Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Working with the Cartesian Plane and Algebraic Formulas by Students with down Syndrome: Findings of a Small-Scale Study

ABSTRACT After some studies on students with Down syndrome (DS) who learned algebra and problem solving and few single case studies on analytic geometry, here the experience on analytic geometry was extended to 6 adolescents with DS, who attended mainstream schools. They were taught individually in the afternoon, one day per week, for 9 months by the same teacher, who also graded their performances during the course and in a final test. No preselection of the participants was done, except for the chronological age. The programme was: fractions, positive/negative numbers, linear equations, the Cartesian plane, the equation of a straight line, parallel and intersecting straight lines, the belonging of a point to a straight line, and the distance between two points. The use of a calculator and a ruler was allowed all times. As a result, almost all the students learned to work autonomously on each topic of the programme. All the students either improved or maintained their performances from the course to the final test. One student with a severe impairment in speech, reading, and writing was able to learn and to enjoy the programme. This study confirms the previous results and should be extended further.
Relationship between contributions of temporal amplitude envelope of speech and modulation transfer function in room acoustics to perception of noise-vocoded speech

: Speech signals can be represented as a sum of amplitude-modulated frequency bands. This sum can also be regarded as a temporal amplitude envelope (TAE) with temporal ﬁne structure. Our previous studies using noise-vocoded speech (NVS) showed that the TAE of speech plays an important role in the perception of linguistic information (speech intelligibility) as well as non-linguistic information (e.g., vocal-emotion recognition). It was found that the upper limit of the modulation frequency from 4 to 8 Hz on the TAE is important for speech intelligibility, while that from 8 to 16 Hz is important for vocal-emotion recognition. However, speech intelligibility generally dramatically degrades due to reverberation. The concept of the modulation transfer function (MTF) takes into account the relationship between the transfer function in an enclosure in terms of input and output TAEs and characteristics of the enclosure under reverberant conditions. This concept was introduced as a measure in room acoustics for assessing the eﬀect of an enclosure on speech intelligibility. For this study, we conducted two experiments involving word intelligibility tests and vocal-emotion recognition with NVS under reverberant conditions to investigate the relationship between the contributions of the TAE of speech and MTF of reverberation to modulation perception of NVS. We also pointed out that the straightforward scheme, i.e., the relationship between the contributions of the static features (peak/slope) in the modulation spectrum (MS) of speech and MTF of reverberation, cannot consistently account for the auditory perception of both linguistic and non-linguistic information obtained from these perceptual data of NVS under reverberant conditions. We then developed a scheme in which the relationship between the contributions of the temporal MS features and MTF of reverberation to modulation perception can consistently account for these perceptual data of NVS. speech, Vocal-emotion recognition, Speech intelligibility, Temporal modulation-spectral feature
High dose therapy and autologous stem cell transplantation for lymphoma: current status

The use of high dose therapy (HDT) and autologous stem cell transplantation (ASCT) for patients with lymphoma has increased rapidly during the last decade. It is now widely accepted as 'standard' salvage therapy in certain patients with relapsed Hodgkin's disease and non-Hodgkin's lymphoma (NHL), where small randomized trials have demonstrated the superiority of HDT over 'conventional' dose salvage therapy. In addition, it is now being assessed as post-remission therapy in some patients with NHL (and to a lesser extent with Hodgkin's diseInvited article NOWOTWORY 2000 / tom 50 Zeszyt 3 / 231–239
Existence and asymptotic behavior of intermediate type of positive solutions of fourth-order nonlinear differential equations

Under the assumptions that p and q are regularly varying functions satisfying conditions ? a t/p(t)1/? dt < ? and ? a (t/p(t))1/? dt = ? existence and asymptotic form of regularly varying intermediate solutions are studied for a fourth-order quasilinear differential equation (p(t)jx? (t)|? -1 x? (t))? + q(t)|x(t)|? -1 x(t) = 0, ? > ? > 0. It is shown that under certain integral conditions there exist two types of intermediate solutions which according to their asymptotic behavior is to be divided into six mutual distinctive classes, while asymptotic behavior of each member of any of these classes is governed by a unique explicit law.
Regression Models and Multivariate Life Tables

