Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Square peg in a round hole: re-thinking our approach to evaluating health system strengthening in low-income and middle-income countries

### Summary box To function effectively, health systems require adequate financing; an effective workforce; reliable information for decision making; good governance; and available medicines and health technologies to deliver quality services to their populations.1 In low-income and middle-income countries (LMICs), health systems are often limited in this respect and fail to provide comprehensive population coverage of quality healthcare interventions. Health system strengthening comprises strategies to improve one or more of the functions of the health system in order to improve access, coverage, quality or efficiency,1 and is recognised to be an essential step towards achieving universal coverage goals.2 Only when health systems function efficiently and effectively can they deliver services to meet population needs. …
0 60 70 07 v 2 9 J an 2 00 7 Skew-orthogonal polynomials , differential systems and random matrix theory

We study skew-orthogonal polynomials with respect to the weight function exp[−2V (x)], with V (x) = P 2d K=1(uK/K)x K , u2d > 0, d > 0. A finite subsequence of such skew-orthogonal polynomials arising in the study of Orthogonal and Symplectic ensembles of random matrices, satisfy a system of differential-difference-deformation equation. The vectors formed by such subsequence has the rank equal to the degree of the potential in the quaternion sense. These solutions satisfy certain compatibility condition and hence admit a simultaneous fundamental system of solutions.
Beyond counting cases: public health impacts of national Paediatric Surveillance Units

Paediatric Surveillance Units (PSUs) have been established in 14 countries and facilitate national, prospective, active surveillance for a range of conditions, with monthly reporting by child health specialists. The International Network of Paediatric Surveillance Units (INoPSU) was established in 1998 and facilitates international collaboration among member PSUs and allows for sharing of resources, simultaneous data collection and hence comparison of data from different geographical regions. The impact of data collected by PSUs, both individually and collectively as members of INoPSU, on public health outcomes, clinical care and research is described.
Running head : ALEXITHYMIA AND SOCIAL REJECTION 1 Alexithymia is Associated with Blunted Anterior Cingulate Response to Social 1 Rejection : Implications for Daily Rejection 2 3

24 Social rejection elicits distress through the brain’s alarm system, the dorsal 25 anterior cingulate cortex (dACC). The distress of rejection facilitates subsequent 26 inclusion. As a result, traits that blunt this dACC response to social rejection might then 27 threaten group membership, leading to further subsequent rejection. Alexithymia, the 28 inability to identify and describe affective states, is associated with social impairment 29 and reduced dACC activity under conditions of negative affect. Thus, we expected that 30 alexithymia would relate to less dACC activation during rejection and that this blunted 31 response would explain an association between alexithymia and greater rejection in 32 everyday life. Using fMRI and daily diaries, we found that sub-clinical, individual 33 differences in the core feature of alexithymia, difficulty identifying affect, was associated 34 with a blunted dACC response to social rejection. Deficits in affect identification were 35 also associated with greater daily rejection and that this effect was mediated and 36 suppressed by dACC activation to rejection. Our findings emphasize the crucial role of 37 the dACC in response to social rejection and extend the literature on alexithymia’s 38 ability to dampen neural responses and contribute to poor social functioning. The 39 suppressing role of the dACC suggests future directions for clinical interventions on 40 those with affective disorders. 41 42
Influence of Family Stability and Peer Group Pressure Ecological Factors on Risk Taking Behaviour among Secondary School Students in Kajiado North Sub-County , Kajiado County , Kenya .

