Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Health policy in a globalising world

Foreword Gro Harlem Bruntland, Director General, World Health Organisation Preface Anthony B. Zwi Part I: 1. An introduction to global health policy Kelley Lee, Suzanne Fustukian, Kent Buse 2. The public health implications of multilateral trade agreements M. Kent Ranson, Robert Beaglehole, Carlos M. Correa, Zafar Mirza, Kent Buse and Nick Drager 3. Globalisation and multilateral public-private health partnerships: issues for health policy Kent Buse and Gill Walt 4. Global solutions to local health problems: where is the evidence? The case of private health care providers in developing countries Ruairi Brugha and Anthony B. Zwi 5. Regulation in the context of global health markets Lilani Kumaranayake and Sally Lake 6. Global policy networks: the propagation of health care financing reform since the 1980s Kelley Lee and Hilary Goodman 7. The globalisation of health sector reform policies: is 'lesson drawing' part of the process? Barbara McPake 8. Cost-effectiveness analysis and priority setting: global approach without local meaning? Lilani Kumaranayake and Damian Walker Part II: 9. Global rhetoric and individual realities: linking violence against women and reproductive health Susannah Mayhew and Charlotte Watts 10. The globalisation of DOTS: tuberculosis as a global emergency John Porter, Kelley Lee and Jessica Ogden 11. Ageing and health policy: global perspectives Peter Lloyd-Sherlock 12. Workers health and safety in a globalising world Suzanne Fustukian, Dinesh Sethi and Anthony B. Zwi 13. Globalisation, conflict and the humanitarian response Anthony B. Zwi, Suzanne Fustukian and Dinesh Sethi Part III: 14. Globalisation and health policy: trends and opportunities Kent Buse, Nick Drager, Suzanne Fustukian and Kelley Lee.
Tapping into Touch

Humans use a set of exploratory procedures to examine object properties through grasping and touch. Our goal is to exploit similar methods with a humanoid robot to enable developmental learning about manipulation. We use a compliant robot hand to find objects without prior knowledge of their presence or location, and then tap those objects with a finger. This behavior lets the robot generate and collect samples of the contact sound produced by impact with that object. We demonstrate the feasibility of recognizing objects by their sound, and relate this to human performance under situations analogous to that of the robot.
An efficient Spline-based RRT path planner for non-holonomic robots in cluttered environments

Planning in a cluttered environment under differential constraints is a difficult problem because the planner must satisfy the external constraints that arise from obstacles in the environment and the internal constraints due to the kinematic/dynamic limitations of the robot. This paper proposes a novel Spline-based Rapidly-exploring Random Tree (SRRT) algorithm which treats both the external and internal constraints simultaneously and efficiently. The proposed algorithm removes the need to discretize the action space as is common with conventional RRT, thus improving path quality. In addition, computationally expensive numerical integration of the system dynamics is replaced by an efficient spline curve parameterization. Finally, the SRRT guarantees continuity of curvature along the path satisfying any upper-bounded curvature constraints. This paper presents the underlying theory to the SRRT algorithm and presents simulation results of a mobile robot efficiently navigating through cluttered environments.
Does Parenting Style Moderate the Association Between Parental Monitoring and Adolescent Problem Behavior

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Temporal Bayesian classifiers for modelling muscular dystrophy expression data

The analysis of microarray data from time-series experiments requires specialised algorithms, which take the temporal ordering of the data into account. In this paper we explore a new architecture of Bayesian classifier that can be used to understand how biological mechanisms differ with respect to time. We show that this classifier improves the classification of microarray data and at the same time ensures that the models can easily be analysed by biologists by incorporating time transparently. In this paper we focus on data that has been generated to explore different types of muscular dystrophy.
Cell-free production of VDAC directly into liposomes for integration with biomimetic membrane systems

