Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Vocational Education and Training Perception on Integration of Prisoners into the Society

This study sought to evaluate Vocational Education and Training (VET) perception on integration of prisoners back into the society. The study was undertaken in Mombasa County with a primary focus drawn to Shimo La Tewa main prison and Shimo La Tewa Medium Security Prison. Questionnaire instruments were used for data collection. Different questionnaires were administered to different response groups. The groups included the prison administrators, the trainers, trainees and ex-prisoners. Sample selection method was majorly purposive for all groups except for the trainees who were selected randomly from a pool of those who undertook VET. The information was coded, cleaned and analyzed using the Predictive Analytical Software (PASW). Mixed methods such as qualitative and quantitative techniques were used as the data collected was both qualitative and quantitative. To facilitate the data collection that was qualitative in nature open ended questions were captured in the questionnaire. Both descriptive and inferential statistics were used to deduce meaningful information. Regression analysis was done to assess the perception on integration of prisoners into the society. The model was found to be statistically significant (and the degree of linear relationship while the total amount of variation explained by perception was significant. Other perceptions deduced to impact on integration back into the society, societal point of view on the released persons, the prison administration point of view on the role of VET for inmates in prison and finally, the perception of trainers based in remunerative impact of VET on them. The research recommends that an orientation programme on importance of VET be conducted for prisoners before they can make choices on the types of courses that they wish to undertake, civic education for the society should be done for it is an integral part in ensuring successful re-entry for the prisoners, policies to reduce discrimination against prisoner need to be formulated and enacted, there is need to enhance human resource capital in prisons and finally, material resources to facilitate implementation of VET need to conform with market requirements.
People-based versus place-based policies: The 2009 World Development Report

The World Development Report ‘Reshaping Economic Geography’ is a bold attempt to set the agenda for spatial economic policy throughout the world. It promises governments a way to tackle uneven development by combining the pursuit of socio-spatial equality with stronger economic growth. This involves increasing density, reducing distance and lowering divisions. The framework is neat and internally consistent, but reducing the complexity of spatial development to a few simple distinctions results in serious omissions and shortcomings. First, the social, environmental and political effects of rapid urbanisation are neglected. Second, the role of local and regional institutions is ignored because of the focus on national institutions. Third, there is undue faith in the ability of trade and market forces to reduce spatial inequalities and a lack of faith in the capabilities of the state to stimulate development.
Micro Expression Classification Accuracy Assessment

The ability to identify and draw appropriate implications from non-verbal cues is a challenging task in facial expression recognition and has been investigated by various disciplines particularly social science, medical science, psychology and technological sciences beyond three decades. Non-verbal cues often last a few seconds and are obvious (macro) whereas others are very short and difficult to interpret (micro). This research is based on the area of micro expression recognition with the main focus laid on understanding and exploring the combined effect of various existing feature extraction techniques and one of the most renowned machine learning algorithms identified as Support Vector Machine (SVM). Experiments are conducted on spatiotemporal descriptors extracted from the CASME II dataset using LBP-TOP, LBP-SIP, LPQ-TOP, HOG-TOP, HIGO-TOP and STLBP-IP. We have considered two different cases for the CASME II dataset where the first case measures performance for five class i.e. happiness, disgust, surprise, repression and others and the second case considers three classes namely positive, negative and surprise. LPQ-TOP with SVM produced highest accuracy against rest of the approaches in this work.
HIV self-testing in Pune, India: perspectives and recommendations of female sex workers and peer educators

ABSTRACT Female sex workers (FSW) represent a focal point of the HIV epidemic in India. HIV self-testing (HIVST) could mitigate under-diagnosis of HIV and reduce disease transmission in this population. This study assessed the acceptability of HIVST through focus group discussions (FGD) with FSW. FSW expressed willingness to use HIVST and preference for saliva-based HIVST over blood-based HIVST and preferred that HIVST education, administration, and storage take place in trusted community centers and not in brothels. We provide preliminary recommendations for the implementation of an acceptable and feasible HIVST program for FSW in India.
Beam Commissioning of the i-BNCT Linac

The beam commissioning of the linac for the boron neutron capture therapy of Ibaraki prefecture (i-BNCT) has been started. The accelerator of i-BNCT consists of the 3-MeV RFQ and 8-MeV DTL. The 8-MeV beam injected on the target made of Beryllium in order to produce a intense neutron beam. The design of RF structure of the linac is based on the J-PARC linac. After the first observation of neutron production on December 2015, significant modifications to the linac were given in order to increase the operation stability and the beam power. The status of the beam commissioning of the i-BNCT is reported.
Professionalism

