Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
WORKLOAD-BASED INDICATORS OF STAFFING NEED (WISN) FOR HEALTH TUTORS INTWO PUBLIC HEALTH TRAINING INSTITUTIONS IN UGANDA

Ugandan public Schools of Clinical Officers (SOCOs) face a serious problem of understaffing with qualified tutors, despite there being sufficient numbers in the country. Poor staffing of training institutions affects the quality of the graduates produced by the schools and eventually dictates poor quality provided by the health workers. This study set out to determine the workload-based staffing needs for two schools, determine the effects of understaffing and coping mechanisms adopted by the schools and the students. It was a descriptive cross-sectional study using the Workload Indicators of Staffing Need (WISN) methodology developed by the WHO, conducted in June 2006 in Mbale and Gulu SOCOs. Respondents were 150 students (75 per school), tutors and officials at the Ministries of Health and that of Education and Sports. The study identified severe tutor staffing in both schools (22 calculated against 8 present in Gulu and 24 against 12 present in Mbale). Both schools depend heavily on part-time tutors and their substitute Clinical Instructors, as well as other coping mechanisms such as out-of-hours and holiday teaching. The quality of teaching has suffered, with syllabi not completed and some key subjects not taught. The major cause of understaffing was non-appointment of tutors due to slow bureaucratic decision-making and other poor working conditions in the Education sector, compounded by poor school administration. Students cope by photocopying notes from previous students and sister schools or by privately hiring tutors in their free time. The paper recommends urgent appointment of tutors, improved funding for the schools, improved terms of service for tutors and improved school administration practices.
Fit, fitter, fittest : where does optimisation fit in?

Optimisation is about making something, generally a complex system of interacting elements, as fi t as possible. The purpose for which it is to be made fi t, and the constraints on the elements and interactions, are defi ned. It is altogether different when optimality considerations are used to shed light on the way in which natural organisms relate to their physical and biotic circumstances, and why it is that particular phenotypes correlate with particular environments. That is to engage in what has been termed reverse engineering: identifi cation of the attributes of an organism that contribute to its being fi t. The only satisfactory defi nition of the purpose of its fi tness is survival. Of course, the notion that the tautology of Spencer’s phrase, ‘Survival of the fi ttest’, somehow undermines the concept of evolution by natural selection can be dismissed. And, in the context of this conference, it is unnecessary to consider the work of evolutionary geneticists who defi ne fi tness in terms of alleles conferring advantages in survival and propagation, and thus do what Dawkins (1992) describes as ‘whatever it takes to make the survival of the fi ttest into a tautology’. But can fi tness be defi ned in a way that is independent of survival? Dawkins has written about the ‘original’ use of the term. ‘It did not have a precise technical meaning, and the fi ttest were not defi ned as those that survive. Fitness meant, roughly, the ability to survive and reproduce, but it was not defi ned and measured precisely synonomous with reproductive success. It had a range of specifi c meanings, depending on the particular aspect of life one was considering. ’ Dawkins provides some examples. ‘If the subject of attention was effi ciency in grinding vegetable food, the fi ttest individuals were those with the hardest teeth or the most powerful jaw muscles. In different contexts the fi ttest individuals would be taken to mean those with the keenest eyes, the strongest leg muscles, the sharpest ears, the swiftest refl exes. These capacities and abilities, along with countless others, were supposed to improve over the generations, and natural selection effected that improvement. Survival of the fi ttest was a general characterization of these particular improvements. There is nothing tautological about that. ’ However, if the application of optimality theory is confi ned to particular attributes, or groups of attributes within an organism, it must be assumed that natural selection has had those particular attributes at its disposal, so to speak, and that all the other attributes impinging on them are fi xed, much as though they were part of an unchanging abiotic environment. Most problems cannot be
Work-related use of Information and Communication Technologies after Hours(W_ICTs) and Work Engagement in Service Industry: Based on Experience Sampling Method

