Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Effect of Malaria and Geohelminth Infection on Birth Outcomes in Kumasi, Ghana

Aim In 2005, the Ghana Health Service mandated malaria and helminths chemoprophylaxis during antenatal care visits. The aim of this study was to investigate the prevalence of malaria and helminth infections and their relationship with adverse birth outcomes (low birth weight, stillbirth, and preterm) following the implementation of these treatments. Study Design A quantitative cross-sectional study. Method The study was conducted on 630 women presenting for delivery in the Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital and the Manhyia District Hospital from July to November 2011. Socio-demographic information and medical and obstetric history were collected. Laboratory analyses for the presence of malaria and helminths were performed. Association of malaria and helminths with birth outcomes was assessed using logistic regression to obtain odds ratios (ORs) and 95% confidence intervals. Results The prevalence of malaria, helminths and adverse birth outcomes was 9.0%, 5.0% and 22.2%, respectively. Compared with women who received malaria prophylaxis, women without malaria prophylaxis were two times more likely to have malaria infection (aOR = 2.1; 95% CI = 1.06-4.17). Women who were not screened for helminths were twice as likely to be infected with helminths (aOR = 2.4; 95% CI = 1.15-5.12) than women who were screened for helminths. For women infected with hookworm or Schistosoma mansoni, the odds of having an adverse birth outcome (aOR = 3.9; 95% CI = 1.09-14.20) and stillbirth (aOR = 7.7; 95% CI = 1.21-36.38) were greater than for women who were not infected. Conclusion The prevalence of malaria, helminths and adverse birth outcomes was lower than previously reported 9.0% vs. 36.3, 5.0% vs. 25.7 and 22.2% vs. 44.6, respectively. Helminth but not malaria infection was found to be significantly associated with adverse birth outcomes.
Evaluating implicit judgements from Image search interactions

The by-product of search engine interactions - the records of what users have clicked as a result of a query - known as click through data'' is an increasingly popular resource of implicit feedback. Recently, however, the validity of such feedback has been questioned. However, the criticisms have focused almost solely on traditional web search, for which users are only presented with short abstracts to evaluate the resource before clicking - and creating the implicit feedback'' between the query and resource. In contrast other search types vary significantly in what the user is presented with and hence what is used to pass judgment and create the implicit feedback''. Of note is web-based image search interactions where the user is presented with a reduced thumbnail of the whole image. Image search click-through data has also been shown to have many potential uses in recent works, however, unlike traditional web search interactions there has been no previous research that has explicitly looked into its validity as implicit judgments. This work addresses this issue, comparing it to what has been discovered for traditional web search. While conceptually similar, the results of previous studies based on web search interactions can not be directly transferred to image search interactions due to the aforementioned difference in the summary displayed and used by the user in the decision to click.
Understanding retirement in the UK: an empirical analysis.

Like most OECD countries, the UK has experienced a long-term trend towards earlier Etirement, beginning in the 1970s, a trend that has only recently been reversed. The aim of this thesis is to shed light on these trends. Chapters 1-3 consider the nature of retirement. Economic models typically assume that retirement is voluntary, discrete and irreversible, and synonymous with drawing a pension, and this has been the dominant pattern for men in the UK. But there is a large minority, typically those with low wealth, for whom the path to retirement is through unemployment or long-term sickness and for whom unemployment and disability benefits provide alternative early retirement vehicles. Analysis of retirement expectations show that shocks to health and to marital status cause retirement plans and outcomes to diverge. The distinction between "voluntary" and "involuntary" retirements is important in understanding the well-documented fall in spending that occurs after retirement (the "retirement- consumption puzzle"). Spending falls significantly only when retirement is involuntary, a finding that is consistent with a negative wealth shock arising from involuntary early retirement lying behind the puzzle. Chapters 4-6 explore the responsiveness of the labour supply of older workers to incentives in state and private pensions. Pens ion wealth and accrual are shown to have significant effects on retirement, at least for the state pension and for defined benefit occupational pensions. However, early evidence suggests that wealth in defined contribution schemes does not have the expected positive effect on retirement, a finding that is consistent with their greater flexibility. The labour supply of older workers is also shown to be affected by earnings tests the removal of such a test in the UK is estimated to increase average weekly hours by three - four hours for men and two hours for women.
Surviving Asymmetry in Capital Flows and the Business Cycles: The Role of Prudential Capital Controls

Past literature of different strands has pointed to a potential asymmetry: while portfolio capital inflows are largely irrelevant to the economy, capital outflows can cause recession. In a model with a convex investment and portfolio balance adjustment cost, and endogenous credit-in-advance constraint, we find that investment is determined solely by opportunity cost of physical capital unrelated to portfolio capital inflows when the constraint is slack. However, once credit availability is tightened up by capital outflows, the negative liquidity constraint dominates the opportunity-cost factor, causing an economic downturn. Financial fragility against capital outflows is an outcome of pecuniary externalities, which, however, can be moderated by prudential capital controls. Even when exchange rates float freely, capital controls ease the macro-stabilizing burden of monetary policy, as they help shield the economy from financial instability. Prudential tax on foreign debt is most preferred, and works the best when the exchange rate float is managed.
IMPROVED TECHNIQUE FOR ESTIMATING PLEURAL PRESSURE FROM ESOPHAGEAL BALLOONS.