This study set to determine influence of family stability and peer group pressure ecological factors on risk taking behaviour among adolescents in secondary schools in Kajiado North Sub-County, Kajiado County. The area has numerous ecological factors that could influence the behaviour of adolescents. Since the area is home to a lot of the working population of the adjacent Nairobi City County, people from various backgrounds have immigrated there. As such, the values held by the inhabitants of the area are not easy to define. In this context, adolescents are prone to indulge in risky behaviours such as drug abuse, unprotected sex, and gang behaviour among others that could impact their lives negatively. This study adopted the Ecological Systems Theory. The study is also cross-sectional in nature. Data was collected from 267 students and 15 principals sampled using stratified proportionate sampling and total population sampling techniques. These were sampled from the 15 public secondary schools in Kajiado North Sub-County. Data from students was collected using questionnaires while the principals were interviewed. Pretesting of the questionnaires was undertaken to establish their reliability and validity. Descriptive and inferentialstatisticswere used to analyse the data. Data from interviews was analysed thematically and the findings obtained used to verify those from students’ questionnaires. The findings obtained show that family stability and peer pressure influence risk-taking behaviour in adolescents. The study’s formulated hypotheses were tested at 95% confidence level using multiple regression analysis. The result showed that 2.6% (R 2 = 0.026) variation in the level of risk taking behaviour was attributed to independent variables. The study recommends that family stability plays a crucial role in the risktaking behaviour of students, it is important to ensure that cohesiveness in the families is encouraged. Teachers should be at the forefront for checking negative behaviours in schools so as to protect the spread of such behaviours among peers.
Amniotic Membrane Graft with Argon Laser Photocoagulation Versus Amniotic Membrane Graft with Tissue Debridement for Treatment of Mycotic Keratitis

ABSTRACT Aim: To compare augmented therapy with argon laser and amniotic membrane graft (AMG) versus AMG and tissue debridement for resistant mycotic corneal ulcers. Methods: This study included 40 cases of resistant fungal corneal ulcers in two groups. In one group, argon laser photocoagulation and AMG were done while AMG with tissue debridement was done as adjunctive therapy for the specific antifungal agents. Results: Complete healing with no adverse effects was achieved in argon laser group in duration ranging from 2-3 weeks in all cases. In the AMG group, duration of healing ranged from 3-5 weeks. Visual acuity was improved with one or more line gain in eight cases (40%) in the laser group, while in six cases (30%) only in the AMG group. Conclusions: Augmented therapy with argon laser and AMG is superior to AMG with tissue debridement for treatment of resistant fungal corneal ulcers.
Improvement of the Quality of Acid Mine Dranage With Natural Zeolite with Case Study at South Sumatra

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Evaluation of the usefulness of Treponema pallidum hemagglutination test in the diagnosis of syphilis in weak reactive Venereal Disease Research Laboratory sera

Background and Objectives: Biological false positive (BFP) reactivity by the Venereal Disease Research Laboratory (VDRL) test used for diagnosis of syphilis is a cause for concern. The use of the VDRL as a screening procedure is challenged by some studies. The aim of this study is to determine the prevalence of BFP reactions in different subject groups and to assess the usefulness of Treponema pallidum hemagglutination (TPHA) test in low titre VDRL reactive sera. Materials and Methods: A total of 5785 sera from sexually transmitted diseases (STD) clinic attendees, antenatal clinic attendees, husbands of antenatal cases, peripheral health centres attendees (representing community population) and from patients referred from different OPDs/wards were screened for BFP reactions by the VDRL test. Sera reactive in the VDRL test were confirmed by the TPHA test. Results: Out of 80 qualitative VDRL reactive sera, 68 had <1:8 titre on quantitation and TPHA was positive in 59 samples, indicating BFP reactivity in 0.2% in all the subject groups. BFP was nil in the community population. The male-to-female ratio of BFP reactions was 2:1. VDRL and TPHA positivity was highest (76%) in the age group of 20-29 years. The seroprevalence of syphilis varied from 0.4% to 3.5% in different patient groups. Conclusions: The results of this study highlight that the TPHA positivity was high (86.8%) in sera with VDRL titre less than 1:8. Therefore, for the diagnosis of syphilis, it is recommended that a confirmatory test such as TPHA should be performed on all sera with a reactive VDRL regardless of its titre.
Scenario A : Full Information Scenario B : Incomplete Information policy

