Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Introduction: Kenya – A democracy in retreat?

Abstract The post-election crisis of January 2008 brought Kenya close to collapse and the status of a failed state. Following the abrupt proclamation of Mwai Kibaki, the incumbent president, as victor in a highly contentious presidential election, peace was disrupted by severe ethnic violence between supporters of the opposition Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) and the Party of National Unity (PNU). This saw up to 2,000 people killed and as many as 300,000 displaced from their homes. This analysis locates the origin of the crisis in, variously, a background of population growth and extensive poverty; and ethnic disputes relating to land going back to colonial times (notably between Kalenjin and Kikuyu in the Rift Valley). More immediately, what stoked the conflict is the construction of political coalitions around Kenya's 42 ethnic groups, although the 2007 election campaign was critically shaped by ODM's rhetoric of ‘41 against one’ (the Kikuyu); and not least, this survey records the diffusion of violence as a result of elite manipulation of armed militias which, since 1992, have steadily eroded the state's monopoly of violence. While summarising how external mediation and the elite interest in political stability prevented the country falling apart, and led to the formation of a power-sharing government, the analysis proposes that a reluctance by the Grand Coalition partners to undertake fundamental reform of the constitution means that Kenya remains a ‘democracy at risk’, and faces a real possibility of slipping into state failure.
Performance optimization with scalable reconfigurable computing systems

The total time to execute an application, the energy consumed, and the flexibility to manage a large set of applications are among the most important performance parameters used to measure the quality of a computing system. Superior architectures with flexible reconfigurable arrays lead to innovation beyond the limits of traditional silicon. The incorporation of on-chip reconfigurable computing elements generally improves execution time. However, the amount of energy consumed to deliver the required level of performance is an important consideration, to prolong the battery life in portable and mobile devices. In this paper, we have proposed and designed a novel scalable array architecture and explored the performance and energy trade-offs for various applications by scaling various system parameters like hardware resources, operational granularity, and voltage supply. The scalable coprocessor design for mapping discrete cosine transform (DCT) is implemented with 8 taps resulting in an area of 0.0024mm/sup 2/ at 0.18/spl mu/ technology. The coprocessor to run 16 taps of convolution function results in an area of 0.0099mm/sup 2/, while a 256 tap convolution function is designed at an area cost of 0.1585mm/sup 2/. When the MPEG decode application is executed in the proposed architecture, with the DCT function computed in the scalable coprocessor, the total execution time is reduced to around 24%, and the energy consumed is reduced to around 28% of that consumed in the base architecture without a coprocessor. Further, as the coprocessor's supply voltage is scaled down from 1.8 to 1.0 volts at 0.18/spl mu/ technology, the relative total execution time varied only slightly (from 23.65% to 24.78%), while resulting in considerable reduction in the energy consumed (from 28.12% to 23.8%). For the FIR application, energy consumption reduced up to 36% when hardware resources are scaled and up to another 12% when voltage is scaled, while execution time reduced up to 50% when hardware resources are scaled and increased up to 15% when voltage is scaled. The study also reveals interesting performance patterns for various applications like CJPEG, MPEG decode/encode, FIR, and IIR, depending on the their characteristics.
Employing a Conservation of Resources Framework to Examine the Interactive Effects of Work Domain Support and Economic Impact on Work–Family Conflict

The purpose of this study was to investigate the interactive effects of work domain support (i.e., family supportive supervisor perceptions and family supportive organizational perceptions) and economic effect on work–family conflict using a conservation of resources theoretical approach. The authors collected survey data from 195 participants using multiple convenience sampling methods. As they had predicted, work domain support was related to diminished work interference with family. Further, the interaction of family supportive supervisor perceptions and economic impact significantly predicted work interference with family. The nature of the significant interaction implies that when an employee perceives him- or herself to be negatively affected by the state of the current economic climate, supervisor support is especially important for diminished work interference with family. This finding speaks to the need for supervisors to be even more supportive of employees' work–family issues, given current eco.
LMC and SMC Cepheids: combining OGLE with DENIS and 2MASS infrared data

