Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Towards positive systems of child and family welfare : international comparisons of child protection, family service, and community caring systems

PART ONE: OVERVIEW * Understanding International Comparisons of Child Protection, Family Service, and Community Caring Systems of Child and Family Welfare GARY CAMERON and NANCY FREYMOND * Learning from Difference: Comparing Child Welfare Systems RACHAEL HETHERINGTON PART TWO: CHILD PROTECTION SYSTEMS * Promoting Change from 'Child Protection' to 'Child and Family Welfare': The Problems of the English System RACHAEL HETHERINGTON and TRACEY NURSE * Forming and Sustaining Partnerships in Child and Family Welfare: The American Experience PATRICIA SCHENE * Problems and Potential of Canadian Child Welfare KAREN SWIFT and MARILYN CALLAHAN PART THREE: FAMILY SERVICE SYSTEMS * The Plight of Paternalism in French Child Welfare and Protective Policies and Practices ALAIN GREVOT * Child and Family Welfare in Sweden GUNVOR ANDERSSON * When One Door Shuts, Another Opens: Turning Disadvantages into Opportunities in Child and Family Welfare in the Netherlands A.W. M. VELDKAMP PART FOUR: COMMUNITY CARING SYSTEMS * From Child Welfare to Child, Family, and Community Welfare: The Agenda of Canada's Aboriginal Peoples DEENA MANDELL, CINDY BLACKSTOCK, JOYCE CLOUSTON CARLSON, and MARSHALL FINE * Maori Perspectives on Collaboration and Colonization in Contemporary Aotearoa / New Zealand Child and Family Welfare Policies and Practices CATHERINE LOVE * First Nations Child and Family Services and Indigenous Knowledge as a Framework for Research, Policy, and Practice MARLYN BENNETT and CINDY BLACKSTOCK PART FIVE: CONCLUSION * Learning from International Comparisons of Child Protection, Family Service, and Community Caring Systems of Child and Family Welfare NANCY FREYMOND and GARY CAMERON Appendix A: Partners in Child Protection and Well-Being Appendix B: Guiding Principles for Building Partnerships Appendix C: Timeline of the Evolution of the French Child Protection System Glossary References List of Contributors
Pilon: An Integrated Tool for Comprehensive Microbial Variant Detection and Genome Assembly Improvement

Advances in modern sequencing technologies allow us to generate sufficient data to analyze hundreds of bacterial genomes from a single machine in a single day. This potential for sequencing massive numbers of genomes calls for fully automated methods to produce high-quality assemblies and variant calls. We introduce Pilon, a fully automated, all-in-one tool for correcting draft assemblies and calling sequence variants of multiple sizes, including very large insertions and deletions. Pilon works with many types of sequence data, but is particularly strong when supplied with paired end data from two Illumina libraries with small e.g., 180 bp and large e.g., 3–5 Kb inserts. Pilon significantly improves draft genome assemblies by correcting bases, fixing mis-assemblies and filling gaps. For both haploid and diploid genomes, Pilon produces more contiguous genomes with fewer errors, enabling identification of more biologically relevant genes. Furthermore, Pilon identifies small variants with high accuracy as compared to state-of-the-art tools and is unique in its ability to accurately identify large sequence variants including duplications and resolve large insertions. Pilon is being used to improve the assemblies of thousands of new genomes and to identify variants from thousands of clinically relevant bacterial strains. Pilon is freely available as open source software.
Comprehensive evaluation of a novel nuclear factor‐κB inhibitor, quinoclamine, by transcriptomic analysis

Background and purpose: The transcription factor nuclear factor‐κB (NF‐κB) has been linked to the cell growth, apoptosis and cell cycle progression. NF‐κB blockade induces apoptosis of cancer cells. Therefore, NF‐κB is suggested as a potential therapeutic target for cancer. Here, we have evaluated the anti‐cancer potential of a novel NF‐κB inhibitor, quinoclamine (2‐amino‐3‐chloro‐1,4‐naphthoquinone).
Development of a generic method to generate upper-body emotional expressions for different social robots