Abstract Semiparametric, multiplicative-form regression models are specified for marginal single and double failure hazard rates for the regression analysis of multivariate failure time data. Cox-type estimating functions are specified for single and double failure hazard ratio parameter estimation, and corresponding Aalen–Breslow estimators are specified for baseline hazard rates. Generalization to allow classification of failure times into a smaller set of failure types, with failures of the same type having common baseline hazard functions, is also included. Asymptotic distribution theory arises by generalization of the marginal single failure hazard rate estimation results of Lin et al. The Péano series representation for the bivariate survival function in terms of corresponding marginal single and double failure hazard rates leads to novel estimators for pairwise bivariate survival functions and pairwise dependency functions, at specified covariate history. Related asymptotic distribution theory follows from that for the marginal single and double failure hazard rates and the continuity, compact differentiability of the Péano series transformation and bootstrap applicability. Simulation evaluation of the proposed estimation procedures is presented, and an application to multiple clinical outcomes in the Women’s Health Initiative Dietary Modification Trial is provided. Higher dimensional marginal hazard rate regression modeling is briefly mentioned. Supplementary materials for this article are available online.
Effects of carbon to nitrogen ratio on the performance and stability of aerobic granular sludge

The purpose of this study was to assess the nutrient salts removal efficiency and stability of the aerobic granular sludge (AGS) by change in C/N (carbon to nitrogen) ratio. The laboratory-scale experiments were performed to analyze the removal efficiencies for organic matter and contents of nitrogen, MLSS, sludge volume index, and extracellular polymeric substances (EPS) under C/N ratio conditions of 5.0, 10.0, 15.0, and 20.0. The microorganisms were observed using optical microscope and the microbial communities were analyzed using pyrosequencing. The increase in C/N ratio from 5.0 to 20.0 increased the organic matter and nitrogen removal efficiency to 95.9 and 79.1%, respectively. For the EPS contents, an influencing factor of granule stability, the polysaccharides to protein (PS/PN) ratio increased from 0.55 to 0.79. For the microbial community, the Thauera was the most common genus in ending phase occupying 63.7%. This microorganism is regarded as one contributing to organic matter degradation and improved production of EPS including AGS of microorganism, thus, may be an explanation of the results of this study such as increase in organic material in AGS and improvement of denitrification efficiency and contents of EPS with increase in C/N ratio.
Evaluation of radiation-induced cancer risk to patients undergoing intra-oral and panoramic dental radiographies using experimental measurements and Monte Carlo calculations

Background: Radia on doses associated with the conven onal dental radiographies are rela vely low, but their number is high. Therefore, jus fica on is necessary to ensure that radia on doses to pa ents, par cularly children, are kept as low as reasonably achievable. Materials and Methods: The exposure factors applied for real pa ents in four age groups (5, 10, 15-year-old and adult) were obtained for conven onal dental radiographies, periapical, bitewing, and panoramic. The dose-area product (DAP) values were measured for every dental radiographies. The risk of exposure-induced cancer death (REID) was es mated for every dental radiographies in different age groups and in both genders. Results: The range of the REID values in periapical radiography were 1.3 to 20.9 per ten million for male pa ents, and 1.6 to 28.3 per ten million for female pa ents in different age groups. The range of REID values in bitewing radiography were 1.5 to 11.2 per ten million for male, and 1.9 to 13.2, per ten million for female in different age groups. The mean of REID values in panoramic radiography were 7.32, 4.70, 3.55, and 2.1 per ten million for male pa ents in 5-, 10-, and 15-year-old and adult age groups, respec vely, and were 9.43, 5.86, 4.25 and 2.41 per ten million for female pa ents in 5, 10, 15-year-old and adult age groups, respec vely. Conclusion: In accordance with the results of the present study, the overall risk of cancer from radia on in children was more than adult and in female pa ents is more than male pa ents in dental X-ray
Adaptação do Inventário de Sentido do Trabalho (WAMI) para o contexto brasileiro

Adaptation of Work and Meaning Inventory (WAMI) to the Brazilian context The study aimed to adapt and gather initial evidence of the validity of the Work and Meaning Inventory (WAMI) for the Brazilian context. Participants were 667 professionals (74% women, average age M = 35.74). The results indicated that the Brazilian version of the inventory had better adjustment indexes in the unifactorial structure (TLI = 0.99; RMSEA = 0.08) than the original instrument. The factorial loads ranged from 0.65 to 0.95 (VME = 0.70). In addition, the latent work meaning scores presented positive and significant correlations with the external variables occupational self-efficacy (r = 0.55), intrinsic motivation (r = 0.77) and work commitment (r = 0.81). It was concluded that the results obtained are favorable to the use of the scale in Brazilian samples.
The Evolution of Simulation-Based Learning Across the Disciplines, 1965–2018: A Science Map of the Literature

