Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Differentially private recommender systems: building privacy into the net

We consider the problem of producing recommendations from collective user behavior while simultaneously providing guarantees of privacy for these users. Specifically, we consider the Netflix Prize data set, and its leading algorithms, adapted to the framework of differential privacy. Unlike prior privacy work concerned with cryptographically securing the computation of recommendations, differential privacy constrains a computation in a way that precludes any inference about the underlying records from its output. Such algorithms necessarily introduce uncertainty--i.e., noise--to computations, trading accuracy for privacy. We find that several of the leading approaches in the Netflix Prize competition can be adapted to provide differential privacy, without significantly degrading their accuracy. To adapt these algorithms, we explicitly factor them into two parts, an aggregation/learning phase that can be performed with differential privacy guarantees, and an individual recommendation phase that uses the learned correlations and an individual's data to provide personalized recommendations. The adaptations are non-trivial, and involve both careful analysis of the per-record sensitivity of the algorithms to calibrate noise, as well as new post-processing steps to mitigate the impact of this noise. We measure the empirical trade-off between accuracy and privacy in these adaptations, and find that we can provide non-trivial formal privacy guarantees while still outperforming the Cinematch baseline Netflix provides.
Visual discrimination transfer and modulation by biogenic amines in honeybees

ABSTRACT For more than a century, visual learning and memory have been studied in the honeybee Apis mellifera using operant appetitive conditioning. Although honeybees show impressive visual learning capacities in this well-established protocol, operant training of free-flying animals cannot be combined with invasive protocols for studying the neurobiological basis of visual learning. In view of this, different attempts have been made to develop new classical conditioning protocols for studying visual learning in harnessed honeybees, though learning performance remains considerably poorer than that for free-flying animals. Here, we investigated the ability of honeybees to use visual information acquired during classical conditioning in a new operant context. We performed differential visual conditioning of the proboscis extension reflex (PER) followed by visual orientation tests in a Y-maze. Classical conditioning and Y-maze retention tests were performed using the same pair of perceptually isoluminant chromatic stimuli, to avoid the influence of phototaxis during free-flying orientation. Visual discrimination transfer was clearly observed, with pre-trained honeybees significantly orienting their flights towards the former positive conditioned stimulus (CS+), thus showing that visual memories acquired by honeybees are resistant to context changes between conditioning and the retention test. We combined this visual discrimination approach with selective pharmacological injections to evaluate the effect of dopamine and octopamine in appetitive visual learning. Both octopaminergic and dopaminergic antagonists impaired visual discrimination performance, suggesting that both these biogenic amines modulate appetitive visual learning in honeybees. Our study brings new insight into cognitive and neurobiological mechanisms underlying visual learning in honeybees. Summary: Honeybees can transfer visual information from a classical to an operant context and appetitive visual learning in honeybees is modulated by octopamine and dopamine.
Serum Leptin is Decreased Thirty Days after Surgery

Background: Leptin plays an important role for the regulation of food intake, energy expenditure and glucose control. The aim of this study was to study the effect of surgery on circulating levels of human leptin in a human elective surgery model. Methods: A prospective observational study was conducted. Blood sampling was carried out prior to surgery and four and thirty days after elective surgery, respectively. Patients undergoing orthopedic surgery (n=29) and coronary bypass patients (n=21) were included in the study. Serum leptin levels were measured using sandwich ELISA. C-reactive protein (CRP) was analyzed by turbidimetry. Results: Leptin values was significantly decreased thirty days after surgery in both orthopedic (p=0.002) and coronary bypass patients (p=0.003) in comparison with presurgical values. Conclusion: Elective surgery is associated with decreased leptin levels in the late postsurgical phase.
Processing conditions and mechanical properties of high-speed steel parts fabricated using direct selective laser sintering

Abstract This paper reports the results of an investigation into the selective laser sintering of a prealloyed high-speed steel powder. The structured development of processing conditions for single lines, single layers and multiple layers of material is reported, as are the flexural modulus and strength of the single- and multiple layer components. Infiltration with bronze was used to improve the mechanical properties of the components and it is concluded that selective laser sintering of high-speed steel allied to bronze infiltration can produce material with the mechanical properties to allow for use in load-bearing applications, but that further work is required to improve the density, mechanical properties and build rate if selective laser sintering is to develop as a general manufacturing process for hard metals.
A computer scientist's introductory guide to business process management (BPM)

