Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
First pandemic A (H1N1) pdm09 outbreak in a private school, Bangkok, Thailand, June 2009.

OBJECTIVE On June 9, 2009, the Thailand Ministry of Public Health received their first report of an outbreak of the pandemic A (HIN1) pdm09 that occurred in a school. The authors conducted a study to describe the epidemiological characteristics of the outbreak and its resurgence, estimate the basic reproduction number (R) and review recommendations for prevention and control. MATERIAL AND METHOD Active case finding in the school and reviewing reports to the national surveillance system identified 184 students infected by the new virus. A survey described the illness in the students and the prevention and control measures taken by the school. The basic reproduction number was estimated from data in the early epidemic phase. The other survey was done to assess factors contributing to the resurgence of the outbreak. RESULTS Students with the pandemic A (HINI) pdm09 had a mild illness resembling seasonal influenza. Overcrowding in the classroom and activities that mixed students from different classes contributed to transmission in the school. The basic reproduction number for this school-based setting is 3.58. The second outbreak occurred because of poor monitoring of absenteeism and management of ill students. CONCLUSION This was the first outbreak ofthepandemic A (HIN1) pdm09 in Thailand. The source could not be identified. Effective control measures monitoring, screening, strict personal hygiene and proper management of ill students.
Using animation quality metric to improve efficiency of global illumination computation for dynamic environments

In this paper, we consider applications of perception-based video quality metrics to improve the performance of global lighting computations for dynamic environments. For this purpose we extend the Visible Difference Predictor (VDP) developed by Daly to handle computer animations. We incorporate into the VDP the spatio-velocity CSF model developed by Kelly. The CSF model requires data on the velocity of moving patterns across the image plane. We use the 3D image warping technique to compensate for the camera motion, and we conservatively assume that the motion of animated objects (usually strong attractors of the visual attention) is fully compensated by the smooth pursuit eye motion. Our global illumination solution is based on stochastic photon tracing and takes advantage of temporal coherence of lighting distribution, by processing photons both in the spatial and temporal domains. The VDP is used to keep noise inherent in stochastic methods below the sensitivity level of the human observer. As a result a perceptually-consistent quality across all animation frames is obtained.
Monogamy in the maternally mouthbrooding Lake Tanganyika cichlid fish Tropheus moorii

Supported by evidence for assortative mating and polygynandry, sexual selection through mate choice was suggested as the main force driving the evolution of colour diversity of haplochromine cichlids in Lakes Malawi and Victoria. The phylogenetically closely related tribe Tropheini of Lake Tanganyika includes the genus Tropheus, which comprises over 100 colour variants currently classified into six morphologically similar, polyphyletic species. To assess the potential for sexual selection in this sexually monochromatic maternal mouthbrooder, we used microsatellite-based paternity inference to investigate the mating system of Tropheus moorii. In contrast to haplochromines in Lake Malawi, multiple paternity is rare or even absent in broods of T. moorii. Eighteen of the 19 analysed families were consistent with genetic monogamy, while either a mutation or more than one sire explained the genotype of one offspring in another brood. We discuss the differences in breeding behaviour between T. moorii and the Lake Malawi haplochromines, and evaluate additional factors or alternatives to sexual selection as promoters of colour diversification. A preliminary survey of other Tropheini species suggested that multiple paternity is infrequent in the entire tribe.
Magnetic resonance imaging-compatible tactile sensing device based on a piezoelectric array

Minimally invasive surgery is a widely used medical technique, one of the drawbacks of which is the loss of direct sense of touch during the operation. Palpation is the use of fingertips to explore and make fast assessments of tissue morphology. Although technologies are developed to equip minimally invasive surgery tools with haptic feedback capabilities, the majority focus on tissue stiffness profiling and tool–tissue interaction force measurement. For greatly increased diagnostic capability, a magnetic resonance imaging-compatible tactile sensor design is proposed, which allows minimally invasive surgery to be performed under image guidance, combining the strong capability of magnetic resonance imaging soft tissue and intuitive palpation. The sensing unit is based on a piezoelectric sensor methodology, which conforms to the stringent mechanical and electrical design requirements imposed by the magnetic resonance environment. The sensor mechanical design and the device integration to a 0.2 Tesla open magnetic resonance imaging scanner are described, together with the device’s magnetic resonance compatibility testing. Its design limitations and potential future improvements are also discussed. A tactile sensing unit based on a piezoelectric sensor principle is proposed, which is designed for magnetic resonance imaging guided interventions.
Miniaturized fiber inline Fabry-Pérot interferometer for chemical sensing