Background. Simulation-based learning (SBL) has been applied and studied in educational settings for at least six decades. While numerous reviews of research have been conducted from different perspectives, none to date have used bibliometric methods to analyze the evolution of simulation-based learning as a ‘knowledge base’. Aim. The review sought to document the growth and geographic distribution of research on SBL. In addition, the review aimed to identify key authors and documents, and analyze the intellectual structure of this knowledge base. Finally, the review highlighted emerging topics in this literature. Method. The authors identified 2,812 Scopus-indexed SBL documents published between 1965 and 2018. Bibliographic data were exported from Scopus and analyzed using VOSviewer software. Analyses included descriptive statistics, citation and co-citation analysis, and keyword co-occurrence analysis. Results. The review found a rapidly increasing publication trajectory with 90% of the literature published since 2000. Although SBL studies have been authored in 94 different countries, the literature is concentrated in Anglo-American-European societies. The review found that the intellectual structure of this knowledge base is comprised of four schools of thought encompassing research on SBL in management education, medical education, technology-enhanced SBL, and learning theories in SBL. Another notable finding was that SBL researchers in medical and management education have progressed on parallel tracks leading to the balkanization on knowledge. Surprisingly, the conceptual core of the field is located in the school of thought associated with learning theories in SBL. This implies that SBL is a subfield of education rather than a discipline in and of itself. Emerging topics that have attracted scholars writing on SBL in recent years are identified and implications for future research discussed.
Sentiment classification of social media reviews using an ensemble classifier

These days it has become a common practice for business organizations and individuals to make use of social media for sharing the opinions about the products or the services. Consumers are also ready to share their views on certain products or commodities. Thus huge amount of unstructured social media data gets generated day by day. Gradually heap of text data will be formed in many areas like automated business, education, health care, and show business and so on. Opinion mining also referred as sentiment analysis or sentiment classification, deals with mining of the review text and classifying the opinions or the sentiments of that text as positive or negative. In this paper we propose an ensemble classifier model consisting of Support Vector Machine and Artificial Neural Network. It combines the knowledge from two feature sets for sentiment classification. The proposed model shows the acceptable performance in terms of accuracy when compared with the baseline model.
L’interaction Homme-Robot, de l’anthropomorphisme à l’humanisation

Dans le futur notre environnement social pourrait etre peuple de nouveaux etres artificiels : les robots. Meme si l’interet envers la robotique est de plus en plus present, paradoxalement la perception de ces nouveaux agents et l’impact de leur presence sur notre societe reste peu etudies. Dans cette revue, au travers d’une litterature pluridisciplinaire, nous proposons de derouler les processus sous-jacents a la perception des robots au travers du concept d’anthropomorphisme, c’est-a-dire l’attribution de caracteristiques humaines a un non-humain. Nous identifions ainsi les determinants pouvant agir comme modulateur de cette perception au travers des facteurs motivant et inhibant l’anthropomorphisme. Enfin, nous developpons la perception des robots et l’attribution de caracteristiques humaines au travers de l’experience de l’interaction sociale avec ces nouveaux agents artificiels. De par l’essor de la robotique aujourd’hui, et notamment la robotique sociale, il semble necessaire de s’interroger sur la perception des robots comme agents sociaux valides et sur l’evolution de la distance percue entre les robots et l’humain introduisant une nouvelle conceptualisation de ces futurs agents sociaux artificiels.
MARC: a robust method for multiple-aspect trajectory classification via space, time, and semantic embeddings

ABSTRACT The increasing popularity of Location-Based Social Networks (LBSNs) and the semantic enrichment of mobility data in several contexts in the last years has led to the generation of large volumes of trajectory data. In contrast to GPS-based trajectories, LBSN and context-aware trajectories are more complex data, having several semantic textual dimensions besides space and time, which may reveal interesting mobility patterns. For instance, people may visit different places or perform different activities depending on the weather conditions. These new semantically rich data, known as multiple-aspect trajectories, pose new challenges in trajectory classification, which is the problem that we address in this paper. Existing methods for trajectory classification cannot deal with the complexity of heterogeneous data dimensions or the sequential aspect that characterizes movement. In this paper we propose MARC, an approach based on attribute embedding and Recurrent Neural Networks (RNNs) for classifying multiple-aspect trajectories, that tackles all trajectory properties: space, time, semantics, and sequence. We highlight that MARC exhibits good performance especially when trajectories are described by several textual/categorical attributes. Experiments performed over four publicly available datasets considering the Trajectory-User Linking (TUL) problem show that MARC outperformed all competitors, with respect to accuracy, precision, recall, and F1-score.
Learning Communities for Teaching Practice School Placements: A Higher Education Initiative to Promote Equity for Students with Disabilities