To investigate the effect of gestures in human–robot interaction, a number of social robots capable of gesturing have been designed. Gestures are often preprogrammed off-line or generated by mapping motion capture data to the robot. Since these gestures are dependent on the robot’s joint configuration, they cannot be used for other robots. Therefore, when using a new robot platform with a different morphology, new joint trajectories to reach the desired postures need to be implemented. This method aims to minimize the workload when implementing gestures on a new robot platform and facilitate the sharing of gestures between different robots. The innovative aspect of this method is that it is constructed independently of any robot configuration, and therefore it can be used to generate gestures for different robot platforms. To calculate a gesture for a certain configuration, the developed method uses a set of target gestures listed in a database and maps them to that specific configuration. The database currently consists of a set of emotional expressions. The method was validated on the virtual model of different robots and an online survey was performed to evaluate the user’s perception of the output of the method. The results of this survey showed that the calculated gestures for a certain robot configuration well resemble the target gestures, and thus that our developed method to map gestures to different robot morphologies gives good results. Graphical Abstract
Real, Live, and Concise: Answering Open-Domain Questions with Word Embedding and Summarization

Resorting to community question answering (CQA) web-sites for ﬁnding answers has gained momentum in the recent years with the explosive rate at which social media has been proliferating. With many questions left unanswered on those websites, automatic question answering (QA) systems have seen light. A main objective of those systems is to harness the plethora of existing answered questions; hence transforming the problem to ﬁnding good answers to newly-posed questions from similar previously-answered ones or composing a new concise one from those potential answers. In this paper, we describe the real-time Question Answering system we have developed to participate in TREC 2016 LiveQA track. Our QA system is composed of three phases: answer retrieval from three diﬀerent Web sources (Yahoo! Answers, Google Search, and Bing Search), answer ranking using learning to rank models, and summarization of top ranked answers. Oﬃcial track results of our three submitted runs show that our runs signiﬁcantly outperformed the average scores of all participated runs across the entire spectrum of oﬃcial evaluation measures deployed by the track organizers this year.
From Feature Development to Customer Value Creation

Marketing experts emphasize that the creation of superior customer value is a key element for companies’ success. Understanding how to create value for customers, however, is not trivial in practice. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the role of requirements engineering (RE) in customer value creation. The paper describes experiences gained from six Finnish companies that develop software-intensive products and services for global markets. In practice, the focus of RE activities is mainly on product features. Customer value creation is, however, more than developing a competitive set of product features. It is important for companies to understand customers’ processes and develop solutions that support these processes. To enable practitioners to change the focus from feature development to customer value creation, we propose a set of RE practices.
Adaptive ILC algorithms of nonlinear continuous systems with non-parametric uncertainties for non-repetitive trajectory tracking

In this article, two adaptive iterative learning control (ILC) algorithms are presented for nonlinear continuous systems with non-parametric uncertainties. Unlike general ILC techniques, the proposed adaptive ILC algorithms allow that both the initial error at each iteration and the reference trajectory are iteration-varying in the ILC process, and can achieve non-repetitive trajectory tracking beyond a small initial time interval. Compared to the neural network or fuzzy system-based adaptive ILC schemes and the classical ILC methods, in which the number of iterative variables is generally larger than or equal to the number of control inputs, the first adaptive ILC algorithm proposed in this paper uses just two iterative variables, while the second even uses a single iterative variable provided that some bound information on system dynamics is known. As a result, the memory space in real-time ILC implementations is greatly reduced.
Adaptación de una medida multidimensional de perfeccionismo: la Almost Perfect Scale-Revised (APS-R). Un estudio preliminar sobre sus propiedades psicométricas en una muestra de estudiantes universitarios argentinos.

