Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Spirited Women: The role of spirituality in the work lives of female entrepreneurs in Ghana

The purpose of this research is to explore the role of spirituality in the work lives of female entrepreneurs in Ghana. Using a qualitative methodology, we explored three research questions that examined: (1) the types of spirituality expressions used by the women, (2) the context within which the spirituality-related expressions emerged, and (3) factors that differentiated those women who displayed the spirituality expressions from those who did not. Our findings suggest the strong influence of spirituality for Ghanaian women entrepreneurs with four expressions emerging (faith as a verbal expression, faith as a coping mechanism, faith as an instrumental tool, and faith as God's direct guidance). We found that female entrepreneurs tended to invoke spirituality in the context of personal and work-related challenges and when discussing aspirations for their businesses or personal future.
Risk Reduction for Adverse Drug Events Through Sequential Implementation of Patient Safety Initiatives in a Children's Hospital

BACKGROUND. Medication management is a complex, multifaceted system. Prescribing errors occur upstream in the process, and as such, their effects can be perpetuated, and sometimes even exacerbated, in subsequent steps. These errors place patients at risk of adverse drug events. Children, especially young infants, are at particular risk because of their size, unique physiology, and immature ability to metabolize drugs. OBJECTIVE. The purpose of this study was to reduce the risk of harm to children resulting from prescribing errors. METHODS. We sequentially implemented patient safety initiatives over a 1-year time frame at a pediatric tertiary care academic facility. The initiatives included an educational Web site with competency examination, distribution of a personal digital assistant-based standardized dosing reference, a zero-tolerance policy for incomplete or incorrect medication orders, prescriber performance feedback, and presentation of outcome data at citywide grand rounds. A total of 8718 orders were collected and analyzed to assess the impact of these initiatives. RESULTS. The absolute risk reduction from prescribing errors was 38 per 100 orders, with a relative risk reduction of 49%. Web-based education with point-of-care drug references and a zero-tolerance policy for incomplete or incorrect orders were most effective in decreasing potential adverse drug events. Documentation of appropriate weight-based dosing and indication for therapy increased by 24% and 42%, respectively. CONCLUSIONS. Process-improvement initiatives focusing on prescriber education and behavior modification can reduce the risk of harm to pediatric patients from prescribing errors.
The maximum phase error of a reflected signal in an active coded transponder

This letter is devoted to investigate the active coded transponder (ACT), which is designed to add a phase shifter to an active transponder (AT). Since a phase shifting error of a phase shifter is inevitable, there is additional phase error in reflected signal from ACT to synthetic aperture radar (SAR). This letter presents the theoretical study of the phase error of reflected signal. A method is proposed to determine the maximum phase error of the reflected signal. Moreover, images of ACT with different maximum phase errors are simulated. Peak-value and integral methods are used also to evaluate the accuracy of SAR radiometric calibration.
A real independent centimeter-grade 3D indoor localization system on smartphone

Fine grained indoor localization is attractive for its wide usage in indoor navigation system, infrastructure management, and blooming augmented reality applications. In this paper, we propose a smartphone based indoor localization system called Plotter, providing a centimeter-grade localization service without any prior knowledge or additional devices. Leveraging the simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM) technology, Plotter not only learns its relative position among surroundings, but also simultaneously constructs and updates the map of unknown area. We take advantage of a modified Kalman Filter algorithm in the system in order to eliminate unacceptable errors produced by motion sensors on smartphones. Evaluation result shows that Plotter achieves centimeter-grade accuracy, which is competitive comparing with prior works assisted by additional devices.
Safety and Health in Biomass Production, Transportation, and Storage: A Commentary Based on the Biomass and Biofuels Session at the 2013 North American Agricultural Safety Summit

ABSTRACT There is significant interest in biomass production ranging from government agencies to the private sector, both inside and outside of the traditional production agricultural setting. This interest has led to an increase in the development and production of biomass crops. Much of this effort has focused on specific segments of the process, and more specifically on the mechanics of these individual segments. From a review of scientific literature, it is seen that little effort has been put into identifying, classifying and preventing safety hazards in on-farm biomass production systems. This commentary describes the current status of the knowledge pertaining to health and safety factors of biomass production and storage in the US and identifies areas of standards development that the biomass industry needs from the agricultural safety and health community.
Texture information in run-length matrices

We use a multilevel dominant eigenvector estimation algorithm to develop a new run-length texture feature extraction algorithm that preserves much of the texture information in run-length matrices and significantly improves image classification accuracy over traditional run-length techniques. The advantage of this approach is demonstrated experimentally by the classification of two texture data sets. Comparisons with other methods demonstrate that the run-length matrices contain great discriminatory information and that a good method of extracting such information is of paramount importance to successful classification.
The role of microglia in synaptic stripping and synaptic degeneration: a revised perspective

