Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Evaluation of Malaria Diagnostic Methods, Efficacy of Artemether-Lumefantrine Therapy and Genetic Determinants of Plasmodium Falciparum Resistance

Objectives: The objectives of this study were: to evaluate mala ri diagnostic methods, therapeutic efficacy of artemether-lumefantrine (AL), the preva lence of N86Y, Y184F, S1034C and N1042D SNPs in Pfmdr1 gene and their association with AL resistance in Plasmodium falciparum malaria infections in Nigeria. Methods: This study was carried out within 14 months. One hu ndred and sixty (160) malaria patients that met criteria were recruited through rapid diagnosti c testing (RDT) using first response kit and blood film microscopy after which each patient received a 3-da y complete dose of AL treatment. Patients were monitored and followed up on days 0, 3, 7, 14 and 2 8. Body temperature was taken and 2ml of blood was sampled from each patient into labeled EDTA bottle. G nomic DNA was extracted from each sample by saponin heamolysis. Samples were analyzed by nested polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and real time PCR for identification and quantification of Plasmodium falciparum. Genotyping of Pfmdr 1 gene for specific genetic variants: N86Y, Y184F, S1034C and N1042D were done using Restriction Fragment Length Polymorphism (RFLP-PCR). The overall performances of diagnostic methods used were analyzed using sensitivity, specificity, posi tive predictive values (PPV), and negative predictive va lues (NPV) obtained (with PCR as the gold standard) . Data were analyzed using both Graph Pad (Prism 5) a nd SPSS (version 16). Descriptive statistics presented as counts, percentages, means, and s t ard deviations, as appropriate, were used to compare the demographic characteristics of the study population and their initial clinical and biological characteristics (such as temperature and geometric mean parasitaemia). Differences in proportions of treatment outcome and frequency in o ccurrence of Pfmdr 1 gene mutation in pretreatment and post treatment groups were analyzed using the p air d T test, Chi-square test or Fisher’s exact tes t. While the differences in parasitic densities of the various groups were analyzed using ANOVA and inter group comparison was done using Post Hoc test. Results: Sensitivity, specificity, positive and negative pre dictive values of 75 %, 75 %, 95 %, 31 % and 92 %, 50 %, 91 %, 55 % were obtained by RDT and mic roscopy respectively using PCR as gold standard. For therapeutic efficacy, 106 (68.8 %) patients ha d body temperature of ≥ 37.5 °C with mean temperature of 38.4 °C on day 0 while on day 3, 3.3 % of the pa tients had temperature of 37.1-38 °C with mean temperature of 36.2 °C. There was significant decre ase in temperature from day 0 to day 28 (P < 0.0001 ). There was significant difference (P < 0.0001) betwe n parasite mean densities on day 0 compared to day s 3,7,14 and 28, with high prevalence of delayed para site clearance. There were 4 cases of late clinical failure for both 14 and 28 day. Adequate clinical a nd parasitological responses, (PCR uncorrected) wer e
Self-Purification Capacity and Sag Curve of Qalachwalan-Leseer Zab River, in Sulaimanyah Governorate/Iraq

Qalachwalan-Lesser Zab River receives varieties of domestic and chemical wastes from settlements, recreational and agricultural lands that located around the river. Those possibly affect the capacity of natural self-purification. Water samples have been collected from five different points between Qalachwalan to Qaladza district and sag curve were applied to analyzed water quality parameters for the periods of August 2016 to May 2017. The results showed that the dissolved oxygen values varied from 4.81 mg L-1 during August to 10.35 mg L-1 in February, biochemical oxygen demand values ranged from 1.47 mg L-1 during November to 8 mg L-1 in March along the river. The statistical analysis between predicted and measured dissolved oxygen and biochemical oxygen demand showed that the less value of root mean square errors was 1.09 mg L-1 for the month of April and the highest value was 3.92 mg L-1 for dissolved oxygen during May and the less value for biochemical oxygen demand was 0.77 mg L-1 for August and the highest value 5.08 mg L-1 for March. The predicted dissolved oxygen overestimated measured dissolved oxygen by percent bias 12.5% for April and 74.9% for May and the predicted biochemical oxygen demand overestimated measured biochemical oxygen demand as well by 23.4% for August and 98.9 % for February. The purification factor varied from 0.03 to 4.45 for all over the periods. The results, indicating that the river was temporarily polluted and has a poor capacity for self-purify particularly during April that the average factor was 0.14.
Contact patterns reveal a stable dynamic community structure with fission-fusion dynamics in wild house mice