El presente trabajo explora las propiedades psicometricas de la escala Almost Perfect Scale-Revised (APS-R) en una muestra de estudiantes universitarios argentinos (N=268). Se establecio el poder de discriminacion de los reactivos y luego se realizo un analisis de la estructura factorial y consistencia interna. Se obtuvieron evidencias externas de validez. La primera cohorte (n=168) completo la APS-R junto a un cuestionario sociodemografico, mientras que la segunda (n=100) completo tambien una medida autoadministrada acerca del promedio academico. Resultados. Los coeficientes de discriminacion resultaron aceptables. Los niveles de consistencia interna fueron adecuados y se conservo la estructura factorial de la escala original: 3 factores explicaron el 53,35% de la varianza. Se encontraron diferencias de genero para dos subescalas, mas no se encontraron resultados significativos en relacion al promedio academico. Los resultados permiten apoyar adecuadamente la estructura factorial del perfeccionismo desadaptativo. Se discute el alcance de los resultados. Palabras clave: Almost-Perfect-Scale (APS-R), Perfeccionismo, Propiedades psicometricas.
Comment concilier service public et concurrence? Essais sur le rôle de l'Etat durant la transition

Cette these etudie la question de la place qu'occupe l'Etat dans les pays de l'ancien bloc socialiste, et ce a l'aube de la troisieme decennie des reformes. En retenant l'exemple polonais pour apprecier concretement ce que l'on peut deja pressentir comme des nouvelles responsabilites de l'Etat, nous avons choisi d'analyser l'efficacite de l'action publique sous trois perspectives, chacune d'entre elles correspondant a un chapitre. Dans quelle mesure l'Etat entraine-t-il une redefinition de la regulation d'activites economique ? Quel role joue-t-il dans la fourniture des biens publics ? Comment s'y prend-t-il pour achever les reformes sociales ? La nouvelle configuration economique et sociale amplifie certains dysfonctionnements inherents au systeme transitoire tout en introduisant de nouvelles distorsions, comme l'illustre pertinemment le secteur public en Pologne. Cette these analyse certains aspects des interactions entre deux spheres, publique et privee, a la lumiere des changements profonds qui accompagnent la nouvelle donne.
Joint Design of Congestion Control Routing With Distributed Multi Channel Assignment in Wireless Mesh Networks

In Wireless Mesh Networks (WMN), a channel assignment has to balance the objectives of maintaining connectivity and increasing the aggregate bandwidth. The main aim of the channel assignment algorithm is to assign the channels to the network interfaces, from the given expected load on each virtual link. From the existing work done so far, we can examine that there is no combined solution of multi-channel assignment with routing and congestion control. In this paper, we propose a congestion control routing protocol along with multi-channel assignment. We use a traffic aware metric in this protocol in order to provide quality of service. The proposed protocol can improve the throughput and channel utilization to very high extent because it provides solution for multi-channel assignment and congestion control. The proposed algorithm assigns the channels in a way that, congestion is avoided and co-channel interference levels among links with same channel are reduced. By our simulation results in NS2, we show that the proposed protocol attains high throughput and channel utilization along with reduced latency.
An Eulerian approach for constructing a map between surfaces with different topologies

3D objects of the same kind often have different topologies, and finding correspondence between them is important for operations such as morphing, attribute transfer, and shape matching. This paper presents a novel method to find the surface correspondence between topologically different surfaces. The method is characterized by deforming the source polygonal mesh to match the target mesh by using the intermediate implicit surfaces, and by performing a topological surgery at the appropriate locations on the mesh. In particular, we propose a mathematically well‐defined way to detect the topology change of surface by finding the non‐degenerate saddle points of the velocity fields that tracks implicit surfaces. We show the effectiveness and possible applications of the proposed method through several experiments.
Optimization of pattern matching algorithm for memory based architecture

