Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Social Security in Low and Middle-Income Countries: The Role of Household Survey Data

This report assesses the possibilities of using household surveys to evaluate the performance of social security policies and provides an overview of the available information. Particular attention is paid to indicators on social security coverage and the impact of social security on the living standards of the population. As the data situation in industrialized countries is fairly well known, the focus of this study was on low- and middle-income countries where social security schemes are often immature and cover only small groups of the population. The report additionally includes information on other non-OECD countries, as well as on certain OECD countries that have undergone political and economic transformation over the last decade.
Changes in CREB and deltaFosB are associated with the behavioural sensitization induced by methylenedioxypyrovalerone

Methylenedioxypyrovalerone (MDPV) is a synthetic cathinone which has recently emerged as a designer drug of abuse. The objective of this study was to investigate the locomotor sensitization induced by MDPV in adolescent mice, and associated neuroplastic changes in the nucleus accumbens and striatum through deltaFosB and CREB expression. Behavioural testing consisted of three phases: Phase I: conditioning regimen with MDPV (0.3 mg/kg/day for five days) or saline; Phase II: resting (11 days); Phase III: challenged with MDPV (0.3 mg/kg), cocaine (10 mg/kg) or saline on day 16 for both groups. Mice repeatedly exposed to MDPV increased locomotor activity by 165–200% following acute MDPV or cocaine administration after an 11-day resting period, showing a MDPV-induced sensitization to itself and to cocaine. An explanation for this phenomenon could be the common mechanism of action between these two psychostimulants. Furthermore, the MDPV challenge resulted in higher levels of phospho-CREB in MDPV-conditioned mice compared with MDPV-naive mice, probably due to an up-regulation of the cAMP pathway. Likewise, MDPV exposure induced a persistent increase in the striatal expression of deltaFosB; the priming dose of MDPV also produced a significant increase in the accumbal expression of this transcription factor. This study constitutes the first evidence that an exposure to a low dose of MDPV during adolescence induces behavioural sensitization and provides a neurobiological basis for a relationship between MDPV and cocaine. We hypothesize that, similar to cocaine, both CREB and deltaFosB play a role in the induction of this behavioural sensitization.
Emotional modulation of the attentional blink and the relation to interpersonal reactivity

The extent of the attentional blink effect on detection rates in rapid serial visual presentations is modulated by the emotionality of the stimuli. Emotionally salient stimuli are detected more often, even if presented in the attentional blink period, and elicit an enlarged P3 response, which has been interpreted as enhanced consolidation. This effect correlates with individual differences in trait affectivity such as anxiety or dysphoria. Here, we ask if it is also related to the capacity to detect emotions in others, i.e., to interpersonal social traits. We therefore presented emotional and neutral images depicting social scenes as targets in an attentional blink design and measured detection rates and event-related potentials. In addition, we recorded self-reports of empathy as measured by the Interpersonal Reactivity Index. The results show enhanced performance for emotional stimuli and increased P3 amplitudes, which correlated with individual differences in empathy. The data suggest that self-reported empathy goes along with enhanced processing of emotion in social stimuli, even under stimulus conditions that are suboptimal for conscious target detection.
Effect of Ruta graveolens and Cannabis sativa alcoholic extract on spermatogenesis in the adult wistar male rats

Objective: The present study was undertaken to evaluate the effects of alcohol extracts of Ruta graveolens and Cannabis sativa that were used traditionally in medieval Persian medicine as male contraceptive drugs, on spermatogenesis in the adult male rats. Materials and Methods: Ethanol extracts of these plants were obtained by the maceration method. The male rats were injected intraperitionaly with C. sativa and R. graveolens 5% ethanol extracts at dose of 20 mg/day for 20 consecutive days, respectively. Twenty-four hours after the last treatment, testicular function was assessed by epididymal sperm count. Result: The statistical results showed that the ethanol extracts of these plants reduced the number of sperms significantly (P=0.00) in the treatment groups in comparison to the control group. The results also showed that the group, treated by extract of R. graveolens reduced spermatogenesis more than the group treated by extracts of C. sativa. Conclusion: The present study demonstrated the spermatogenesis reducing properties of the ethanol extracts of R. graveolens and C. sativa in the adult male wistar rats but more studies are necessary to reveal the mechanism of action that is involved in spermatogenesis.
Superintendents' Leadership Behaviors for DIBELS Implementation: A Comparative Case Study of Principals' and Superintendents' Perceptions