Chronic neurodegenerative diseases of the CNS (central nervous system) are characterized by the loss of neurons. There is, however, growing evidence to show that an early stage of this process involves degeneration of presynaptic terminals prior to the loss of the cell body. Synaptic plasticity in CNS pathology has been associated with microglia and the phenomenon of synaptic stripping. We review here the evidence for the involvement of microglia in synaptic stripping and synapse degeneration and we conclude that this is a case of guilt by association. In disease models of chronic neurodegeneration, there is no evidence that microglia play an active role in either synaptic stripping or synapse degeneration, but the degeneration of the synapse and the envelopment of a degenerating terminal appears to be a neuron autonomous event. We highlight here some of the gaps in our understanding of synapse degeneration in chronic neurodegenerative disease.
An Adaptive Hierarchical Routing Protocol

An adaptive hierarchical routing protocol based on the extension of the new Arpanet scheme is proposed and its simulated performance is presented. The protocol can adapt to rapidly changing environments and works for arbitrarily large networks. A number of existing schemes as well as the proposed scheme are simulated under many different environments and clustering structures. The proposed protocol is found to be superior to the other protocols tested in many different types of network traffic and topological configurations. The results indicate that intercluster links must be reliable, because (1) the failure of these links can significantly degrade the routing performance, even though the protocol does not degrade as badly as the existing scheme and (2) hierarchical routing protocols usually prefer small clusters, which means that there will be many intercluster links. The tradeoff between two conflicting performance criteria, response speed and communication overhead, is shown. >
Atomic Absorption Spectrometry in Wilson's Disease and Its Comparison with Other Laboratory Tests and Paraclinical Findings

Objective Wilson's disease (WD) is an autosomal recessive disease with genetic abnormality on chromosome 13 causing defect in copper metabolism and increased copper concentration in liver, central nervous system and other organs, which causes different clinical manifestations. The aim of this study was to determine the sensitivity of different clinical and paraclinical tests for diagnosis of Wilson's disease. Methods Paraffin blocks of liver biopsy from 41 children suspicious of WD were collected. Hepatic copper concentrations were examined with atomic absorption spectrophotometry (Australian GBC, model: PAL 3000). Fifteen specimens had hepatic copper concentration (dry weight) more than 250μg/g. Clinical and laboratory data and histologic slides of liver biopsies of these 15 children were reviewed retrospectively. Liver tissue was examined for staging and grading of hepatic involvement and also stained with rubeonic acid method for copper. Findings Patients were 5-15 years old (mean age=9.3 years, standard deviation=2.6) with slight male predominance (9/15=60%). Five (33%) patients were 10 years old. Three (20%) of them were referred for icterus, 8 (54%) because of positive family history, 2 (13%) due to abdominal pain and 2 (13%) because of hepatosplenomegaly and ascites. Serum AST and ALT levels were elevated at the time of presentation in all patients. In liver biopsy, histological grade and stage was 0-8 and 0-6 respectively, 2 (13%) had cirrhosis, 1 (7%) had normal biopsy and 12 (80%) showed chronic hepatitis. Hepatic copper concentrations were between 250 and 1595 μg/g dry weight. The sensitivity of various tests were 85% for serum copper, 83% for serum ceruloplasmin, 53% for urinary copper excretion, 44% for presence of KF ring and 40% for rubeonic acid staining on liver biopsies. Conclusion None of the tests stated in the article were highly sensitive for diagnosis of WD, so we suggest that diagnosis should be based on combination of family history, physical examination and different tests.
Infarct Size Assessment in Mice

Genetically modified mice are used extensively in models of ischemia reperfusion (I/R) and nonreperfused myocardial infarction (MI) to gain insights into pathways involved in these pathologies. Echocardiography is an ideal noninvasive tool to serially monitor the cardiac murine phenotype. The present review details the surgical aspects of I/R and MI models and the measurement of MI size by pathology techniques and the input of echocardiographic techniques including the extent of wall motion abnormality and of perfusion defects using myocardial contrast echocardiography in the assessment of murine area at risk and MI size.
Development of a comprehensive software system for implementing cooperative control of multiple unmanned aerial vehicles

