Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Semi-supervised online hashing

Most of existing hashing methods for image retrieval problems assume all images are given at the beginning. However, in some image retrieval problems, images may arrive or be labeled in an online or streaming manner. Current online hashing methods are fully supervised which assume all images come with labels. However, in real world big data environments, it is infeasible to have a fully labeled image set. Therefore, we propose a semi-supervised online hashing method to fully utilize the small portion of labeled images and the large amount of unlabeled images. Moreover, several variants of the proposed method are also proposed in this paper. Three databases are used to simulate online data environments. Experimental results show that the proposed method outperforms the stat-of-art online hashing methods and other baseline methods.
Electronic‐based lifestyle interventions in overweight or obese perinatal women: a systematic review and meta‐analysis

Electronic‐based (e‐based) lifestyle interventions provide potential and cost‐effective delivery of remote interventions for overweight and obese perinatal women. To date, no meta‐analysis has reported the efficacy of maternal and neonatal outcomes. Seven electronic databases were searched from inception up to July 13, 2016, including the Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature, Cochrane Library, EMBASE, ProQuest Dissertations and Theses, PsycINFO, PubMed and Scopus. Among the 1,145 studies retrieved, 14 randomized controlled trials were selected among 17 publications. The Cochrane risk of bias tool was used to appraise the quality assessment. The meta‐analyses demonstrated a significant result for limiting gestational weight gain, losing postnatal weight in 1–2 months, increasing self‐reported moderate and vigorous physical activity and reducing caloric intake using diet‐related software. Our review shows that an e‐based lifestyle intervention is an acceptable approach. The findings reveal the variability in intervention methods and provide limited conclusive evidence. Thus, future studies should examine the efficacy and essential components as well as the various approaches using optimal portions of in‐person and phone sessions. Further evaluations comparing the effectiveness of different e‐based lifestyle intervention approaches toward activity‐related and diet‐related outcomes are necessary.
Microsatellite Analysis Characterizes Burkina Faso as a Genetic Contact Zone Between Sahelian and Djallonké Sheep

A total of 123 sheep belonging to the Djallonké, Mossi, and Burkina-Sahel breeds, along with 41 Spanish Xalda sheep were genotyped for 27 microsatellites. The pair Djallonké-Mossi had the highest between breeds molecular coancestry. Admixture analysis informed on the parental role of the Burkina-Sahel and Djallonké breeds. The Mossi breed was a hybrid population nearer to the Djallonké breed. Only half of the Mossi individuals were correctly assigned to their breed. The Burkina-Sahel and Djallonké breeds can be considered ancestrally different genetic entities. Differentiation between the Djallonké and Mossi breeds may be due to introgression of Sahelian sheep.
small wing encodes a phospholipase C-γ that acts as a negative regulator of R 7 development in Drosophila

Phospholipase C-γ(PLC-γ) is activated in many cell types following growth factor stimulation. Our understanding of the role of PLC-γ in cell growth and differentiation has been severely limited by the dearth of mutations in any organism. In this study, we show that the Drosophila gene small wing (sl), identified by Bridges in 1915, encodes a PLC-γ. Mutations of sl result in extra R7 photoreceptors in the compound eye, consistent with overactivation of the receptor tyrosine kinase pathways that control R7 development. The data presented here provide the first genetic evidence that PLCγ is involved in Ras-mediated signaling and indicate that PLC-γ acts as a negative regulator in such pathways in Drosophila.
Estrogen enhances the stimulation of bone collagen synthesis by loading and exogenous prostacyclin, but not prostaglandin E2, in organ cultures of rat ulnae