Current school reforms under No Child Left Behind (NCLB, 2001) call for effective leadership from federal and state levels and across the school district from the superintendent to the school level to improve student learning. Part of the complexity of NCLB is greater superintendent accountability for increased student learning, which necessitates new conceptions of superintendent leadership behaviors. An unexplored area of educational research involves elementary principals’ and superintendents’ perceptions of superintendents’ leadership behaviors and perceptions of superintendents’ leadership behaviors for Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills (DIBELS) implementation. Additionally, an unexplored area of educational research is the comparison of elementary principals’ perceptions of superintendent leadership behaviors with superintendents’ self-reported leadership behaviors. The purpose of this study was to examine principals’ and superintendents’ perceptions of superintendents’ leadership behaviors for DIBELS implementation. This mixed methods comparative case study used Q-methodology, and principals’ and superintendents’ interviews. Field observations and document analysis enriched the descriptions and understandings of superintendent leadership in this study. Findings indicated superintendents set defensible directions and influenced principals to implement DIBELS. Superintendents provided a leadership support network for principals comprised of mid-level district administrators. The relationships in this network, coupled with supports and resources in the network, gave principals access to social capital for DIBELS implementation.
Mobile robots navigation in unknown environments by using fuzzy logic and learning automata

Autonomously navigation of mobile robots in unknown environments is a basic challenge in robotics. We can use behavior based approach in navigation of mobile robots in environments with obstacles. If actions of robot be taken as behavior, we can design them by fuzzy logic. It decreases the problem states, make the navigation easier and also can be used as initial knowledge for reinforcement learning. In this paper we used learning automata for coordinating behaviors which caused robot to choose the best action in any situation. Using Pioneer robot in V-rep simulator environment showed that fuzzy logic and learning automata for robot navigation had a better performance in convergence and learning speed rather than fuzzy logic and Q-algorithm.
Matching Possible Mitigations to Cyber Threats: A Document-Driven Decision Support Systems Approach

Despite more than a decade of heightened focus on cybersecurity, the threat continues. To address possible impacts, cyber threats must be addressed. Mitigation catalogs exist in practice today, but these do not map mitigations to the specific threats they counter. Currently, mitigations are manually selected by cybersecurity experts (CSE) who are in short supply. To reduce labor and improve repeatability, an automated approach is needed for matching mitigations to cyber threats. This research explores the application of supervised machine learning and text retrieval techniques to automate matching of relevant mitigations to cyber threats where both are expressed as text, resulting in a novel method that combines two techniques: support vector machine classification and latent semantic analysis. In five test cases, the approach demonstrates high recall for known relevant mitigation documents, bolstering confidence that potentially relevant mitigations will not be overlooked. It automatically excludes 97% of non-relevant mitigations, greatly reducing the CSE’s workload over purely manual matching.
Moving vehicle detection, tracking and traffic parameter estimation from a satellite video: a perspective on a smarter city

ABSTRACT Satellite remote sensing is undergoing a revolution in terms of sensors and temporal coverage. The possibility of acquiring earth’s surface video from space provides an opportunity to investigate broader applications of remote sensing. High-resolution spaceborne videos can become a vital factor in earth observation. Temporally continuous tracking of moving objects, i.e. vehicles, vessels, or even military equipment on Earth’s surface demands high spatial resolution satellite videos. Detecting moving vehicles in the urban areas from space video can lead governments to a new era of traffic monitoring. Satellite videos will find many applications in the field of traffic monitoring. In this article, first, moving vehicles are detected using background subtraction with 94.7% accuracy. Afterwards, vehicles’ trajectories, average velocities, dynamic velocities, and space-time diagram are estimated and trajectories are classified based on velocities. Finally, the total frame traffic density is computed.
Which positive factors determine the attractiveness of general practice and retention in clinical practice? A qualitative research in France

In France, General Practitioners (GPs) were running out and increasingly aging. Stressing the positive aspects of general practice might improve the interest of the future general practitioners. This study was the French part of the Womanpower project conducted by the European General Practitioner Research Network (EGPRN). Which positive factors determined the attractiveness of general practice and retention in clinical practice? Method : a secondary qualitative research was undertaken in France. It synthesized four previous qualitative studies with different methods and population of GPs. Using an interview grid of six questions developed by EGPRN, GPs were asked about determinants of job satisfaction in their practice. The transcripts were analyzed in a phenomenological perspective by a thematic analysis using grounded theory based tools. Results : 3258 verbatim were extracted from the interviews. After being summarized in 37 axial codes, they were grouped into six main themes. The first and central theme was GP as a person. The second theme concerned the special skills and competencies needed in practice. The third one stressed supportive factors for life balance. The fourth one was about freedom of work. All the verbatim concerning doctor-patient relationships were grouped into the fifth theme. The sixth theme was about teaching and learning in everyday practice. Conclusion : this research helped to understand the wellbeing of a GP. The six main themes would have to be worked on, in order to ease future installations and enhance GP’s retention. Further research in other European countries would be necessary.
Collection of Charge on Junction Nodes from Ion Tracks