ABSTRACT The mitochondrial voltage-dependent anion channel (VDAC) is a pivotal protein since it provides the major transport pathway between the cytosol and the mitochondrial intermembrane space and it is implicated in cell apoptosis by functioning as a gatekeeper for the trafficking of mitochondrial death molecules. VDAC is a beta-barrel channel with a large conductance, and we use it as a model transport protein for the design of biomimetic systems. To overcome the limitations of classical overexpression methods for producing and purifying membrane proteins (MPs) we describe here the use of an optimized cell-free system. In a one-step reaction VDAC is obtained directly integrated into liposomes and purified by ultracentrifugation. We then combine proteoliposomes with different bilayers models in order to validate VDAC insertion and functionality. This VDAC biomimetic model is the first example validating the use of a cell-free expression system for production of MPs into liposomes and tethered bilayers as a toolbox to build a wide range of biomimetic devices.
Practical Imprecise Computation Model: Theory and Practice

We introduce the research overview of the practical imprecise computation model to achieve imprecise real-time applications. The practical imprecise computation model has multiple mandatory parts as real-time parts and multiple optional parts as non-real-time parts. We explain a new concept of real-time scheduling in the practical imprecise computation model, called semi-fixed-priority scheduling. In addition, we explain a semi-fixed-priority scheduling algorithm, called Rate Monotonic with Wind-up Part (RMWP). RMWP schedules each part in the practical imprecise computation model in Rate Monotonic order. We also introduce a real-time operating system for semi-fixed-priority scheduling algorithms, called RT-Est. We describe programming paradigms for the practical imprecise computation model in RT-Est. RT-Est has the SIM architecture for simulating real-time scheduling algorithms and the visualization tool for drawing simulation results. Finally we give future research directions for the practical imprecise computation model in theory and practice.
Targeting PI3K in Cancer: Any Good News?

The phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase (PI3K) signaling pathway regulates several cellular processes and it’s one of the most frequently deregulated pathway in human tumors. Given its prominent role in cancer, there is great interest in the development of inhibitors able to target several members of PI3K signaling pathway in clinical trials. These drug candidates include PI3K inhibitors, both pan- and isoform-specific inhibitors, AKT, mTOR, and dual PI3K/mTOR inhibitors. As novel compounds progress into clinical trials, it’s becoming urgent to identify and select patient population that most likely benefit from PI3K inhibition. In this review we will discuss individual PIK3CA mutations as predictors of sensitivity and resistance to targeted therapies, leading to use of novel PI3K/mTOR/AKT inhibitors to a more “personalized” treatment.
Early Phosphatidylinositol 3-Kinase/Akt Pathway Activation Limits Poliovirus-Induced JNK-Mediated Cell Death

ABSTRACT Poliovirus (PV)-induced apoptosis seems to play a major role in tissue injury in the central nervous system (CNS). We have previously shown that this process involves PV-induced Bax-dependent mitochondrial dysfunction mediated by early JNK activation in IMR5 neuroblastoma cells. We showed here that PV simultaneously activates the phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase (PI3K)/Akt survival signaling pathway in these cells, limiting the extent of JNK activation and thereby cell death. JNK inhibition is associated with PI3K-dependent negative regulation of the apoptosis signal-regulating kinase 1, which acts upstream from JNK in PV-infected IMR5 cells. In poliomyelitis, this survival pathway may limit the spread of PV-induced damage in the CNS.
Grief Lives Online: An Empirical Study of Kübler-Ross' Categories of Bereavement on MySpace Profiles

