Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Fully bayesian longitudinal unsupervised learning for the assessment and visualization of AD heterogeneity and progression

Brain atrophy, largely driven by tau deposition, is the most proximal correlate of cognitive decline in Alzheimer’s disease (AD). Understanding the heterogeneity and longitudinal progression of brain atrophy during the disease course will play a key role in understanding the mechanisms of AD. The aim of this study is to propose a framework for longitudinal clustering that: 1) incorporates simultaneous clustering of longitudinal multivariate neuroimaging measures, 2) leverages information of individuals with irregularly sampled observations (different sampling times), 3) compares clusters with a control group, 4) allows the study and fixation of potential confounding effects, 5) can provide visualization of the resulting clusters for interpretation, 6) measures the uncertainty of clustering. We aimed to include amyloid-β positive AD patients and amyloid-β negative cognitively unimpaired (CU) subjects with longitudinal data, three sMRI scans over two years. Cortical thickness and subcortical volume measures from the longitudinal stream of FreeSurfer 6.0 pipeline were used as input for cluster analysis. Using the proposed methodology, we found 3 distinct longitudinal brain atrophy patterns in AD patients: a typical diffuse AD pattern (n=34, 47.2%), and 2 atypical AD patterns: Minimal atrophy (n=23 31.9%) and Hippocampal sparing (n=9, 12.5%). We also identified outlier observations (n=3, 4.2%) and observations with uncertain classification (n=3, 4.2%). The clusters of AD patients differed not only in regional distributions of atrophy at baseline, but also in atrophy progression over time, age at AD onset, cognitive deficits at baseline and cognitive decline over time. A framework for the longitudinal assessment of variability in cohorts with several neuroimaging measures was successfully developed and the results show that it can be used to understand heterogeneity in the context of AD.
Various scarification treatments produce different regeneration potentials for trees and forbs through changing soil properties

ABSTRACT Soil scarification removed surface layers including nutrients and buried seeds. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the success of alternative practices that intentionally leave the surface soil (screening and replacing) along with the standard scarification. We focused on soil properties, the density of buried seeds, the invasion of competitive vegetation, and the regeneration of tree species. There were significant differences in soil properties among the treatments. Soils that were treated with the replacing treatment had the highest water contents from the surface layer to the deep layer in the lower slope in particular. On the other hand, there were higher densities of tall forb germinated from rhizomes, which are likely to shade tree species, with the replacing in the lower slope locations. The residual buried seed densities in the soil were estimated to be significantly higher in the screening than the replacing. Phellodendron amurense, producing seed bank and having dry tolerance, exhibited the greatest seedling density with the screening. However, there was no significant difference between screening and replacing in Betula species which has higher water demands. In conclusion, it is important that screening and replacing should be used properly according to the site condition and target tree species. The replacement had the advantage of retaining higher water content, but it is suggested that the screening is a better option when intended for regeneration from buried seeds and when many tall forb species grow alongside dwarf bamboo prior to treatment.
An evolution-based high-fidelity method of epistasis measurement: Theory and application to influenza

Linkage effects in a multi-locus population strongly influence its evolution. The models based on the traveling wave approach enable us to predict the speed of evolution and the statistics of phylogeny. However, predicting the evolution of specific sites and pairs of sites in the multi-locus context remains a mathematical challenge. In particular, the effects of epistasis, the interaction of gene regions contributing to phenotype, is difficult both to predict theoretically and detect experimentally in sequence data. A large number of false interactions arise from stochastic linkage effects and indirect interactions, which mask true interactions. Here we develop a method to filter out false-positive interactions. We start by demonstrating that the averaging of the two-way haplotype frequencies over a multiple independent populations is necessary but not sufficient, because it still leaves high numbers of false interactions. To compensate for this residual stochastic noise, we develop a triple-way haplotype method isolating true interactions. The fidelity of the method is confirmed using simulated genetic sequences evolved with a known epistatic network. The method is then applied to a large database sequences of neurominidase protein of influenza A H1N1 obtained from various geographic locations to infer the epistatic network responsible for the difference between the pre-pandemic virus and the pandemic strain of 2009. These results present a simple and reliable technique to measure site-site interactions from sequence data. Author’s summary Interaction of genomic sites creating “fitness landscape” is very important for predicting the escape of viruses from drugs and immune response and for passing through fitness valleys. Many efforts have been invested into measuring these interactions from DNA sequence sets. Unfortunately, reproducibility of the results remains low, due partly to a very small fraction of interaction pairs, and partly to stochastic noise intrinsic for evolution masking true interactions. Here we propose a method based on analysis of genetic sequences at three genomic sites to clean stochastic linkage and apply it to influenza virus sequence data.
Determinants of the Uptake of NHIF Medical Cover by Informal Sector Workers: A Case of UNAITASSACCO Members in Murang’a County

