for Smart Snacks Nutrition Standards for Competitive Food in Schools, implemented during the 2014-15 school year. As such, certain research may not be relevant today. ABSTRACT Purpose/Objectives Nutrition information can be an important component of local wellness policies. There are very few studies regarding nutrition information at the point of selection (POS) in high schools. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of posting entrée nutrition information at the POS in high schools nationwide. Methods This research study was conducted in three phases. In Phase I, focus groups were conducted with high school students from three high schools in the Midwest, Southeast, and Southwest USDA regions. In Phase II, the intervention school nutrition (SN) directors (n = 9) posted nutrition labels for entrées in the high school while the control SN directors (n = 11) did not. In Phase III, the intervention SN directors were interviewed via telephone to determine satisfaction with and barriers to posting nutrition information at the POS. Results A total of 38 female and 35 male high school students participated in the focus groups. Male and female students thought nutrition information might affect their food choices. Data from the POS were analyzed using ANOVA and stepwise regression. The nutrition labels did not seem to influence students’ choices. The SN directors’ experiences with the intervention were positive, and they reported providing nutrition labels was a service to students.
The diets of America''s children: influence of dining out

In order to substantially increase the power output of Compton effect lasers, the invention provides for the electron beam to be located inside the cavity containing the photon radiation with which it is to interact. In the Figure, the reference 40 illustrates the cavity and the surface covered with dots, the electron beam; 30 is the accelerator device. The direction of the horizontal arrow is that taken by the emergent photon radiation.
The potential risk factors for childhood disabilities in Riyadh rural areas, Saudi Arabia

Background: Childhood disability is a public health con-cern due to their impacts on quality of life and productivity not only for affected children but also for families and populations as a whole. There are at least 650 million people with disabilities worldwide. Objective: To identify the major biological predictors of disabilities in children, the potential pre-natal, natal, and post-natal risk factors for the disabled children in Riyadh rural areas. Materials and Methods: A survey of 450 Saudi children, pre-school and school age children, below 20 years was carried out between October 2010 and March 2011 with approval by the Institutional Review Board. The study was conducted from children day care center at Riyadh rural area. Data were collected from the case files by clinical staff. Results: Children with motor disabilities represented the highest percentage, followed by those having speech, mental, and educational disabilities. The least number of disabilities was the children with auditory deficits. The results of the current study have emphasized certain pre-natal risk factors including extreme ages of mar-riage, high parity, illiteracy, and consanguineous marriages. Consanguinity, multiparty, and mother childbirth age could be considered as a risk factor for mental (risk ratios (RR) 2.06, 95% CI 1.526-2.7), (RR 1.8, 95% CI 1.2-2.6),(RR 4.7, 95% CI 2.6-8.47) and auditory disabilities (RR 2.6, 95% CI 1.7-3.76), (RR 2, 95% CI 1.25-3.19), (RR 2.6, 95% CI 1.29-5.2). According to our study caesarian labor and prematurity could be considered as a risk factor for motor disability (RR 2.3, 95% CI 1.7-3.1), (RR 2.6, 95% CI 1.46-4.6) while multiparity, very low birth weight, and prematurity were associated with increased risk for speech disabilities (RR 1.14, 95% CI 0.76-1.7), (RR 1.46, 95% CI 0.76-2.76), (RR 7.3, 95% CI 4.9-10.3). In addition, caesarian labor was associated with increased risk for auditory disabilities (RR 1.13, 95% CI 0.59-3.49), while multiparity and mother childbirth age were associated with increased risk for visual disabilities (RR 5.6, 95% CI 4.1-8.27), (RR 7.2, 95% CI 4.19-12.3). Conclusion: Increasing the knowledge about disabilities’ risk factor could reduce the incidence of future disability. Keywords: Childhood disabilities, natal and post, natal risk factors, pre-natal, Riyadh rural areas