i Dedication . ii Acknowledgements . iii List of Tables . vi CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION . 1 Justification . 4 Study Goals . 7 CHAPTER TWO: LITERATURE REVIEW . 9 Historical Overview . 9 Theoretical Approaches. 13 Kübler-Ross’ Categories of Bereavement . 16 Communicating Grief . 22 The Bereaved. 25 Online Grief . 27 Memorializing. 29 Social Networking Site Grief . 31 Commentary as Communication. 31 MySpace Grief . 35 RQ . 39 CHAPTER THREE: METHOD . 40 Sample. 41 Procedures . 43 Intercoder Reliability. 45 Variables . 46 Denial. 47 Anger. 48 Bargaining. 49 Depression. 50 v Acceptance. 51 Data Analysis . 52 CHAPTER FOUR: RESULTS . 54 Overall Results . 54 T1 Bereavement Narratives . 57 Race of the deceased. 59 Sex of the deceased. 61 Sex of the bereaved. 63 T2 Bereavement Narratives . 64 Race of the deceased. 65 Sex of the deceased. 67 Sex of the bereaved. 69 Results Conclusion. 71 CHAPTER FOUR NOTES . 73 CHAPTER FIVE: DISCUSSION . 80 Understanding Grief Online . 80 Theoretical Implications . 84 Bereavement Category Frequency. 85 T1 vs. T2. 91 Limitations and Future Research . 98 Tables . 102 References . 110 Appendix A: Codebook . 123 Appendix B: Coding Sheet . 132 Appendix C: Profile Overview . 133 Appendix D: Deceased’s MySpace Profile. 134
VSIPL++: A Signal Processing Library Scaling with Moore's Law

VSIPL++ [1, 2] is the object-oriented successor to the Vector Signal and Image Processing Library (VSIPL) [23]. Like VSIPL, VSIPL++ specifies an Application Programming Interface (API) for use in the development of high-performance numerical applications, with a particular focus on embedded real-time systems performing signal processing and image processing. Its API is designed for performance, portability, and productivity so software written using this API will benefit from and be easily ported to the new and faster hardware architectures that Moore’s Law continues to bring. Moore’s Law, which predicts the number of transistors available on an integrated circuit will double every eighteen months, has held for the past forty years, and it appears it will continue for at least the next decade [17]. During these years, microarchitectures have added many features to exploit single-thread instruction-level parallelism, such as pipelining, multiple out-of-order issue, speculative execution, and branch prediction. For a compiler to be able to exploit these features, a program needs to expose as much information as possible. VSIPL++ does this. More recently, there has been a shift towards more parallel architectures with multi-threading [7, 12], multiple cores [8, 13], and many small processors connected with flexible interconnections [3, 16, 11, 20]. To exploit these technologies, signal and image processing software should use functional and data parallelism, moving data to where it is needed without increasing software complexity. VSIPL++ supports this.
Study of a hybrid OCDMA-WDM segmented ring for metropolitan area networks

Optical Code Division Multiple Access (OCDMA) techniques have shown outstanding capabilities in the sharing of optical media, in particular in access networks. However, OCDMA systems may suffer from Multiple Access Interference (MAI) and other kinds of noise when many users access the shared media simultaneously, increasing the BER (Bit Error Rate) to unacceptable levels, that is, a situation at which all combined signals interfere and are lost. This work proposes a mixed OCDMA and Tunable Transmitter-Fixed Receiver (TT-FR) WDM and ring architecture at which the ring is split into small-size segments to limit the probability of MAI. Essentially, every segment in the ring has got two hub nodes (on the segment's head and tail) which forwards inter-segment traffic to other hub nodes on dedicated home wavelengths, thus making use of WDM. The access media inside the segment is shared between the nodes by means of OCDMA, and code reuse is possible on different segments. Our performance analysis shows how to split a given ring into segments in order to minimise the BER due to multiple users accessing the network and allow for high bit-rates for a given traffic load. In addition, we analyse the possibility of introducing Forward Error Correction (FEC) at a moderate overhead cost to improve performance.
Long-Term Treatment With Oral Sildenafil Is Safe and Improves Functional Capacity and Hemodynamics in Patients With Pulmonary Arterial Hypertension