Based on conservation of resources theory, data from 53 front-line employees of service industry in China was collected in four consecutive days using experience sampling methods (ESM). The relationships between W_ICTs and the three dimensions of work engagement were investigated from the perspective of individual regulatory resources, and the mediating role of state of being recovered was also analyzed. The results showed that W_ICTs had a significant positive correlation with the vigor, which is a dimension of work engagement, and state of being recovered played a mediating role in this relationship. There was also a significant positive correlation between W_ICTs and dedication, but the mediating role of recovery state was not significant here. W_ICTs was not significantly correlated with the absorption dimension. Finally, discussion about the enlightenment of theory and management practice was given at the end of the paper.
Benefits of dense labour markets : evidence from transitions to employment in Germany

We analyse whether the size of the local labour market allows for better matching between job seekers and vacancies, which is thought to enhance productivity. This analysis is based on a large data set providing detailed micro-level information on new employment relationships in Germany. Our results suggest rather small matching benefits. Doubling employment density increases the productivity of new employment relationships by 1.1% to 1.2%. Moreover, the findings indicate that the benefits accrue only to persons experiencing job-to-job transitions and short-term unemployed. We detect no important impact of agglomeration on transitions from long-term non-employed.
Seasonal grazing of Columbia milkvetch by cattle on rangelands in British Columbia.

There is a dearth of knowledge on the selection and utilization of Columbia milkvetch (Astragalus miser Dougl. ex Hook. var. serotinus) by grazing livestock on rangelands in British Columbia. Four grazing trials were conducted with cattle on Columbia milkvetch range in southern interior British Columbia. In the first 2 trials during 1990 and 1991 cattle grazed an upper grassland site in late spring. In 1992 and 1993, the animals grazed a lodgepole pine forest site during early summer. The density of Columbia milkvetch and its basal area were similar at both locations. The Columbia milkvetch was not a preferred species on the grassland site as indicated by the bite count technique that determined its percentage in the diet. Consumption of Columbia milkvetch increased gradually as other forage species were preferentially selected and depleted. On the grasslands, consumption of Columbia milkvetch by individual animals did not show an addictive pattern. At the forest site, utilization of Columbia milkvetch was determined on a weekly basis during 1992 and on a biweekly basis during 1993 by paired plots. In contrast to the grassland site, Columbia milkvetch was a preferred species at the forest site where it was utilized to a greater extent than grasses or other forbs. Approximately 80% of the Columbia milkvetch was utilized during 1992 and 60% during 1993, which was significantly greater than the utilization of grasses or other forbs. Forage nutrient analysis at the forest site indicated Columbia milkvetch had higher crude protein and lower ADF content than other forages but it caused livestock poisoning in 1993.
MicroRNA-205 Promotes Cell Proliferation of Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer by Targeting Smad4

Non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) is the most common type of lung cancer and the leading cause of cancerrelated death worldwide. Despite recent advances in cancer diagnosis and treatment, the survival rate of NSCLC patients remains dismally low. There is an urgent need for better mechanistic understanding and development of novel diagnostic and treatment strategies against this malignant disease. MicroRNAs (miRNAs), a class of 19- to 24- base pair non-coding RNAs, have increasingly been implicated as crucial regulators of NSCLC malignancy, and promising biomarkers and/or therapeutic targets for such aggressive disease. Here, we report clinical, molecular, and functional studies of miR-205 in NSCLC. Our analyses of an NSCLC patient cohort showed that expression of miR-205 in primary tumors was 7-fold higher than their corresponding adjacent noncancerous tissues. However, miR-205 was not associated with tumor stage, smoking status, age, or gender, implying a functional link to earlystage tumorigenesis of NSCLC. To test this possibility, we turned our attention to Smad4, a putative target of miR-205 and a widely recognized tumor suppressor. As expected, the expression of Smad4 mRNA in primary tumors of our patient cohort was lower than their normal counterparts. Importantly, we detected a strong negative association between miR-205 and Smad4 in patient tumor tissues. With these clinical leads, we next evaluated the molecular and functional links between these two distinct types of molecules. Our initial mutagenesis analyses showed that miR-205 repressed the expression of Smad4 by directly targeting the 3’-UTR region of its mRNA. Subsequently, we found that overexpression of miR-205 enhanced the proliferation of cultured NSCLC cells. Conversely, siRNA-directed knockdown of Smad4 markedly suppressed tumor cell proliferation. Moreover, our MassARRAY technology-based analyses showed that the DNA methylation of the -77CpG site in the promoter region of miR-205 was significantly impaired in patient tumor tissues. Taken together, our study for the first time provides clinical, molecular and functional evidence on the critical roles of miR-205 in human NSCLC. In particular, our analyses demonstrate that miR-205 drives tumor cell proliferation of NSCLC by directly downregulating Smad4 expression. As such, our findings strongly support the potential of miR-205 as a candidate biomarker and therapeutic target for the diagnosis and treatment of NSCLC.
Towards Efficient Malware Detection and Classification using Multilayered Random Forest Ensemble Technique

