Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Using New Methods and Data to Assess and Address Population , Fertility , and Environment links in the Lake Victoria Basin

Lake Victoria is the largest lake in Africa, and the lake and its watershed are a critical resource for the livelihoods of millions of people across five countries: Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda, Burundi, and Rwanda. The FAO, however, reports that the population living around in the Lake Victoria Basin is among the poorest and most food insecure in all of East Africa due to declining land productivity, soil degradation, desertification, loss of biodiversity, livestock and crop diseases, declining fisheries, and poor development and trade policies. Policymakers concerned with the sustainable management of the Lake Victoria Basin, perceive population growth to be a key driving force of rapidly changing and degrading ecosystems, along with inadequate government policies and planning, regulations, provision of services. Data on basic population, health, and environment indicators, however, are unavailable at the landscape level of the basin making it difficult to assess, monitor, and communicate effectively about these connections. The varying data sources across the five countries and the lack of alignment of administrative units with the Lake Victoria Basin watershed are the principle data challenges. In this paper we highlight the efforts of a multidisciplinary research team to overcome these data challenges and develop demographic and health indicators for policy makers in the Lake Victoria Basin Commission as well as for program staff in an integrated Population, Health, Environment Program working with District leaders and communities on these issues in Uganda and Kenya.
Rapid serial visual presentation: a space-time trade-off in information presentation

Rapid Serial Visual Presentation, or RSVP, is the electronic equivalent of riffling a book in order to assess its content. RSVP allows space to be traded for time and has tremendous potential to support electronic information browsing and search particularly on small displays. However, before this potential can be realised, it is necessary to investigate the parameters involved in the successful application of RSVP in the user interface. The rapid display of images or text is well within the capabilities of current desktop computers and even of current or near future mobile devices. The limiting factor in the application of RSVP, therefore, has to be the limited capability of the user's visual system. Users' reading comprehension with RSVP of text has been studied extensively. The transfer of information with RSVP of images, however, has received relatively little attention. This paper examines some of the problems with applying RSVP for image browsing and search.
Analysis of dielectric-resonator antennas with emphasis on hemispherical structures

An overview is given for the development of dielectric-resonator antennas. A detailed analysis and study of the hemispherical structure, excited by a coaxial probe or a slot aperture, is then given, using the dyadic Green's functions pertaining to an electric-current source or a magnetic-current source, located in a dielectric sphere. The integral equation for a hemispherical dielectric-resonator antenna (DRA), excited by either a coaxial probe or a slot aperture, is obtained. The integral equation is solved using the method of moments. The antenna characteristics, such as input impedance, radiation patterns, directivity, and efficiency, are computed numerically, around the resonant frequency of the TE/sub 111/ mode (the HEM/sub 11/ mode for cylindrical coordinates). The computed input impedance is compared with numerical and experimental data available in the literature. <<ETX>>
Modes of Representation of Thought

ONSCIOUS THOUGHT REQUIRES REPRESENTATION of ideational and affective information. In dreams the visual mode of represenC tation predominates. In the waking thought of many adults the lexical mode of representation predominates, but is by no means exclusive. A psychoanalytic theory of thinking should include a model of the various possible modes of representation and the differing properties of each mode. Such a model would provide a conceptual tool for describing the formal properties of conscious experiences. In particular, such a model would be useful in describing shifts between modes of representation as they occur in streams of thought, in the development of thought in children, and in regressive or progressive alterations in states of consciousness. Such a model would also provide a tool for sharpening distinctions between qualities of thought form and qualities of thought organization. The frequent blur of this distinction arises because of the need in the psychoanalytic situation to focus on thought content and control rather than on thought form. Thus, there is a tendency to equate quali-
Anaphylactoid Reactions Associated with Parenteral Cyclosporine Use: Possible Role of Cremophor EL