Living in groups is a widely adopted strategy in gregarious species. For group-living individuals it is crucial to be capable to integrate into a social structure. While there is an intuitive understanding that the concept of a group arises through some form of cohesion between its members, the exact definition of what constitutes a group and thus tasks like the detection of the dynamics of a group over time is a challenge. One way of measuring cohesion is through direct interactions between individuals. However, there is increasing evidence that associations between individuals can be mediated by others, and thus, that the drivers for group cohesion extend beyond direct individual interactions. We use dynamic community detection, allowing to relate individuals beyond direct contacts, both structurally and temporally, to study the social structure in a long-term study of a population of free-ranging house mice in a barn in Switzerland. During the 2-year study period, mice had unlimited access to food, and population density increased by 50%. Despite strong fluctuations in individual contact behaviour, population demography and structure embed into long-lived dynamic communities that are characterised by spatial fidelity, persist over several seasons and reproduction cycles, and considerably extend the life-span of single individuals. Within these multi-male and multi-female communities, seasonal changes strongly affect their structure, leading to fission-fusion like dynamics. We identify female-female interactions as the main driver for the longevity of these communities, a finding that contrasts with prior reports of the importance of a dominant male for the stability of a group. Moreover, males have a drastically shorter presence time in the study population and more often move between communities than females. Nevertheless, interacting with other breeding males in stable communities increases the duration of male presence and thus, potentially, reproductive success. Our analysis of contact patterns in a rodent that uses shelters to rest, hide and rear offspring emphasises the importance of female-bonded communities in the structuring of the population.
From high tech to high touch: enhancing customer service experiences via improved self-service technologies

Research on servicescapes, both physical and virtual, and experience-centric services is reviewed and then integrated with existing SST research in order to provide a set of managerially useful recommendations to service firms for SST improvements. Enhancing customers’ SST experiences through improved appearance and design, ease of use, interactivity, and sensory stimulation will lead to greater SST functionality and therefore elicit more positive cognitive, affective, and behavioral responses from consumers. A conceptual model of SST functionality is presented to guide future research.
Time Course Toward Baseline of Hand-to-Foot BIA Measures Following An Acute Bout of Aerobic Exercise

International Journal of Exercise Science 11(2): 640-647, 2018. The purpose of this study was to determine the time course of BIA-derived body fat percentage (BF%) and total body water (TBW) values in the 1 h following a moderate bout (60% heart rate reserve [HRR]) of steady state aerobic exercise in apparently healthy men. College-aged adult males (n=15) had their BF% and TBW estimated via BIA before (PRE), immediately (IP), 10 min (10P), 20 min (20P), 30 min (30P), 40 min (40P), 50 min (50P), and 60 min (60P) post a 30 min bout of moderate treadmill exercise. Exercise intensity was 60% of subjects’ HRR. Compared to PRE values, BIA-derived BF% and TBW were significantly lower and higher, respectively, from IP-30P (all p<0.05). However, BF% and TBW values for 40P-60P were not statistically significant compared to PRE (all p>0.05). The 95% limits of agreement for BF% and TBW were narrowest for IP (±1.5%; ±0.5kg) and widest at 50P (±2.1%; ±0.7kg), respectively. The time periods that produced significantly different BF% and TBW values (i.e., IP, 10P, 20P, and 30P) had smaller 95% limits of agreement than the time periods that produced non-significantly different mean values (i.e., 40P, 50P, and 60P). The 12 h recommendation of avoiding aerobic exercise prior to BIA testing appears to be too stringent. Results from the current study found that BIA-derived BF% and TBW measured at 40P, 50P and 60P were similar to PRE. Furthermore, if BIA is used after aerobic exercise, but prior to 40P, practitioners should consider adjusting for the systematic error (e.g., increase BIA-derived BF% IP by 2.3%).
Older adults’ experiences and expectations after discharge from home-based occupational therapy