This paper demonstrates the chemical sensing capability of a miniaturized fiber inline Fabry-Pérot sensor fabricated by femtosecond laser. Its accessible cavity enables the device to measure the refractive index within the cavity. The refractive index change introduced by changing the acetone solution concentration was experimentally detected with an error less than 4.2×10-5.
Early Intervention: Managing Adversity

Children increasingly receive diagnoses of neurodevelopmental disorders (NDDs). Causes are multifactorial, but growing consensus identifies environmental factors, especially chemical exposures, as primary drivers, with some individuals more genetically susceptible to these external pressures than others. Our current system of chemical management prioritizes rapid commercialization over disease prevention. This strategy privatizes economic benefits but socializes health costs. The evidence linking chemical exposure to neurodevelopmental risk merits greater attention by regulators. Public health concerns, particularly for children and other vulnerable groups, should be elevated in chemical risk assessment. The financial and emotional burden of preventable NDDs on U.S. children and their families calls for comprehensive policy attention.
Modeling and analysis of a multi-output cuk converter

A small signal network model for an experimental high frequency triple-output Ćuk do-to-dc converter system is developed in analytical detail including provisions for its unique ramp slope control regulatory circuitry, magnetic coupling between selected port inductances, and scaling transformer inductive effects. Results of empirical and computer simulations of a representative 200 KHz, 55W design are discussed along with recommendations for dynamic operational improvements.
Pl@ntNet - My Business

Pl@ntNet is a world-scale participatory platform and information system dedicated to the monitoring of plant biodiversity through image-based plant identification. Nowadays, the mobile front-end of Pl@ntNet has been downloaded by more than 4 millions users in about 170 countries and an active community of contributors produce and revise new observations everyday (it is often referred to as the "shazam of plants"). This paper presents a business proposal allowing enterprises or organizations to set up their own private collaborative workflow within Pl@ntNet information system. The main added value is to allow them working on their own business object (e.g. plant disease diagnostic, deficiency measurements, railway lines maintenance, fishery surveillance, etc.) and with their own community of contributors and end-users (employees, sales representatives, clients, observers network, etc.). This business idea answers to a growing demand in agriculture and environmental economics. Actors in these domains begin to know that machine learning techniques are mature enough but the lack of training data and of efficient tools to collect them is a major breakthrough. A collaborative platform like Pl@ntNet is the ideal tool to bridge this gap. It initiates a powerful positive feedback loop boosting the production of training data while improving the work of the employees.
End user reporting of suspicious E-mails using X-ARF

End user e-mail abuse reporting rates are very low, however a survey conducted in this thesis revealed that the desire to report abusive e-mails exists. The reason why the report rates are so low is that the process to report abusive e-mails is very time consuming and complex. Therefore, a new process for e-mail abuse reporting is defined. In this new reporting process, end users are able to report suspicious e-mails instead of spam or phishing e-mails. Furthermore, abuse reports are automatically generated in the X-ARF format. But since automatically generated reports can contain sensitive information, the end user has to have the option of anonymizing reports before sending them. As a proof of concept for the feasibility of this reporting process a Thunderbird plugin was developed. The X-ARF format of the report enables a very simple implementation of automation for the handling of these reports. Therefore, as another conceptual proof, a report aggregator was developed. Which is able, to perform basic validation functionality.
Wear Resistance of Anodic Titanium Dioxide Films Produced on Ti-6 Al-4 V Alloy Regular Paper

Ti-6Al-4V alloy with TiO2 coating is the most commonly selected material to construct an aortic heart valve. Wear resistance is the main mechanical property to be evaluated for this purpose. In this paper, the wear resistance of TiO2 thin films obtained by anodic oxidation of Ti-6Al-4V is evaluated. Anodic oxidation was performed at 20 V to 70 V with a H2SO4 1 M electrolyte. The samples were thermally treated at 500°C for 1 h, and crystalline phases of TiO2 were obtained. The wear was performed in a ball-on-flat recip‐ rocating machine with a range of loads from 1 gf to 4 gf and times between 60 s and 1200 s, using a diamond sphere as counterface. The counterface oscillates at 0.5 Hz and 4 mm in amplitude. The wear is measured using a profilometer and is calculated as the worn volume. The wear resistance of the coated samples is larger than the substrate, and increases with thickness and with crystalline coating.
A Fundamental Analysis of Customer/Supplier Relationships