Esophageal pressure has been measured in eight healthy men during breath holding (glottis open) at various fixed lung volumes with a rubber balloon (length: 10 cm; perimeter: 3.5 cm; wall thickness: ca. 0.06 mm) containing various volumes of air. The tip of the balloon was placed at a constant distance of 45 cm from the nares. Esophageal pressure was found to increase with balloon volume at all lung volumes but not uniformly, the effect of balloon volume being greatest at both extremes of the vital capacity. As a result, lung volume-pressure curves obtained from balloons containing volumes of gas such as are commonly used are distorted. One can avoid these distortions by repeating measurements at different balloon volumes and extrapolating esophageal pressure to zero balloon volume, or by making measurements at very small balloon volumes. A close approximation of the extrapolated pressures was obtained with the present balloon containing 0.2 ml air. The esophageal pressures at or near zero balloon volume probably reflect closely local absolute pleural pressures over the full vital capacity range in some subjects and above 20% of the vital capacity in most subjects. lung volume-pressure curves Submitted on August 13, 1963
Scanning and Parsing Languages with Ambiguities and Constraints: The Lamb and Fence Algorithms

Traditional language processing tools constrain language designers to specific kinds of grammars. In contrast, model-based language processing tools decouple language design from language processing. These tools allow the occurrence of lexical and syntactic ambiguities in language specifications and the declarative specification of constraints for resolving them. As a result, these techniques require scanners and parsers able to parse context-free grammars, handle ambiguities, and enforce constraints for disambiguation. In this paper, we present Lamb and Fence. Lamb is a scanning algorithm that supports ambiguous token definitions and the specification of custom pattern matchers and constraints. Fence is a chart parsing algorithm that supports ambiguous context-free grammars and the definition of constraints on associativity, composition, and precedence, as well as custom constraints. Lamb and Fence, in conjunction, enable the implementation of the ModelCC model-based language processing tool.
An Information-Theoretic Ambient Occlusion

Ambient occlusion is a powerful technique that mimics indirect global illumination at a fraction of the cost. In this paper, we introduce a new ambient occlusion technique based on information-theoretic concepts. A viewpoint quality measure is first defined using the concept of mutual information of the channel formed between a set of viewpoints and the polygons of an object. By reversing this channel we can speak of the mutual information of a polygon with respect to all viewpoints. From this polygonal information we represent a kind of ambient occlusion, which is dependent on the importance assigned to each viewpoint and helps to enhance features such as salient parts. Further, the assignation of color to each viewpoint combined with the polygonal information produces a nice visualization of the object. Examples are given with coloroid palettes and non-photorealistic rendering.
Strengthened Corticosubcortical Functional Connectivity during Muscle Fatigue

The present study examined functional connectivity (FC) between functional MRI (fMRI) signals of the primary motor cortex (M1) and each of the three subcortical neural structures, cerebellum (CB), basal ganglia (BG), and thalamus (TL), during muscle fatigue using the quantile regression technique. Understanding activation relation between the subcortical structures and the M1 during prolonged motor performance should help delineate how central motor control network modulates acute perturbations at peripheral sensorimotor system such as muscle fatigue. Ten healthy subjects participated in the study and completed a 20-minute intermittent handgrip motor task at 50% of their maximal voluntary contraction (MVC) level. Quantile regression analyses were carried out to compare the FC between the contralateral (left) M1 and CB, BG, and TL in the minimal (beginning 100 s) versus significant (ending 100 s) fatigue stages. Widespread, statistically significant increases in FC were found in bilateral BG, CB, and TL with the left M1 during significant versus minimal fatigue stages. Our results imply that these subcortical nuclei are critical components in the motor control network and actively involved in modulating voluntary muscle fatigue, possibly, by working together with the M1 to strengthen the descending central command to prolong the motor performance.
EmuNET : A Real-Time IP Network Emulator

With the increasing demand for real-time and multimedia applications over the Internet, performance of new protocols or applications has to be extensively tested before deployment on the Internet. In this paper, we describe the design and implementation of EmuNET, a lightweight, portable, configurable, and extendable network emulator, which can be used to emulate a wide variety of network characteristics and conditions inside a laboratory environment. Applications can be tested, without modifications, directly on top of the emulated network using the operating system implementations of networking protocols. The emulator can be used to test protocols under conditions hard to obtain in a lab environment (such as satellite channels with asymmetric links, etc.) Keywords-emulation; performance;delay; jitter; links
Minimizing System-Wide Energy for Real-Time Systems with Discrete Operation Modes