Introduction Home-based occupational therapy can improve older adults’ occupational performance, but maintaining improvements presents challenges, and service development is needed. In this study, older adults’ experiences and expectations concerning their occupational performance after discharge from home-based occupational therapy were examined and used to develop suggestions for improved practice. Method Semi-structured qualitative interviews were conducted with 11 older adults living alone or with a spouse. The interviews were analysed using inductive qualitative content analysis. Findings The older adults still strove to improve and maintain their occupational performance using various strategies; their desire for independence was strong, but some could accept a lesser degree of independence. Conclusion From the findings and existing literature, ideas were developed to improve home-based occupational therapy and support maintenance of occupational performance after discharge. These ideas include: (a) finding strategies to achieve satisfactory occupational performance that does not necessarily entail full independence, (b) increased focus on the use and transfer of problem-solving strategies, (c) acknowledging and addressing possible reluctance to use assistive devices, and (d) individually scheduled follow-up visits post occupational therapy. Future research should examine the effectiveness and applicability of these ideas.
PENGARUH PEMBINAAN PEGAWAI, PENGEMBANGAN PEGAWAI, DAN PEMBERDAYAAN PEGAWAI TERHADAP KINERJA PEGAWAI PADA DINAS PERHUBUNGAN KOTA PADANG

This study aims to determine how much influence employee coaching, employee development and employee empowerment improve employee performance. Data collection methods through surveys and circulating questionnaires, the number of population is 178 respondents, the sample method used slovin, this the number sample of this study is 65 respondents of the Department of Transportation Office of Padang. The analytical method used is regression analysis. The results of the study showed that employee coaching, employee development , and employee empowerment had a persistent effect on employee performance. Keywords: coaching, Development, Empowerment and Performa
Effect of Sport Education Model-Based Social-Emotional Learning Program on Emotional Intelligence

In the study, a 16-week SEM-SEL volleyball program was prepared using the Social-Emotional Learning Model (SEL) based on the Sport Education Model (SEM). The goal achievements of SEL are processed and awareness about the goal achievements is provided to the students in the SEM-SEL volleyball program each week. In the study, pattern with experimental pre-test final-test control group was used. Experiment and control groups were formed in all three-school types. The 16-week SEM-SEL program was applied to the students in the experimental groups and the current curriculum was applied to the students in the control groups. The Schutte Emotional Intelligence Scale (SEI-S) was used as a data tool. Descriptive statistics and Two-way Covariance Analysis (ANCOVA) were used for data analysis. As a result of the descriptive statistics, it was determined that there were significant differences between the SEI-S total scores of the experiment and control groups; that there was an increase in the emotional intelligence levels of the students in the experiment group and a decrease in the students in the control group. According to ANCOVA, SEI-S final-test total scores were found to have a significant difference in favor of the experimental group and no significant difference in the school type. Consequently, the 16-week SEM-SEL volleyball program was effective in increasing the emotional intelligence levels of the students. Furthermore, it was determined that SEM and SEL were compatible with each other and that SEL had positive results in the field of physical education and sports.
An Elliptic Curve-Based Scalable Data Aggregation Scheme for Smart Grid