Computers play an integral part in designing, modelling, optimising and managing business processes within and across companies. While Business Process Management (BPM), Workflow Management (WfM) and Business Process Reengineering (BPR) have been IT-related disciplines with a history of about three decades, there is still a lack of publications clarifying definitions and scope of basic BPM terminologies like business process, BPM versus WfM, workflow, BPR, etc. Such a myriad of similar-sounding terminologies can be overwhelming for computer scientists and computer science students who may wish to venture into this area of research. This guide aims to address this gap by providing a high level overview of the key concepts, rationale, features and the developments of BPM.
Use of Insecticide treated bed nets amongst Public Health Physicians in Nigeria

BACKGROUND: Malaria contributes to high morbidity and mortality rate in both young and old in this part of the world. One of the methods for the prevention of malaria is the use of Insecticide treated bed nets. These were distributed to household. It is therefore very important to know, if the people who are advocating the use like the public health physicians are actually practicing it. OBJECTIVE: To determine the access of insecticide treated bed nets (ITNs) to the public health physicians and to determine the utilization of the ITNs. METHODS: A cross sectional study was carried out with structured questionnaire distributed to all consented public health physicians who were around when the questionnaire were distributed at the Association conference held during the election year 2013 in Ilorin, Nigeria. RESULTS: Out of the two hundred questionnaire distributed 174 (87%) were collected back. There were females 88(51%) and males 86(49%). The majority79 (48%) of the respondent who indicated their ages were age group of 31-40 years. About 110(63.2%) had access to ITNs while 37(33.6) out of them always use it and most non-utilization factor was sweating. CONCLUSION: Although a good number of the respondent have access to the nets only few use it due to the tropical nature of resource limited country like Nigeria. It is therefore necessary to manufacture user-friendly ITNs.
JUSTICE IN THE HEALTHCARE SYSTEM: PAYMENT AND REIMBURSEMENT POLICIES IN IRAN

Justice is one of the main principles of ethics in the healthcare system, and its establishment at macro level depends on formulation of appropriate policies by policy-makers and healthcare providers. Health care policies and payment and reimbursement systems have a significant impact on health systems’ efficiency and cost control. In this paper, payment and reimbursement policies and their impact on financial incentives will be reviewed; moreover, financial policies in the national health care in Iran and related challenges will be mentioned in brief. There is no doubt that none of the payment and reimbursement policies is perfect and each of them has the potential to put caregivers or health care providers financially at risk. Therefore, policy-makers should select a combination of the best approaches, considering socioeconomic factors, in order to provide a maximum coverage of health services and ensure fairness in the health system. Efficient payment and reimbursement approaches should undoubtedly preserve the rights of all parties in a fair and logical manner. Current national policy shows that a high percent of health care expenditures are financed through out-of-pocket payments, and therefore appropriate policies should be adopted to lighten this burden. Considering the accelerated trend toward the Family Doctor Plan in big cities in Iran, the present paper would be helpful for many health care providers, physicians and other health care professionals.
Ethnobotanical information on plants used for the management of cardiovascular diseases in Nkonkobe Municipality, South Africa

Cardiovascular diseases are one of the major killer ailments in the world. The incidences of the diseases are on the alarming rate especially in the developing countries. An ethnobotanical survey of plants used for the treatment of these diseases and some of their predisposing factors was carried out in the Nkonkobe Municipality in the Eastern Cape of South Africa. Information on the names of plants, their parts used and methods of preparation was collected through a questionnaire which was administered to herbalists, traditional healers and rural dwellers. The study revealed 19 plant species that are used for the treatment of heart disease, stroke, high blood pressure and chest complaints in the Municipality. 53% of the plants mentioned were used for the management of chest pain, 47% for high blood pressure, 42% for heart disease, 16% for stroke and 11% for the treatment of hypercholesterolemia. These plants belong to 16 families of which Asteraceae, Hypoxidaceae and Fabaceae are the most prominent. The most commonly utilized portions of plants for medicinal purposes include the leaves and bulbs. Other parts used are roots, stems and corms. The methods of preparation often employed are decoctions and infusions whilst the medication was frequently administered orally. Tulbaghia violacea was repeatedly mentioned as the plant species used for the treatment of cardiovascular disease and is predisposing factors in the study area.
The WyCash portfolio management system