I cross-correlate the ogle database of Cepheids in the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds (MCs) with the second incremental release of the 2mass JHKs survey, and the denis IJKs point source catalog towards the MCs. Of the 3384 Cepheids inogle in both Clouds, 1745 have a counterpart in the 2mass survey within an 1 00 radius and good- photometry in all three bands. Only 173 have a counterpart in the denis survey within an 1 00 radius and good-photometry in all three bands. The reason for this difference is that the limiting magnitudes of the 2mass survey are considerably fainter than for the denis survey. The standard stars of the Carter IR photometric system are also correlated with the 2mass survey to derive transformation equations from the natural 2mass system to the Carter-system. In order to describe to first order the geometrical configura- tion of the MCs a plane is fitted to the reddening-free Wesenheit index (W = I 1:55 (V I)) and the inclination and posi- tion angle of the line-of-nodes are determined. For the LMC an inclination angle of 18 3 is derived, somewhat smaller that previous determinations. For the SMC a value of i =6 82 is derived in good agreement with previous determinations. These results are being used to take out the effect that some Cepheids are closer to the observer than others. For the LMC this effect is small over the area covered by the ogle survey, but for the SMC PL -relations with a reduced scatter are derived in this way. Nevertheless, the dispersion in the PL -relation in W for the SMC is larger than that for the LMC, indicating a significant intrinsic depth of the SMC of about 14 kpc (front-to-back). The depth of the LMC is found to be small compared to the intrinsic scatter in the PL -relation. Using single-epoch2mass data for theogle Cepheids PL - relations are fitted in JHK(on the Carter system) for both Fun- damental mode (FU) and First-overtone (FO) pulsators, taking out the effect of the inclined disk. Because of the large number of stars available, this results in the most accurately determined slopes in the infrared up to now, and slopes for FO pulsators derived for the first time. This provides additional constraints for theoretical models. The 16 derived PL -relations (in WJHK for FU and FO pulsators for LMC and SMC) are used to derive a relative dis- tance modulus SMC LMC =0 :50 0:02 assuming no metal- licity correction. Two recent theoretical models predict different metallicity corrections, indicating a systematic uncertainty of up to 0.1 mag. Using the database of Galactic Cepheids observed withhip- parcos and the method outlined in Groenewegen & Oudmaijer (2000), the zero points of Galactic PL -relations for FU pul- sators in W and K are derived, using the newly derived slopes for LMC and SMC pulsators. Combining the zero points of the Galactic and MCs PL - relations distance moduli of 18.60 0.11 (based on W ) and 18.55 0.17 (based on K) to the LMC, and of 19.11 0.11 (W ) and 19.04 0.17 (K) to the SMC are derived (without taking into account possible metallicity corrections).
Deep analysis of invalid handoffs in WLANs based on network-client collaborative framework

As 802.11 network has become an important infrastructure for the Mobile Internet, the performance of WLAN handoff is critical to the quality of user's experience. Although it has shown that there are a large number of invalid handoffs in large-scale 802.11 networks with dense AP, the reason and seriousness still remain unclear. In this paper, we propose HandoffAnalyser, a client-network collaborative framework, to deeply measure and analyze the handoffs. Then, we give a clear explanation of invalid handoffs by defining two patterns termed Loose Ping-Pong (LPP) and Strict Ping-Pong (SPP) based on association history. The experimental results of real campus WLAN with about 2,700 APs and 220,000 mobile devices show that 22.1% and 31.3% of handoffs are SPP and LPP respectively. We even observe that several clients experience more than 280 LPP and 220 SPP per day respectively. Such a large number of ping-pong will seriously affect the performance of both client and network. We carry out in-depth analysis and find that ping-pong has relationship to some wireless metrics such as channel utilization, network configuration such as AP with Multi-SSID, and hardware defect such as poor 5 GHz chip. These findings and conclusions can help us to better optimize the WLAN.
A Melanoma Molecular Disease Model

