Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The Impact of Community-Based Rehabilitation in a Post-Conflict Environment of Sri Lanka

Purpose: Conflict and disability are closely associated; it is therefore significant to examine strategies at the grassroots-level for restoring the human rights of people with disabilities living in post-conflict societies. The aim of this study is to reveal the impact of and issues with community-based rehabilitation (CBR) in the Northern Province of Sri Lanka that was ravaged by civil war from 1983 to 2009. Methods: The research was implemented in October 2016, in collaboration with a local NGO in the Mullaitivu district. A mixed-methods approach was followed, which included quantitative analysis of the NGO’s registration database of people with disabilities in the area (n=964), group interviews with 9 community rehabilitation committees (CRCs) of people with disabilities and their family members (n=118), and semi-structured interviews with clients of the CBR programme (n=5). Thematic analysis was applied to the narrative data. Results: The quantitative analysis on clients of the NGO revealed that 60.9% of disabilities were related to war. Livelihood assistance was the most common type of self-reported need (44.6%). The qualitative analysis revealed that in communities with inadequate local resources, CRCs that had access to livelihood assistance made a positive impact on the socioeconomic conditions of people with disabilities and their family members. Potential issues were observed, such as the expectation of and dependence on the financial aid without self-help. Some people with disabilities would not attend CRCs if there were no financial benefits. As most of the participants had war-related disabilities, it is also possible that participation of people with intellectual and psychiatric disabilities unrelated to war may not have been promoted in some CRCs. Conclusions: The CBR programme has had positive impacts on the living conditions of participants, albeit with some potential issues such as financial expectations and aid dependency. The authors argue that empowerment of people with disabilities and addressing socioeconomic inequality should be considered simultaneously.
Professional Studies 6-2018 Determinants of Organic Cotton Apparel Purchase : A Comparison of Young Consumers in the USA and South Korea

The purpose of this research was to examine consumers from distinct cultural groups and identify similarities and differences in their green purchase behaviors. The sample consisted of consumers from the U.S.A. and South Korea and the theory of planned behavior was used as a theoretical framework to test the influence of diverse constructs on consumers’ purchase intentions toward organic cotton apparel. For both countries, perceived behavioral control (PBC) and descriptive norms were strong predictors of purchase intentions and injunctive norms strongly influenced attitude formation. However, the study also found different results between the two groups. For example, while attitude was the strongest predictor of purchase intentions in the U.S.A. group (strength of influence on intentions: attitude > descriptive norms > PBC > injunctive norms), it had an insignificant effect in the South Korea group. For the South Korea group descriptive norms and PBC had strongest effects on consumers purchase intentions (strength of influence on intentions: descriptive norms = PBC > injunctive norms > attitude). South Koreans were more affected by the social pressure: their purchase intentions were strongly influenced by both injunctive norms and descriptive norms in contrast to the findings from American consumers. Injunctive norms were an insignificant predictor of purchase intentions in the U.S.A. group. This result is consistent with previous research that suggest conformity is a crucial factor for people belonging to a collectivistic culture. Exposure of others’ purchasing behavior is particularly important in motivating consumers’ buying in collectivistic culture. Marketers of organic cotton apparel may consider using diverse formats of media to display consumers’ ethical buying behaviors or creating product design or packaging that can directly reveal the ethical features of the product to display greater exposure in the market.
Longitudinal intra- and inter-individual variability in young swimmers' performance and determinant competition factors

"Analisis longitudinal de la variabilidade intra- y inter-individual del rendimiento y sus determinantes en nadadores jovenes. " El objetivo principal del estudio fue el seguimiento de la variabilidad intra- e inter-individual del rendimiento y sus factores determinantes de nadadores jovenes en dos temporadas competitivas. Treinta nadadores jovenes (14 ninos: 12.33±0.65 anos; 16 ninas: 11.15±0.55 anos) fueron seguidos a lo largo de dos temporadas competitivas (7 momentos de evaluacion). Se evaluo el rendimiento (100m estilo libre), e caracteristicas antropometricas, cinematicas, hidrodinamicas e la eficiencia. Se observo un efecto del sexo e del nivel de habilidad. Los ninos mejoraron en una cantidad superior (%) en comparacion con las ninas. En general, los nadadores de nivel de habilidad 2 (los dos sexos) presentaron una mayor variabilidad intra-individual. El rendimiento y la antropometria mostraron una variabilidad inter-individual significativa en la mayoria de los momentos, lo mismo no ocurrio con la hidrodinamica, la cinematica y la eficiencia. Dentro de cada nivel de habilidad, la hidrodinamica, la cinematica y la eficiencia fueron las variables que mostraron una alta variabilidad inter-individual. Como se ha observado un efecto de sexo e nivel de habilidad, entrenadores y practicantes deben poner el foco en los planes de formacion especificos y personalizados para cada nivel de habilidad de los nadadores.
Debris disks as signposts of terrestrial planet formation