The collection of charge from ion tracks can produce logic upset and memory change in high density integrated circuits. It has been experimentally observed that drift conduction usually plays a dominant role when the ion track penetrates a junction. The first charge collection analysis concentrated on the diffusion conduction process. A recent analysis emphasizes drift conduction and describes the "funnel" which produces drift collection from the substrate. The funneling phenomenon has been modelled using two-dimensional computer simulations. It is extremely desirable to develop analytical solutions tp better understand the problem and to provide the basis for modelling the effect in circuit and system analysis computer codes such as SYSCAP. This paper develops an approximate analytic solution expressed as I(t) = Io [exp(-¿t) - exp (-ßt)] (1) where Io is approximately the maximum current, 1/¿ is the collection time constant of the junction, and 1/ß is the time constant for initially establishing the ion track. The junction time constant is shown to be K¿o/q¿ND, and it increases slowly with funnel length when a funnel is present. The analysis shows that the excess carriers move almost exclusively by ambipolar diffusion for very early times, and that the fields present in semiconductor devices, including p-n junction fields, collapse. Ambipolar diffusion proceeds until the excess carrier concentration is reduced to approximately the background doping density at which time the junction field is restored and the carriers move by drift.
ESTIMATION OF FACTOR CONTRIBUTION TO GROWTH UNDER STRUCTURAL DISEQUILIBRIUM

SUPPOSE WE HAVE TIME series data on output capital and labor inputs and on factor shares in a rapidly industrializing economy, and we want to measure the contribution of various factors to growth. Would it be correct to weight capital and labor by their observed average income shares in order to assess the growth of productivity or technical progress over time? 2 This would imply that we are assuming competitive equilibrium in both product and factor markets, constant returns to scale, and also a specific form of production function (usually Cobb-Douglas). Intuitively one feels that there are many cases where such simplifications might give us biased results. The use of the expression "structural disequilibrium" when talking of 'developing' economies has become a rather hackneyed phrase of which everyone is aware, yet rarely can the monster be forced into the straight jacket of quantitative theory and measurement.3 However, an attempt to tackle the empirical problem, at least partially, can be based on the modern approach to production function estimation which views production and distribution as a whole, by incorporating both the technical relations and the equilibrium side-conditions in one testable model.4 Arrow, Chenery, Minhas and Solow (ACMS) [2] have taught us that if one starts from an empirical relation between output per unit of labor VIL and the real wage w and assumes equilibrium in the labor and product markets, one can work out the implied general family of production functions (of any degree of homogeneity) which can then be put to an independent empirical test. Also, authors such as Hoch [5] and Mundlak [10] have shown systematic
A Novel Prognostic Index for Mortality in Renal Transplant Recipients After Hospitalization

Background. Prognostic indices that estimate long-term mortality are essential not only to compare different clinical studies and populations but also to perform the most appropriate therapeutic interventions. All-cause mortality is high after renal transplantation (RTx), but no prognostic index has focused on predicting mortality in RTx. We developed and tested a prognostic index for mortality in RTx after hospitalization. Methods. We retrospectively analyzed survival in 1,293 RTx recipients who were randomly assigned to two groups: a modeling population (n=646), used to create the new index, and a testing population (n=647), used to test this index. Patients were stratified into three risk groups (low, medium, and high) by combining peritransplant risk factors for mortality (&bgr;-coefficient), using a simple eight-point check list: age, pretransplant cardiovascular disease, renal dysfunction at discharge, cardiac hypertrophy, vascular calcification, diabetes, time on dialysis, and acute tubular necrosis. Results. Overall lower survival rates were observed with increasing risk classes in the testing population (log-rank test=18; P=0.0001). The 8-year survival rates ranged from 94% in the lowest-risk group to 59% in the highest-risk group. The area under the receiver operating characteristic curve was 0.63. Mortality risk (Cox analysis) significantly increased with increasing risk classes (medium risk: relative risk=3.8, 95% confidence interval=1.5–9.5, P=0.004; high risk: relative risk=6.3, 95% confidence interval=2.4–16.2, P=0.0001). Conclusions. This simple prognostic index applicable at the bedside may accurately predict survival in RTx recipients after discharge. Consequently, targeted treatment interventions may be indicated for minimizing mortality, especially in high-risk groups.
Clonal granulocytes in polycythaemia vera and essential thrombocythaemia have shortened telomeres

The purpose of this study was to evaluate telomere length in peripheral blood granulocytes and mononuclear cells collected from 22 women with polycythaemia vera (PV) and essential thrombocythaemia (ET). PV and ET are chronic myeloproliferative diseases whose heterogeneity of stem cell origin and clonal development has been established through analysis of X‐chromosome inactivation patterns. The results from clonality assay and determination of telomere length show that only clonal granulocytes have shortened telomeres.
Feature Extraction Using Weighted Training Samples