Acute anaphylactoid reactions occurred immediately after initiation of intravenous infusions of cyclosporine in three patients post-organ transplantation. Shortness of breath, flushing, tachypnea, chest pain, pruritus, or urticaria were noted; rapid recovery followed cessation of drug infusion. Subsequently, oral cyclosporine has been used in each patient without recurrence of the observed reaction. The presence of Cremophor EL as an emulsifying agent in the parenteral dosage formulation of cyclosporine is a likely etiology for this acute adverse reaction, Slowed rates of drug infusion and antihistamine premedication may permit continued intravenous cyclosporine use in affected patients.
Achievable Sum-Rate Maximizing AF Relay Beamforming Scheme in Two-Way Relay Channels

This paper deals with design of a amplify-and- forward (AF) relay beamforming matrix in a two-way relay protocol when a relay node has multiple antennas. Two-way relaying is a promising protocol since it provides enhanced spectral efficiency compared to one-way relaying protocols. In this paper we derive the achievable sum-rate upper bound of AF beamforming scheme and propose the achievable sum-rate maximizing relay beamforming scheme when the destination and the relay node have perfect knowledge of the channel state information (CSI) for forward and backward channels. The solution of the sum-rate maximizing scheme is obtained by using the proposed algorithm, general power iterative algorithm, which solves a global optimization problem efficiently. Comparing with one-way relaying protocol, the improved sum-rate performance of the proposed scheme is verified by numerical simulation.
A diversity scheme for a phase-coherent frequency-hopping spread-spectrum system

Frequency diversity for a phase-coherent frequency-hopping spread-spectrum system is proposed. The frequency band of the communicator is partitioned into L disjoint subbands on which L replicas of the communicator signal are simultaneously transmitted; each signal replica hops independently in its subband. Therefore, both phase continuity and coherent optimal combining of the received replicas are possible. Optimum diversity is thus at least 6 dB better than the conventional noncoherent FH-SS system. We show that a smart jammer should be present in all subbands. We also give a sufficient condition that forces the jammer to spread its interference signal on the whole communicator frequency band.
SVM classification of contaminating particles in liquid dielectrics using higher order statistics of electrical and acoustic PD measurements

Electrical and acoustic partial discharge (PD) measurement and pattern recognition procedures are described for detecting and identifying contaminating particles in transformer mineral oils. This work introduces the use of support vector machines (SVM), a nonlinear non-parametric automatable machine learning algorithm, for the purpose of classifying the size and composition of such particles. The training and validation of acoustic and electrical PD measurement data, which are contaminated by time varying noise, are first filtered adaptively using wavelet decomposition. Statistics of a particle's impact upon collision with the walls of a tank, containing the electrode test assembly and the inter arrival time between collisions constitute the features for the SVM classifier. These statistics include higher order moments and the entropy of the estimated density function of the features. Results based on experimental training and testing data indicate that fusing of the acoustic and electric PD information at the features level provides a nearly perfect classification success rate. These observations demonstrate that, while electrical and acoustic PD data are correlated, they contain individually independent and complementary information regarding the state and condition of transformer type mineral oils.
Does psychache mediate the relationship between general distress and suicide ideation?

ABSTRACT This study evaluated whether psychache (i.e., mental pain) mediates the association between general distress, assessed as the frequency and the intensity of psychological symptoms in the previous week, and suicide ideation in community adults. For a sample of 202 adults, psychache fully mediated the relationship between suicide ideation and the frequency of psychological symptoms, and partially mediated the relationship between suicide ideation and the intensity of psychological symptoms. As such, mental pain fully or partially explains the process linking the frequency and the intensity of general distress to suicide ideation and, thus, mental pain is a target for potential intervention.
Mechanical fatigue resistance of an implantable branched lead system for a distributed set of longitudinal intrafascicular electrodes