In this work, we focus on establishing a framework and developing a comprehensive real-time software platform for verifying and realizing flight coordination among multiple unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). The framework is capable of providing flexible architecture for design of cooperative control laws. The overall software platform incorporates the onboard real-time software for UAVs and that for the ground control station. It employs a distributed architecture to facilitate the deployment of experiments with multiple unmanned vehicles, efficient monitoring and commanding the UAVs from the ground station. The system has been successfully tested in the hardware-in-the-loop simulation and in actual flight formation experiment involving multiple UAVs.
Rapid Correction of Start Technique in an Olympic-level Swimmer: A Case Study Using Old Way/New Way

Ttiis study examined the effectiveness of old way/new way. an innovative meta-cognitive learning strategy initially developed in education settings, in the rapid and permanent correction of consistent errors in starting technique experienced by an Olympiclevel swimmer. Individualized intervention three days prior to the major competition included a detailed error analysis, step-wise enhancement of an athlete's kinesthetic awareness, and re-activation of the error memory, discrimination, and generalization of the individually optimal correct movetnent pattern. Self-reports, coach's ratings, and video recordings indicated that a single learning trial produced immediate and permanent technique^tmprovemetit (85-100 % correct starts), a full transfer of learning without the need for the customary adaptation period, and improved performance. The findings are consistent with performance enhancement effects of old way/new way demonstrated experimentally in other sports. Future research directions include the extension of error analysis and application of the notion of individually optimal technique based on the Individual Zones of Optimal Functioning model assumptions.
Evidence for novel fate of Flk1+ progenitor: Contribution to muscle lineage

Summary: Flk1 is one of the specific cell surface receptors for vascular endothelial growth factor and one of the most specific markers highlighting the earliest stage of hematopoietic and vascular lineages. However, recent new evidence suggests that these Flk1+ mesodermal progenitor cells also contribute to muscle lineages. All evidence is based on the experiments using in vitro differentiation and in vivo transplantation systems. Although this approach revealed a differentiation potential range of Flk1+ cells that is wider than previously expected, it fails to determine whether Flk1+ cells contribute to muscle lineage as part of the normal developmental process. To obtain direct evidence for the fate of Flk1+ cells in development, we used a knock‐in mouse line where Cre is expressed in Flk1+ cells. Studies with these Cre lines provide direct evidence that Flk1+ cells are progenitors for muscles, in addition to hematopoietic and vascular endothelial cells. genesis 35:153–159, 2003. © 2003 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Connecting learning to the world beyond the classroom through collaborative philosophical inquiry

ABSTRACT This study explored the impact of facilitating collaborative philosophical inquiry (CPI), in the tradition of “Philosophy for Children,” on connectedness pedagogies. The study employed an experimental design that included 59 primary teachers in 2 groups. The experimental group received an intervention that comprised training in CPI and the comparison group received training in Thinking Tools (graphic organisers), a subset of the CPI training. Lessons were coded on four variables of connectedness pedagogies, across the two groups, at three time-points. Teacher interviews were conducted to gather participants’ perspectives. Between-groups analysis of variance (ANOVA) on particular measures of pedagogy revealed that CPI significantly broadened teachers’ pedagogical repertoires, in ways that included drawing on students’ background knowledge and preparing a problem-based curriculum which connects students to the world beyond the classroom.
ON CONVEX SOBOLEV INEQUALITIES AND THE RATE OF CONVERGENCE TO EQUILIBRIUM FOR FOKKER-PLANCK TYPE EQUATIONS

It is well known that the analysis of the large-time asymptotics of Fokker-Planck type equations by the entropy method is closely related to proving the validity of convex Sobolev inequalities. Here we highlight this connection from an applied PDE point of view. In our unified presentation of the theory we present new results to the following topics: an elementary derivation of Bakry-Emery type conditions, results concerning perturbations of invariant measures with general admissible entropies, sharpness of convex Sobolev inequalities, applications to non-symmetric linear and certain non-linear Fokker-Planck type equations (Desai-Zwanzig model, drift-diffusion-Poisson model).
A component and aspect-based platform for simulating Real-Time Databases

Applications like stock markets, embedded systems and telecommunications are becoming more demanding real-time database management systems. Research in the area of real-time databases leads to the development of sophisticated control algorithms and for testing these in different configurations we need a simulator framework that allows us to see how they behave for different transaction workloads. As a means for evaluating real-time database algorithms, we have developed RTDS, Real-Time Database Simulator, a Java simulator which is based on components and aspects. RTDS is fully configurable and has the ability of simulating a real-time database with differentiated services and distinct configurations.
Improving the English urban primary school: questions of policy