The exponential growth rate of malware causes significant security concern in this digital era to computer users, private and government organizations. Traditional malware detection methods employ static and dynamic analysis, which are ineffective in identifying unknown malware. Malware authors develop new malware by using polymorphic and evasion techniques on existing malware and escape detection. Newly arriving malware are variants of existing malware and their patterns can be analyzed using the vision-based method. Malware patterns are visualized as images and their features are characterized. The alternative generation of class vectors and feature vectors using ensemble forests in multiple sequential layers is performed for classifying malware. This paper proposes a hybrid stacked multilayered ensembling approach which is robust and efficient than deep learning models. The proposed model outperforms the machine learning and deep learning models with an accuracy of 98.91%. The proposed system works well for small-scale and large-scale data since its adaptive nature of setting parameters (number of sequential levels) automatically. It is computationally efficient in terms of resources and time. The method uses very fewer hyper-parameters compared to deep neural networks.
Zooplankton of Lake Koroneia (Macedonia, Greece)

Twenty four species (19 Rotifera, 4 Cladocera, 1 Copepoda) were recorded in the zooplankton of Lake Koroneia from June 1999 to June 2000. The dominant species were the Cladocera Daphnia magna and the rotifers Brachionus dimidiatus and B. rubens. Total abundance ranged from 13 to 32,426 ind. L−1 and its seasonal dynamics resembled those of hypertrophic lakes, but attaining much higher numbers due to the absence of predation pressure from fish. Rotifers prevailed (up to 100%) during the warm months (June–October) and their seasonal dynamics were governed by temperature and the presence of large Daphnia individuals. Cladocera were absent during the summer due to high pH values (9.32–11.10) and/or the composition of the phytoplankton community where Anabaenopsis milleri prevailed.
An Ultra-Wide Band Polarization-Independent Random Coding Metasurface for RCS Reduction

In this paper, a novel ultra-wide band (UWB) random 3-bit coding metasurface with polarization independence has been designed to realize radar cross-section (RCS) reduction. The proposed structure consists of polarization conversion metasurfaces (PCMs), which possess the capability of rotating linear polarization waves to their orthogonal ones in an UWB. The polarization-independent property can be attributed to the random rotation angle of each constituting unit. Due to the randomness of 3-bit coding and rotation angle of each element, the divergence of the reflected beam is greatly improved. In addition, the effect of RCS reduction with respect to the unit period length and the unit position are also discussed. Finally, a prototype is fabricated and measured to validate the simulation. The experimental results demonstrate that an ultra-wide band RCS reduction over 10 dB, ranging from 18.3–42.2 GHz, can be attained by the proposed coding metasurface and the maximum reduction is 28.7 dB.
A-DISCRIMINANT VARIETIES AND AMOEBAE