While advanced melanoma remains one of the most challenging cancers, recent developments in our understanding of the molecular drivers of this disease have uncovered exciting opportunities to guide personalized therapeutic decisions. Genetic analyses of melanoma have uncovered several key molecular pathways that are involved in disease onset and progression, as well as prognosis. These advances now make it possible to create a “Molecular Disease Model” (MDM) for melanoma that classifies individual tumors into molecular subtypes (in contrast to traditional histological subtypes), with proposed treatment guidelines for each subtype including specific assays, drugs, and clinical trials. This paper describes such a Melanoma Molecular Disease Model reflecting the latest scientific, clinical, and technological advances.
Work‐related depression in the hotel industry: a study in the United Arab Emirates

Purpose – The purpose of this study is to develop and test a model, which examines work‐related depression among frontline hotel employees. Specifically, the model examines emotional exhaustion as a full mediator of the effects of positive affectivity and intrinsic motivation on depression. The model also investigates the interaction of intrinsic motivation and positive affectivity on emotional exhaustion and depression.Design/methodology/approach – Data were gathered from Arab frontline employees in the international five‐star chain hotels of Dubai in the United Arab Emirates. A total number of 135 self‐administered questionnaires were collected.Findings – The results of hierarchical multiple regression analysis demonstrates that employees with positive affectivity and intrinsic motivation experience less emotional exhaustion. The results reveal that emotional exhaustion fully mediates the impacts of positive affectivity and intrinsic motivation on depression and further indicate that the interaction of .
Decoupled Hepta-Band Antenna Array for WWAN/LTE Smartphone Applications

A wideband antenna array incorporating a neutralization line (NL) for port decoupling for smartphone applications is proposed. The U-shape NL is employed to achieve enhanced isolations for the lower band, which are better than 10 dB for 824-960 MHz. The mechanism of the NL is explained based on the S-parameters and the surface current distributions. In addition, the incorporated NL has acceptable effects on the bandwidth, while a bandstop filter and on-ground slots are utilized to realize the hepta-band coverage, covering the GSM850/900/1800/1900/UMTS/LTE2300/2500 operation. A prototype is fabricated and tested, with S-parameters, radiation efficiencies, radiation patterns, envelope correlation coefficient (ECC), and mean effective gain (MEG) presented.
First outbreak of multidrug-resistant Klebsiella pneumoniae carrying blaVIM-1 and blaSHV-5 in a French university hospital.

OBJECTIVES We studied eight imipenem-resistant isolates of Klebsiella pneumoniae involved in an outbreak in a French teaching hospital. METHODS The eight isolates were recovered from clinical specimens or rectal swabs. Antibiotic susceptibilities were determined using standard agar diffusion and dilution methods including synergy tests. PFGE was used to study the relatedness of isolates. Genes encoding beta-lactamases were characterized by transfer assays, specific amplification and cloning. RESULTS The eight isolates were closely related by PFGE analysis and highly related to a K. pneumoniae strain from Greece. They were highly resistant to beta-lactams, including aztreonam and imipenem (MIC > or =32 mg/L), and were positive by the imipenem-EDTA disc synergy test. Isolates were also resistant to aminoglycosides, newer quinolones and sulfamethoxazole, and showed an intermediate level of resistance to tetracycline. VIM-1 and SHV-5 beta-lactamases were revealed in all isolates by PCR. The analysis of plasmid contents of Escherichia coli DH10B electroporants expressing the VIM-1 beta-lactamase or the SHV-5 beta-lactamase confirmed that the two enzymes were coded by two different plasmids. The bla(VIM-1) gene was part of a class 1 integron that also included aac6, dhfrI and aadA genes and was similar to those reported from strains isolated in Greece. CONCLUSIONS This study confirms the potential risk of spread of multiresistant bacteria with international transfer of patients.
Quantitative assessment of coronary artery plaque vulnerability by high‐resolution magnetic resonance imaging and computational biomechanics: A pilot study ex vivo