Introduction: Professionalism is one of the ACGME core competencies for radiology residency training. The COVID-19 pandemic has changed the way resident education and training occurs. The primary objective of this study was to perform a comprehensive systematic review of the literature pertaining to adapting professionalism training in radiology residency to the post-COVID-19 era education landscape. Methods: We reviewed English-language medicine and health services literature for research that described professionalism training in radiology residency in the post-COVID-19 era radiology search terms and key words in PubMed/MEDLINE and Scopus/Elsevier. Relevant studies were identi ﬁ ed with adherence to the guidelines set forth by the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses statement. Results: The search yielded a total 33 articles. We reviewed the citations and abstracts with the initial search yielding 22 articles (without duplicates). Of these, 10 were excluded based on the criteria set forth in the methods. The remaining unique 12 articles were included for qualitative synthesis. Discussion: This article should provide radiology educators with the tool they need to effectively education and evaluate radiology residents on professionalism in the post-COVID-19 era.
A Pool Model of the Mediator Exocytosis into the Synapse

A model describing the mediator release into a synaptic cleft and making allowance for the pool structure of the presynaptic region has been proposed. Namely, the presynaptic region is assumed to contain two pools with vesicles that accumulate the mediator. A nerve impulse stimulates the injection of mediator from the first pool into the synaptic cleft. Simultaneously, the mediator from the second pool diffuses into the first one. The replenishment of the second pool occurs by absorbing the mediator from the synaptic cleft. Various operational modes of this model are considered. In particular, specific features of the single-impulse transmission through the system are studied. The functioning of the system with a feedback (the output signal is supplied to the input of the system) is analyzed, and it is shown that, in this case, a parameter determining the feedback intensity has a critical character: at the parameter values not exceeding the critical value, the presence of feedback does not govern the functioning of the system at the qualitative level.
Subcycle mid-infrared coherent transients at 4  MHz repetition rate applicable to light-wave-driven scanning tunneling microscopy.

We produce subcycle mid-infrared (MIR) pulses at a 4 MHz repetition rate via the optical rectification (OR) of sub-10 fs near-infrared pulses delivered by an optical parametric chirped pulse amplifier. The coherent MIR pulses generated in a GaSe crystal under an ultrabroadband phase-matching condition contain only 0.58-0.85 oscillation cycles within the full width at half-maximum of the intensity envelope. The use of OR enables excellent phase stability of 56 mrad over 5.6 h, which is confirmed by field-resolved detection using electro-optic sampling. An electromagnetic simulation using a finite integration technique reveals that the peak field strength can easily exceed 10 V/nm owing to the field enhancement resulting from focusing MIR pulses onto a tunnel junction.
Scale Development Measuring Young Adults Attitudes Toward Electricity Saving Behaviour: An Indonesia Context

This study describes the development of instruments measuring young adults’ attitude toward electricity saving behaviour. Based on principles of scale purification, this study is started with qualitative preliminary study to confirm the opinion that public awareness to save electricity energy is still low and young adults are one of the age groups who most unaware to electricity saving behaviour. The study then followed by scale purification steps, involved 126 respondents for initial step and 254 respondents for the main step. Scale purification steps included: determine the domain of attitude toward electricity saving behaviour, identification of underlying dimensions of attitude toward electricity saving behaviour, generating the indicators, initial test of the indicators to limited respondents, test the coefficient of alpha and performing factor analysis, revise the instruments, assign the revised instruments to larger respondents, performing scale purification and establishing the final instruments. Results showed that the attitude toward electricity saving behaviour was determined by 1) belief, 2) perceived scarcity, 3) perceived risk, 4) reluctant and 5) evaluation. This study also develops indicators to measure intention toward electricity saving behaviour.
The Modified Caregiver Strain Index: Portuguese version

The Modified Caregiver Strain Index is a widely used tool to screen for caregiver strain in family caregivers. This study presents the Portuguese version of the Modified Caregiver Strain Index and explores its psychometric properties in a sample of 347 informal caregivers of older dependent individuals. Factor analysis revealed a two-factor structure and indicated satisfactory internal consistency. Criterion-related validity was supported by positive significant correlations with the emotional health of the caregiver (psychological distress). The findings show evidence of reliability and validity of the Portuguese version of the Modified Caregiver Strain Index encouraging its use in clinical and research fields.
A lightweight environment for 2D visual applications