In a smart grid, a smart meter reports its real-time electricity consumption data to utility supplier periodically, the utility supplier adjusts its supplement accordingly. However, real-time electricity consumption data may reveal the inhabitants’ behaviors, thus smart grid data aggregation schemes are introduced to protect user's privacy, which enables the utility supplier to get the total consumption data rather than a single meter's electricity consumption data. However, existing solutions do not solve all the problems, some schemes are not scalable, once the system is deployed, it is unable to add new meters to the system, in some schemes, the electricity consumption data are encrypted using the utility supplier's public key, if the utility supplier accidentally obtains the encrypted data, it is able to decrypt the data. For these reasons, we designed a scalable elliptic-based multidimensional data aggregation scheme for the smart grid, an independent key is assigned to a meter, even if the utility supplier is unable to decrypt a single meter's encrypted electricity consumption data. Besides, the proposed scheme is scalable, it is easy to add or remove a meter from the system, and the proposed scheme enables a meter to report multiple types of data at a time.
Physiological response of rabbits to heat, cold, noise and mixing in the context of transport

The effects on rabbits of four potential transport-related stressors (heat [HS], cold [CS], noise [NS] and mixing with unfamiliar animals [MS]) on certain physiological and meat quality parameters were studied. These are factors which may act to reduce the welfare of rabbits during their transport to the slaughterhouse. The rabbits were exposed to each potential stressor for four and a half hours prior to slaughter. HS groups showed the highest plasma concentrations of cortisol, lactate and glucose and greater packed cell volume (PCV) and osmolarity than the control group, and the meat exhibited a low initial pH as a direct consequence of lactic acid accumulation. The rabbits exposed to cold (CS) and noise (NS) showed physiological responses to the potential stressor, although to a lesser degree than rabbits exposed to heat. Cold stressed rabbits showed increased levels of creatine kinase (CK) and a higher PCV as well as decreased muscle glycogen concentration compared to the control. Rabbits exposed to noise showed muscular damage as demonstrated by increased levels of CK and lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) activity in the blood and a high final pH in meat. Mixing unfamiliar rabbits (MS) lead to higher CK activity, lower lactate and glucose concentration and the meat pH was slightly higher than the control group. In conclusion, these results suggested that rabbits exposed to heat were the most affected out of all three groups, although cold, noise and mixing with unfamiliar rabbits also had a detrimental effect on physiological and meat quality parameters.
Machine learning analyses of bacterial oligonucleotide frequencies to assess the benthic impact of aquaculture

Aquaculture is a rapidly expanding industry and is now one of the primary sources of all consumed seafood. Intensive aquaculture production is associated with organic enrichment, which occurs as organic material settles onto the seafloor, creating anoxic conditions which disrupt ecological processes. Bacteria are sensitive bioindicators of organic enrichment, and supervised classifiers using features derived from 16s rRNA gene sequences have shown potential to become useful in aquaculture environmental monitoring. Current taxonomy-based approaches, however, are time intensive and built upon emergent features which cannot easily be condensed into a monitoring pipeline. Here, we used a taxonomy-free approach to examine 16s rRNA gene sequences derived from flocculent matter underneath and in proximity to hard-bottom salmon aquaculture sites in Newfoundland, Canada. Tetranucleotide frequencies (k = 4) were tabulated from sample sequences and included as features in a machine learning pipeline using the random forest algorithm to predict 4 levels of benthic disturbance; resulting classifications were compared to those obtained using a published taxonomy-based approach. Our results show that k-mer count features can effectively be used to create highly accurate predictions of benthic disturbance and can resolve intermediate changes in seafloor condition. In addition, we present a robust assessment of model performance which accounts for the effect of randomness in model creation. This work outlines a flexible framework for environmental assessments at aquaculture sites that is highly reproducible and free of taxonomy-assignment bias.
Perception of Professional Secretaries on Relevance of Shorthand Skills on the Modern Office Operations in Public Universities in North-East, Nigeria

