Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Dominant Discourses, Debates and Silences on Child Labour in Africa and Asia

Abstract Drawing on the relevant literature, this article explores key debates and controversies on child labour in the context of Africa and Asia. It first identifies and analyses three dominant discourses on child labour: 1) the work-free childhoods perspective; 2) the socio-cultural perspective; and 3) the political economy perspective. Against the backdrop of these discourses, the article goes on to critically examine aspects of child labour that are underrepresented in the literature and in international policy circles. It concludes by highlighting the importance of grounding children's gendered work within the complex material social practices of interconnected histories and geographies in which their livelihoods unfold.
Methods for co‐culturing tumour and endothelial cells: systems and their applications

Objectives The high levels of morbidity and mortality associated with cancer can be attributed to two main processes; the tumour's ability to rapidly proliferate and the process of metastasis. These key processes are facilitated by tumour‐induced angiogenesis, which causes existing blood vessels to branch off and actively grow towards the tumour providing it with the nutrients and oxygen required for growth and the avenue through which it can metastasise to invade other tissues. This process involves complex interactions between tumour and endothelial cells and is at the forefront of modern biomedical research as anti‐angiogenic therapies may hold the key to preventing tumour growth and spread. This review looks at modern co‐culture systems used in the study of the tumour–endothelial cell relationship highlighting the applications and weaknesses of each model and analysing their uses in various tumour–endothelial cell investigations.
Measuring and predicting visual fidelity

This paper is a study of techniques for measuring and predicting visual fidelity. As visual stimuli we use polygonal models, and vary their fidelity with two different model simplification algorithms. We also group the stimuli into two object types: animals and man made artifacts. We examine three different experimental techniques for measuring these fidelity changes: naming times, ratings, and preferences. All the measures were sensitive to the type of simplification and level of simplification. However, the measures differed from one another in their response to object type. We also examine several automatic techniques for predicting these experimental measures, including techniques based on images and on the models themselves. Automatic measures of fidelity were successful at predicting experimental ratings, less successful at predicting preferences, and largely failures at predicting naming times. We conclude with suggestions for use and improvement of the experimental and automatic measures of visual fidelity.
CompEx: Compression-expansion coding for energy, latency, and lifetime improvements in MLC/TLC NVM

Multi-level/triple-level cell non-volatile memories (MLC/TLC NVMs) such as PCM and RRAM are the subject of active research and development as replacement candidates for DRAM, which is limited by its high refresh power and poor scaling potential. Besides the benefits of non-volatility (low refresh power) and improved scalability, MLC/TLC NVMs offer high data density and memory capacity over DRAM. However, the viability of MLC/TLC NVMs is limited primarily due to the high programming energy and latency as well as the low endurance of NVM cells; these are primarily attributable to the iterative program-and-verify procedure necessary for programming the NVM cells. In this paper, we propose compression-expansion (CompEx) coding, a low overhead scheme that synergistically integrates statistical compression with expansion coding to realize simultaneous energy, latency, and lifetime improvements in MLC/TLC NVMs. CompEx coding is agnostic to the choice of compression technique; in this paper, we evaluate CompEx coding using both frequent pattern compression (FPC) and base-delta-immediate (BΔI) compression. CompEx coding integrates FPC/BΔI with (k, m)q `expansion' coding; expansion codes are a class of q-ary linear block codes that encode data using only the low energy states of a q-ary NVM cell. CompEx coding simultaneously reduces energy and latency and improves lifetime for no memory overhead and negligible logic overhead (≈ 10k gates, which is <; 0.1% per NVM module). Our full-system simulations of a system that integrates TLC RRAM show that CompEx coding reduces total memory energy by 53% and write latency by 24%; these improvements translate to a 5.7% improvement in IPC, a 11.8% improvement in main memory bandwidth, and 1.8× improvement in lifetime over classical binary coding using data-comparison write. CompEx coding thus addresses the programming energy/latency and lifetime challenges of MLC/-TLC NVMs that pose a serious technological roadblock to their adoption in high performance computing systems.
Proceedings of the First International Discotec Workshop on Context-aware Adaptation Mechanisms for Pervasive and Ubiquitous Services (campus 2008) Learning-based Coordination of Distributed Component Deployment Learning-based Coordination of Distributed Component Deployment

