Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Does it really matter where you live? A multilevel analysis of social disorganization and risky sexual behaviours in sub-Saharan Africa.

Background: The aim of this study is to examine individual and contextual factors associated with high-risk sexual behaviour in sub-Saharan Africa. Heterosexual relationships represent the major route of HIV/AIDS infection in Africa. Thus, understanding sexual behaviour is an essential step toward any effort to reduce the spread of the HIV/AIDS epidemic. Methods: We applied multilevel logistic regression analyses on Demographic and Health Survey (DHS) data for 262,727 respondents (level 1) nested with 10,914 communities (level 2) from 26 sub-Saharan countries (level 3). Results: In all 26 countries studied, men were significantly more likely than women to have reported premarital sex. Except for Congo and Ethiopia, men were also significantly more likely to have reported non-spousal sex. At the community and country levels, there was statistically significant clustering of reported high-risk sexual behaviour. The following individual factors were associated with higher odds of reporting premarital and non-spousal sex: male gender, higher educational attainment and higher wealth status. The following contextual factors were associated with higher odds of reporting premarital and non-spousal sex: ethnic diversity, urban residence and small household size. Conclusion: We found that community and societal measures of social disorganization are important predictors of high-risk sexual behaviour. Thus, interventions aimed at reducing highrisk sexual behaviour should be implemented not only at the level of the individual but also at the community and societal levels.
Some properties of the Noether charge and a proposal for dynamical black hole entropy.

We consider a general, classical theory of gravity with arbitrary matter fields in $n$ dimensions, arising from a diffeomorphism invariant Lagrangian, $\bL$. We first show that $\bL$ always can be written in a ``manifestly covariant" form. We then show that the symplectic potential current $(n-1)$-form, $\th$, and the symplectic current $(n-1)$-form, $\om$, for the theory always can be globally defined in a covariant manner. Associated with any infinitesimal diffeomorphism is a Noether current $(n-1)$-form, $\bJ$, and corresponding Noether charge $(n-2)$-form, $\bQ$. We derive a general ``decomposition formula" for $\bQ$. Using this formula for the Noether charge, we prove that the first law of black hole mechanics holds for arbitrary perturbations of a stationary black hole. (For higher derivative theories, previous arguments had established this law only for stationary perturbations.) Finally, we propose a local, geometrical prescription for the entropy, $S_{dyn}$, of a dynamical black hole. This prescription agrees with the Noether charge formula for stationary black holes and their perturbations, and is independent of all ambiguities associated with the choices of $\bL$, $\th$, and $\bQ$. However, the issue of whether this dynamical entropy in general obeys a ``second law" of black hole mechanics remains open. In an appendix, we apply some of our results to theories with a nondynamical metric and also briefly develop the theory of stress-energy pseudotensors.
A Literature Review of Image Retrieval based on Semantic Concept

paper attempts to provide a comprehensive review and characterize the problem of the semantic gap that is the key problem of content-based image retrieval and the current attempts in high-level semantic-based image retrieval being made to bridge it. Major recent publications are included in this review covering different aspects of the research in the area of high-level semantic features. In this paper the different methods of image retrieval systems are described and major categories of the state-of-the-art techniques in narrowing down the "semantic gap" are presented. Finally, based on existing technologies and the demand from real-world applications, a few promising future research directions are suggested.
A Study on a Single Construct for Events, Aspects, and Behaviors