The study assessed the Perception of Professional Secretaries on Relevance of Shorthand Skills on The Modern Office Operations in Public Universities in North-East, Nigeria. The study was guided by 6 objectives, 6 research questions and 6 hypotheses. Survey design was adopted for the study. The population for this study comprised of the entire 203 trained professional secretaries in public universities in North-East, Nigeria. The Total Population Sample (TPS) of 203 secretaries were used for the study. The instrument used for data collection was questionnaire adapted from Sarki (2015), Oguntimehin and Oludele (2017). The instrument was validated by experts and pilot tested and a reliability co-efficient of 0.83 was obtained. The researcher assisted by 5 co-opted research assistants administered the questionnaire using on-the-spot technique. The data to be collected were analyzed using mean and grand mean to answer the research questions while Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) was used to test the null hypotheses at . 05 confidence level of significance. The result revealed among others that Shorthand skill is not relevant on report writing minute-taking of secretaries in modern offices operation. It was concluded that the job opportunities and job performance of professional secretaries will depend on their knowledge, skills and competencies on the operation of the technology gadgets and facilities found in the modern offices. Based on this, it was recommended among others that Modern technology such as (computer, scanning machine, tape recorder, dictating machine) should be integrated into the curriculum of business education programme, this will enable pre-service secretaries to acquire skills needed for office operation before graduation. Keywords: Professional, Secretaries, Shorthand, Skills, Modern, Office, Operations DOI : 10.7176/RHSS/10-2-05 Publication date: January 31 st 2020
An Inquiry into Earning Management Motives: Evidence from Pakistani Distressed and Non-Distressed Firms

This research takes in view the motives that drive opportunistic managers in the Pakistani corporate world to manipulate firm earnings in different financial circumstances by resorting to real (REM) and accrual (AEM) earning management to reap their self-interests. The present study undertakes 188 distressed and 37 non-distressed firms for the sample period of 2010-2017. The summary stats confirm that both in distressed and non-distressed firms’ managers resort to REM practices more than AEM. The factors that urge mangers to take REM practices in distressed firms i.e., debt covenant restriction, managerial ownership and tax avoidance needs to be amended in such a way that it demotivates managers for carrying such practices in distressed firms. The factors that influence AEM practices in distressed firms are debt covenant restrictions, institutional ownership, highly valued firms and managerial ownership whereas in non-distressed firm these factors are debt covenant and effective tax rate. In non-distressed firms motives that urge mangers to adopt REM, practices are raising additional capital and tax avoidance practices.
A comparative evaluation of intranasal dexmedetomidine with and without nalbuphineas premedication for pediatric dental patients

Introduction: Management of children’s fear and anxiety during treatment is a primary concern of paediatric dental practitioners. There are a number of children who are difficult to be managed by basic behaviour guidance techniques. Objective: To evaluate the safety and efficacy of intranasal Dexmedetomidine with and without Nalbuphine procedural sedation in paediatric dental patients. Materials and Methods: This study was conducted in Department of Pedodontics and Preventive Dentistry, Babu Banarasi Das College of Dental Sciences Lucknow in collaboration with Department of Pharmacology, King George Medical University Lucknow. Ninety six systemically healthy children (ASA type I) between 4-8 years of age for whom basic behaviour modification techniques were not successful in providing dental treatment were included in the study. Each parent/guardian was requested to fill a written informed consent form at the initial appointment. Data analysis was carried out using SPSS 16.0 version. Result: Considering the efficacy parameter (duration, time of recovery) the intranasal dexmedetomidine (group 1, 2.5 mg/ kg) was found to be the better for procedural sedation. Intranasal administration with atomizer and nasal drop had no significant difference. Conclusion: Intranasal dexmedetomidine alone and in combination with nalbuphine showed comparable sedative efficacy with no additional advantage of combination over dexmedetomidine alone. Use of a commercially available atomizer showed improved patient’s acceptance of intranasal administered drugs but did not influence efficacy as compared to nasal drops. Keywords: Nasal drop, Atomizer, Nalbuphine.