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to establish the major determinants of uptake of medical cover at Kenya’s National Health Insurance Fund by informal sector workers among UNAITAS SACCO members in Murang’a County.Methodology: The study adopted a descriptive survey design. The target population comprised of all members of UNAITAS SACCO in Murang’a County. The population was 68,000 members who were in existence as at December 2014 (SASRA, 2014). Stratified random sampling technique was used to select 150members in the informal sector participating in the study. A likert scale questionnaires was used to collect quantitative data. Statistical package for social science (SPSS) was used to draw inferences from the coded data.Results: Results revealed that the major determinants of level of uptake of medical cover at Kenya’s National Health Insurance Fund by informal sector workers among UNAITAS SACCO members in Murang’a County were namely income level, awareness of NHIF benefits, access to NHIF outlet and the amount of premiums payable. The results also revealed that there were other determinants of uptake of NHIF medical scheme. These included gender of the head of the household, the level of education, presence of children, age and marital status.Unique contribution to theory, practice and policy: The study recommended that the government should educate the people operating within the informal sector on better ways of accessing finance so as to increase their capital and as result increase their levels of income. This would result to increased uptake of the NHIF medical scheme.
Inventory of Epiphytic Moss in the Tree Trunk Zonation of Jumog Waterfall Ngargoyoso Tawangmangu Karanganyar Central Java

The concept of epiphytic plants is a critical plant that determines the processes that occur in ecosystems. Epiphytic plants especially Bryophytes or commonly moss is one of primary productivity. This study aims to record any epiphytic moss in their natural habitat in the Jumog Waterfall Forest Ngargoyoso in Karanganyar Tawangmangu Central Java. The method used in this study was purposive sampling, this method using exploration techniques. Field data observed were epiphytic plants from the Bryophyte groups (moss plants). The results showed that there were five moss colonies namely Bryum billardieri, Octoblepharum albidum, Leucobryum aduncum, Heteroscyphus coalitus and Pogonatum neesii, in 3 different zones of phorophytes, name zone I, II and III.
Direct data‐driven design of switching controllers

Switching linear models can be used to represent the behavior of hybrid, time‐varying, and nonlinear systems, while generally providing a satisfactory trade‐off between accuracy and complexity. Although several control design techniques are available for such models, the effect of modeling errors on the closed‐loop performance has not been formally evaluated yet. In this paper, a data‐driven synthesis scheme is thus introduced to design optimal switching controllers directly from data, without needing a model of the plant. In particular, the theory will be developed for piecewise affine controllers, which have proven to be effective in many real‐world engineering applications. The performance of the proposed approach is illustrated on some benchmark simulation case studies.
Natural history and consequences of food sensitisation: results from two birth cohort studies

I DECLARATION . IV PREFACE . V ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS . VIII LIST OF TABLES . XVI LIST OF FIGURES . XVII CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION . 1 1.1. RATIONALE . 2 1.1.1. Overall aims and hypotheses of my thesis . 2 1.1.2. What is food sensitisation? 2 1.1.3. What are allergic diseases and their public health implications? 3 1.1. 4. Key issues in the epidemiology of food sensitisation . 4 1.2. OBJECTIVES OF THIS THESIS . 7 1.3. OVERVIEW OF THESIS . 8 CHAPTER 2 LITERATURE REVIEW . 9 2.1. OVERVIEW . 10 2.2. BURDEN OF ALLERGIC DISEASE . 10 2.2.1. Overall prevalence of allergic diseases . 11 2.2.2. Prevalence of asthma . 12 2.2.3. Prevalence of eczema . 13 2.2. 4. Prevalence of allergic rhinitis . 14 2.2. 5. Prevalence of food allergy . 15 2.2. 6. Public health implications of allergic diseases . 16 2.3. DEFINITIONS OF ALLERGIC DISEASES . 17 2.3. 1. Definition of asthma and lung function . 18 2.3. 2. Definition of Eczema . 22 2.3. 3. Definition of allergic rhinitis . 25
Pengaruh Healty Lifestyle, Psychological Well Being, Dan Self Efficacy Terhadap Kinerja Auditor Dengan Task Complexity Sebagai Pemoderasi

