Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Family planning success in two cities in Zaire

Both projects described here, Matadi and Kananga, helped health providers in those two cities offer clinical family planning services. But their approaches differed markedly. The family education program in Matadi concentrated on pioneering community-based distribution of contraceptives, with carefully supervised distributors. The Kanaga Project emphasized clinical supervision and pleasing the clients; introduced social marketing with loose supervision of retailers; and provided an information team skilled in face-to-face group meetings, plus a weekly radio program. Four factors common to both projects seemed to contribute to their success: The single-minded dedication of staff members to making family planning work. An uninterrupted supply of affordable contraceptive methods available through outlets at many locations. Enough organizational autonomy to be able to respond to problems as they arose. Such autonomy made project personnel identify more with project goals and feel responsible for achieving project objectives. Regular and supportive supervision of those responsible for service delivery. Both projects emphasized regular contact with clinic personnel - Matadi also included distributors. These contacts bolstered morale by showing that the project administration was closely following service providers' activities and by transmitting to providers the staff's enthusiam for project activities. Supervisory visits included administrative functions such as collecting service statistics and controlling inventory, but these activities were handled in a friendly, nonthreatening manner that encouraged service providers to perform their tasks well. The fourth factor is adequate funding. Both projects had special funding that allowed them to experiment with approaches for increasing contraceptive prevalence. That funding may partly explain their organizational autonomy and may have contributed to the sense of purpose and esprit de corps that developed among project staff. Larger-scale programs in Zaire have operated with significant financial constraints, so it would be unfair to compare them with these more successful projects. Special funding does not guarantee project success but may make it far more likely, conclude the authors.
Comparative performance study of postal services: a productive efficiency approach

This paper first discusses the notion of economic performance as applied to public enterprises and argues that productive efficiency is an attractive approach to performance measurement for such firms. It then presents an empirical efficiency study of postal services which is aimed at comparing productive performance indicators across countries and at testing the effect of competition and regulation on these indicators.
Vortex Methods for Fluid Simulation in Computer Graphics

Fluid simulations for computer graphics applications have attracted the attention of many researchers and practitioners due to the enhanced realism that natural phenomena simulation adds to graphical applications. Vortex methods are receiving increasing attention from the computer graphics community for simple and direct modeling of complex flow phenomena such as turbulence. However, vortex methods have not been developed yet to the level of other techniques for fluid simulation in computer graphics. In this work we present a novel simulation framework to model inviscid flows using Lagrangian vortex particle methods. We introduce novel stable methods to solve the vorticity flow equations that produce highly detailed visual fluid simulations. We incorporate the full interplay of solids and fluids in our framework. The coupling between free-form solids, represented by arbitrary surface meshes and fluids simulated with vortex methods, leads to visually rich simulations. Previous vortex simulators only focus on modeling the solid as a boundary for the flow. We model solid boundaries using an extended potential flow at the solid surface coupled with a boundary layer simulation. This allows the accurate simulation of two processes of visual interest. The first is the introduction of surface vorticity in the main flow as turbulence (vortex shedding). The second is the motion of the solid induced by fluid forces, which is calculated from the dynamics of vorticity in the flow and the rate of vorticity creation at solid surfaces. We demonstrate high quality results of our methods simulating flows around solid objects and solid object propulsion due to flows. This work ameliorates one of the important omissions in the development of vortex methods for computer graphics, which is the simulation of two-way coupling of solids and fluids.
Implementation of Microfluidic Chip Electrophoresis for the Detection of B-cell Clonality