The motivating question behind this body of research is Smale’s 17th problem: Can a zero of n complex polynomial equations in n unknowns be found approximately, on the average, in polynomial time with a uniform algorithm? While certain aspects and viewpoints of this problem have been solved, the analog over the real numbers largely remains open. This is an important question with applications in celestial mechanics, kinematics, polynomial optimization, and many others. Let A = {α1, . , αn+k} ⊂ Z. The A-discriminant variety is, among other things, a tool that can be used to categorize polynomials based on the topology of their real solution set. This fact has made it useful in solving aspects and special cases of Smale’s 17th problem. In this thesis, we take a closer look at the structure of the A-discriminant with an eye toward furthering progress on analogs of Smale’s 17th problem. We examine a mostly ignored form called the Horn uniformization. This represents the discriminant in a compact form. We study properties of the Horn uniformization to find structural properties that can be used to better understand the A-discriminant variety. In particular, we use a little known theorem of Kapranov limiting the normals of the A-discriminant amoeba. We give new O(n) bounds on the number of components in the complement of the real A-discriminant when k = 3, where previous bounds had been O(n) or even exponential before that. We introduce new tools that can be used in discovering various types of extremal A-discriminants as well as examples found with these tools: a family of A-discriminant varieties with the maximal number of cusps and a family ii that appears to asymptotically admit the maximal number of chambers. Finally we give sage code that efficiently plots the A-discriminant amoeba for k = 3. Then we switch to a non-Archimedean point of view. Here we also give O(n) bounds for the number of connected components in the complement of the nonArchimedean A-discriminant amoeba when k = 3, but we also get a bound of O(n2(k−1)(k−2)) when k > 3. As in the real case, we also give a family exhibiting O(n) connected components asymptotically. Finally we give code that efficiently plots the p-adic A-discriminant amoeba for all k ≥ 3. These results help us understand the structure of the A-discriminant to a degree, as yet, unknown. This can ultimately help in solving Smale’s 17th problem as it gives a better understanding of how complicated the solution set can be.
Snow Transport Rate: Field Measurements at Short Time Scales

So as to study snowdrift at short time scales on an experimental field located in l’Alpe d’Huez, France, at an elevation of 2700 meters, mass flux and wind speed were simultaneously recorded at short time rates. The devices able to process such measurements in so hard meteorological conditions are driftometer for transport rate and sonic anemometer for wind vector. Few models of acoustic driftometers are now available but performances of two sensors will be compared on the basis of a complete recording performed during winter 2003-2004. Influence of snow grains types seems to play a significant role in the data sets. Results of specific tests realised in a biphasic wind-tunnel are delivered in this paper with the aim to checking this parameter.
Skin Prick Testing to Identify Food Allergens in 8393 Children and Adolescents with Asthma in Chongqing, Southwest China

Background The prevalence of food allergies in asthmatic children and adolescents has significantly increased over recent years. Nevertheless, the relevant clinical analyses are still lacking in China. Therefore, the present study aimed to determine common food allergens in pediatric patients with asthma in Chongqing, Southwest China. Material/Methods A total of 8393 asthmatic patients from Children’s Hospital of Chongqing Medical University (CHCMU) were enrolled in this retrospective study between October 2014 and July 2017. All patients underwent skin prick test (SPT) with 10 food allergens and recorded history of clinical reactivity. The correlations among the positive rates, categories of allergens, gender, age, and living environment were analyzed. Results A total of 2544 patients (30.31%) had a positive SPT, while the prevalence of food allergy was 8%. Sea crab, peanut, and sea shrimp were the most common food allergens found in the studied population. The frequent food allergies were sea crab, peanuts, and sea shrimp. Conclusions Identifying allergens is important for the diagnosis and management of allergic disorders, and for performing immunotherapy.
Transplantation of bone marrow stromal mesenchymal cells in the treatment of acute myocardial infarction

Introduction: Aim of the study to investigate the efficacy of bone marrow stromal mesenchymal cells (BMSCs) in the early stages of acute myocardial infarction (AMI) in a rat model. Material and methods: Bone marrow was collected from lower limbs of male Wistar rats. Cells were prepared and cultured. Myocardial infarction was induced in female Wistar rats by coronary occlusion. After 30 min, rats received an intramyocardial injection of BMSCs (n = 9) or culture medium (control, n = 11). Echocardiography was performed at baseline and 30 days later, before heart excision. RT-PCR was performed and presence of chromosome Y, NKX2.5, troponin I, GATA4, VEGF-α, VEGF-R1, and KDR was investigated in lesion areas and in the posterior wall. Results: At day 30, a significant decrease in ejection fraction (LVEF) (46.6 ±16.2% vs. 35.6 ±16.0%, p = 0.035) and a marked increase in end-diastolic (LVEDd) (6.74 ±0.75 mm vs. 8.92 ±1.59 mm, p = 0.012) and end-systolic (LVESd) diameters (5.32 ±0.99 mm vs. 7.47 ±1.68 mm, p = 0.012) were evident in the control group. Bone marrow stromal mesenchymal cells-treated rats showed no difference in LVEF (36.8 ±12.1% vs. 44.8 ±12.3%, p = 0.262), LVEDd (7.92 ±0.89 mm vs. 7.76 ±1.34 mm, p = 0.671), or LVESd (6.65 ±1.15 mm vs. 6.21 ±1.42 mm, p = 0.624). Chromosome Y was detected only in lesion areas of BMSC-treated hearts. Expression of NKX2.5, troponin I, GATA4, VEGF-α, VEGF-R1, and KDR was significantly higher in lesion areas of treated hearts. Conclusions: Cell therapy with BMSCs seems effective in the early stages of AMI, preventing LVEF worsening and remodelling. Injected cells give origin to muscular and endothelial cells. It is necessary to clarify whether new cells directly derive from injected cells, or originate from resident or circulating cells by stimulation or chemotaxis.
A FRAMEWORK FOR DISASTER MITIGATION NETWORKS