U.S. pension funds, corporations, and banks invest billions of dollars in the " cash " markets. Cash securities are generally considered those with a remaining term to maturity of less than one year, but can include those with maturities as long as five years. Incredibly diverse in nature, cash securities are actually negotiated between issuer and buyer, and new security types are frequently introduced into the market. WyCASH+ is a portfolio management system which provides basic accounting, record-keeping and reporting, as well as analytical computations to assist the manager of cash portfolios. For the development of WyCASH+, Wyatt Software chose to employ object technology in order to quickly and effectively address the diversity present in the market. Objects help in two ways. First, many security types fit nicely into an inheritance hierarchy which is directly supported by our language (Smalltalk) saving us considerable effort in coding. Second, changing market demands often require massive revisions which we have been able to accommodate because of the modularity intrinsic in a totally object-oriented implementation. Our customers value our responsiveness as much as, if not more than, our product's fit to their current needs. We developed the product by incremental growth from a working prototype. Each member of our small engineering team maintains at least general knowledge of all aspects of the roughly four megabytes of source code. This includes some libraries provided by the vendor and others written to our specification by third-party contractors. Mature sections of the program have been revised or rewritten many times providing the consolidation that is key to understanding and continued incremental development. We found that some key implementation ideas were slow to emerge in the course of WyCash's development. Although many of our objects are derived directly from things or concepts that appear in documentation, and others were easily drawn from the collective experience of our programmers, a third, and more tantalizing, category of objects only surfaced through a process we could call Incremental Design Repair. We found these highly leveraged abstractions only because we were willing to reconsider architectural decisions in the light of recent experience. The same flexibility that allowed us to tackle diversity in our problem domain, specifically the flexibility afforded by the universal use of polymorphic messages sends (i.e. pure object-oriented programming), allowed us to include architectural revisions in the production program that would be judged too dangerous for inclusion under any other …
Mass Gathering Medicine: A Review

Abstract The provision for emergency medical care for spectators and participants at large events is a growing area of interest. This article describes the definition and characteristics of medical care at mass gatherings. The literature is reviewed with regard to the planning, organization, personnel, and staffing required at these events. The equipment and transportation assets needed are also discussed. Disaster and mass casualty planning implications also are described.
Reducing dissonance along health–education fault lines: health-literacy advocacy and the case for efficacious assessment

Abstract International health and education sectors alike readily support the argument that healthy young people who attend school tend to learn better, and a good education influences the development of a healthier population . Such sentiments recognize the interaction between schools and young people, and the overall experience of attending school as providing unique opportunities for health promotion. Yet many believe that such programs have never been fully embraced. In this paper we explore tensions operating at the health–education interface and the complex nexus of principles and practices within which educators and health professionals mobilize school-based health-promotion initiatives. In so doing, we draw on the case of health literacy to demonstrate the usefulness of an explicit interrogation of the theoretical lineages underpinning particular strategies as a means of mediating these tensions. More specifically, we provide insight into the principles and practices underpinning educators' approaches to evaluation, and pose some implications for school-based health education and promotion.
Coming to Terms with the Risk of Breast Cancer: Perceptions of Women with Primary Relatives with Breast Cancer

The goal of this study was to explore and describe the meaning of the risk experience in women with primary relatives with breast cancer (mother, sister, mother and sister, and mother and other primary relative). An exploratory, descriptive study was conducted using semistructured, in-depth, tape-recorded interviews as the primary data collection method. Fifty-five women formed the sample. Data were analyzed using qualitative analysis procedures. Women's descriptions of their experiences revealed that their perceptions of being "at risk" and their self-care practices developed over time. Developing a personal view of risk occurred in three phases: living the breast cancer experience of the relative(s), developing a risk perception, and putting risk in its place. The phases and their related components are described in detail.
Estudo comparativo entre os sistemas de umidificação aquoso aquecido e trocador de calor e de umidade na via aérea artificial de pacientes em ventilação mecânica invasiva