Abstract Introduction: A clonal population of B-cells is defined as those cells arising from the mitotic division of a single somatic cell with the same rearrangement of immunoglobulin genes. This gives rise to DNA markers for each individual lymphoid cell and its progenies and enables us to study clonality in different B-cell malignancies using multiplex polymerase chain reaction - PCR. The BIOMED-2 protocol has been implemented for clonality detection in lymphoproliferative diseases and exploits multiplex PCR reaction, subsequently analyzed by heteroduplex analysis (HDA) using polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (PAGE). With the advent of miniaturization and automation of molecular biology methods, lab-on-chip technologies were developed and replace partially the conventional approaches. We tested device for microfluidic chip, which is used for B-cells clonality analysis, using a PCR reaction for three subregions called frameworks (FR) of the immunoglobulin heavy locus (IGH) gene. Material and Methods: For the implementation and comparison of the two methods we analyzed three unknown B-cell chronic lymphocytic leukemia (B-CLL) samples. As positive control (PK) we used one formalin-fixed, paraffin-embedded (FFPE) sample from B-CLL lymph node. The DNA was extracted from FFPE sections and multiplex PCR was used to amplify IGH gene segments. After PCR, the HDA was performed, the DNA fragments were evaluated on the PAGE and the microfluidic chip electrophoresis as well, and the results were compared. Results: Using HDA with subsequent PAGE, we were able to confirm the clonality of the positive control and the tested samples. The same results were obtained by the Bioanalyzer 2100. The microfluidic chip electrophoresis was persuasive in all tested samples. Conclusion: The implementation of microfluidic chip electrophoresis for detection of B-cell clonality by BIOMED-2 protocol on the device Agilent 2100 Bioanalyzer was successful and yielded the same results as the HDA - PAGE. Moreover, chip electrophoresis system is faster for preparation and less laborious than the conventional HDA - PAGE method.
Supergene Vermiculitization of A Magnesian Chlorite: Iron and Magnesium Removal Processes

An X-ray powder diffraction study of a vermiculitized chlorite in an amphibole schist near Limoges, France, shows the following weathering sequence: chlorite → ordered interstratified chlorite/vermiculite → vermiculite. Mössbauer spectroscopy indicates that vermiculitization proceeded by the release of ferrous iron from the 2:1 mica layer of the chlorite. The ferric iron content of the vermiculite product is almost the same as that of the initial chlorite. Infrared spectroscopy and chemical microprobe analyses show that Mg was preferentially extracted from the hydroxide sheet of the chlorite, whereas the Si and A1 contents progressively increased to the point of the formation of a pure dioctahedral aluminous vermiculite. The Si, Al, and Mg removal processes support currently accepted vermiculitization mechanisms, but the behavior of Fe is slightly different. In this weathering sequence, vermiculitization does not appear to have taken place by the oxidation of Fe2+, but rather, by the simultaneous leaching of Fe2+ and Mg. RésuméL’analyse par diffraction de rayons X d’une chlorite magnésienne, dans une arène d’amphibolite, caractérise la séquence d’altération suivante: chlorite → interstratifié régulier chlorite/vermiculite → vermiculite. La spectroscopie Mössbauer indique que la vermiculitisation opère par libération du fer, à l’état ferreux, hors du feuillet 2:1 de la chlorite. La teneur en fer ferrique de la vermiculite est voisine de celle de la chlorite. Les analyses à la microsonde et en spectroscopie infrarouge montrent que Mg est préférentiellement libéré de la couche brucitique de la chlorite tandis que les teneurs en Si et Al augmentent avec l’altération jusqu’à la cristallisation d’une vermiculite dioctaédrique alumineuse. Les méchanismes de libération de Si, Al, et Mg sont semblables à ceux habituellement admis pour la vermiculitisation, mais le comportement du fer est différent. Dans cette séquence d’altération, la vermiculitisation ne procède pas par oxydation du fer, mais par départ simultané du fer ferreux et du magnésium.
Supporting Family Caregivers in End-of-Life Care: A Systematic Literature Review of Music Therapy Resources 1990 to 2012