Abstrak : Tujuan penelitian ini adalah untuk mengetahui pengaruh masing-masing variabel healty lifestyle, psychological well being, dan self efficacy terhadap kinerja auditor. selain itu, penelitian ini juga bertujuan untuk mengetahui pengaruh varaibel task complexity dalam memoderasi hubungan antara variabel independenndengan kinerja auditor. Penelitian ini merupakan penelitian kuantitatif. Populasi dalam penelitian ini adalah auditor yang bekerja di kantor Inspektorat provinsi Sulawesi Selatan. Teknik pengambilan sampel menggunkan metode random sampling dengan total sampel sebanyak 31 orang responden. Data yang digunakan dalam penelitian ini merupakan data primer dengan membagikan kuesioner untuk para responden di Inspektorat provinsi Sulawesi Selatan. Metode analisis data yang digunakan dalam penelitian ini adalah metode regresi berganda. Hasil penelitian menunjukkan bahwa healty lifestyle dan self efficacy berpengaruh positif dan signifikan terhadap kinerja auditor Sedangkan psychological well being tidak berpengaruh terhadap kinerja auditor. Hasil penelitian terkait variabel moderasi menunjukkan bahwa task complexity mapu memoderasi healty lifestyle terhadap kinerja auditor. Namun, variabel task complexity tidak mapu memoderasi hubungan antara psychological well being dan self efficacy terhadap kinerja auditor. Implikasi dari penelitian ini adalah pentingnya bagi para auditor untuk senantiasa menjaga pola hidup sehat yang baik dan juga selalu memiliki kepercayaan diri yang tinggi dalam menjalankan tugasnya sebagai pemeriksa. Pola hidup sehat yang baik akan berdampak pada kesiapan auditor dalam menjalankan penugasan auditnya, sementara kepercayaan diri yang tinggi mampu memberikan motivasi bagi auditor untuk bekerja dengan optimal. Kata Kunci: Healty lifestyle, psychological well being, self efficacy, task complexity , kinerja auditor
THE IMPACT OF INCLUSION ON THE PROVISION OF HIGH QUALITY PHYSICAL EDUCATION IN A WELSH SECONDARY SCHOOL

ii CHAPTER ONE – INTRODUCTION 1.0 Introduction.2 CHAPTER TWO – LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1 Inclusion.5 2.2 Special Education Needs and Disability.7 2.3 The National Curriculum for Physical Education.9 2.4 High Quality Physical Education.12 2.5 Training of PE teachers.13 2.6 Rationale for Study.14 CHAPTER THREE – METHODOLOGY 3.1 Qualitative Research.17 3.2 Ethics.18 3.3 Participants.18 3.4 Trustworthiness.19 3.5 Pilot Study.20 3.6 Procedure.20 3.7 Data analysis.21 CHAPTER FOUR–RESULTS AND DISCUSSION 4.1 Inclusion.23 4.1. 1 Inclusion of Special Education Needs and Disability.24 4.2 Barriers to Inclusion.27 4.2.1 Teacher and Pupil Barriers.27 4.2.2 Resources.27 4.3 Support. 28 4.4 Impact of Inclusion on High Quality PE. 29 4.4.1 Extra-Curricular Activities . 30 4.4.2 Confidence and Willingness . 31 4.4.3 Opportunities to keep physically active . 33 4.4.4 Commitment to participate. 35 4.4.5 Skill Development. 36 4.5 Training of PE teachers. 37 CHAPTER FIVE– CONCLUSION 5.1 Conclusion.40 5.2 Limitations of the study.41 CHAPTER 6 REFERENCES 6.0 References.44
Political masculinities and populism