This article argues that the focus within much normative education policy is with in-school effects which has sidelined the impact of structural and material factors in respect of the urban primary school. Educational reforms intended to improve schools are less likely to make much impact unless these contextualizing matters are directly addressed. First, the article briefly outlines its approach towards policy in general terms; then it looks at what is meant by urbanization and the urban primary school. Some of the historical continuities that still influence the urban primary school are identified. The article then turns to two forms of contemporary public policy that address the urban primary school indirectly and directly; these are housing mix and the Intensifying Support and Improving Schools Programmes (ISP). One objective is to demonstrate the persistence of inequalities in schooling. The second objective is to highlight the complexities and contradictions that characterize attempts to improve the urban primary school.
Semantic SPARQL Similarity Search Over RDF Knowledge Graphs

RDF knowledge graphs have attracted increasing attentions these years. However, due to the schema-free nature of RDF data, it is very difficult for users to have full knowledge of the underlying schema. Furthermore, the same kind of information can be represented in diverse graph fragments. Hence, it is a huge challenge to formulate complex SPARQL expressions by taking the union of all possible structures. In this paper, we propose an effective framework to access the RDF repository even if users have no full knowledge of the underlying schema. Specifically, given a SPARQL query, the system could return as more answers that match the query based on the semantic similarity as possible. Interestingly, we propose a systematic method to mine diverse semantically equivalent structure patterns. More importantly, incorporating both structural and semantic similarities we are the first to propose a novel similarity measure, semantic graph edit distance. In order to improve the efficiency performance, we apply the semantic summary graph to summarize the knowledge graph, which supports both high-level pruning and drill-down pruning. We also devise an effective lower bound based on the TA-style access to each of the candidate sets. Extensive experiments over real datasets confirm the effectiveness and efficiency of our approach.
The isocurvature fraction after WMAP 3-yr data

I revisit the question of the adiabaticity of initial conditions for cosmological perturbations in view of the 3-yr Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) data. I focus on the simplest alternative to purely adiabatic conditions, namely a superposition of the adiabatic mode and one of the three possible isocurvature modes, with the same spectral index as the adiabatic component. I discuss findings in terms of posterior bounds on the isocurvature fraction and Bayesian model selection. The Bayes factor (models likelihood ratio) and the effective Bayesian complexity are computed for several prior ranges for the isocurvature content. I find that the cold dark matter isocurvature fraction is now constrained to be less than about 10 per cent, while the fraction in either the neutrino entropy or velocity mode is below about 20 per cent. Model comparison strongly disfavours mixed models that allow for isocurvature fractions larger than unity, while current data do not allow one to distinguish between a purely adiabatic model and models with a moderate (i.e. below about 10 per cent) isocurvature contribution. The conclusion is that purely adiabatic conditions are strongly favoured from a model selection perspective. This is expected to apply in even stronger terms to more complicated superpositions of isocurvature contributions.
Challenges and strategies for the visual exploration of complex environmental data

ABSTRACT In this opinion paper, we, a group of scientists from environmental-, geo-, ocean- and information science, argue visual data exploration should become a common analytics approach in Earth system science due to its potential for analysis and interpretation of large and complex spatio-temporal data. We discuss the challenges that appear such as synthesis of heterogeneous data from various sources, reducing the amount of information and facilitating multidisciplinary, collaborative research. We argue that to fully exploit the potential of visual data exploration, several bottlenecks and challenges have to be addressed: providing an efficient data management and an integrated modular workflow, developing and applying suitable visual exploration concepts and methods with the help of effective and tailored tools as well as generating and raising the awareness of visual data exploration and education. We are convinced visual data exploration is worth the effort since it significantly facilitates insight into environmental data and derivation of knowledge from it.
A Framework for D24X X pre-training hidden-unit conditional random ﬁelds and its extension to long short term memory networks I

In this paper, we introduce a simple unsupervised framework for pre-training hidden-unit conditional random ﬁelds (HUCRFs), i.e., learning initial parameter estimates for HUCRFs prior to supervised training. Pre-training is generally important for models with non-convex training objectives such as deep neural nets. Our framework exploits the model structure of HUCRFs to make effective use of unlabeled data. The key idea is to use the separation of HUCRF parameters between observations and labels: this allows us to pre-train observation parameters independently of label parameters on resources such as unlabeled data or data labeled for non-target tasks. Pre-training is achieved by creating pseudo-labels from such resources. In the case of unlabeled data, we cluster observations and use the resulting clusters as pseudo-labels. Observation parameters can be trained on these exter-nal resources and then transferred to initialize the supervised training process on the target labeled data. Experiments on various sequence labeling tasks demonstrate that the proposed pre-training method consistently yields signiﬁcant improvement in performance. The core idea could be extended to other learning techniques including deep learning. We applied the proposed technique to recurrent neural networks (RNN) with long short term memory (LSTM) architecture and obtained similar gains. (cid:1) 2017