This research involved a systematic literature review of music therapy research studies on the use of music therapy for end-of-life family caregivers published from 1990 to 2012 in peer-reviewed music therapy and non-music therapy journals, master theses, doctoral dissertations, and edited book chapters. A total of 14 music therapy studies were identified, and analyzed using a template with 22 categories that were derived and modified from Aigen’s 2008 templates. Several categories were particularly noteworthy: author, publishing venue, types of presentational form and context, topic and focus of the study; research method and procedures, evaluation standards and procedures, and the description of findings. Important findings included: more than half of the identified journal articles are found in non-music therapy journals, the most frequently-used methods are designed within a qualitative approach; and naturalistic inquiry is the most commonly-used methodology. In assessing these publications, it was found that more attention is needed on such particular areas as selection criteria, choice of evaluation standards and procedures, and the influence of dual relationships. Because of the great needs of end-of-life family caregivers, further research is still needed.
Combination of optical and electrical compensation of differential mode delay in MMF links for 10-gigabit ethernet

We present both optical and electrical compensation of Differential Mode Delay (DMD) in Multimode Fiber (MMF) links. Based on the rigorous analysis of optical compensation of DMD, a new kind of Dispersion Compensating Fiber (DCF) is proposed. We show that 10Gb/s Ethernet reach for conventional MMF can be extended to 300m by splicing 10~35m of this DCF. We prove that ISI resulting from DMD can be mitigated with electrical compensation by using linear or nonlinear equalizers. Moreover, we demonstrate that combination of optical and electrical compensation can dramatically enhance the bandwidth of installed MMF. Simulations carried out on six types of typical installed MMF for Overfilled Launch (OFL) as well as Restricted Mode Launch (RML) condition exhibit that transmission distance for conventional MMF with bandwidth-distance product 500MHz-km can be extended to 1000m or beyond with 2dB Eye-Opening Penalty (EOP).
Screening and Characterization of Oleaginous Fungi from Irish Soil for Growth under Low Carbon Substrates

In recent days microbial lipids are considered as one of the potential alternative to Biodiesel production. In nature several microorganisms when grown under nutrient stress conditions (High C: N) ratio including bacteria, fungi, yeast and algae capable of producing microbial oils (1-6). Utilization of low cost materials for production of lipids is major concern for commercialization. The number of oleaginous microorganisms currently in use for energy production is limited; for example, of the 600 yeasts only 25% are known to produce lipids and among 60,000 fungal species less than 50% are known to accumulate lipids (7). Although the numbers seem large, the number of oleaginous microorganisms in use is limited, since the microbial lipid production research and application until now is focused on production of special lipids rich in poly unsaturated fatty acids (such as gamma linolenic acid and arachidonic acid) (1, 8-12). Oleaginous fungi used for these special lipids production are mainly cultures belonging to International Journal of Current Microbiology and Applied Sciences ISSN: 2319-7706 Volume 6 Number 12 (2017) pp. 772-781 Journal homepage: http://www.ijcmas. com
Homogenization of Earthquake Catalogue in Terms of Magnitude in Iran and Adjoining Region

In any seismic hazard assessment a uniform earthquake catalogue is an essential parameter. In this research, an earthquake catalogue of Iran and adjacent areas was studied, using national and international catalogues. The considered region covers a quadrangle limited by 23 to 42°N and 42 to 65°E including Iran and adjacent areas. Earthquake data from the third millennium BC until 2014 were considered in this study. The standardization of the catalogue in terms of magnitude was achieved and new relations were generated to convert all types of magnitude into moment magnitude by using the orthogonal regression technique. Based on the proposed relations, MW can be estimated and considered as a unified magnitude scale.
Simulation for LEGO Mindstorms Robotics

The LEGO MINDSTORMS? toolkit can be used to help students learn basic programming and engineering concepts. The ROBOLAB? software is widely used to program LEGO MINDSTORMS robotics in its icon-based programming environment. However, this software does not provide debug features for LEGO MINDSTORMS programs. Users cannot test the program before downloading it into LEGO robotics hardware. This book introduces a simulator to simulate the motions of LEGO robotics in a virtual 3D environment. The simulator uses ODE (Open Dynamic Engine) and OpenGL, combined with ROBOLAB. It can track and display program execution as the simulation runs. An introduction to the overall structure and architecture of the simulator is given and is followed by a detailed description of each component in the system. The discussions based on several test results are then given. This leads to the conclusion that the simulator is able to accurately represent the actions of robots under certain assumptions and conditions. This work should help users to understand basic robotic simulation concepts, especially for those users who are working with LEGO MINDSTORMS.
Consumer Behavior and Regulation Biases: An Analysis of the Effect of Information on Food Consumption