BACKGROUND: In patients receiving invasive mechanical ventilation through endotracheal tubes, the use of humidifiers is essential. OBJECTIVE: To evaluate temperature and relative humidity levels in the gas administered to patients undergoing mechanical ventilation by means of heated water humidifiers (HWH) and hygroscopic heat and moisture exchangers (HHME). METHOD: This was a prospective randomized study on 20 patients divided into two groups: one group using HWH (n=10) and the other using the Hygrobac "S" model of HHME, made by Mallinckrodt® (n=10). The variables analyzed were: temperature and relative humidity levels of the gas, minute volume (MV), tidal volume (VT) and condensation volume. RESULTS: It was found that HWH attained lower temperatures than did HHME (29.01 ± 1.33 °C versus 30.14 ± 1.24 °C; p<0.001). The relative humidity was higher in HWH than in HHME (97.45 ± 5.22% versus 89.87 ± 11.04%; p<0.021). The condensation volume in the ventilator circuit for the group using HWH was greater than for the HHME group (p<0.05). CONCLUSION: The results demonstrate that both systems (HWH and HHME) supplied absolute humidity that was below recommended values, while the HWH offered higher relative humidity. On the other hand, HHME produced better performance regarding gas heating.
Derivation of respiration from electrocardiogram during heart rate variability studies

A method was developed to derive the respiration signal from the ECG signal based on the observation that the body-surface ECG is influenced by electrode motion relative to the heart and that fluctuations in the mean cardiac electrical axis accompany respiration. ECG signals were taken from 9 healthy subjects during rest, paced breathing and exercise. The respiration was derived from the recorded ECG signals. The ECG-derived respiration was compared with the original respiration recorded through an impedance pneumography device. The derived respiration shows an excellent correspondence with the original respiration. Statistical analysis indicates that the ECG-derived respiration has a high correlation with the original respiration in the frequency domain. <<ETX>>
Church leaders' opinions about tobacco prevention

Purpose – To assess what volunteers‐ and ministers of faith‐based organizations (FBO) think about their own expertise in delivering a tobacco prevention initiative, the impact of such an initiative on youth, their potential for burnout in doing so, and their interest in other health initiatives.Design/methodology/approach – A total of 149 volunteers and ministers attending a tobacco prevention workshop anonymously answered questions about its impact, and their own expertise, potential for burnout, and interest in other health initiatives.Findings – Respondents strongly endorsed their personal expertise and the impact of tobacco prevention on youth. On burnout, ministers were significantly lower (an average answer of “don't know”) than teachers and others (an average answer of “disagree”); on other health initiatives, ministers were significantly more interested (an average answer of “strongly”) than teachers (an average answer of “moderately”). All were significantly more positive about offering other hea.
Development of Orphan Drugs in Japan: Characteristics of Orphan Drugs Developed in Japan

Since 1993, some support measures to promote development of orphan drugs have been introduced. This support system was modeled after the United States system, but the contents were slightly different. The annual average numbers of orphan drug designations in Japan is about one half of those in the United States. The proportion of approved orphan drugs to designated drugs in Japan was 2.0 times of that in the United States. In the United States, 77% of applicants were smaller companies, but in Japan only 3% of applicants were venture companies. In Japan more drugs were introduced from overseas than developed in the country. Looking at the designated orphan drugs, drugs with less chance of failure which required less money for development tend to have been developed in Japan. Most of the applicants were larger companies. It seems important to view the support measures from the point of view of fostering venture companies.
Analgesic and anti-inflammatory activity of aqueous root extract of Cassia sieberiana D. C. (Caesalpiniaceae)

The analgesic and anti-inflammatory activity of Cassia sieberiana roots were investigated. Analgesic activity had been investigated using acetic acid induced contortions in mice. The aqueous root extract of C. sieberiana at 300 mg/kg per os showed similar analgesic activity than 100 mg/kg of acetylsalicylic acid (20 ± 1.14 vs 26 ± 1.79 contortions) (ns, p < 0.05). In rat paw oedema model, C. sieberiana aqueous root extract significantly decreased carrageenan-induced oedema. These results showed that aqueous root extract of C. sieberiana possessed both analgesic and anti-inflammatory activities, which have justified their use in Senegal traditional medicine to treat pain and inflammation.
Pre- and postoperative steps to improve body image following stoma surgery

The formation of a stoma creates many issues for patients undergoing stoma surgery. Of the 100 000 people with stomas in the UK (Burch, 2005), many may fear ridicule and embarrassment, and may struggle with issues of body image and sexuality. However, studies have suggested that these issues remain overlooked by nurses (Borwell, 1997). Through the use of a case study, Paula Noone explores practical steps that can be taken to minimize these concerns in patients with newly-formed stomas, focusing on pre- and postoperative counselling, education and psychological support, as well as best practice in providing holistic care.