Energy conservation is one critically important issue in current embedded systems. Dynamic Voltage Scaling (DVS) and Dynamic Power Management (DPM) are two widelyused techniques for saving energy in real-time embedded systems. In this paper, we address the problem of minimizing total system-wide energy consumption (CPU and devices) for the frame-based real-time task model with a DVS-enabled processor and multiple off-chip devices by integrating DVS and DPM. From a practical point of view, we study the case of discrete set of operational modes (frequencies) and do not make any restriction on the expression of power function. Furthermore, we take into account the nontrivial time and energy overhead of device state transitions between active and sleep states, and present optimization algorithms based on 0-1 Integer Non-Linear Programming (0-1 INLP) for different system configurations. Simulation results indicate that our approach can significantly outperform existing techniques in terms of energy savings, and a case study is provided by adopting the proposed approach.
Title Consensual ophthalmotonic reaction in Chinese patients following augmented trabeculectomy or ExPRESS shunt implantation

Introduction:Consensual ophthalmotonic reaction (COR) was first described in 1924. Studies following monocular application of glaucoma drops and laser trabeculoplasty showed a drop in fellow eye intraocular pressure (IOP). However, studies following monocular surgery showed heterogeneous results. The purpose of this study was to investigate the COR in Chinese patients who have received monocular filtration surgery. Methods: A noncomparative retrospective study of 65 eyes undergoing filtration surgery in Queen Mary Hospital was conducted. The IOP was obtained at baseline and postoperative days 1, 3, 7 and 14. Patient’s age, sex, type of glaucoma and surgery, preoperative medications, postoperative bleb status, and number of interventions were tabulated. The postoperative IOP measurements over both eyes were obtained, and the readings were averaged to decrease the chances of extreme readings being a one-off event and allow for regression to the mean bias. Results: COR was observed in the unoperated fellow eye. The mean preoperative IOP and averaged postoperative IOP were 17.2±5.2 mm Hg and 20.1±8.9 mm Hg, respectively (P<0.04). All medications were continued in the fellow eye or even stepped up. Twenty-three percent of patients demonstrated fellow eye IOP rise >30% from baseline, while none showed IOP drop >30% from baseline. Discussion: Following monocular penetrating filtration surgery, our Chinese population demonstrated a significant fellow eye IOP increase in the early postoperative period. We should bear in mind the influence of COR and take care to measure the fellow eye IOP following monocular surgery. Abbreviations: COR = consensual ophthalmotonic reaction, IOP = intraocular pressure, SLT = selective laser trabeculoplasty.
Prevalence of myocarditis and cardiotropic virus infection in Africans with HIV-associated cardiomyopathy, idiopathic dilated cardiomyopathy and heart transplant recipients: a pilot study

Background: The prevalence of myocarditis and cardiotropic viral infection in human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)-associated cardiomyopathy is unknown in Africa. Methods Between April 2002 and December 2007, we compared the prevalence of myocarditis and cardiotropic viral genomes in HIV-associated cardiomyopathy cases with HIV-negative idiopathic dilated cardiomyopathy patients (i.e. negative controls for immunodeficiency) and heart transplant recipients (i.e. positive controls for immunodeficiency) who were seen at Groote Schuur Hospital, Cape Town, South Africa. Myocarditis was sought on endomyocardial biopsy using the imunohistological criteria of the World Heart Federation in 33 patients, 14 of whom had HIV-associated cardiomyopathy, eight with idiopathic dilated cardiomyopathy and 11 heart transplant recipients. Results Myocarditis was present in 44% of HIV-associated cardiomyopathy cases, 36% of heart transplant recipients, and 25% of participants with idiopathic dilated cardiomyopathy. While myocarditis was acute in 50% of HIV- and heart transplant-associated myocarditis, it was chronic in all those with idiopathic dilated cardiomyopathy. Cardiotropic viral infection was present in all HIV-associated cardiomyopathy and idiopathic dilated cardiomyopathy cases, and in 90% of heart transplant recipients. Multiple viruses were identified in the majority of cases, with HIV-associated cardiomyopathy, heart transplant recipients and idiopathic dilated cardiomyopathy patients having an average of 2.5, 2.2 and 1.1 viruses per individual, respectively. Conclusions Acute myocarditis was present in 21% of cases of HIV-associated cardiomyopathy, compared to none of those with idiopathic dilated cardiomyopathy. Infection with multiple cardiotropic viruses may be ubiquitous in Africans, with a greater burden of infection in acquired immunodeficiency states.
Design and Implementation of Fuzzy Temperature Control System for WSN Applications