Behavioral cloning reduces policy learning to supervised learning by training a discriminative model to predict expert actions given observations. Such discriminative models are non-causal: the training procedure is unaware of the causal structure of the interaction between the expert and the environment. We point out that ignoring causality is particularly damaging because of the distributional shift in imitation learning. In particular, it leads to a counter-intuitive “causal confusion” phenomenon: access to more information can yield worse performance. We investigate how this problem arises, and propose a solution to combat it through targeted interventions—either environment interaction or expert queries—to determine the correct causal model. We show that causal confusion occurs in several benchmark control domains as well as realistic driving settings, and validate our solution against DAgger and other baselines and ablations.
Induction of LTP-like changes in human auditory cortex by rapid auditory stimulation: an FMRI study.

PURPOSE Previously we have shown that rapid sensory stimulation, in this case, auditory tone pips, can induce long-lasting plastic changes akin to Long Term Potentiation (LTP) within adult human sensory cortex. In a previous study, auditory LTP was reflected as an increase in the amplitude of the N1 component of the auditory event-related potential as measured by EEG. The goal of the present study was to investigate potential effects of LTP-like changes on the hemodynamic response of the human auditory cortex. METHODS Silent sparse-sampled fMRI recordings were obtained while subjects passively listened to tone-pips both before and after a short block of rapidly presented auditory tone-pips (auditory tetanus) was delivered. RESULTS The BOLD response within the primary auditory cortex was significantly enhanced after the auditory tetanus. CONCLUSION This is the first study demonstrating LTP-like changes of the hemodynamic response in the auditory system, and thus supports the growing literature demonstrating LTP can be induced in adult human cortex. These results have implications in the fields of perceptual learning and rehabilitation.
Determinants of Poverty among Farming Households in Nasarawa State, Nigeria

The study assessed the poverty status, identified the determinants of poverty as well the poverty coping strategies among farming households in Nasarawa State, Nigeria. Simple random sampling was used to select 150 farming households. The Costs of Calorie method and Discriminant Analysis were used to determine the incidence of poverty as well as its determinants respectively. The incidence of poverty among the sampled households was found to be high and the major determinants of poverty include household size, number of income sources of the household head, number of household members employed outside agriculture and the number of literate adult males and females in the household. The major poverty coping strategies include skipping of meals, reduction in the quantity of meals served and engaging in wage labour. The study recommends that the farming households should be effectively involved in the formulation of strategies for imparting knowledge on family planning to the farming households. In addition, to diversify the number of income sources of the household heads, the skills acquisition centres should be extended to all rural areas in the state and the existing centers should be further strengthened.
Genetic and environmental effects on hearing acuity and the association between hearing acuity, mobility and falls in older women