The risk of atherosclerotic plaque disruption is thought to be closely related to plaque composition and rupture triggers such as external mechanical forces. The purpose of this study was to integrate MR imaging and computational techniques for the quantification of plaque vulnerability with morphologic data and biomechanical stress/strain distributions that were all based on high‐resolution MR images of coronary artery plaque specimens ex vivo. Twenty‐two coronary artery plaque specimens were selectively collected from 10 cadavers. Multislice T2‐weighted spin echo images were acquired with a resolution of 100 × 100 μm2. Histopathological images were used as the gold standard for the identification of plaque components and vulnerability. Plaque components were classified on MR images, and the stress/strain components were calculated with a two‐dimensional computational model with fluid–structure interactions. As expected, vulnerable plaques appeared to result from a large lipid pool, a thin fibrous cap, and some critical stress/strain conditions. An empiric vulnerability marker was derived and was closely related to the vulnerability score that was determined through pathologic examination. Noninvasive quantification of the MR contrast and mechanical properties of plaque may provide a comprehensive biomarker for the assessment of vulnerability of atherosclerotic plaques. Magn Reson Med, 2005. © 2005 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Environmental Concerns and the New Environmental Paradigm in Bulgaria

Little is known about environmental concerns and attitudes among people in former Soviet bloc countries in Eastern Europe despite widespread perceptions of severe environmental problems. The authors addressed this gap by examining Bulgarians' environmental concerns with a focus on whether the new environmental paradigm (NEP) scale can reliably measure their environmental orientations. Three surveys conducted in Bulgaria in 1998, 1999, and 2000 provide evidence of high environmental concern, and proximity to a major petrochemical plant is associated with greater concerns. The 6-item NEP is multidimensional and low in reliability. A scale constructed with 3 items that loaded consistently on 1 factor appears as valid as the 6-item NEP scale and has comparable internal consistency. There is much proenvironmental sentiment in Bulgaria, only part of which the NEP appears to measure. Despite overestimating the magnitude of current government investments in environmental protection, surveyed Bulgarians supported increasing investments in environmental protection. Further attention to both item and scale designs for eliciting environmental orientations in transitional countries is warranted.
Actinobaculum suis Detection Using Polymerase Chain Reaction

Actinobaculum suis is an important agent related to urinary infection in swine females. Due to its fastidious growth characteristics, the isolation of this anaerobic bacterium is difficult, thus impairing the estimation of its prevalence. The purpose of this study was to develop and test a polymerase chain reaction (PCR) for the detection and identification of A. suis and then compare these results with traditional isolation methods. Bacterial isolation and PCR were performed on one hundred and ninety-two urine samples from sows and forty-five preputial swabs from boars. The results indicate that this PCR was specific for A. suis, presenting a detection limit between 1.0 × 101 CFU/mL and 1.0 × 102 CFU/mL. A. suis frequencies, as measured by PCR, were 8.9% (17/192) in sow urine samples and 82.2% (37/45) in preputial swabs. Assessed using conventional culturing techniques, none of the urine samples were positive for A. suis; however, A. suis was detected in 31.1% (14/45) of the swabs. This PCR technique was shown to be an efficient method for the detection of A. suis in urine and preputial swabs.
Lessons from a Dozen Years of Group Support Systems Research: A Discussion of Lab and Field Findings

During the past dozen years, researchers at the University of Arizona have built six generations of group support systems software, conducted over 150 research studies, and facilitated over 4,000 projects. This article reports on lessons learned through that experience. It begins by presenting a theoretical foundation for the Groupware Grid, a tool for designing and evaluating GSS. It then reports lessons from nine key domains: (1)GSS in organizations; (2) cross-cultural and multicultural issues; (3) designing GSS software; (4) collaborative writing; (5) electronic polling; (6) GSS facilities and room design; (7) leadership and facilitation; (8) GSS in the classroom; and (9) business process reengineering.
[1H-MR Spectroscopy of brain tumors in the course of radiation therapy: Use of fast spectroscopic imaging and single-voxel spectroscopy for diagnosing recurrence].