Self-organizing and resource-aware component deployment is an important feature of mobile pervasive systems. Distributed resources must be dynamically allocated to software components to ensure QoS demands and not distracting the user. In this paper, we propose a Reinforcement Learning technique to optimize distributed component deployment and migration. We argue that the approach meets some main requirements demanded by applications running on mobile systems. A motivating scenario is presented in which a distributed application server allows users to share content and run applications in mobile ad-hoc networks.
Human CD8+ T cells do not require the polarization of lipid rafts for activation and proliferation

Lipid rafts are important signaling platforms in T cells. Little is known about their properties in human CD8+ T cells. We studied polarization of lipid rafts by digital immunofluorescence microscopy in primary human T cells, using beads coated with anti-CD3 and anti-CD28 mAbs (CD3/28 beads). Unlike CD4+ T cells, CD8+ T cells did not polarize lipid rafts when stimulated with CD3/28 beads, when the anti-CD28 antibody was substituted with B7.2Ig, or if an anti-CD8 antibody was added to the CD3/28 beads. This phenomenon was also observed in human antigen-specific CD8+ T cells. On stimulation with CD3/28 beads, the T cell antigen receptor clustered at the cell/bead contact area in both CD4+ and CD8+ T cells. Examination of lipid rafts isolated by sucrose density gradient centrifugation revealed the constitutive expression of p56Lck in the raft fractions of unstimulated CD8+ T cells, whereas p56Lck was recruited to the raft fraction of CD4+ T cells only after stimulation with CD3/28 beads. Stimulation with CD3/28 beads induced marked calcium flux, recruitment of PKC-θ and F-actin to the cell/bead contact site, and similar proliferation patterns in CD4+ and CD8+ T cells. Thus, polarization of lipid rafts is not essential for early signal transduction events or proliferation of human CD8+ lymphocytes. It is possible that the lower stringency of CD8+ T cell activation obviates a requirement for raft polarization.
Long living chair

The Long Living Chair is a rocking chair with enhanced memory. It knows the day it was produced and can record how many times it is used over the course of 96 years. Its semi-hidden display and the slow pace it changes suggest that the recorded information should not be accessed frequently. Instead, it is meant to be forgotten and then once in a while accessed to provide a moment of wonder and a sense of relatedness to the object. The project was developed to embody important slow technology concepts.
Independent Prognostic Value of High-sensitivity C-reactive Protein in Patients with Coronary Artery Ectasia

Background:Despite its severity, coronary artery ectasia (CAE) is still poorly understood. High-sensitivity C-reactive protein (hs-CRP) has been recognized as a prognostic factor in some cardiovascular diseases but not assessed in CAE. The aim of this observational study was to investigate the prognostic value of hs-CRP in CAE. Methods:Our analysis evaluated the effect of the baseline hs-CRP on cardiovascular events (CVs) (cardiac death and nonfetal myocardial infarction) in consecutively enrolled stable CAE patients. We used the Cox proportional hazards regression models to examine the association between baseline hs-CRP level and follow-up CVs in CAE. The net reclassification improvement and integrated discrimination improvement (IDI) of hs-CRP were also assessed. Results:We obtained the follow-up results of 540 patients over a median follow-up period of 36 (37.41 ± 15.88) months. The multivariable Cox analysis showed that the hs-CRP was a significant predictor of adverse outcomes in CAE (hazard ratio [HR]: 2.99, 95% confidence interval [CI]: 1.31–6.81, P = 0.0091). In Kaplan–Meier analysis, the group with hs-CRP >3 mg/L had a lower cumulative 66-month event-free survival rate (log-rank test for trend, P = 0.0235) and a higher risk of CVs (HR = 2.66, 95% CI: 1.22–5.77, P = 0.0140) than the group with hs-CRP ⩽3 mg/L. Hs-CRP added predictive information beyond that given by the baseline model comprising the classical risk factors (P value for IDI = 0.0330). Conclusions:A higher level of hs-CRP was independently associated with cardiac death and nonfatal myocardial infarction in CAE patients. The hs-CRP level may therefore provide prognostic information for the risk stratification of CAE patients.
Kasbah: An Agent Marketplace for Buying and Selling Goods