The shafts of ulnae from 110 g male rats were cultured, and after a period of 5 h preincubation one of each pair of bones was either loaded cyclically (500 g, 1 Hz, 8 minutes) to produce physiologic strains (‐1300 με) or treated with exogenous prostacyclin (PGI2) or prostaglandin E2 (10−6 M, 8 minutes) in the presence or absence of 17β‐estradiol (10−8 M). PGI2, PGE2, and loading stimulated almost immediate increases in glucose 6‐phosphate dehydrogenase (G6PD) activity in osteocytes and osteoblasts. This increase was uniform throughout the section with exogenous PGs in the medium but was related to local strain magnitude in loading. Elevated G6PD levels in response to loading and PGI2 persisted for 18 h, by which time, ALP activity in surface osteoblasts was elevated and [H]proline incorporation into collagen increased. PGE2 produced similar immediate and sustained increases in G6PD activity and [H]proline incorporation after 18 h but no change in ALP activity. Bones cultured for 18 h with 17β‐estradiol increased their [H]proline incorporation, as did those loaded, and treated with PGI2 and PGE2. Loading and PGI2 but not PGE2 produced similar proportional increases in [H]proline incorporation above the increased baseline of estradiol alone. These results suggest that estrogen and loading together produce a greater osteogenic response than either separately. If so, estrogen withdrawal would result in a rapid fall in bone mass to establish a new equilibrium appropriate to the reduced effectiveness of the loading‐related stimulus. Such a fall in bone mass is a characteristic feature of estrogen withdrawal at the menopause.
The association of Atopobium vaginae and Gardnerella vaginalis with bacterial vaginosis and recurrence after oral metronidazole therapy.

BACKGROUND We investigated associations between Atopobium vaginae and bacterial vaginosis (BV) and the role that A. vaginae plays in recurrent BV after oral metronidazole therapy. METHODS Women with abnormal vaginal discharge or odor were enrolled in a cross-sectional study (n=358); the proportion of those infected with Gardnerella vaginalis and A. vaginae was determined by polymerase chain reaction. Women with BV (Nugent score [NS] 7-10 or 4-6 with > or =3 Amsel criteria; n=139) were treated with oral metronidazole (400 mg twice a day for 7 days) and examined at 1, 3, 6, and 12 months or until they reached an NS of 7-10 and recurrence of A. vaginae and G. vaginalis infection was established. RESULTS A. vaginae and G. vaginalis were highly sensitive for BV--96% (95% confidence interval [CI], 91%-98%) and 99% (95% CI, 97%-100%), respectively. However, A. vaginalis was more specific for BV (77% [95% CI, 71%-82%]) than was G. vaginalis (35% [95% CI, 29%-42%]). G. vaginalis was detected in 100% and A. vaginae in 75% of women with recurrent BV; higher organism loads were present in women with recurrent BV. A. vaginae was rarely detected without G. vaginalis, and women in whom both organisms were detected had higher rates of recurrent BV (83%) than women infected with G. vaginalis only (38%) (P<.001). CONCLUSIONS Infection with A. vaginae is more specific for BV than infection with G. vaginalis. The higher recurrence rates in women in whom both A. vaginae and G. vaginalis were detected suggest that A. vaginae makes a significant contribution to BV. However, its etiological role remains unclear.
Evaluation of Colocasia esculenta Starch as an Alternative Tablet Excipient to Maize Starch : Assessment by Preformulation and Formulation Studies

ABSTRACT: Starch isolated from Colocasia esculenta plant was studied as an alternative pharmaceutical excipient to maize and potato starch. The Colocasia esculenta starch has been evaluated by series of tests as mentioned in Indian Pharmacopoeia before being used for evaluation. It was tested along with maize and potato starch as an alternative excipient by performing battery of preformulation and formulation tests. The results obtained for Colocasia esculenta starch was comparable with maize starch and the Colocasia esculenta starch can be used as a pharmaceutical excipient in tablets preparation.
Oral health activities of early head start teachers directed toward children and parents.