Viljanen, Anne Genetic and environmental effects on hearing acuity and the association between hearing acuity, mobility and falls in older women. Jyvaskyla: University of Jyvaskyla, 2010, 85 p. (Studies in Sport, Physical Education and Health ISSN 0356-1070; 151) ISBN 978-951-39-3962-5 (PDF), 978-951-39-3952-6 (nid.) Finnish summary Diss. The purpose of this study was to examine the contribution of genetic and environmental effects to individual differences in hearing acuity and to explore whether hearing acuity is associated with mobility, postural balance, and falls. This study is part of the Finnish Twin Study on Aging, which comprises 103 monozygotic and 114 dizygotic community-dwelling female twin pairs aged 63-76 years. Hearing acuity was assessed using standardized audiometric methods and a structured questionnaire. Maximal walking speed was measured over 10 meters, walking endurance as the distance covered in 6 minutes and difficulties in walking 2 kilometers according to self-report. Postural balance was indicated as a movement of center of pressure in semi-tandem stance assessed using a force platform. Information on falls was gathered for 12 months of follow-up with a fall calendar. Quantitative genetic modeling showed that genetic effects accounted for over 60% of the total variance in hearing acuity of the better hearing ear at the low, mid and high frequencies, and in speech recognition. The remaining variance was due to environmental effects. Although overall heritability was rather constant across the frequency spectrum, at the low and high frequencies frequency-specific genetic and environmental effects together accounted for the majority of the total variance. Environmental effects were more prominent in the worse hearing ear. Self-reported hearing difficulties were accounted for solely by environmental factors. Hearing impairments were associated with slower maximal walking speed, lower walking endurance and self-reported major difficulties in walking 2 kilometers. Poor hearing also predicted higher risk for new major walking difficulties during three-year follow-up and higher risk for falls, which was partially explained by the poorer hearing participants’ poorer postural balance. The results of this study suggest that some people may be genetically predisposed to hearing impairment in old age, hence this finding underlines the need for further genetic studies. Strategies to prevent hearing loss may have wide-ranging influences not only on older people s ability to communicate, but also more widely on functional ability.
Influence of learning-style preferences in academic performance in the subject of human anatomy: an institution-based study among preclinical medical students

Purpose: The present study was conducted to find the preferred mode of learning among first-year preclinical students and compare the preferred mode of learning with sex, faculty of students, and academic performance of the students using the VARK questionnaire. Methods: A cross-sectional study was done among 142 first-year Bachelor of Medicine–Bachelor of Surgery and Bachelor of Dental Surgery students from February to May 2018. Demographic data and various academic performance marks were recorded for each individual. VARK (visual, aural, read/write and kinesthetic) questionnaire version 7.8 was administered to calculate the score of each component. Mean VARK scores were calculated and each student classified by their preferred mode of learning. The preferred mode of learning was compared with sex, nationality, faculty of students, and academic performance using χ2, unpaired t-tests, and the Mann–Whitney U test. P<0.05 was taken as statistically significant for comparison. Results: A majority of the students (53.52%) were multimodal. The most common multimodal mode of preference was bimodal (26.06%), while the most common unimodal preference was kinesthetic (29.06%). Total V score, K score, and VARK score were higher among males, while A and R scores were higher among females. The K score (7.96±2.35 in males and 6.96±2.43 in females) differed significantly (P=0.019) between male and female subjects. More subjects with higher scores in the theory exam of anatomy were unimodal learners (53.8%) compared to multimodal learners (46.2%). Conclusion: From this study, it can be concluded that undergraduate students were diverse in their learning styles, but most were multimodal. Though learning styles were found to vary by sex, nationality, and academic performance, differences were not statistically significant.
WITH CONSIDERATION OF ITS MICROSTRUCTURE

Metallic structures of long-term operation life in oil and gas industry are exposed to such factors as the cyclic loads, temperature changes, pressure pulsations, aggressive medias, etc. For example, the operation of pipelines under the influence of residual internal pressure steel pipeline withstands tensions that are close to the normative strength characteristics of metal pipes. Such situation relates with a complicated scheme of pipeline interaction with the soil, presence of deviations from regulatory requirements during construction of the pipeline, presence of flaws in metal, weldments and failuring modes of technological operations. Moreover, ‘aging’ of pipelines has been reported from many operators based on their performance experience. In oil and gas pipeline steels most common failures are caused by strain ageing. This is mostly due to not only cyclic nature of the loading, but also due to some specific alloying elements. Availability of the atomic hydrogen in the soil electrolytes, hydrogen sulfide oils, its generation during cathodic reactions leads to a significant growth of embrittlement of tube steels in case of prolonged cyclic loading. Combination of these processes cause change of the microstructure and physical-mechanical properties of steel, i.e. ageing [1]. Thus aging of the pipeline steels during operation can be associated with changes at the level of crystalline structure of metal and with redistribution of impurity atoms and dislocations. Some investigators report about significant changes of such mechanical properties as yield/tensile strength (changes up to 20%), impact toughness (up to 30%) etc. Accurate determination of the actual technical state of biggest number of long-term metallic structures in the basic industries is linked with determination of actual mechanical properties and the estimation of stress-strain state using non-destructive methods [2]. Factors involved in ageing process negatively affect the remaining life of the structure and can cause fatigue defects and structure damage [3]. Therefore, determination of actual mechanical properties and evaluation
Mitochondrial Diversity in New World House Flies (Diptera: Muscidae)