††† Summary Motivated by present day research trends that focus on application specific deployment and information processing in WSN, this paper presents, in general the design and implementation of rule based, simple, robust closed loop temperature control system using Virtual Instrumentation (VI) technology. It can be used for plethora of ZigBee WSN distributed measurement and control applications in areas like environmental monitoring and control, controlled-environment precision agriculture, building automation and process control. Using node based or zone - node based addressing scheme and double- averaging measuring technique, a ZigBee WSN, configured for periodic data transfer over adhoc multihop mesh network, transmits the measured value of zonal temperature as a feedback signal to the dual input, three-term fuzzy temperature controller. The controller software is designed to provide optimized output to drive a heating and cooling actuator network. The self-developed software (application program) with GUI, running on host PC, integrates and controls the operation of the hardware components to provide continuous temperature monitoring and control along with execution of add-on intelligent features. Looking into the practical aspects of deploying actuator network to drive FCEs that require external a.c / d.c power source along with low-power wireless sensor nodes, a novel ZigBee RS485 HWSAN (heterogeneous wireless sensor-actuator network) is proposed and used as system hardware for low-rate deterministic small to medium control networks. Housed in a small greenhouse (GH) chamber and controlled by system software, this network fuzzy temperature control system provides uniform and precise ambient temperature control within an offset of ±1% over a wide temperature range of -10 to 70°C at a fast rate with information refresh rate as high as 2s. It provides high measurement and control performance and has flexible and versatile design to support not only single zone\ area base deployment but multi-zonal network deployment, where each zone is treated independently to meet same or different set point conditions. Moreover, the network has desirable level of security in terms of accurate, reliable and timely data transfer, fault tolerant configuration, alarm indication in case of node detection or network communication problem and low battery status indication to avoid battery-drained dead node situation
An Environment for Rapid Derivatives Design and Experimentation

In the highly competitive world of modern finance, new derivatives are continually required to take advantage of changes in financial markets, and to hedge businesses against new risks. The research described in this paper aims to accelerate the development and pricing of new derivatives in two different ways. First, new derivatives can be specified mathematically within a general framework, enabling new mathematical formulae to be specified rather than just new parameter settings. This Generic Pricing Engine (GPE) is expressively powerful enough to specify a wide range of standard pricing engines. Second, the associated price simulation using the Monte Carlo method is accelerated using GPU or multicore hardware. The parallel implementation (in OpenCL) is automatically derived from the mathematical description of the derivative. As a test, for a Basket Option Pricing Engine (BOPE) generated using the GPE, on the largest problem size, an NVidia GPU runs the generated pricing engine at 45 times the speed of a sequential, specific hand-coded implementation of the same BOPE. Thus, a user can more rapidly devise, simulate, and experiment with new derivatives without actual programming.
The lysosomal signaling anchor p18/LAMTOR1 controls epidermal development by regulating lysosome-mediated catabolic processes

Summary The lysosomal adaptor protein p18 is an essential anchor of a scaffolding complex for the mTORC1 and MAPK pathways, which play crucial roles in controlling cell growth and energy homeostasis. To elucidate the in vivo function of the p18-mediated pathway, we conditionally ablated p18 in the mouse epidermis. Mutant mice were born with severe defects in formation of the stratum corneum and died within 12 h after birth due to dehydration caused by loss of skin barrier function. Mutant epidermal cells can grow and differentiate into granular cells, but exhibit functional defects in corneocyte maturation. Electron microscopy identified abnormal immature cells, overlying the mutant granular cells, which accumulated autophagosomes, glycogen granules and dead nuclei. Cell culture analysis showed that loss of p18 attenuated lysosome function, resulting in accumulation of immature lysosomes and autophagosomes. Analyses of lysosome behavior revealed that p18 is required for functional interaction between lysosomes and target organelles including autophagosomes. These findings suggest that p18-mediated pathways control lysosome-mediated catabolic processes, which are crucial for the development of mouse epidermis.
The European Constitution : its origins, negotiation and meaning

In October 2004, the EU member states signed in Rome a new constitutional treaty to provide the future framework for the expanded European Union. Profoundly controversial in many member states, the treaty must now be ratified by each of the 25 member states - a process likely to take two or more years, with several countries planning referendums, giving the book great topical interest. This book explains how the treaty was negotiated, the play of different forces, and what it means for Europe.
The control system of renewable energy connected grid based on the ADRC technology

ADRC technique is the development of nonlinear PID approach. Based on extended state observer, the control effect of nonlinear state error feedback (NLSEF) controller has shown good adaptability to noise and model uncertainty by compensation for them in the control loop. However, there are many effects of nonlinear uncertain factors and outer interference in renewable energy systems connected grid. In this paper, the ADRC is used and a new type nonlinear function is applied in extended state observer and nonlinear state error feedback (NLSEF) controller. Simulation shows that the system is effective with excellent robustness.