OBJECTIVES This cross-sectional study examined Early Head Start (EHS) teachers' oral health program activities and their association with teacher and program characteristics. METHODS Self-completed questionnaires were distributed to the staff in all EHS programs in North Carolina. Variables for dental health activities for parents (four items) and children (four items) were constructed as the sum of responses to a 0-4 Likert-type scale (never to very frequently). Ordinary least squares regression models examined the association between teachers' oral health program activities and modifiable teacher (oral health knowledge, values, self-efficacy, dental health training, perceived barriers to dental activities) and program (director and health coordinator knowledge and perceived barriers to dental activities) characteristics. RESULTS Teachers in the parent (n=260) and child (n=231) analyses were a subset of the 485 staff respondents (98 percent response rate). Teachers engaged in child oral health activities (range = 0-16; mean = 9.0) more frequently than parent activities (range = 0-16; mean = 6.9). Teachers' oral health values, perceived oral health self-efficacy, dental training, and director and health coordinator knowledge were positively associated with oral health activities (P < 0.05). Perceived barriers were negatively associated with child activities (P < 0.05). CONCLUSION The level of oral health activity in EHS programs is less than optimal. Several characteristics of EHS staff were identified that can be targeted with education interventions. Evidence for effectiveness of EHS interventions needs to be strengthened, but results of this survey provide encouraging findings about the potential effects of teacher training on their oral health practices.
Press and Politics in the Weimar Republic

Introduction 1. The Berlin Press, 1918 to 1932 2. Media Personalities, 1918 to 1924 3. Competing Stories, 1924-1925 4. The 'Unpolitical' Press: Provincial Newspapers Around Berlin, 1925 to 1928 5. Conquering Headlines: Violence, Sensations, and the Rise of the Nazis, 1928 to 1930 6. War of Words: the Spectre of Civil War, 1931 to 1932 7. Conclusion Notes Bibliography Index
Hematopoietic engraftment and survival in adult recipients of umbilical-cord blood from unrelated donors.

BACKGROUND Umbilical-cord blood from unrelated donors who are not HLA-identical with the recipients can restore hematopoiesis after myeloablative therapy in children. We studied the use of transplantation of umbilical-cord blood to restore hematopoiesis in adults. METHODS Sixty-eight adults with life-threatening hematologic disorders received intensive chemotherapy or total-body irradiation and then transplants of HLA-mismatched umbilical-cord blood. We evaluated the outcomes in terms of hematologic reconstitution, the occurrence of acute and chronic graft-versus-host disease (GVHD), relapses, and event-free survival. RESULTS Of the 68 patients, 48 (71 percent) received grafts of umbilical-cord blood that were mismatched for two or more HLA antigens. Of the 60 patients who survived 28 days or more after transplantation, 55 had neutrophil engraftment at a median of 27 days (range, 13 to 59). The estimated probability of neutrophil recovery in the 68 patients was 0.90 (95 percent confidence interval, 0.85 to 1.0). The presence of a relatively high number of nucleated cells in the umbilical-cord blood before it was frozen was associated with faster recovery of neutrophils. Severe acute GVHD (of grade III or IV) occurred in 11 of 55 patients who could be evaluated within the first 100 days after transplantation. Chronic GVHD developed in 12 of 33 patients who survived for more than 100 days after transplantation. The median follow-up for survivors was 22 months (range, 11 to 51). Of the 68 patients, 19 were alive and 18 of these (26 percent) were disease-free 40 months after transplantation. The presence of a high number of CD34+ cells in the graft was associated with improved event-free survival (P=0.05). CONCLUSIONS Umbilical-cord blood from unrelated donors can restore hematopoiesis in adults who receive myeloablative therapy and is associated with acceptable rates of severe acute and chronic GVHD.
Marrying farmer co-operation and contract farming for service provision in a liberalising sub-Saharan Africa.