Politics is most often conceived of as a gender-neutral practice guided by rationality. Yet, as is the case more generally in society, masculinity operates as a hidden (human) norm structuring politics. As the ‘unmarked’ gender category, its influence has remained hidden from critical enquiry. However, since the early 1990s, a growing body of literature in masculinity studies generally, and masculinities in politics in particular, has debunked the myth of the gender-neutrality of politics and made masculinity visible (see Starck & Sauer, 2014). As is the case in masculinity studies, right-wing populist discourse currently refutes the rational and gender-neutral image of politics. Yet unlike masculinity studies, masculinity is not open to critical enquiry among right-wing populists. Rather, populist politicians such as Donald Trump or Vladimir Putin promote and valorize the relationship between masculinity and politics (Boatright & Sperling, 2020; Sperling, 2015). Newly emerging versions of rightwing populism have been described as being misogynist and sexist: they oppose feminism and gender-equality measures, same-sex marriage and gender studies; they seek to re-instantiate traditional family and associated gender roles; and they pursue a strong-man style of political leadership (Dietze, 2018, p. 34; Inglehart & Norris, 2016, p. 7; Korolczuk & Graff, 2018; Mayer, Ajanovic, & Sauer, 2018; Mayer, Sori, & Sauer, 2016; Norocel, 2013, p. 5). At the same time, somewhat paradoxically, the seeming ‘gender traditionalism’ of populism (Sauer, Kuhar, Ajanovic, & Saarinen, 2016) is undercut by the existence of female leaders of populist parties and populists’ appeals to European values of gender-equality and emancipation (Akkerman, 2015; Dietze, 2018; Mayer, Ajanovic, & Sauer, 2014). This special issue contributes to the debate on gender and populism by focusing on the relationship between the concepts of political masculinities and populism. It developed from a conference on Political Masculinities and Populism, hosted by the Political Masculinities Network in December 2017, and based at the University of Koblenz-Landau. The research network was established in 2012. It aimed to bring scholars together, from different disciplines, who hold a common interest in the political dimensions of masculinities. The Political Masculinities Networkmerged with the Uppsala network onMen in Politics in 2018. This research network is committed to critical research on political masculinities and seeks to encourage a broad church of cross-, interand multi-disciplinary debate with the aim of comparing, contrasting, and where possible integrating different modes of understanding and related findings from across academic disciplines. The special issue contributes toward this project. We provide a brief overview to this topic in this introductory paper.
Sediment Re-Suspension and Release of Dissolved Heavy Metal Cu under Wave Actions

Located in the semi-enclosed Bohai Sea, the Yellow River subaqueous delta faces serious pollution by the heavy metal Cu in seabed sediments and is frequently subject to storm surges which further incur sediment re-suspension or even liquefaction, and cause Cu to be released back into seawater. This study performed an indoor wave flume experiment to simulate the release of Cu into overlying water under different hydrodynamic conditions in three phases: static diffusion, seabed nonliquefaction and re-suspension, and seabed liquefaction and re-suspension. As indicated by the results, the concentration distribution of Cu in overlying water was closely related to that of suspended sediment and had consistent change trends. Sediment liquefaction clearly promoted the release of Cu into overlying water, and the dissolved Cu concentrations in the overlying water during the seabed liquefaction and re-suspension phase were 18 times those in the static diffusion phase, and 11 times those in the seabed non-liquefaction and re-suspension phase. In addition, seabed liquefaction caused Cu in sediments to diffuse towards deeper levels, and the diffusion depth of was about half of liquefaction depth.
Structural, elastic, electronic and optical properties of RbPbI3 perovskites studied using ab-initio calculations

ABSTRACT We investigate the structural, elastic, electronic and optical properties of RbPbI3 perovskites using density functional theory calculations. The elastic properties such as elastic constants, bulk modulus, shear modulus, anisotropy factor and Poisson’s ratio were calculated. The orthorhombic structure of RbPbI3 is mechanically stable and exhibits elastic anisotropy. The band structure and state density calculations based on the PBEsol + mBJ method show that this compound has a direct bandgap of 2.815 eV in agreement with the experimental value. However, the inclusion of the spin–orbit coupling into the calculations (mBJ + SOC approximation) reduces the bandgap energy to 2.457 eV. The optical properties of RbPbI3 such as the optical absorption, refractive index, extinction coefficient and dielectric function, were found to present slight anisotropy. Furthermore, the effect of pressure on some physical properties was studied, in which we show that the width of the bandgap and optical absorption depend significantly on the applied stresses to the material.
Is anybody listening? The impact of automatically evaluated job interviews on impression management and applicant reactions