Abstract Mitochondrial diversity in house flies was examined by using the single-strand conformation polymorphism method in house flies, Musca domestica L. sampled in six zoogeographical subregions in the New World. The number of haplotypes and haplotype diversities were homogeneous among subregions, but a strong spatial component was found in the distribution of particular haplotypes. Nei’s differentiation index among subregions, GRT, was 0.53 and that among populations within subregions, GPR, was 0.31. Greater genetic differentiation was found among populations in the Nearctic than in the Neotropics. Haplotype frequency distributions in two of three Nearctic subregions deviated from that expected under the neutral infinite allele model, suggesting the existence of differential selection patterns.
PHYSIOLOGICAL RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN BRACONID ENDOPARASITES AND TI{EIR HOST'S : TIIE MICROPLITIS CROCEIPESY-TIELIOTHIS SPP.Z SYSTEMY

The suitability of Heliothis sBp. larvae as a host for the solitary endoparasitoid Microplitis croceipes (Cresson) is reviewed from the point of view of the physiological interrelationship. The constraint that a host represents is discussed, but it is the regulation of the host by the parasitoid which is emphasized. The sources of potential M. croceipes regulatory factors are described and compared to other parasitoids. Of the sources, the calyx fluid (containing polydnaviruses) and the effects calyx fluid have on three physiological systems are discussed in more detail. The thrce systems emphasized are the endocrine system, the host's immune system, and titer of nutrients in the hemolymph.
Peripheral Blood Progenitor Cells Mobilization in Patients with Multiple Myeloma

Autologous stem cell transplantation (ASCT) is considered the standard therapy for younger patients with newly diagnosed symptomatic multiple myeloma (MM). The introduction into clinical practice of novel agents (i.e.: proteasome inhibitors and immunomodulatory derivatives [IMiDs]) has significantly contributed to major advances in MM therapy and prognosis. These novel agents are incorporated into induction regimens to enhance the depth of response before ASCT and further improve post-ASCT outcomes. Collection of adequate hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs) is necessary for successful autologous transplantation. The mobilizing regimen usually consists of cyclophosphamide or disease-specific agents, in combination with a hematopoietic cytokine, usually G-CSF, which mobilizes HPSCs into the bloodstream, in particular when administered after myelosuppressive chemotherapy. In some patients, the number of mobilized CD34+ cells is not sufficient to perform successful stem cell transplantation due to bone marrow damage by neoplastic proliferation and/or chemoradiotherapy. To improve the collection of CD34+ cells, the mobilization procedure can be repeated or an alternative chemotherapy regimen can be chosen. Recently, the new drug plerixafor (Mozobil®) has been introduced to increase the number of circulating CD34+ cells. Its use increases the level of functional HPCs in the peripheral blood, with long-term resettlement
External control of the Drosophila melanogaster lifespan by combination of 3D oscillating low-frequency electric and magnetic fields

Abstract We demonstrate that the lifespan of Drosophila melanogaster population is controllable by a combination of external three-dimensional oscillating low-frequency electric and magnetic fields (3D OLFEMFs). The lifespan was decreased or increased in dependence of the parameters of the external 3D OLFEMFs. We propose that metabolic processes in D. melanogaster’s body are either accelerated (in the case of reduced lifespan) or slowed down (in the case of increased lifespan) in function of 3D OLFEMFs that induce vibrational motions on sub-cellular and larger scales.