This thesis looks at the fundamental differences between customers and suppliers in relation to Cohen & Frazzini (2008) and investigates whether profitability could be a significant factor affecting their customer momentum returns. The paper shows that the average customer is larger in size and has higher profitability. These differences are statistically significant and persistent over time. Furthermore I show that customer –and supplier profitability is correlated, and that the suppliers that are linked to high (low) profitability customer firms also have high (low) profitability. Given that profitability is known to cause return predictability, I propose that profitability could be a significant factor explaining the customer momentum suggested by Cohen & Frazzini (2008).
Real-time autonomous multi resolution visual surveys based on seafloor scene complexity

This paper describes a method to optimize the spatial resolution of image surveys based on the spatial scale of features on the seafloor that are not known prior to observation. The method makes use of the density of visual features as a measure of the complexity of a seafloor image. In order to achieve this, two approaches to assess scene complexity we investigated. The performance of the method was verified using seafloor imagery obtained in the Iheya North field in the Okinawa Trough. The results demonstrate that it is effective for a large range of feature sizes.
Symmetry‐Aware Mesh Segmentation into Uniform Overlapping Patches

We present intrinsic methods to address the fundamental problem of segmenting a mesh into a specified number of patches with a uniform size and a controllable overlap. Although never addressed in the literature, such a segmentation is useful for a wide range of processing operations where patches represent local regions and overlaps regularize solutions in neighbour patches. Further, we propose a symmetry‐aware distance measure and symmetric modification to furthest‐point sampling, so that our methods can operate on semantically symmetric meshes. We introduce quantitative measures of patch size uniformity and symmetry, and show that our segmentation outperforms state‐of‐the‐art alternatives in experiments on a well‐known dataset. We also use our segmentation in illustrative applications to texture stitching and synthesis where we improve results over state‐of‐the‐art approaches.
Factors influencing patient satisfaction in primary healthcare clinics in Kuwait.

PURPOSE To measure the quality of health care services patient satisfaction is used as one of the most important indicators. The study aims to identify factors affecting patient's satisfaction at primary health care clinics. DESIGN/METHODOLOGY/APPROACH The data was collected during January 2007 and May 2007 through a randomly-distributed questionnaire. The questionnaires were distributed in primary healthcare clinics that represent all heath care regions in Kuwait. A total of 426 completed questionnaires, out of 500, were returned resulting in a response rate of 85.2 percent. FINDINGS The majority (87 percent) of the patients responded that the time for communication between physician and patient was not enough. Seventy-nine-percent of the surveyed patients said they would go to the emergency room of the hospital in future if needed instead of going to the primary care clinic. Regarding the quality of the communication relationship between physician and patients most of the patients responded negatively. Exploratory factor analysis identified six factors and reliability of overall scale was found to be 0.61. RESEARCH LIMITATIONS/IMPLICATIONS One limitation to this study was the exclusion of the private sector. ORIGINALITY/VALUE The authors hope that this study identifies areas of dissatisfaction that can be quickly remedied and ensures enhancement in the areas of satisfaction with ongoing attention and emphasis.
How Do Short Selling Costs and Restrictions Affect the Profitability of Stock Anomalies?

Short selling frictions cannot explain the persistence of seven prominent stock anomalies. Long-only investing is robust and profitable and can be further enhanced by using a synthetic short. Moreover, portfolios restricted to stocks that are easy to short sell continue to have large and significant short anomaly alphas. The paper derives cost bounds for switching between implementation methods and shows that the cost associated with short anomaly positions is small relative to their profitability contribution using a proprietary database of borrowing fees. Overall, the empirical evidence does not support the implications of arbitrage asymmetry that mispricing is concentrated in short positions where it is too costly to exploit.
Earnings Management Strategies during Financial Distress

We examine whether financial distress and its severity have a role to play in managers’ decisions with respect to the choice of earnings management strategies. Our results suggests that firms in initial stages of distress engage in real earnings management through a reduction in the spending on selling, general and administrative expenses, and engage in classification shifting to increase profitability and liquidity. When distress becomes severe, firms cut-back on production, engage in income-increasing accruals management, and increase their spending on selling, general and administrative expenses. Initial under-spending on selling, general and administrative expenses is opportunistic with an intention to show improved performance. In extreme distress, increase on such spending is a sound economic decision. Our findings provide insights into how managers of distressed firms trade-off between liquidity, profitability and solvency in both short-run and long-run. JEL Codes: M41; G33.
Real time versatile robotics hand/eye calibration using 3D machine vision