Due to the advantages of easy re-configurability and scalability, the memory-based string matching architecture is widely adopted by network intrusion detection systems (NIDS). In order to accommodate the increasing number of attack patterns and meet the throughput requirement of networks, a successful NIDS system must have a memory-efficient pattern-matching algorithm and hardware design. In this paper, we propose a memory-efficient pattern-matching algorithm which can significantly reduce the memory requirement. For total Snort string patterns, the new algorithm achieves 29% of memory reduction compared with the traditional Aho-Corasick algorithm [5]. Moreover, since our approach is orthogonal to other memory reduction approaches, we can obtain substantial gain even after applying the existing state-of-the-art algorithms. For example, after applying the bit-split algorithm [9], we can still gain an additional 22% of memory reduction.
Improving Evolutionary Models for Mitochondrial Protein Data with Site-Class Specific Amino Acid Exchangeability Matrices

Adequate modeling of mitochondrial sequence evolution is an essential component of mitochondrial phylogenomics (comparative mitogenomics). There is wide recognition within the field that lineage-specific aspects of mitochondrial evolution should be accommodated through lineage-specific amino-acid exchangeability matrices (e.g., mtMam for mammalian data). However, such a matrix must be applied to all sites and this implies that all sites are subject to the same, or largely similar, evolutionary constraints. This assumption is unjustified. Indeed, substantial differences are expected to arise from three-dimensional structures that impose different physiochemical environments on individual amino acid residues. The objectives of this paper are (1) to investigate the extent to which amino acid evolution varies among sites of mitochondrial proteins, and (2) to assess the potential benefits of explicitly modeling such variability. To achieve this, we developed a novel method for partitioning sites based on amino acid physiochemical properties. We apply this method to two datasets derived from complete mitochondrial genomes of mammals and fish, and use maximum likelihood to estimate amino acid exchangeabilities for the different groups of sites. Using this approach we identified large groups of sites evolving under unique physiochemical constraints. Estimates of amino acid exchangeabilities differed significantly among such groups. Moreover, we found that joint estimates of amino acid exchangeabilities do not adequately represent the natural variability in evolutionary processes among sites of mitochondrial proteins. Significant improvements in likelihood are obtained when the new matrices are employed. We also find that maximum likelihood estimates of branch lengths can be strongly impacted. We provide sets of matrices suitable for groups of sites subject to similar physiochemical constraints, and discuss how they might be used to analyze real data. We also discuss how the general approach might be employed to improve a variety of mitogenomic-based research activities.
Neonatal DNA immunization with a plasmid encoding an internal viral protein is effective in the presence of maternal antibodies and protects against subsequent viral challenge

Conventional vaccines are remarkably effective in adults but are much less successful in the very young, who are less able to initiate a mature immune response and who may carry maternal antibodies which inactivate standard vaccines. We set out to determine whether DNA immunization might circumvent these problems. We have previously shown that intramuscular injection of plasmid DNA encoding the nucleoprotein (NP) gene of lymphocytic choriomeningitis virus (LCMV) is capable of inducing immune responses and protecting 50% of adult mice against lethal and sublethal challenge with LCMV. Here we demonstrate that mouse pups injected with the same plasmid hours or days after birth produce major histocompatibility complex-restricted, NP-specific cytotoxic T lymphocytes (CTL) that persist into adulthood; 48% of vaccinated pups responded to subsequent sublethal viral challenge by the accelerated production of anti-NP LCMV-specific CTL, indicating that these animals had been successfully immunized by the plasmid DNA. In addition, these mice showed a >95% reduction in splenic viral titers 4 days postinfection compared to control mice, demonstrating a more rapid control of infection in vivo. Furthermore, pups born of and suckled on LCMV-immune dams (and therefore containing passively acquired anti-LCMV antibodies at the time of DNA inoculation) responded to the DNA vaccine in a similar manner, showing that maternally derived anti-LCMV antibodies do not significantly inhibit the generation of protective immune responses following DNA vaccination. These findings suggest that, at least in this model system, DNA immunization circumvents many of the problems associated with neonatal immunization.
Minimum selection GSC and adaptive low-power rake combining scheme