This series is published by ODI, an independent non-profit policy research institute, with financial support from the Department for International Development (formerly the Overseas Development Administration). Opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect the views of either ODI or DFID. DFID Department for Internat ional Development MARRYING FARMER COOPERATION AND CONTRACT FARMING FOR SERVICE PROVISION IN A LIBERALISING SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA Jonathan Coulter, Andrew Goodland, Anne Tallontire and Rachel Stringfellow
Motivation, achievements and failure of strategic alliances: The case of Swedish auto‐manufacturers in Russia

Purpose – A large number of industrial manufacturers are forming various types of alliances in a bid to improve their competitive position. The number of strategic alliances has almost doubled in the past ten years and is expected to increase even more in the future. However, while many organisations often rush to jump on the bandwagon of strategic alliances, few succeed. The failure rate of strategic alliances is projected to be as high as 70 percent. Interestingly, marriage relationships are found to have similar failure rate. In spite of the high failure rate of strategic alliances, very little is known about the potential failure factors and their possible correlation with alliance motivation and objectives. This paper aims to examine the importance that industrial manufacturers place on various motives for alliance formation and the potential reasons for alliance failure.Design/methodology/approach – This is in the form of a case‐ and survey‐based study of two large Swedish auto‐manufacturers in Russ.
Parametric regression methodology and optimized control for DC motor

This paper presents a speed control for a DC motor. Despite the unknown parameters of the plant to be controlled, these parameters are found using a system identification method. The methodology implemented in this study is known as parametric regression and is based on an optimization technique. This optimization, through its fitness function, allows to find the system characteristics in order to make possible the system control. This control is applied to the DC motor speed through a cascade PI controller, acting on the motor current. Besides, the controller parameters are found through deterministic optimization technique, using the Quasi-Newton method. Simulation and experimental results are presented in order to validate the study and make possible the control of an unknown parameters system.
A 2㎾ Tubular Low-Pass Filter Using Coaxial Line Capacitors of Rectangular shape and Air-Core Inductors

A 2㎾ tubular low-pass filter using coaxial line capacitors of rectangular shape and air-core inductor is designed and fabricated for rejecting the V/UHF band harmonic signals. The measured results show insertion loss of less than 0.29㏈, input VSWR of better than 1.21:1 and very wide stop bands up to 2㎓. The power handling test shows no voltage breakdown and performance degradation at the condition of 2㎾ CW input power.
USING SPATIAL ECONOMETRICS TO ASSESS THE IMPACT OF SWINE PRODUCTION ON RESIDENTIAL PROPERTY VALUES

A spatial hedonic model is developed to assess monetary harm of confined animal feeding operations (CAFOs) on property values, taking explicitly spatial dependence in property values into account. Spatial autocorrelation was found in the form of spatial lag dependence, not spatial error dependence. When spatial lag dependence is explicitly taken into account, on average the impact is reduced by 18%. The magnitude of the spatial autoregressive parameter was about 0.2 for the 1-mile distance band, meaning one-fifth of the house value could be explained by the values of the neighboring houses.
Implementation and testing of a secure fall detection system for Body Area Networks

As the average age of the people in the Western world increases, so does the number of orthopaedic medical treatments due to falls. A method for better treatment of this type of injuries consists of early and accurate fall detection. We present an implementation and test of the system for accurate fall detection. First, a number of tests were performed to get thresholds for distinguishing falls from fall-like or normal behaviour. Then, the algorithm was implemented and tested on Biomobius, a technology platform, which allows researcher to rapidly develop sophisticated technology solutions for biomedical research. Sensors for gathering the acceleration data were part of the Tyndall Mote, a wireless sensor platform designed at Tyndall National Institute, Cork. Data is transmitted wirelessly to the PC. Therefore, since security has to be also considered in such medical systems, an encryption system is also implemented and tested on a low power microprocessor.
Admixture Mapping Identifies a Quantitative Trait Locus Associated with FEV1/FVC in the COPDGene Study

African Americans are admixed with genetic contributions from European and African ancestral populations. Admixture mapping leverages this information to map genes influencing differential disease risk across populations. We performed admixture and association mapping in 3,300 African American current or former smokers from the COPDGene Study. We analyzed estimated local ancestry and SNP genotype information to identify regions associated with FEV1/FVC, the ratio of forced expiratory volume in one second to forced vital capacity, measured by spirometry performed after bronchodilator administration. Global African ancestry inversely associated with FEV1/FVC (P = 0.035). Genome‐wide admixture analysis, controlling for age, gender, body mass index, current smoking status, pack‐years smoked, and four principal components summarizing the genetic background of African Americans in the COPDGene Study, identified a region on chromosome 12q14.1 associated with FEV1/FVC (P = 2.1 × 10−6) when regressed on local ancestry. Allelic association in this region of chromosome 12 identified an intronic variant in FAM19A2 (rs348644) as associated with FEV1/FVC (P = 1.76 × 10−6). By combining admixture and association mapping, a marker on chromosome 12q14.1 was identified as being associated with reduced FEV1/FVC ratio among African Americans in the COPDGene Study.
Convolutional Neural Networks for Chinese sentiment classification of social network