Background—The prognosis and functional capacity of patients with pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH) is poor, and there is a need for safe, effective, inexpensive oral treatments. A single dose of sildenafil, an oral phosphodiesterase type-5 (PD-5) inhibitor, is an effective and selective pulmonary vasodilator in PAH. However, the long-term effects of PD-5 inhibition and its mechanism of action in human pulmonary arteries (PAs) are unknown. Methods and Results—We hypothesized that 3 months of sildenafil (50 mg orally every 8 hours) added to standard treatment would be safe and improve functional capacity and hemodynamics in PAH patients. We studied 5 consecutive patients (4 with primary pulmonary hypertension, 1 with Eisenmenger’s syndrome; New York Heart Association class II to III). Functional class improved by ≥1 class in all patients. Pretreatment versus posttreatment values (mean±SEM) were as follows: 6-minute walk, 376±30 versus 504±27 m, P <0.0001; mean PA pressure, 70±3 versus 52±3 mm Hg, P <0.007; pulmonary vascular resistance index 1702±151 versus 996±92 dyne · s · cm−5 · m−2, P <0.006. The systemic arterial pressure was unchanged, and no adverse effects occurred. Sildenafil also reduced right ventricular mass measured by MRI. In 7 human PAs (6 cardiac transplant donors and 1 patient with PAH on autopsy), we showed that PD-5 is present in PA smooth muscle cells and that sildenafil causes relaxation by activating large-conductance, calcium-activated potassium channels. Conclusion—This small pilot study suggests that long-term sildenafil therapy might be a safe and effective treatment for PAH. At a monthly cost of $492 Canadian, sildenafil is more affordable than most approved PAH therapies. A large multicenter trial is indicated to directly compare sildenafil with existing PAH treatments.
A Coordinated Change in Chemokine Responsiveness Guides Plasma Cell Movements

Antibody-secreting plasma cells are nonrecirculatory and lodge in splenic red pulp, lymph node medullary cords, and bone marrow. The factors that regulate plasma cell localization are poorly defined. Here we demonstrate that, compared with their B cell precursors, plasma cells exhibit increased chemotactic sensitivity to the CXCR4 ligand CXCL12. At the same time, they downregulate CXCR5 and CCR7 and have reduced responsiveness to the B and T zone chemokines CXCL13, CCL19, and CCL21. We demonstrate that CXCL12 is expressed within splenic red pulp and lymph node medullary cords as well as in bone marrow. In chimeric mice reconstituted with CXCR4-deficient fetal liver cells, plasma cells are mislocalized in the spleen, found in elevated numbers in blood, and fail to accumulate normally in the bone marrow. Our findings indicate that as B cells differentiate into plasma cells they undergo a coordinated change in chemokine responsiveness that regulates their movements in secondary lymphoid organs and promotes lodgment within the bone marrow.
Information Acquisition, Ideology and Turnout: Theory and Evidence From Britain

The amount of political information that voters decide to acquire during an electoral campaign depends, among other things, on prior ideological beliefs about parties and/or candidates. Voters that are ex ante indifferent about the candidates attach little value to information because they perceive that voting itself will have little value. Voters that are ex ante very ideological also attach little value to information because they think that the news will hardly change their opinion. Thus, high incentives to be informed can be found at intermediate levels of partisanship. Moreover, the impact of increased political knowledge on turnout is asymmetric: new information increases the probability of voting of indifferent voters but decreases that of very ideological voters. These results are derived within a decision theoretical model of information acquisition and turnout that combines the Riker—Ordeshook (1968) approach to voting behaviour with the Becker (1965) approach to personal production functions. These predictions are then tested on survey data from the 1997 British Election Study (Heath et al., 1999). Our empirical findings are compatible with all the results of the theoretical exercise.
Architecture for Internet of Things to minimize human intervention

Today, smart objects in Internet of Things (IOT) are able to detect their state and share it with other objects across the Internet, thus collaboratively making intelligent decisions on their own. Large number of objects is quietly introduced into the web every day. It is impossible for a user to keep a track of all objects available around him. Therefore a search engine that could find smart objects is used. If an exact object yielding the required service is not present then system requires explicit user inputs to find alternatives such as name of an alternate object that may provide the same service. Humans always find alternatives around them to carry out their work smoothly. Service provisioning in IOT should also be made capable of providing similar or alternate objects that are aligned with user requirements, current context and previous knowledge without any human intervention. We propose an architecture that uses Naive Bayesian prediction on user history and Ant Colony Optimization for accurately predicting objects of user interest so as to reduce the dependency of IOT application on human inputs for finding an object match.
Automatic Extraction of Musical Structure Using Pitch Class Distribution Features