Objective. A neural interface system has been developed that consists of an implantable stimulator/recorder can with a 15-electrode lead that trifurcates into three bundles of five individual wire longitudinal intrafascicular electrodes. This work evaluated the mechanical fatigue resistance of the branched lead and distributed electrode system under conditions designed to mimic anticipated strain profiles that would be observed after implantation in the human upper arm. Approach. Custom test setups and procedures were developed to apply linear or angular strain at four critical stress riser points on the lead and electrode system. Each test was performed to evaluate fatigue under a high repetition/low amplitude paradigm designed to test the effects of arm movement on the leads during activities such as walking, or under a low repetition/high amplitude paradigm designed to test the effects of more strenuous upper arm activities. The tests were performed on representative samples of the implantable lead system for human use. The specimens were fabricated using procedures equivalent to those that will be used during production of human-use implants. Electrical and visual inspections of all test specimens were performed before and after the testing procedures to assess lead integrity. Main results. Measurements obtained before and after applying repetitive strain indicated that all test specimens retained electrical continuity and that electrical impedance remained well below pre-specified thresholds for detection of breakage. Visual inspection under a microscope at 10× magnification did not reveal any signs of damage to the wires or silicone sheathing at the stress riser points. Significance. These results demonstrate that the branched lead of this implantable neural interface system has sufficient mechanical fatigue resistance to withstand strain profiles anticipated when the system is implanted in an arm. The novel test setups and paradigms may be useful in testing other lead systems.
New frontiers in probiotic research

The increasing incidence of antibiotic resistance, coupled with a growing prevalence of cancer and allergic conditions in an aging population, has forced clinical research to explore alternative therapeutic and prophylactic avenues. One such approach involves the use of probiotics: beneficial bacterial cultures, which, when administered as a part of the daily dietary intake, reduce the incidence and severity of acute and chronic infection, facilitate prevention and reduced recurrence of certain cancers and lower the incidence of several atopic conditions. Herein, we review the most recent advances in the emerging area of patho‐biotechnology in the context of improving probiotic production, delivery and clinical efficacy, in addition to the emerging area of ‘designer probiotics’– strains specifically tailored to target certain pathogens and/or toxins in vivo.
ToxCast EPA in Vitro to in Vivo Challenge: Insight into the Rank-I Model

The ToxCast EPA challenge was managed by TopCoder in Spring 2014. The goal of the challenge was to develop a model to predict the lowest effect level (LEL) concentration based on in vitro measurements and calculated in silico descriptors. This article summarizes the computational steps used to develop the Rank-I model, which calculated the lowest prediction error for the secret test data set of the challenge. The model was developed using the publicly available Online CHEmical database and Modeling environment (OCHEM), and it is freely available at http://ochem.eu/article/68104. Surprisingly, this model does not use any in vitro measurements. The logic of the decision steps used to develop the model and the reason to skip inclusion of in vitro measurements is described. We also show that inclusion of in vitro assays would not improve the accuracy of the model.
The Content and Context of Identity in a Digital Society

Our team has undertaken a study designed to explore the context and content of IT identity in a digital society. The work involves conducting semi-structured, reflective interviews—based on the results of a 20 Statements exercise—and analysis based on grounded theory. Our initial findings indicate that our participants have complex relationships with a range of IT that has become embedded in their daily lives, and provide evidence in support of IT’s role as a medium, determinant, and consequent of identity. Further, we see the emergence of weak and strong IT identities and the emergence of a weak antiIT identity. By iterating on our processes and reflecting on our results, we have been able to tune our methods and inform future recruitment goals. Moving forward, we expect that expanding the diversity in our group of participants will reveal greater insights into the ways that participation in a digital society influences the formation and expression of one’s role, group, personal, and IT (or anti-IT) identities.
The Jarkov Mammoth: 20000-year-old carcass of a Siberian wolly mammoth (Mammuthus primigenius)