Opposite to what is assumed by legislators and regulators, not all the information provided is properly absorbed, processed and used by consumers. Such ideas seem acceptable, but they are in conflict with two self-evident truths assumed by the economy and the consumer's rights. The first refers to the assumption that people act rationally when making choices based on their preferences. The second deals with the singular importance of balanced information in consumer relations. In this article, using empirical methodology based on sensorial analysis of food, the authors rise up against these truths. When evaluating the preferences of students regarding the consumption of chocolates and the effect of the information “diet” in relation to these choices, important results were obtained. They may indicate the need for regulation changes and provide evidence that food preference does not always respect the basic postulates of rationality.
New insights into hierarchical clustering and linguistic normalization for speaker diarization

The ever-expanding volume of available audio and multimedia data has elevated technologies related to content indexing and structuring to the forefront of research. Speaker diarization, commonly referred to as the `who spoke when? ' task, is one such example and has emerged as a prominent, core enabling technology in the wider speech processing research community. Speaker diarization involves the detection of speaker turns within an audio document (segmentation) and the grouping together of all same-speaker segments (clustering). Much progress has been made in the field over recent years partly spearheaded by the NIST Rich Transcription evaluations focus on meeting domain, in the proceedings of which are found two general approaches: top-down and bottom-up. Even though the best performing systems over recent years have all been bottom-up approaches we show in this thesis that the top-down approach is not without significant merit. Indeed we first introduce a new purification component leading to competitive performance to the bottom-up approach. Moreover, while investigating the two diarization approaches more thoroughly we show that they behave differently in discriminating between individual speakers and in normalizing unwanted acoustic variation, i.e.\ that which does not pertain to different speakers. This difference of behaviours leads to a new top-down/bottom-up system combination outperforming the respective baseline system. Finally, we introduce a new technology able to limit the influence of linguistic effects, responsible for biasing the convergence of the diarization system. Our novel approach is referred to as Phone Adaptive Training (PAT).
Redshifted broad absorption line quasars found via machine-learned spectral similarity

We report the discovery of 31 new redshifted broad absorption line quasars (RSBALs) from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS). The number of previously known such objects is 19. The identification of the new objects was enabled by calculating similarities between quasar spectra in the SDSS. Using these similarities we look for the objects that are similar to the ones in the original sample, visually inspecting only hundreds, out of over 160,000 spectra considered. We compare the performance of several similarity measures, as well as different methods of employing them, in finding the RSBALs. We find that decision tree based similarities recover the most objects, and that an ensemble of methods performs better than any single one. As the similarities are not tailored for the specific problem of finding RSBALs, they could be used for searching for other types of quasars. The similarities and the code for their calculation are available online.
Champagne School of Management, Groupe ESC Troyes, France

We assess the extent to which remotely-located firms are likely to discretionarily accumulate cash rather than distribute it to shareholders. We consider that these firms are less subject to shareholder scrutiny and, thus, will have high agency conflicts as the distance will facilitate the extraction of private benefits. Consistent with our predictions, we find a positive relation between the distance to the main metropolitan area and cash holdings, and this impact is more pronounced when the controlling shareholder has high levels of excess control rights (i.e., separation of cashflow rights and control rights). Our results hold even after accounting for all control variables, including financial constraints, and suggest that geographic remoteness can be conducive to severe agency problems, particularly when there is a large separation of cash-flow rights and control rights. JEL Classification: G30; G31; G32; G35.
Accelerating the molecular dynamics program LAMMPS using graphics cards' processors and the Nvidia Cuda technology