In this paper, we investigate a new generalized selection combining (GSC) technique and an adaptive low-power rake combining scheme to save the power consumption of mobile rake receivers for wideband CDMA systems. The new GSC technique called minimum selection GSC (MS-GSC) selects a minimum number of rake fingers as long as the combined SNR is larger than a given threshold. The proposed rake combining scheme adaptively adjusts the threshold value to maintain the desired BER, in which a GSC dynamically selects rake fingers to meet the given threshold condition. The proposed MS-GSC shows a low standard deviation in bit error statistics and advantages practical implementation. The proposed adaptive scheme works well with existing GSC schemes as well as the proposed MS-GSC. The proposed scheme reduced the power consumption of a mobile rake receiver up to 67.8% by turning off unselected rake fingers.
Packet Size Optimization in Wireless Sensor Networks for Smart Grid Applications

Wireless sensor networks (WSNs) are envisioned to be an important enabling technology for smart grid (SG) due to the low cost, ease of deployment, and versatility of WSNs. Limited battery energy is the tightest resource constraint on WSNs. Transmission power control and data packet size optimization are powerful mechanisms for prolonging network lifetime and improving energy efficiency. Increasing transmission power will reduce the bit error rate (BER) on some links, however, utilizing the highest power level will lead to inefficient use of battery energy because on links with low path loss achieving low BER is possible without the need to use the highest power level. Utilizing a large packet size is beneficial for increasing the payload-to-overhead ratio, yet, lower packet sizes have the advantage of lower packet error rate. Furthermore, transmission power level assignment and packet size selection are interrelated. Therefore, joint optimization of transmission power level and packet size is of utmost importance in WSN lifetime maximization. In this study, we construct a detailed link layer model by employing the characteristics of Tmote Sky WSN nodes and channel characteristics based on actual measurements of SG path loss for various environments. A novel mixed integer programming framework is created by using the aforementioned link layer model for WSN lifetime maximization by joint optimization of transmission power level and data packet size. We analyzed the WSN performance by systematic exploration of the parameter space for various SG environments through the numerical solutions of the optimization model.
Production of Superoxide and Nitric Oxide by Granulocytes in Non‐Insulin‐Dependent Diabetic Patients With and Without Diabetic Nephropathy

Production of the superoxide radical anion O2‐. and the nitric oxide radical NO‐. by granulocytes was studied in 14 patients with type 2 diabetes without nephropathy, 21 patients with type 2 diabetes and diabetic nephropathy, and 19 healthy subjects, both without and after stimulation with opsonized zymosan. O2‐. production by both resting and stimulated granulocytes was increased in type 2 diabetes patients without nephropathy but decreased in type 2 diabetes patients with nephropathy, compared with healthy subjects. NO. generation was highly augmented in type 2 diabetes patients without nephropathy by both resting and stimulated cells; values for type 2 diabetes patients with nephropathy were intermediate between the type 2 diabetes patients without nephropathy and the healthy subjects. These data point to granulocytes as one of possible sources of oxidative stress in type 2 diabetes.
A study of interface design for widgets in web services through usability evaluation

The use of web widgets on desktop and mobile devices has been increasing rapidly. Web widgets provide access to activities and information from various sources across the web. As the number of supported widgets increases, managing widgets and finding relevant or interesting widgets becomes more complex. In addition, interacting with widgets in web service systems can be difficult, especially for novice users. Up to this point, there has been little research on web widget usability. This paper performs an experimental study regarding user interfaces of web widgets based on the work-flow analysis and state diagramming techniques. In the experiment, four sites providing widget services are chosen - A, B, C, and D. The experiment participants perform three assigned tasks in the chosen sites, and their mouse operations are recorded using Camtasia, a screencasting software. Mouse tracking analysis is performed based on the recorded data in order to analyze common user behaviors. In addition, workflow diagrams representing the operational flows to carry out the given tasks in each web site are constructed so as to visually and systematically analyze detailed usage patterns. The experimental study results presented in this paper can contribute to developing guidelines for highly usable and accessible interface design of web widgets.