While there are many Web services which help users find things to buy, we know of none which actually try to automate the process of buying and selling. Kasbah is a system where users create autonomous agents to buy and sell goods on their behalf. In this paper, we describe how Kasbah works. We also discuss the implementation of a simple proof-of-concept prototype.
Gene inactivation of Na+/H+ exchanger isoform 1 attenuates apoptosis and mitochondrial damage following transient focal cerebral ischemia

We investigated mechanisms underlying the Na+/H+ exchanger isoform 1 (NHE1)‐mediated neuronal damage in transient focal ischemia. Physiological parameters, body and tympanic temperatures, and regional cerebral blood flow during 30 min of middle cerebral artery occlusion were similar in wild‐type NHE1 (NHE1+/+) and NHE1 heterozygous (NHE1+/−) mice. NHE1+/+ mice developed infarct volume of 57.3 ± 8.8 mm3 at 24 h reperfusion (Rp), which progressed to 86.1 ± 10.0 mm3 at 72 h Rp. This delayed cell death was preceded by release of mitochondrial cytochrome c (Cyt. C), nuclear translocation of apoptosis‐inducing factor (AIF), activation of caspase‐3, and TUNEL‐positive staining and chromatin condensation in the ipsilateral hemispheres of NHE1+/+ brains. In contrast, NHE1+/− mice had a significantly smaller infarct volume and improved neurological function. A similar neuroprotection was obtained with NHE1 inhibitor HOE 642. The number of apoptotic cells, release of AIF and Cyt. C or levels of active caspase‐3 was significantly reduced in NHE1+/− brains. These data imply that NHE1 activity may contribute to ischemic apoptosis. Ischemic brains did not exhibit changes of NHE1 protein expression. In contrast, up‐regulation of NHE1 expression was found in NHE1+/+ neurons after in vitro ischemia. These data suggest that NHE1 activation following cerebral ischemia contributes to mitochondrial damage and ischemic apoptosis.
Assigning missing attribute values based on rough sets theory

We introduce a new approach RSFit on processing data with missing attribute values based on rough sets theory. By matching attribute-value pairs among the same core or reduct of the original data set, the assigned value preserves the characteristics of the original data set. We compare our approach with "closest fit approach globally" and "closest fit approach concept". Experimental results on UCI data sets and a real geriatric care data set show our approach achieves comparable accuracy on assigning the missing values while significantly reduces the computation time. for attribute selection, rule discovery and many knowledge discovery applications in the areas such as data mining, machine learning and medical modeling. Core and reduct are among the most important concepts in this theory. A reduct contains a subset of condition attributes that are sufficient enough to represent the whole data set. The intersection of all the possible reduct is the core. Therefore by examining only attributes within the core or reduct for the matched or similar attribute-value pairs for the data instance containing the missing attribute values, we assign the most relevant value for the missing attribute. Experiments on UCI data sets and a geriatric care data set demonstrate our proposed approach on assigning missing attribute values can greatly reduce the computation time and at the same time maintain a satisfactory prediction accuracy.
The role of leader emotional intelligence in transformational leadership, employee trust, change cynicism and intention to leave.