This paper compares the efficiency of different sets of tonal descriptors in music structural discovery. Herein, we analyze the use of three different pitch-class distribution features, i.e. Constant-Q Profile, Pitch Class Profile (PCP) and Harmonic Pitch Class Profile (HPCP), to perform structural analysis of a piece of music audio. We hypothesize that proper segmentation serves as an important basis to obtain music structure analyses of better quality. Thus, we compare the segmentation results produced by each feature to examine its efficiency. A database of 56 audio files (songs by The Beatles) is used for evaluation. In addition, we also show the validity of the descriptors in our structural description system by comparing its segmentation results with a present approach by Chai [1] using the same database. The experimental results show that the HPCP performs best yielding an average of 82% of accuracy in identifying structural boundaries in music audio signals.
Polyphonic piano note transcription with recurrent neural networks

In this paper a new approach for polyphonic piano note onset transcription is presented. It is based on a recurrent neural network to simultaneously detect the onsets and the pitches of the notes from spectral features. Long Short-Term Memory units are used in a bidirectional neural network to model the context of the notes. The use of a single regression output layer instead of the often used one-versus-all classification approach enables the system to significantly lower the number of erroneous note detections. Evaluation is based on common test sets and shows exceptional temporal precision combined with a significant boost in note transcription performance compared to current state-of-the-art approaches. The system is trained jointly with various synthesized piano instruments and real piano recordings and thus generalizes much better than existing systems.
VDJdb: a curated database of T-cell receptor sequences with known antigen specificity

Abstract The ability to decode antigen specificities encapsulated in the sequences of rearranged T-cell receptor (TCR) genes is critical for our understanding of the adaptive immune system and promises significant advances in the field of translational medicine. Recent developments in high-throughput sequencing methods (immune repertoire sequencing technology, or RepSeq) and single-cell RNA sequencing technology have allowed us to obtain huge numbers of TCR sequences from donor samples and link them to T-cell phenotypes. However, our ability to annotate these TCR sequences still lags behind, owing to the enormous diversity of the TCR repertoire and the scarcity of available data on T-cell specificities. In this paper, we present VDJdb, a database that stores and aggregates the results of published T-cell specificity assays and provides a universal platform that couples antigen specificities with TCR sequences. We demonstrate that VDJdb is a versatile instrument for the annotation of TCR repertoire data, enabling a concatenated view of antigen-specific TCR sequence motifs. VDJdb can be accessed at https://vdjdb.cdr3. net and https://github.com/antigenomics/vdjdb-db.
The Sol agent platform: Enabling group communication and interoperability of self-configuring agents in the Internet of Things

The Internet of Things IoT for short envisions a world in which a set of heterogeneous devices are interconnected and using the Internet, work together to provide valuable services for users. The deployment of applications in the IoT requires managing a high diversity of devices, achieving their communication through different communication protocols, dealing with the incompatibilities between underlying networks, even at runtime. So, the main goal of the IoT is to cope with these interoperability issues adequately. Agent technology offers the necessary means to manage distribution and many other requirements of the IoT satisfactorily, however current agent platforms neither deal adequately with the heterogeneity of these environments, nor provide explicit support for the dissemination of data to a group of related IoT nodes. In addition, current agent architectures are normally implemented and deployed for a specific agent platform using a concrete communication protocol. But agent platforms have paid scant attention to providing agent architectures with a flexible communication infrastructure that makes the modification of communication-related concerns possible both at design and even at runtime. In this paper we present Sol, an agent platform that deals with all these limitations suffered by current agent platforms. The main motivation of this work is to promote the use of agents for the development of IoT systems by providing the necessary services required by software agents running embedded in heterogenous devices and interconnected by different communication networks. The Sol platform also makes it possible for software agents to self-configure their communication-related concerns by binding the appropriate plug-in. We illustrate the benefits of our approach with several scenarios of a real Intelligent Museum, and show its feasibility in terms of reconfiguration times and data exchange through heterogeneous wireless technologies, so important in the IoT.