Programming paradigms are so important that a lot of research activities are devoted to the support for them. How to support the implementation of paradigms can be classified into three types of approaches: by design patterns, by dedicated constructs, and by generic constructs. However, none of them are sufficient. Design patterns can be used to implement most paradigms but not all. Furthermore, without language support the code tends to scatter and tangle. Dedicated constructs greatly improve the modularity of code, but also increase the number of constructs in a language supporting multiple paradigms; a large number of constructs complicates the language design. Generic constructs can be considered as a potentially good approach, but the number of supported paradigms in current research is quite limited; existing generic constructs are not flexible enough to support more paradigms. To overcome the problem that existing generic constructs are not flexible enough, this thesis proposes a new generic construct, method slots, based on our observation of the common ground among the implementations of three important paradigms in the real world: OOP, the event-handler paradigm (event-driven programming), the aspect paradigm (aspect-oriented programming). The common ground has never been noticed before this thesis since the dedicated constructs for these paradigms were individually developed from the beginning. The observation on the similarities motivates us to extend the methods in JavaScript to method slots, which can be used as methods, events, and advices. To demonstrate how method slots can be used in practice, a Java-based language named DominoJ is proposed with a compiler implementation. We then evaluate DominoJ by comparing with existing languages, running benchmarks for it, and rewriting programs as case studies. The concept ofmethod slots is very simple and easy to extend. To support
Estrogen-Induced μ-Opioid Receptor Internalization in the Medial Preoptic Nucleus Is Mediated via Neuropeptide Y-Y1 Receptor Activation in the Arcuate Nucleus of Female Rats

The endogenous peptides β-endorphin (β-END) and neuropeptide Y (NPY) have been implicated in regulating sexual receptivity. Both β-END and NPY systems are activated by estrogen and inhibit female sexual receptivity. The initial estrogen-induced sexual nonreceptivity is correlated with the activation and internalization of μ-opioid receptors (MORs), in the medial preoptic nucleus (MPN). Progesterone reverses the estrogen-induced activation/internalization of MOR and induces the sexual receptive behavior lordosis. To determine whether NPY and endogenous opioids interact, we tested the hypothesis that estrogen-induced MOR activation is mediated through NPY-Y1 receptor (Y1R) activation. Retrograde tract tracing demonstrated Y1Ron β-END neurons that projected to the MPN. Sex steroid modulation of MOR in the MPN acts through NPY and the Y1R. Estradiol administration or intracerebroventricular injection of NPY activated/internalized Y1R in the arcuate nucleus and MOR in the MPN of ovariectomized (OVX) rats. Moreover, the selective Y1R agonist [Leu31, Pro34]-Neuropeptide Y (LPNY) internalized MOR in the MPN of OVX rats. The Y1R antagonist (Cys31, Nva34)-Neuropeptide Y (27–36)2 prevented estrogen-induced Y1R and MOR activation/internalization. NPY reversed the progesterone blockade of estradiol-induced Y1R and MOR internalization in the arcuate nucleus and MPN, respectively. Behaviorally, LPNY inhibited estrogen plus progesterone-induced lordosis, and the MOR-selective antagonist D-Phe-Cys-Tyr-d-Trp-Orn-Thr-Pen-Thr amide reversed LPNY-induced inhibition of lordosis. These results suggest that a sequential sex steroid activation of NPY and MOR circuits regulates sexual receptivity.
Cross-reactivity of anti-HIV-1 T cell immune responses among the major HIV-1 clades in HIV-1-positive individuals from 4 continents.

BACKGROUND The genetic diversity of human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) raises the question of whether vaccines that include a component to elicit antiviral T cell immunity based on a single viral genetic clade could provide cellular immune protection against divergent HIV-1 clades. Therefore, we quantified the cross-clade reactivity, among unvaccinated individuals, of anti-HIV-1 T cell responses to the infecting HIV-1 clade relative to other major circulating clades. METHODS Cellular immune responses to HIV-1 clades A, B, and C were compared by standardized interferon- gamma enzyme-linked immunospot assays among 250 unvaccinated individuals, infected with diverse HIV-1 clades, from Brazil, Malawi, South Africa, Thailand, and the United States. Cross-clade reactivity was evaluated by use of the ratio of responses to heterologous versus homologous (infecting) clades of HIV-1. RESULTS Cellular immune responses were predominantly focused on viral Gag and Nef proteins. Cross-clade reactivity of cellular immune responses to HIV-1 clade A, B, and C proteins was substantial for Nef proteins (ratio, 0.97 [95% confidence interval, 0.89-1.05]) and lower for Gag proteins (ratio, 0.67 [95% confidence interval, 0.62-0.73]). The difference in cross-clade reactivity to Nef and Gag proteins was significant (P<.0001). CONCLUSIONS Cross-clade reactivity of cellular immune responses can be substantial but varies by viral protein.
Modeling of a slotted MAC protocol for MANETs