A technique is described for computing 3-D position and orientation of a camera relative to the last joint of a robot manipulator in an eye-on-hand configuration. The calibration can be done within a fraction of a millisecond after the robot finishes the movement. The setup is simple (a planar set of calibration points arbitrarily placed on the work table, in addition to robot and camera) and is the same as that for a common camera calibration. This method is claimed to be faster, simpler, and more accurate than any existing technique for hand/eye calibration. Generic geometric properties of lemmas are presented, leading to the derivation of the final algorithms, which are aimed at simplicity, efficiency, and accuracy while giving ample geometric and algebraic insights. Besides describing the technique, critical factors influencing the accuracy are analysed, and procedures for improving accuracy are introduced. Tests results of both simulation and real experiments on an IBM Cartesian robot are reported. <<ETX>>
Distributed k-core decomposition of dynamic graphs

The k-core decomposition can be used to reveal structure in a graph. It is straight-forward to implement using a centralised algorithm with complete knowledge of the graph, but no distributed k-core decomposition algorithm has been published. We present a continuous, distributed, k-core decomposition algorithm for dynamic graphs, outline a proof of correctness, and give initial performance results. We briefly describe an application of this distributed k-core algorithm to landmark selection for compact routing.
The clinical effectiveness of guided self-help versus waiting-list control in the management of anxiety and depression: a randomized controlled trial

Background. There are significant barriers to accessing effective psychological therapy in primary care resulting from a lack of suitably trained therapists to meet current demand. More efficient service delivery using minimal interventions (such as bibliotherapy) provided by paraprofessional therapists may be one method of overcoming these problems, and is the subject of attention in the UK and elsewhere. A randomized trial was conducted to test the clinical effectiveness of this model. Assistant psychologists delivered a guided self-help intervention to patients with anxiety and depression who were currently waiting for psychological therapy. Method. A total of 114 patients were randomized either to guided self-help or a waiting-list control group. All patients were followed up 3 months later, prior to starting conventional psychological therapy. Measures included self-reported adherence to the intervention, anxiety and depressive symptoms, social functioning and patient satisfaction. Results. Adherence to the guided self-help intervention was acceptable and patients reported satisfaction with the intervention. However, there were no statistically significant differences between groups in anxiety and depression symptoms at 3 months. Conclusions. The results demonstrate that this model of guided self-help did not provide additional benefit to patients on a waiting list for psychological therapy. The results are considered in the context of possible internal and external validity threats, and compared with previous trials of minimal interventions. The implications of the results for the design of future minimal interventions are considered.
An Examination of the Effects of Stimulus Type, Encoding Task, and Functional Connectivity on the Role of Right Prefrontal Cortex in Recognition Memory

Right anterior prefrontal cortex and other brain areas are active during memory retrieval but the role of prefrontal cortex and how it interacts with these other regions to mediate memory function remain unclear. To explore these issues we used positron emission tomography to examine the effects of stimulus material and encoding task on brain activity during visual recognition, assessing both task-related changes and functional connectivity. Words and pictures of objects were encoded using perceptual and semantic strategies, resulting in better memory for semantically encoded items. There was no significant effect of prior encoding strategy on brain activity during recognition. Right anterior prefrontal cortex was equally active during recognition of both types of stimuli irrespective of initial encoding strategy. Regions whose activity was positively correlated with activity in right anterior prefrontal cortex included widespread areas of prefrontal and inferior temporal cortices bilaterally. Activity in this entire network of regions was negatively correlated with recognition accuracy of semantically encoded items. These results suggest that initial encoding task has little impact on the set of brain regions that is active during subsequent recognition. Right anterior prefrontal cortex appears to be involved in retrieval mode, reflected in its equivalent activity across conditions differing in both stimulus type and encoding task, and also in retrieval effort, shown by the negative correlation between its functional connectivity and individual differences in recognition accuracy.
Covariate-adjusted linear mixed effects model with an application to longitudinal data

Linear mixed effects (LME) models are useful for longitudinal data/repeated measurements. We propose a new class of covariate-adjusted LME models for longitudinal data that nonparametrically adjusts for a normalising covariate. The proposed approach involves fitting a parametric LME model to the data after adjusting for the nonparametric effects of a baseline confounding covariate. In particular, the effect of the observable covariate on the response and predictors of the LME model is modelled nonparametrically via smooth unknown functions. In addition to covariate-adjusted estimation of fixed/population parameters and random effects, an estimation procedure for the variance components is also developed. Numerical properties of the proposed estimators are investigated with simulation studies. The consistency and convergence rates of the proposed estimators are also established. An application to a longitudinal data set on calcium absorption, accounting for baseline distortion from body mass index, illustrates the proposed methodology.