Much has been written in the popular media about the importance of emotional intelligence (EI) in determining exceptional leadership. The present research contributes to the academic literature by studying the direct and indirect effects of leader EI on a number of organisational variables. Study 1 was the main focus of the research and progressed in three stages. The first involved the development of a measurement model of an employee survey. Respondents reported on their leaders’ EI and transformational leadership (TL), and self reported on their own attitudes and intentions. Drawing on exploratory (n = 218) and confirmatory factor analysis (n = 230) results, an eight dimensional model was supported. The emergent factors consisted of EI-perception, EI-management, TL-inspiring influence, TL-concern/behaviour, change cynicism and intention to leave. Secondly, a structural model of relationships between the emergent factors was examined then compared to alternative models (n = 448). The best-fitting model showed that leader EI was associated with employees’ intentions to leave and change cynicism via TL and trust. Significant relationships between both EI variables and each TL factor were evidenced. At both stages, the results were successfully cross-validated in a sample from a different organisation (n = 339) and controlled for dispositional trust levels and geographic location. Third, the structural relationships were shown to hold longitudinally over a twelve months (n = 210). Study 2 aimed to assess the effects of leader EI from an ability perspective by matching leader scores on EI tests with employee survey responses. Total leader scores on the AO-MEIS (n = 102) and MSCEIT V2 (n = 102) were not significantly correlated with employee perceptions of leader EI. Total scores on both EI tests were significantly yet weakly related to transformational leadership ratings. At the total-test level, there were no significant relationships between leader EI and trust in manager, trust in organisation, change cynicism or intention to leave. At the branch level, leader scores on MSCEIT-emotion perception were positively associated with employees’ trust in both the manager and organisation. Leader MSCEIT-emotion management scores were also related to lower change cynicism. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.
A Nash Game with long-term and short-term players

We formulate and study a game where there is a player who is involved for a long time interval and several small players who stay in the game for short time intervals. The long-term player plays open loop whereas the short-term players play memoryless closed loop or open loop. This is motivated by the fact that the long-term player is a player who usually represents a state or institutional authority that has to commit himself to long-term plans and regulations that are announced in advance and remain unchanged for a long time, whereas the short-term players not having such an institutional role can change policies arbitrarily often. We study this game for Nash strategies in a Linear Quadratic discrete time deterministic set-up. For the memoryless closed loop strategies we confine ourselves to strategies linear in the state. The derived associated Riccati-type equations are of a novel character and are of interest as such. Comparisons with the case where all players play memoryless closed loop or open loop are carried out.
Cholesterol-Lowering Effect of Probiotic Yogurt in Comparison with Ordinary Yogurt in Mildly to Moderately Hypercholesterolemic Subjects

Background and Aims: Hypercholesterolemia is the most important risk factor for cardiovascular diseases. In this study, we compared the effect of consuming probiotic yogurt with that of ordinary yogurt on serum cholesterol level in mildly to moderately hypercholesterolemic subjects. Methods: This randomized and crossover trial included 14 healthy subjects with serum total cholesterol 5.17–7.76 mmol/l. They did not consume yogurt for a 2-week prestudy period and added 300 g/day of milk to their diet. After this period, they were randomly allocated to 2 groups to receive either 300 g of ordinary yogurt or probiotic yogurt (fermented with a starter composed of Lactobacillus acidophilus and Bifidobacterium lactis in addition to bacteria in ordinary yogurt) for 6 weeks as a substitution for milk. After a 4-week washout period, the crossover was made and the study lasted for another 6 weeks. Blood lipid tests were done at the beginning and at the end of each period. Results: Consumption of probiotic yogurt in comparison with ordinary yogurt caused a significant decrease in serum total cholesterol (p < 0.05). Comparison of other blood lipid indices did not show any significant differences between these 2 periods. Conclusion: Yogurt containing two probiotic bacteria strains, L. acidophilus and B. lactis, had a cholesterol-lowering effect in hypercholesterolemic subjects.
Light-weight remote communication for high-performance cloud networks