Automatic evaluation of job interviews has become an alternative for assessing interviewees. Therefore, questions arise regarding applicant reactions and behavior when algorithms automatically evaluate applicants' interview responses. This study tests arguments from previous research suggesting that applicants whose interviews will be automatically evaluated may use less impression management (IM), but could react more negatively to the interview. ,Participants (N = 124; primarily German students) took part in an online mock interview where they responded to interview questions via voice recordings (i.e. an asynchronous interview). Prior to the interview, half of them were informed that their answers would be evaluated automatically (vs by a human rater). After the interviews, participants reported their honest and deceptive IM behavior as well as their reactions to the interview. ,Participants in the automatic evaluation condition engaged in less deceptive IM, felt they had fewer opportunities to perform during the interview, and provided shorter interview answers. ,The findings of this study suggest a trade-off between IM behavior and applicant reactions in technologically advanced interviews. Furthermore, the results indicate that automatically evaluated interviews might affect interview validity (e.g. because of less deceptive IM) and influence interviewees' response behavior. ,Hiring managers might hope that automatically evaluated interviews decrease applicants' use of deceptive IM. However, the results also challenge organizations to pay attention to negative effects of automatic evaluation on applicant reactions. ,This study is the first empirical study investigating the impact of automatically evaluated interviews on applicant behavior and reactions.
Oil Price Shocks, Fuel Subsidies and Macroeconomic (In)stability in Nigeria

This paper studies the macroeconomic implications of oil price shocks and the extant fuel subsidy regime for Nigeria. To do this, we develop and estimate a New-Keynesian DSGE model that accounts for pass-through effect of international oil price into the retail price of fuel. Our results show that oil price shocks generate significant and persistent impacts on output, accounting for about 22 percent of its variations up to the fourth year. Under our benchmark model (i.e. with fuel subsidies), we show that a negative oil price shock contracts aggregate GDP, boosts non-oil GDP, increases headline inflation, and depreciates the exchange rate. However, results generated under the model without fuel subsidies indicate that the contractionary effect of a negative oil price shock on aggregate GDP is moderated, headline inflation decreases, while the exchange rate depreciates more in the short-run. Counterfactual simulations also reveal that fuel subsidy removal leads to higher macroeconomic instabilities and generates non-trivial implications for the response of monetary policy to an oil price shock. Thus, this study cautions that a successful fuel subsidy reform must necessarily encompass the deployment of well-targeted safety nets as well as the evolution of sustainable adjustment mechanisms.
Advancing fracture fragility assessment of pre‐Northridge welded column splices

A refined probabilistic assessment of seismic demands and fracture capacity of welded column splice (WCS) connections in welded steel moment resisting frames (WSMRFs) is presented. Seismic demand assessment is performed through cloud‐based nonlinear time history analysis (NLTHA) for two case‐study structures, i.e., a 4‐ and a 20‐ story WSMRFs. Results from NLTHA are used to derive fracture fragility of WCS connections. To this aim, the study investigates (1) optimal ground‐motion intensity measures for conditioning probabilistic seismic demand models in terms of global (i.e., maximum inter‐story drift ratio) and local (i.e., peak tensile stress in the flange of WCSs) engineering demand parameters of WSMRFs; (2) the effect of ground‐motion vertical components on the longitudinal flange stress of WCS connections and their resulting fracture fragility; and (3) the effect of WCS capacity uncertainties on the fracture fragility estimates of those connections. For the latter case, an advanced finite element fracture mechanics‐based approach proposed by the authors is employed to capture aleatory and epistemic uncertainties affecting fracture capacities. The focus is on pre‐Northridge WCS connections featuring partial joint penetration and brittle materials, making them highly vulnerable to seismic fracture. Fracture fragility results for the case‐study structures are compared and discussed, highlighting the importance of the considered issues on fragility estimates, particularly in the case of high‐rise structures. Findings from the study contribute shedding some light on the influence of seismic demand and capacity uncertainties on the assessment of fracture fragility of WCS connections. These findings can guide similar performance‐based assessment exercises for WSMRFs to inform, for instance, the planning and design of retrofitting strategies for those vulnerable connections.