CERPOLEX/Mammuthus, Hoofddorp, The Netherlands dickmol@worldonline.nl College de France, Paris, France yves.coppens@college-de-france.fr Zoological Institute, Russian Academy of Sciences, Laboratory of Mammals, Universitetskaya nab. 1, Saint Petersburg, Russia tikh@at8162.spb. edu Northern Arizona University, Geology Department, Flagstaff, USA Larry.agenbroad@nau.edu Department of Mammalogy, American Museum of Natural History, New York, USA macphee@amnh.org, flemming@amnh.org, macphee@amnh.org CERPOLEX/Mammuthus, 2, Saint Mande, France b.buigues@mammuthus.org, Ch.demarliave@polarcircle.com Institute for Biodiversity and Ecosystem Dynamics, Faculty of Science, Universiteit van Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands vangeel@science.uva. nl, reenen@science.uva. nl Amsterdam Archaeological Centre, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands j.p.pals@frw.uva. nl Museum of Paleontology and Department of Geological Sciences, University of Michigan, Michigan USA dcfisher@umich.edu Department of Earth Sciences, University of California, Santa Cruz, California, USA Dlfox@emerald.ucsc. edu
Feature extraction based on hearing system signal processing for robust large vocabulary speech recognition

A new auditory-based feature extraction algorithm for robust speech recognition is developed from modeling the signal processing functions in the hearing system. Usually, the performance of acoustic models trained in clean speech drops signiﬁcantly when tested on noisy speech; thus recognition systems cannot work robustly in the ﬁeld even when they have good performance in labs. To address the problem, we have developed features based on a set of modules to simulate the signal processing functions in the cochlea, such as auditory transform, hair cells, and equal-loudness functions. The features are then applied to the Wall Street Journal task. To simulate the performance in the ﬁeld, the training data is near clean speech while the testing data are with added white and babble noise. As shown in our experiments, without added noise, the proposed features have a similar performance as MFCC, RASTA-PLP, and PLP features. When we added noise and tested at different SNR levels, the performance of the proposed auditory features is signiﬁcantly better than others. For example, at 10 dB SNR level which is often encountered in real applications, the performance of the proposed auditory features is 65.53% while the best from others is 36.33% from the RASTA-PLP. The proposed features provide an absolute gain on recognition accuracy of 29.20%. Overall, our experiments show that the proposed auditory features have strong robustness in the mismatched and noisy situations in speech recognition.
Comparison of Nicotine and Carcinogen Exposure with Water Pipe and Cigarette Smoking

Background: Smoking tobacco preparations in a water pipe (hookah) is widespread in many places of the world and is perceived by many as relatively safe. We investigated biomarkers of toxicant exposure with water pipe compared with cigarette smoking. Methods: We conducted a crossover study to assess daily nicotine and carcinogen exposure with water pipe and cigarette smoking in 13 people who were experienced in using both products. Results: When smoking an average of 3 water pipe sessions compared with smoking 11 cigarettes per day (cpd), water pipe use was associated with a significantly lower intake of nicotine, greater exposure to carbon monoxide (CO), and a different pattern of carcinogen exposure compared with cigarette smoking, with greater exposure to benzene, and high molecular weight polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH), but less exposure to tobacco-specific nitrosamines, 1,3-butadiene, acrolein, acrylonitrile, propylene oxide, ethylene oxide, and low molecular weight PAHs. Conclusions: A different pattern of carcinogen exposure might result in a different cancer risk profile between cigarette and water pipe smoking. Of particular concern is the risk of leukemia related to high levels of benzene exposure with water pipe use. Impact: Smoking tobacco in water pipes has gained popularity in the United States and around the world. Many believe that water pipe smoking is not addictive and less harmful than cigarette smoking. We provide data on toxicant exposure that will help guide regulation and public education regarding water pipe health risk. Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev; 22(5); 765–72. ©2013 AACR.
Investigation on the ground loop coupling by simulation tools based on the partial inductance concept

The paper deals with an investigation on the ground loop coupling by simulation tools based on the partial inductance concept. Several interconnect structures characterized by a signal line and its return conductor having different shape are considered. The prediction of the ground loop coupling is performed by an equivalent electrical circuit where the return conductor is modelled by its partial inductance Lgnd. The calculation of Lgnd is performed by SPICE simulation and by the Nodal Analysis of the equivalent circuit obtained decomposing the return ground into a finite number of parallel current filaments. The validity of this approach is shown by comparing the ground current distribution with that obtained by a full-wave solution with the method of moments.
Aspheric Optical Zones: The Effective Optical Zone with the SCHWIND AMARIS.