In this paper, we present early experiences with libRIPC, a light-weight communication library for high-performance cloud networks. Coming cloud networks are expected to be tightly interconnected and to show capabilities formerly reserved to high-performance computing. LibRIPC aims to bring the benefits of such architectures to heterogeneous cloud workloads. LibRIPC was designed for low footprint and easy integration; it supports reconfiguration and mutually untrusted communication partners. LibRIPC offers short and long transmit primitives, which are optimized for control messages and bulk data transfer respectively. Early experiments with a Java-based web server indicate that libRIPC integrates well into typical cloud workloads and brings substantial speedup of at least a factor of three for larger data transfers compared to socket-based TCP/IP communication.
Corporate Governance and Corporate Social Performance: The Influence of Boards, Ownership and Institutions

We analyze how ownership concentration and type, and board independence are related to corporate social performance (CSP). Drawing from agency and team production theories, we argue that the distribution of costs and benefits to shareholders and other stakeholders is crucial to understand what drives CSP. We analyze an international panel of listed firms and reveal that CSP is negatively related to ownership concentration, but positively to board independence. Furthermore, the ownership type and the business context matter. Ownership concentration is negatively related to CSP more strongly in shareholder-oriented societies. This negative relationship is weaker in egalitarian societies.
A novel approach to glycemic control in type 2 diabetes mellitus, partial jejunal diversion: pre-clinical to clinical pathway

Objective To explore partial jejunal diversion (PJD) via a side-to-side jejuno-jejunostomy for improved glycemic control in type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM). PJD is an anatomy-sparing, technically simple surgery in comparison to the predominate metabolic procedures, Roux-en-Y gastric bypass (RYGB) and sleeve gastrectomy (SG). Positive results in a rodent model prompted a human proof-of-concept study. Research design and methods Pre-clinically, 71 rats were studied in a model of metabolic dysfunction induced by a high-fat diet; 33 animals undergoing one of two lengths of PJD were compared with 18 undergoing sham, 10 RYGB and 10 jejuno-ileal bypass. Clinically, 15 adult subjects with treated but inadequately controlled T2DM (hemoglobin A1c (HbA1c) of 8.0%–11.0%), body mass index of 27.0–40.0 kg/m2, and C peptide ≥3 ng/mL were studied. Follow-up was at 2 weeks, and 3, 6, 9, and 12 months post-PJD. Results Pre-clinically, positive impacts with PJD on glucose homeostasis, cholesterol, and body composition versus sham control were demonstrated. Clinically, PJD was performed successfully without serious complications. Twelve months post-surgery, the mean (SD) reduction from baseline in HbA1c was 2.3% (1.3) (p<0.01). Conclusions PJD may provide an anatomy sparing, low-risk, intervention for poorly controlled T2DM without significant alteration of the patient’s lifestyle. The proof-of-concept study is limited by a small sample size and advanced disease, with 80% of participants on insulin and a mean time since diagnosis of over 10 years. Further study is warranted. Trial registration number NCT02283632; Pre-results.
An Efficient Secure Anonymous Communication Protocol in MANET based on Destinations Location

The protocols and cryptographic techniques used in MANET are intended to provide complete security to the data transmitted with low cost. In hostile environments, as a part of providing security to data; the source, destination and route of the data need to be anonymous. Prior works do not provide complete anonymity protection along with security, reduced network overhead and cost, sever side security and efficient utilization of resources. So "An Efficient Secure Anonymous Communication Protocol in MANET based on Destination's Location is proposed". This paper "An Efficient Secure Anonymous Communication Protocol in MANET based on Destinations Location" uses a technique called one-hop-distance; one-hop-distance along with public key encryption technique provides security of data and anonymity of route and destination. To provide source anonymity, this paper presents the concept of a proxy node. The technique one hop distance presents in this paper can also prevent different types of attacks such as intersection attack, black hole attack etc…, and can reduce the network overhead and cost of data transmission. Their by the resources in MANET can be efficiently utilized to the maximum.