This bachelor thesis discusses the possibilities and limits of extending the widely-used Molecular Dynamics program LAMMPS (the Large Scale Atomic/Molecular Massive Parallel Simulator) in order to accelerate simulations by making use of modern graphic processing units in the framework of NVIDIA's Cuda technology. An own implementation serves as basis for the discussion. The first chapters summerizes selected aspects of Molecular Dynamics, LAMMPS' design and the Cuda technology for graphics card programming. On that basis, details of the above mentioned implementation are discussed, comparing different force calculation strategies and showing methods to avoid frequent data transfers from and to the graphics card. The following part of the work deals with benchmarks and the influence of factors like numerical precision and system size in typical Molecular Dynamics simulations, always comparing the results to the original version of LAMMPS with no graphics card support. Finally, conclusions of this work are presented and the implementation is compared with other similar projects.
The triangle formed by framing, agenda-setting and metacoverage

The study of framing is a process that takes place at different levels; in the culture; in the minds of the elite and media professionals; in the text of the information; and, in the minds of citizens as individuals. Therefore, framing is an individual psychological process, but also an organizational process, a product and a tool of strategy. In this article the author have conducted a review of concepts such as agenda-setting, metacoverage, gatekeeper, or priming that are evolving from the classic study of framing.
Carbon and nutrients stocks in even-aged maritime pine stands from Portugal

To comply with the demands of the Kyoto Protocol, industrialized countries must reliably estimate the stored carbon (C) in different pools of forest ecosystems. The main objective of this study was to quantify the biomass, C and nutrients stocks in the forest floor, understory, downed dead wood (DDW) and mineral soil of even-aged maritime pine (Pinus pinaster Ait.) stands from three contrasting regions of Portugal. Assessing the specific contribution of DDW to the C and nutrients stocks and how C concentration in the plant material differs from 0.50, the reference value used in many practical applications, were also objectives of this research. Biomass content of forest floor was determined by a quadrat method. Sampling units of 1 m2 were used for the understory. The line intersection method was adopted for sampling DDW and the mineral soil was sampled at three depths. Concentrations of C and nutrients were obtained by chemical analysis of samples from soil and milled plant material. Biomass and C in the trees were obtained using published equations. Total C stocks ranged between 100.6 Mg ha–1 and 308.6 Mg ha–1. Mineral soil shared up to 70-74% of global stored C, being the main cause of the global C stock differences among regions. Phosphorous and potassium were at low to very low levels in the mineral soil and plant material. The contribution of DDW to the C and nutrients pools was negligible. The percentage of C in the plant material ranged between 52% and 54%.
Verlichtings-, ammoniak-, stof- en arbeidsonderzoek bij twee volieresystemen

De belangrijkste resultaten van een ronde onderzoek naar twee voliOresystemen. Er zijn geen verschillen gevonden in technische resultaten, uitvalsoorzaken, percentage buitennesteieren en kwaliteit van het verenkleed. Dankzij terugdimmen van de verlichting kon het percentage bne's in de hand worden gehouden. Het onderzoek leverde een behoorlijk reductie op ten opzichte van de huidige norm van 90 gram per dierplaats per jaar. Uit het stofonderzoek is gebleken dat in de huidige voliOresystemen nog steeds veel stof wordt geproduceerd. Een ruimere opzet van de stellingen geeft een beter overzicht en bij sommige handelingen tijdsbesparing. Brede stellingen maken het rapen van buitennesteieren en verzamelen van dode dieren lastiger.
Quantum Physics and Quantum Information with Atoms, Photons, Electrical Circuits, and Spins

This Habilitation reports a series of experiments performed in the field of quantum physics and quantum information, with a variety of physical systems, ranging from Cavity Quantum Electrodynamics with Rydberg atoms coupled to single photons in a microwave cavity, to Circuit Quantum Electrodynamics with electrical circuits behaving as two-level atoms coupled to on-chip superconducting resonators.