People and organizations constantly use a wide variety of devices and formats to produce large volumes of data. This involves a series of challenges related to processing and transforming data into valuable knowledge to carry out informed decisions. This research work departs from the fact that information visualization is a critical element in the process of data analysis that takes advantage of the visual and cognitive abilities of people to explore, discover, interpret, and understand patterns in data with the use of visual representations and human-computer interaction techniques. This research proposes Diököl, a programming environment developed with Lua and OpenVG to facilitate the learning process of programmers with little experience in the implementation of visualizations. The environment was designed after the careful study of similar tools and the most popular visualization libraries. Its design takes into account their weaknesses and strengths to propose a set of features that can make it an efficient alternative to learning about and program visualizations. In addition to typical functionality provided by several visualization tools and libraries, Diököl is a lightweight environment that provides a simple and effective event manager, is scalable, small, portable and contributes an environment with a simple and easy to understand graphical interface and functionality, similar to the ones provided by Processing.
Wafer-scale epitaxial germanium (100), (111), (110) films on silicon using liquid phase crystallization

A wafer-scale method to obtain epitaxial germanium (Ge) on crystalline silicon (Si) using liquid-phase-crystallization (LPC) is presented. The technique provides a simple yet versatile method to grow epitaxial germanium on silicon with any crystallographic orientation: (100), (110) or (111). The process starts with amorphous Ge, which is melted and cooled in a controlled manner to form epitaxial germanium. LPC Ge films are continuous with an average grain-size of 2-5 μm. Rocking scan confirms that the LPC Ge is oriented with a threading dislocation density of ∼109 cm-2. The phi-scan confirms that LPC germanium is epitaxial with Ge (100), Ge (110) and Ge (111) showing four-fold, two-fold, and three-fold symmetry, respectively. The epitaxial quality of the Ge is influenced by the cleanliness of the Ge/Si interface; rate of cooling and ambient gas during LPC; and Ge layer thickness. Best films are obtained for 1 μm thick LPC Ge(100), cooled at ∼3-4 C/min in hydrogen ambient. Electron Hall mobility in these L.
Genetic Research Progress of Fruit Ripening and Quality Control

Fruit ripening involves many biochemical processes, mainly including aroma, sugar production, fruit softening and so on, which is closely related to a series of metabolic pathways in the process of fruit ripening. Therefore, it is of great significance for fruit quality improvement to study and understand the genetic mechanism of fruit ripening and quality regulation. Combined with the genetic studies of fruit ripening and quality improvement in recent years, this study summarized metabolic pathways in genetic analysis of fruit ripening, genetic law of fruit quality improvement, and quality QTL, aiming to provide technical reference for quality breeding of fruit plants.
Image Super-Resolution using Single Image Semi Coupled Dictionary Learning

Obtaining a high resolution image from a low resolution image plays an important role in many image processing applications. In Single Image Super Resolution (SISR), the desired high resolution output image is synthesized from a single low resolution input image. In this paper, Single Image Semi Coupled Dictionary Learning (SI-SCDL) method is proposed, where the dictionaries to represent the high and low resolution images are trained from the input image itself. In the proposed method, the online training stage is employed, where the dictionaries are learnt online and it does not require any external training database. Simulation results show that the proposed SI-SCDL method performs better when compared to other mentioned methods.
INBREEDING DEPRESSION AND GENETIC VARIABILITY IN NELLORE BREED

Inbreeding depression is caused by breeding between closely related individuals and can have a significant negative impact on cattle production. It can be estimated at the population level using pedigree analysis or molecular markers. Such estimations can then be used to better manage the genetic resources of herds. The objective of this study was to evaluate genetic variability and the influence of inbreeding depression on productive traits in 45 785 animals Nellore cattle (polled variety) from Brazil. Inbreeding depression was determined by fitting four regression models (linear, quadratic, exponential and Michaelis-Menten) to the errors generated by the animal model. The traits studied were weight at 205 (W205), 365 (W365) and 550 (W550) days of age. The effective number of founders (fe) and ancestors (fa) was 288 and 283, respectively, with 173 ancestors explaining 50% of the genetic variability in the population. Inbreeding depression effects were identified on all growth traits (W205, W365, and W550), demonstrating significant losses in evaluated weight means. For each 1% increase in inbreeding there was a depression of about 0.14% or 0.24 kg (W205), 0.12% or 0.29 kg (W365) and 0.09% or 0.29 kg (W550). Exponential and Michaelis-Menten models were similarly efficient predictors for all the traits (P<0.01). We conclude that Nellore cattle in Northeastern Brazil presents low genetic variation and the relationship between inbreeding and depressed productivity in this breed is not linear, with the greatest effects occurring when endogamy is above 20%. To change this scenario, it is important to use a high number of male breeders, mainly young individuals of high breeding value, and improvement of reproductive indexes of females. To achieve this goal, a traditional mating system focused on the utilization of a few (and famous) male breeders should be avoided by both farmers and technicians.
Implementation in Forex Forecasting