Global positioning systems like GPS or GALLILEO will soon provide a very good timing accuracy, making possible the synchronization of nodes in a mobile ad hoc network (MANET). With this assumption, TDMA based MAC protocols can provide a very good utilization of the shared radio resources. This paper presents an analytical model for the performance evaluation of slotted MAC protocols with reservation for MANETs. A fully connected network is assumed and nodes generate a ON/OFF exponential traffic. The analysis is based on the study of a discrete time Markov chain. The methodology is applied to a recently proposed protocol, called CROMA, but can also be applied, with suitable modifications to any slotted protocol with reservation.
Liberalization, Corporate Governance and the Performance of Newly Privatized Firms

This paper seeks to provide an answer to the following question, namely when and how does privatization work? Using a unique sample of 201 firms headquartered in 32 developing countries, we document a significant increase in profitability, efficiency, investment and output. Next, using univariate tests, we show that corporate governance mechanisms and economic reforms and environment have an effect on the changes in operating performance. For example, we find that privatization yields better results when stock market and trade liberalizations precede it. The results of a regression analysis, across a number of specifications, indicate that economic reforms and environment as well as corporate governance variables explain the post-privatization performance changes. In particular, economic growth, control relinquishment by the government and foreign ownership are key determinants of profitability changes. We also find higher improvements in efficiency and output for firms in countries in which stock markets are more developed and where property rights are better protected and enforced. Finally, our results suggest that trade openness is an important determinant of the post-privatization increase in investment.
HT06, tagging paper, taxonomy, Flickr, academic article, to read

In recent years, tagging systems have become increasingly popular. These systems enable users to add keywords (i.e., "tags") to Internet resources (e.g., web pages, images, videos) without relying on a controlled vocabulary. Tagging systems have the potential to improve search, spam detection, reputation systems, and personal organization while introducing new modalities of social communication and opportunities for data mining. This potential is largely due to the social structure that underlies many of the current systems.Despite the rapid expansion of applications that support tagging of resources, tagging systems are still not well studied or understood. In this paper, we provide a short description of the academic related work to date. We offer a model of tagging systems, specifically in the context of web-based systems, to help us illustrate the possible benefits of these tools. Since many such systems already exist, we provide a taxonomy of tagging systems to help inform their analysis and design, and thus enable researchers to frame and compare evidence for the sustainability of such systems. We also provide a simple taxonomy of incentives and contribution models to inform potential evaluative frameworks. While this work does not present comprehensive empirical results, we present a preliminary study of the photo-sharing and tagging system Flickr to demonstrate our model and explore some of the issues in one sample system. This analysis helps us outline and motivate possible future directions of research in tagging systems.
An empirical study to determine the critical success factors of export industry

Article history: Received 30 June 2010 Received in revised form 10 October 2010 Accepted 19 October 2010 Available online 20 October 2010 Exporting goods and services play an important role on economy of developing countries. There are many countries in the world whose economy is solely based on exporting raw materials such as oil and gas. Many believe that countries cannot develop their economy as long as they rely on exporting one single group of raw materials. Therefore, there is a need to help other sectors of industries build good infrastructure for exporting diversified products. In this paper, we perform an empirical analysis to determine the critical success factors on exporting different goods. The results are analyzed using some statistical non-parametric methods and some useful guidelines are also suggested. © 2010 Growing Science Ltd. All rights reserved.
Defect classification and defect types revisited