For some Chinese complex sentences, sentiment classification is a challenge. Convolutional Neural Network was used to English sentiment classification by the researchers such as Kim, which achieved very good results. In the new framework designed in this paper, Convolutional Neural Network is used to extract the features of the word embedding and sequence features of word vectors based on lexicon in the Chinese social network, then two kinds of features are fused as the input of Support Vector Machine, finally sentiment tendency of Chinese text is judged. Experimental result shows it is better than the traditional Convolutional Neural Network on precision and F-Score for Chinese sentiment classification.
Molecular modeling and SPRi investigations of interleukin 6 (IL6) protein and DNA aptamers

Interleukin 6 (IL6), an inflammatory response protein has major implications in immune-related inflammatory diseases. Identification of aptamers for the IL6 protein aids in diagnostic, therapeutic, and theranostic applications. Three different DNA aptamers and their interactions with IL6 protein were extensively investigated in a phosphate buffed saline (PBS) solution. Molecular-level modeling through molecular dynamics provided insights of structural, conformational changes and specific binding domains of these protein–aptamer complexes. Multiple simulations reveal consistent binding region for all protein–aptamer complexes. Conformational changes coupled with quantitative analysis of center of mass (COM) distance, radius of gyration (Rg), and number of intermolecular hydrogen bonds in each IL6 protein–aptamer complex was used to determine their binding performance strength and obtain molecular configurations with strong binding. A similarity comparison of the molecular configurations with strong binding from molecular-level modeling concurred with Surface Plasmon Resonance imaging (SPRi) for these three aptamer complexes, thus corroborating molecular modeling analysis findings. Insights from the natural progression of IL6 protein–aptamer binding modeled in this work has identified key features such as the orientation and location of the aptamer in the binding event. These key features are not readily feasible from wet lab experiments and impact the efficacy of the aptamers in diagnostic and theranostic applications.
A high performance bridgeless AC-DC-DC power factor corrector for LED driver application

For LED lighting system the quality of the power is an important issue. For better utilisation and quality the power factor should be unity. Thus LED system must have a PFC circuit before the signal drives the LED. In this paper a single stage bridgeless Single Ended Primary Inductor Converter (SEPIC) for LED driver application is presented. The main feature of proposed converter is that it has only one switch with bridgeless topology. To facilitate the feedback control it is necessary to obtain a linear model of the system by using which the system stability analysis can be performed. Thus the paper also presents the modeling of the proposed converter using state space averaging technique for stability analysis. In the proposed topology there is presence of un-damped complex poles and zeros which makes the system unstable. So a modified topology is presented with its modeling using suitable damping network. A 60V/180W model is designed to evaluate the performance. Simulation results are presented to validate the model.
Stateful intrusion detection for IEC 60870-5-104 SCADA security

Cyber threats in Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) systems have the potential to render physical damage and jeopardize power system operation, safety and stability. SCADA systems were originally designed with little consideration of escalating cyber threats and hence the problem of how to develop robust intrusion detection technologies to tailor the requirements of SCADA is an emerging topic and a big challenge. This paper proposes a stateful Intrusion Detection System (IDS) using a Deep Packet Inspection (DPI) method to improve the cyber-security of SCADA systems using the IEC 60870-5-104 protocol which is tailored for basic telecontrol communications. The proposed stateful protocol analysis approach is presented that is designed specifically for the IEC 60870-5-104 protocol. Finally, the novel intrusion detection approach are implemented and validated.