In South Africa, scholarship on the teaching practice learning experiences for students with disabilities is a relatively new area of sociological inquiry. Social justice arrangements in the South African Higher Education policy frameworks identify the equity imperative as being of critical importance for social redress and transformation for all students. This qualitative study drew on the teaching practice school placement experiences of five Bachelor of Education students with either visual or physical disabilities and who were part of a teaching practice learning community. The findings of this study suggest that, for students with visual and physical disabilities, learning communities were perceived to be a structure that enhanced equity arrangements for human development and well‑being in teaching practice school placements. In addition, and in alignment with equity arrangements, the need for a social justice reform agenda for teaching practice school placements emerged from the data. The study concludes that learning communities as a context-specific institutional structure support freedom, agency, dialogue and participation, and respect for disability required for capability expansion for human development and well‑being in the teaching practice school placements of students with visual and physical disabilities. These were found to enhance equity arrangements for students with visual disabilities and physical disabilities.
EFFECT OF FIRM CHARACTERISTICS ON COMPLIANCE WITH INTERNATIONAL FINANCIAL REPORTING STANDARD 7 BY LISTED MANUFACTURING FIRMS IN NIGERIA

A DISSERTATIONSUBMITTED TO THE SCHOOL OF POSTGRADUATE STUDIES, AHMADU BELLO UNIVERSITY, ZARIA IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE AWARD OF MASTER OF SCIENCE (M.Sc.) DEGREE IN ACCOUNTING AND FINANCE DEPARTMENT OF ACCOUNTING, ABU, BUSINESS SCHOOL, AHMADU BELLO UNIVERSITY, ZARIA
Utility of a serum Aspergillus galactomannan assay in diagnosis of invasive pulmonary Aspergillosis in HIV/AIDS patients: a prospective analysis

Background: Invasive pulmonary aspergillosis (IPA) is a life threatening infection among immunocompromised patients. A timely and precise diagnosis of this condition is often precluded by lack of sensitive and specific noninvasive diagnostic tools. Detection of galactomannan has emerged as a promising tool in this regard. While the analytical performance of serum galactomannan assay has been extensively evaluated in various high risk groups, its possible utility in HIV/AIDS patients is yet to be explored. The present study was undertaken to evaluate the yield of a serum galactomannan assay for diagnosis of IPA in a cohort of HIV/AIDS patients. Methods: 49 febrile HIV reactive patients with co-existent symptomatic AIDS were prospectively enrolled for the evaluation. Blood samples were drawn from each patient and serum galactomannan screening was performed employing the commercially available serum galactomannan assay, Platelia™ Aspergillus EIA. An optical density index >0.5 for at least two serum samples was considered the defining criteria for a positive result. Furthermore, sputum samples were collected and direct microscopic examination (10% potassium hydroxide wet mount) and fungal cultures were performed. Result: In accordance with the definitions laid down under EORTC/MSG (European Organization for Research and Treatment of Cancer / Mycoses Study Group) criteria, ten cases of probable and 23 cases of possible IPA were diagnosed. The sensitivity, specificity, and positive and negative predictive values of Platelia™ Aspergillus EIA for patients with probable IPA were 90%, 100%, 100% and 94.12 % respectively. Conclusion: Serum galactomannan assay has a high sensitivity and specificity and when complemented with relevant lower respiratory tract symptomatology and imaging findings, can serve as a useful adjunct to conventional modalities for the diagnosis of IPA in HIV/AIDS patients. DOI: 10.21276/APALM.1439
Genetic variation of Aedes aegypti populations from Ecuador

This is the first genetic analysis in Ecuador of Aedes aegypti using fragments of mitochondrial genes, NADH dehydrogenase subunit 4 (ND4) and cytochrome oxidase subunit I (COI). A total of 154 mosquitoes from 23 localities were collected in the Pacific coastal lowlands, Amazon basin lowlands, and the Galápagos Islands from 2012 to 2019. The analysis of fragments of the genes COI (672 bp) and ND4 (262 bp) and concatenated analysis of both COI and ND4 showed two haplotypes (H1, H2) present in Ecuador mainland and the Galápagos Islands. The phylogenetic analysis identified two well-supported clades. Combined analysis of both genes from ten localities also resulted in two haplotypes. Nucleotide diversity, neutrality tests (Tajima’s test D, Fu and Li’s F*and D*) and AMOVA analysis of the entire data set suggest balancing selection for both genes. The results indicate genetic variation without geographical restriction. COI-H1 grouped with sequences from the Americas, West and Central Africa, East Africa, Asia, and Australia. ND4-H1 grouped with similar sequences from the Americas, Asia and West Africa. COI-H2 grouped with sequences from Asia and the Americas. ND4-H2 grouped with sequences from the Americas. We report overlapping peaks in four sequences that suggest heteroplasmy in the individuals. The origin of the populations of Aedes aegypti in Ecuador show African genetic origin and are widely present in several countries in the Americas. One of the genetic variants is more common in all the localities and the two haplotypes are distributed indistinctly in the three geographical sampled areas in Ecuador.