Feature extraction using weighted training (FEWT) samples is proposed in this letter. Different spectral bands (features) play different roles in identification of land-cover classes. In the FEWT, the relative importance of each feature of a training sample in predicting the class label of that sample is obtained and considered as a weight for that feature. Then, the weighted training samples can be used in each arbitrary feature extraction method. In this letter, we use the weighted training samples in supervised locality preserving projection. The experimental results on three popular hyperspectral images show that FEWT has better performance and more speed than some state-of-the-art supervised feature extraction methods using limited number of available training samples.
Complementary activities of SseJ and SifA regulate dynamics of the Salmonella
 typhimurium vacuolar membrane

The Salmonella pathogenicity island 2 (SPI‐2) type III secretion system (TTSS) of Salmonella typhimurium is required for bacterial replication within host cells. It acts by translocating effector proteins across the membrane of the Salmonella‐containing vacuole (SCV). The SifA effector is required to maintain the integrity of the SCV membrane, and for the formation in epithelial cells of Salmonella‐induced filaments (Sifs), which are tubular extensions of SCVs. We have investigated the role in S. typhimurium virulence of the putative SPI‐2 effector genes sifB, srfJ, sseJ and sseI. An S. typhimurium strain carrying a mutation in sseJ was mildly attenuated for systemic virulence in mice, but strains carrying mutations in either srfJ, sseI or sifB had very little or no detectable virulence defect after intraperitoneal inoculation. Expression of SseJ in HeLa cells resulted in the formation of globular membranous compartments (GMCs), the composition of which appears to be similar to that of SCV membranes and Sifs. The formation of GMCs was dependent on the serine residue of the predicted acyltransferase/lipase active site of SseJ. Transiently expressed SseJ also inhibited Sif formation by wild‐type bacteria, and was found to associate with Sifs, SCV membranes and simultaneously expressed SifA. Intracellular vacuoles containing sseJ mutant bacteria appeared normal but, in contrast to a sifA mutant, a sifA sseJ double mutant strain did not lose its vacuolar membrane, indicating that loss of vacuolar membrane around sifA mutant bacteria requires the action of SseJ. Collectively, these results suggest that the combined action of SseJ and SifA regulate dynamics of the SCV membrane in infected cells.
Reexamination of Interictal Psychoses Based on DSM IV Psychosis Classification and International Epilepsy Classification

Summary: We sought to examine interictal psychoses based on the international epilepsy classification and DSM IV criteria, with special attention paid to epilepsy types as well as to subcategories of psychoses. One hundred thirty‐two outpatients were studied, each with definite evidence of both epilepsy and interictal psychosis clearly demarcated from postictal psychosis. We compared them with 2,773 other epilepsy outpatients as a control. Risk factors for psychosis were examined within the temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE) group and the more extended group of symptomatic localization‐related epilepsy. Further, nuclear schizophrenia and other nonschizophrenic psychotic disorders were compared. We confirmed a close correlation between TLE and interictal psychoses. Within the TLE group, only early epilepsy onset and a history of prolonged febrile convulsions were revealed to be significantly associated with interictal psychosis. Within the symptomatic localization‐related epilepsy group, such parameters as complex partial seizures, autonomic aura, and temporal EEG foci were closely associated with psychoses. There was also a significant difference between groups as to ictal fear and secondary generalization. Whereas patients with early psychosis onset and a low intelligence quotient were overrepresented in the nuclear schizophrenia group, drug‐induced psychosis and alternative psychosis were underrepresented. TLE proved to be preferentially associated with interictal psychoses. Within the TLE group, medial TLE in particular was found to be more closely associated with psychosis. Our data support the original postulation of Landolt, stating that alternative or drug‐induced psychoses constitute a definite subgroup of interictal psychoses, which are different from chronic epileptic psychoses that simulate schizophrenia.
An ECG Compression Algorithm Based on Gradient Difference for Body Sensor Networks

We propose a novel scheme for ECG compression based on Gradient difference used in BSN. As a newly emerged application, BSN can continuously monitor the patients' physiological signal without hindering their everyday life, however, it has some constraints, namely, size, power, capability of storage and computation. ECG is a nontrivial signal collected by BSN, continuous collection will bring huge data flow which is a burden both to sensor nodes and central node, therefore we have to do some compression to relieve the burden. As the constraints exist, most of the traditional algorithms are not adaptive enough, we need a simple, real-time and effective approach. This paper introduces an approach to meet those requirements, by conducting various experiments, we found that this approach can effectively compress ECG signal and meanwhile keep a good fidelity of the reconstructed signal, to prove that, we did some compare between our approach and traditional ones. Yet, this algorithm has not been tested on the clinical ECG signals and there is still room for the performance improvement.