The existing communication infrastructure could be destroyed during a disaster and this could lead to the disruption of communication activities. Communication is extremely important during disasters; therefore, it is vital that a temporary network is quickly setup to restore communication activities. Temporary networks could be setup using programmable sensor nodes. In this paper, we present SafeNet, a framework for disaster mitigation networks using programmable sensor nodes. We discussed several aspects such as: i) placement of sensor nodes, ii) modes of operation, and iii) the required components.
Nutrient composition of five varieties of commonly consumed Nigerian groundnut ( Arachis hypogaea L.)

The nutrient composition of the five major varieties of groundnut ( Arachis hypogaea L.) commonly consumed in the south-western part of Nigeria was investigated. Raw dryshelled samples were analyzed for proximate (moisture, ash, protein, fat, fiber and carbohydrate), ‘vitamins’ (β-carotene, thiamine, niacin and tocopherol) and minerals (Na, K, Ca, P, Mg, Fe, Mn, Zn, Cu, Se, Co, Al, As, Cd and Pb). Results showed that the groundnuts had 4.12-9.26% moisture, 2.77-3.31% ash, 24.26-26.35% protein, 45.41-48.14% fat, 2.51-2.94% fiber and 15.90-17.75% carbohydrate. All the varieties analyzed showed β-carotene (63.32-65.35mg/100g), thiamin (0.73-0.98mg/100g), niacin (14.00-16.03mg/100g) and tocopherol (18.62-21.07mg/100g) activities; with boro red having significantly (P P> Mg> Ca> Mn> Cu> Na> Zn> Fe> Al> Se in most of the varieties. Boro red also had the highest elemental contents in most of the minerals analyzed. Thus, these groundnuts can be considered useful foodstuffs in minimizing proteinenergy malnutrition (PEM) and micronutrient deficiencies in Nigeria. However, the boro red variety is most recommended. The outcome of this research is a contribution to the food composition table.
A Low-Cost End-to-End sEMG-Based Gait Sub-Phase Recognition System

As surface electromyogram (sEMG) signals have the ability to detect human movement intention, they are commonly used to be control inputs. However, gait sub-phase classification typically requires monotonous manual labeling process, and commercial sEMG acquisition devices are quite bulky and expensive, thus current sEMG-based gait sub-phase recognition systems are complex and have poor portability. This study presents a low-cost but effective end-to-end sEMG-based gait sub-phase recognition system, which contains a wireless multi-channel signal acquisition device simultaneously collecting sEMG of thigh muscles and plantar pressure signals, and a novel neural network-based sEMG signal classifier combining long-short term memory (LSTM) with multilayer perceptron (MLP). We evaluated the system with subjects walking under five conditions: flat terrain at 5 km/h, flat terrain at 3 km/h, 20 kg backpack at 5 km/h, 20 kg shoulder bag at 5 km/h and 15° slope at 5 km/h. Experimental results show that the proposed method achieved average classification accuracies of 94.10%, 87.25%, 90.71%, 94.02%, and 87.87%, respectively, which were significantly higher than existing recognition methods. Additionally, the proposed system had a good real-time performance with low average inference time in the range of 3.25 ~ 3.31 ms.