PURPOSE To evaluate the effective optical zone (the part of the ablation that receives full correction) among eyes that underwent laser epithelial keratomileusis (LASEK)/epi-LASEK treatments for myopic astigmatism. METHODS Twenty LASEK/epi-LASEK treatments with a mean spherical equivalent refraction (SE) of -5.49±2.35 diopters (D) performed using the SCHWIND AMARIS system were retrospectively evaluated at 6-month follow-up. In all cases, pre- and postoperative corneal wavefront analyses were performed with the Keratron Scout (OPTIKON 2000). Effective optical zone values were evaluated from the changes of root-mean-square (RMS) of higher order wavefront aberration (ΔRMSho), spherical aberration (ΔSphAb), and RMS of the change of higher order wavefront aberration (RMS[ΔHOAb]). Correlations of effective optical zone with planned optical zone and SE correction were analyzed using a bilinear function as well as calculations of the isometric lines for which effective optical zone equals planned optical zone and of the nomogram planned optical zone to achieve an intended effective optical zone. RESULTS At 6 months, SE was -0.05±0.43 D, with 90% of eyes within ±0.50 D. Mean higher order wavefront aberration RMS increased 0.12 μm, spherical aberration 0.09 μm, and coma 0.04 μm after treatment (6-mm diameter). Mean planned optical zone was 6.76±0.25 mm, whereas mean EOZ(ΔRMSho) was 6.74±0.66 mm (bilinear correlation P<.005), EOZ(ΔSphAb) was 6.83±0.58 mm (bilinear correlation P<.0001), and EOZ(RMS(ΔHOAb)) was 6.42±0.58 mm (significantly smaller, P<.05; bilinear correlation P<.0005). CONCLUSIONS The EOZ(ΔRMSho) and EOZ(ΔSphAb) were similar to the planned optical zone, whereas EOZ(RMS(ΔHOAb)) was significantly smaller. Differences between effective optical zone and planned optical zone were larger for smaller planned optical zone or larger SE corrections. Planned optical zones >6.75 mm result in effective optical zones at least as large as planned optical zones. For optical zones <6.75 mm, a nomogram should be applied.
Effect of Enzyme-Treated Radish Leaves on Lipid Metabolism in Rats Fed a High-Fat Diet

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of enzyme-treated radish (Raphanus sativus L.) leaves on lipid metabolism in rats fed a high fat diet. Rats were divided into four experimental groups which were composed of a high fat diet group (HF group), a high fat diet with 10% radish leaf powder-supplemented group (MA group), a high fat diet with 5% enzyme-treated radish leaf powder-supplemented group (MB group) and a high fat diet with 10% enzyme-treated radish leaf powder-supplemented group (MC group). Total dietary fiber content of enzyme-treated radish leaves were greater than untreated radish leaves. Body weight gain and food efficiency ratio (FER) of the HF group increased compared to the MA, MB and MC groups. The serum total cholesterol, LDL-cholesterol and atherogenic index contents in the radish leaf powder-supplemented groups were lower than that of the HF group, while those values for the MB and MC groups were significantly lower than that of the HF group. The serum HDL-cholesterol contents of the MB and MC groups increased compared to the HF group. The hepatic triglyceride contents of the MA, MB and MC groups decreased compared to the HF group. In fact, the hepatic triglyceride contents of the MB and MC groups were significantly lower than the MA group. The hepatic total cholesterol contents of the MB and MC groups significantly decreased compared to those of the HF group. The fecal total cholesterol contents of the MA, MB and MC groups significantly increased compared to those of the HF group. These results indicate that supplementation with enzyme-treated radish leaves increase the useful fiber contents. Furthermore, it may have a pronounced impact on lipid metabolism of serum and liver in rats fed a high fat diet.