In 2016, a time series forecasting technique which combined the weighting factor calculation formula found in weighted moving average with Brown’s double exponential smoothing procedures had been introduced. The technique is known as Brown’s weighted exponential moving average (B-WEMA), as a new variant of double exponential smoothing method which does the exponential filter processes twice. In this research, we will try to implement the new method to forecast some foreign exchange, or known as forex data, including EUR/USD, AUD/USD, GBP/USD, USD/JPY, and EUR/JPY data. The time series data forecasting results using B-WEMA then be compared with other conventional and hybrid moving average methods, such as weighted moving average (WMA), exponential moving average (EMA), and Brown’s double exponential smoothing (B-DES). The comparison results show that B-WEMA has a better accuracy level than other forecasting methods used in this research.
Multitasking: Optimal Planning for Bandit Superprocesses

A bandit superprocess is a decision problem composed from multiple independent Markov decision processes (MDPs), coupled only by the constraint that, at each time step, the agent may act in only one of the MDPs. Multitasking problems of this kind are ubiquitous in the real world, yet very little is known about them from a computational viewpoint, beyond the observation that optimal policies for the superprocess may prescribe actions that would be suboptimal for an MDP considered in isolation. (This observation implies that many applications of sequential decision analysis in practice are technically incorrect, since the decision problem being solved is often part of a larger, unstated bandit superprocess.) The paper summarizes the state-of-the-art in the theory of bandit superprocesses and contributes a novel upper bound on the global value function of a bandit superprocess, defined in terms of a direct relaxation of the arms. The bound is equivalent to an existing bound (the Whittle integral), but is defined constructively, as the value of a related multi-armed bandit. We provide a new method to compute this bound and derive the first practical algorithm to select optimal actions in bandit superprocesses. The algorithm operates by repeatedly establishing dominance relations between actions using upper and lower bounds on action values. Experiments indicate that the algorithm's run-time compares very favorably to other possible algorithms designed for more general factored MDPs.
Investing for Impact: An evaluation of Finnish social impact bonds and their cross-border transferability

The purpose of this research was to identify institutional factors inherent in Finnish culture as well as outside contexts so that Finnish Social Impact Bond models may be successfully transferred across borders. The research question of the thesis is: How can Finnish models for Social Impact Bonds be transferred to cross-border contexts? This thesis has contributed to various theoretical perspectives by adding to existing literature on institutionalism, organizational learning and knowledge transfer, and social impact assessment. The aim of this research was to understand the relationship between institutions and knowledge transfer established by various scholars in connection to social impact, a new area of study, and to provide a more robust sense of how to operate in this emergent field. This has been accomplished through the use of a new theoretical framework, which takes into account Finnish institutions as well as those in outside contexts, and the activities that will allow for successful knowledge transfer, as highlighted in the literature review. The research was conducted through an intensive single case study on the organization, Sitra, the Finnish Innovation Fund. Sitra was chosen as the case company due to their tremendous efforts in establishing Finland as a leader in the outcomes-based contracting industry, and particularly Social Impact Bond modeling. The qualitative approach was enhanced through interviews with six employees of Sitra, all within the impact investing team, and publicly available documents regarding Finland and Sitra’s current bonds, bond modeling structure, and implementation practices. The findings of the study have been in alignment with the literature discussed. Although some institutional aspects of outside contexts were difficult to determine in order to successfully transfer the Finnish models across borders, the findings do specify institutional factors to take into account and detailed activities to be implemented when building a bond model in other countries. The institutional factors found to be pertinent to successful implementation of a bond project were inherent in society, government, and the stakeholders working on the project, as well as supportive organizations such as Sitra. The findings also established activities such as collaboration, building ecosystems, use of platforms for knowledge dissemination, learning from experience, and mindset changes to be the most important for success of the model. This study has found a variety of contributions to theory, practical implications for practitioners in the impact investing industry, and many areas for future research in this field. This research provided a new theoretical framework that bridges the gap between various theoretical perspectives in a forthcoming field, while offering insight to organizations seeking to implement their own projects.