There have been various attempts to establish common defect classification systems in standards, academia and industry. The resulted classifications are partly similar but also contain variations and none of which is accepted as a basic tool in software projects. This position paper summarises the work on defect classifications so far, proposes a set of challenges and the direction to a solution.
FusionFS : a distributed file system for large scale data-intensive computing

Today’s science is generating datasets that are increasing exponentially in both complexity and volume, making their analysis, archival, and sharing one of the grand challenges of the 21st century. Exascale computing, i.e. 10 FLOPS, is predicted to emerge by 2019 with current trends. Millions of nodes and billions of threads of execution, producing similarly large concurrent data accesses, are expected with the exascale. Current state-of-the-art yet decades long storage architecture of high-performance computing (HPC) systems would unlikely provide the support for the expected level of concurrent data access. The main critique comes from the topological allocation of compute and storage resources that are interconnected as two cliques. Even though the network between compute and storage has high bandwidth and is sufficient for compute intensive petascale applications, it would not be adequate for data-intensive petascale computing or the emerging exascale computing (regardless if it is compute or data intensive). We introduce FusionFS, a distributed filesystem particularly crafted for extreme scale HPC systems. FusionFS leverages FUSE [1] to work in user space and provides a POSIX interface, so that neither the OS kernel nor applications need any changes. Non-Volatile Memory(NVM) has proven to offer large gains for high-performance I/O-intensive applications [3], and FusionFS complies with Gordon [4] architecture by taking local NVM as local storage coexisting with processors. FusionFS has a completely distributed metadata management based on an implementation of distributed hash table (i.e. ZHT [7]) to achieve a scalable metadata throughput. FusionFS also delivers a scalable high I/O throughput based on maximizing the data locality in typical read/write data access patterns.
On the optimal pole assignment for time-delay systems

The well-known fact about linear time-invariant time-delay systems (LTI-TDS) is that these systems have an infinite spectrum. Not only plants themselves but also the whole control feedbacks then have this undesirable feature in most cases. The aim of this contribution is to present algebraic controller design in a special ring of proper and stable meromorphic functions followed by an optimal pole assignment minimizing the spectral abscissa. The main problem is how to place feedback poles to the prescribed positions exactly by a finite number of free (controller) parameters. Clearly, it is not possible to place all poles but the idea is to push the rightmost ones as left as possible, which gives rise to the task of the spectral abscissa minimization. The spectral abscissa is a nonsmooth nonconvex function of free controller parameters in general. Moreover, there is a problem of its sensitivity to infinitesimally small delay changes. Algorithm, are described as a possible numerical tools when minimization. Only two of them have already been used for the spectral abscissa minimization and none of them with the combination with algebraic controller design.
Sex Differences in the Health Risk Behavior Outcomes of Childhood Bullying Victimization

ABSTRACT Short- and long-term health consequences of bullying victimization are well documented and include physical and mental health issues as well as increased involvement in risky behavior, but research exploring sex differences in victimization outcomes is still limited. This study uses data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth—1997 to examine the consequences of victimization by sex and, more specifically, relationships between bullying victimization and later health risk behaviors—including risky sexual activity, smoking, alcohol use, and drug use. Multivariate analyses identified sex differences for specific health risk indicators, and a substantial difference was evident for overall risk.
Virtual hairy brush for digital painting and calligraphy

The design of user friendly and expressive virtual brush systems for interactive digital painting and calligraphy has attracted a lot of attention and effort in both computer graphics and human-computer interaction circles for a long time. Providing a digital environment for paper-less artwork creation is not only challenging in terms of algorithmic design, but also promising for its potential market values. This paper proposes a novel algorithmic framework for interactive digital painting and calligraphy based a novel virtual hairy brush model. The algorithms in the kernel of our simulation framework are built upon solid modeling techniques. Implementing the algorithms, we have developed a virtual hairy brush prototype system with which end users can interactively produce high-quality digital paintings and calligraphic artwork. (The latest progress of our virtual brush project is reported at the website “http://www.cs.hku.hk/~songhua/e-brush/”.)
Dominion: An Architecture-Driven Approach to Generating Efficient Constraint Solvers