PURPOSE To improve differential diagnosis of residual or recurrent tumor vs. tissue necrosis in the course of radiation therapy of neurosurgically-treated brain tumors by application of fast (1)H-MR spectroscopic imaging in combination with single-voxel spectroscopy (SVS). METHODS 54 patients after with malignant brain tumor (44 cases of glioblastoma, 10 other high-grade gliomas) were examined post-surgically in a total of 140 proton MRS examinations in the course of radiotherapy and in follow-up controls. Fast SI acquisition was performed as single-slice or double-slice TSI sequence with 32 x 32 phase encodings within 11 or 15 minutes, respectively. SVS with TR/TE 2000/272 ms yielded relative metabolite ratios, and in 15 patients the time courses of the absolute concentrations of brain metabolites were also determined. RESULTS In the group of 44 patients that could be tracked by MRS until therapy completion, TSI localized in 23 patients a persistent or newly arisen distinct choline accumulation indicating residual or recurrent tumor after radiation therapy. In all these cases MRS diagnosis was confirmed histologically or by short-term follow-up. However, in 6 of 15 patients showing a normal choline pattern in the TSI acquisition, tumor recurrence appeared within three months. SVS provided early recognition of recurrent tumor when detecting characteristic alterations of metabolite concentrations oin therapy follow-up. CONCLUSION TSI and SVS represent complementary MRS techniques and are able to diagnose tumor recurrence early and unambiguously in cases where focal choline accumulation is detected.
A MFCC based Hindi speech recognition technique using HTK Toolkit

To utilize the robot's capabilities, it is necessary for us to communicate with them efficiently. Thus, Human Robot Interaction is attracting the attention of most of the researchers these days. In this paper a speech recognition system has been developed using different feature extraction techniques like MFCC (mel frequency cepestral coefficient), LPC (linear predictive coding) and HMM (hidden markov model) is used as the classifier. Less work has been done for Hindi language in this field with a vocabulary size not very large. So, work in this paper has been done for Hindi database, with a vocabulary size a bit extended. HMM has been implemented using HTK Toolkit. Afterwards the performances of both of the techniques used have been compared. The work has been done using audacity for sound recordings and Cygwin to execute the HTK commands in Linux type environment in windows platform. As well as, the system developed has been tested in the speaker dependent and speaker independent both types of environments, whose performance results, as well as, the comparison graph of the system shows that MFCC performs well as compared to LPC in each and every condition.
The Global File System: A File System for Shared Disk Storage

In this paper we present a new storage architecture for clusters that creates a shared memory of disk storage that is uniformly accessible to all cluster clients, scales to large capacity, and provides very high performance and connectivity. The cluster structure resembles a symmetric multiprocessor (SMP) in that clients (processors) can access disk data (memory) across a local area network like Fibre Channel (a bus or other interconnection network). All clients can see and access the same disk data with perfect consistency. Our approach avoids buffer copy overheads and server bottlenecks found in traditional file systems while scaling to potentially large numbers of clients and large capacity disk systems. A classification of distributed storage architectures is also presented. Unlike previous approaches to shared file system design for network-attached storage, we designed our file system from scratch rather than modifying an existing local or network file system. Given the different tradeoffs involved with local versus cluster file systems this approach seemed logical and our initial performance results support this decision. We provide a description of the basic file system design, our current implementation on SGI IRIX operating system, and detailed benchmarking and performance analysis results. Good speedup and throughput is achieved for large files across 3 clients and 4 high performance disk arrays and on other client-array configurations.