Constraints are used to solve combinatorial problems in a variety of industrial and academic disciplines. However most constraint solvers are designed to be general and monolithic, leading to problems with efficiency, scalability and extensibility. We propose a novel, architecture-driven constraint solver generation framework called Dominion to tackle these issues. For any given problem, Dominion generates a lean and efficient solver tailored to that problem. In this paper, we outline the Dominion approach and its implications for software architecture specification of the solver.
A Pilot Intervention of Multifamily Dialectical Behavior Group Therapy in a Treatment-Seeking Adolescent Population

This open pilot trial examined the feasibility of a 16-week multifamily dialectical behavior therapy (DBT) skills group adapted for a multifamily context as an addendum to treatment as usual. Psychopathology symptoms in both adolescents (N = 13) and caregivers (N = 16) were assessed pre- and posttreatment using multiple methods and reporters. There was a significant reduction in adolescent borderline and antisocial personality disorder symptoms as assessed by diagnostic interview, as well as a significant decrease in caregiver-reported adolescent internalizing and externalizing behaviors. However, adolescents did not self-report a significant decrease in symptoms. Results suggest that multifamily DBT skills group may be a feasible treatment in this population and speak to the importance of further research examining the implementation and dissemination of DBT with adolescents in a family context.
Effects of alagebrium, an advanced glycation endproduct breaker, on exercise tolerance and cardiac function in patients with chronic heart failure

Advanced glycation endproducts (AGEs) have been associated with the development and progression of chronic heart failure (CHF). Advanced glycation endproducts‐crosslink breakers might be of benefit in HF, but only small‐scale and uncontrolled data are available. Our aim was to conduct a prospective, randomized, double‐blind, placebo‐controlled study to examine the effects of the AGE‐breaker alagebrium on exercise capacity and cardiac function in patients with HF.
Ondansetron or placebo in the augmentation of fluvoxamine response over 8 weeks in obsessive–compulsive disorder

The aim of this study was to investigate the efficacy and safety of ondansetron as an augmentative agent to fluvoxamine in the treatment of patients with obsessive–compulsive disorder (OCD). Forty-six men and women, aged 18–60 years, who fulfilled the diagnostic criteria of OCD on the basis of the DSM-IV-TR and had a Yale–Brown Obsessive Compulsive Scale (Y-BOCS) score of at least 21 were recruited into the study. The patients randomly received either ondansetron (8 mg/day) or placebo for 8 weeks. All patients received fluvoxamine (100 mg/day) for the first 4 weeks, followed by 200 mg/day for the rest of the trial. The patients were assessed using the Y-BOCS and the adverse event checklists at baseline, and the second, fourth, sixth, and eighth week. Forty-four patients completed the study. The Y-BOCS total score as well as the Y-BOCS obsession subscale score and compulsion subscale score showed significantly greater reduction in the ondansetron group than in the placebo group. There was no significant difference in adverse events between the two groups. In this 8-week double-blind randomized-controlled trial, ondansetron showed significant beneficial effect as an augmentative agent with fluvoxamine in patients with moderate to severe OCD and it was generally well tolerated.
A Comparative Review of Connectivity-Based Wireless Sensor Localization Techniques

One of the key problems in Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) is how to identify the location of each node. The research community has done considerable work on this localization problem and developed various techniques ranging from hardware-based ones requiring extra units (e.g., GPS, directional antennas) to software-based ones requiring only the connectivity information. In this paper, we present an overview of the key localization techniques and then focus on the range-free or connectivity based approaches. After the overview, we implement and compare the performance of connectivity-based techniques using simulations. We show these techniques vary considerably in their ability to localize a wireless sensor network.