There exists strong circumstantial evidence from their eccentric orbits that most of the known extra-solar planetary systems are the survivors of violent dynamical instabilities. Here we explore the effect of giant planet instabilities on the formation and survival of terrestrial planets. We numerically simulate the evolution of planetary systems around Sun-like stars that include three components: (i) an inner disk of planetesimals and planetary embryos; (ii) three giant planets at Jupiter-Saturn distances; and (iii) an outer disk of planetesimals comparable to estimates of the primitive Kuiper belt. We calculate the dust production and spectral energy distribution of each system by assuming that each planetesimal particle represents an ensemble of smaller bodies in collisional equilibrium. Our main result is a strong correlation between the evolution of the inner and outer parts of planetary systems, i.e. between the presence of terrestrial planets and debris disks. Strong giant planet instabilities – that produce very eccentric surviving planets – destroy all rocky material in the system, including fully-formed terrestrial planets if the instabilities occur late, and also destroy the icy planetesimal population. Stable or weakly unstable systems allow terrestrial planets to accrete in their inner regions and significant dust to be produced in their outer regions, detectable at mid-infrared wavelengths as debris disks. Stars older than ∼100 Myr with bright cold dust emission (in particular at λ ∼ 70 μm) signpost dynamically calm environments that were conducive to efficient terrestrial accretion. Such emission is present around ∼16% of billion-year old Solar-type stars. Our simulations yield numerous secondary results: 1) the typical eccentricities of as-yet undetected terrestrial planets are ∼0.1 but there exists a novel class of terrestrial planet system whose single planet undergoes large amplitude oscillations in orbital eccentricity and inclination; 2) by scaling our systems to match the observed semimajor axis distribution of giant exoplanets, we predict that terrestrial exoplanets in the same systems should be a few times more abundant at ∼0.5 AU than giant or terrestrial exoplanets at 1 AU; 3) the Solar System appears to be unusual in terms of its combination of a rich terrestrial planet system and a low dust content. This may be explained by the weak, outward-directed instability that is thought to have caused the late heavy bombardment.
Assessing the Spatial Drivers of Land Use and Land Cover Change in the Protected and Communal Areas of the Zambezi Region, Namibia

Understanding the patterns and drivers of land use and land cover (LULC) changes is fundamental for rational and specific planning for sustainable land management. Using remote sensing techniques, geographic information systems (GIS) and statistical modeling via multinomial logistic regression, we sought to identify spatial variables that determine LULC change and their extent over time in the protected and communal areas of the Zambezi Region, Namibia. Multi-temporal satellite imagery of the Landsat series was used to map changes over a period of twenty-six years, divided into three stages (1984–1991, 1991–2000 and 2000–2010). Post classification change detection methodologies were used to determine conversions between LULC classes. Additionally, socio-economic characteristics of the area were used to identify drivers of changes. Four spatial drivers of LULC change that we identified included the distance to the nearest road, distance to settlements, population density and fire return periods. Population density, distance to settlements and fire return period were significantly associated with conversion from crop/grass land to crop/grass land and forest land to crop/grass, forest land to bare land and forest land to forest land in the protected area. In communal areas, distance to the road was found to significantly influence conversion from crop/grass land to crop/grass land. The study concluded that the influence of these drivers is attributable to distinct political and agro-demographical differences during the study period. Policy makers and planners need to take these drivers into consideration together with their subsidiaries to respond and make sound decisions regarding undesirable changes in LULC.
A first evaluation campaign for language models

This article describes a comparative evaluation campaign for language models which has been set up by AUPELF-UREF 1 , an agency in charge of the promotion of the French language. Three laboratories have participated to the first part of this campaign. The language models have been compared with an original scheme derived from the Shannon game. The results of this evaluation as well as the description of the method and the evaluated language models are presented.
ASSESSING ADHD-RELATED FAMILY STRESS WITH THE DBSI : REPLICATION AND EXTENSION Assessing ADHD-Related Family Stressors with the DBSI : A Replication and Extension

The Disruptive Behavior Stress Inventory (DBSI) was developed to provide information related to the occurrence and severity of stressors that result from having a child with ADHD. Data provided in the initial study by Johnson and Reader (2002) provided good preliminary support for the reliability of the DBSI, as well the ability of the scale scores to differentiate primary caregivers of children with and without a history of ADHD. The present study was an attempt to replicate major findings of the 2002 study using an additional larger sample and extend it by conducting item-level analyses to determine the degree to which individual DBSI items differentiate primary caregivers of children with and without a history of ADHD. Results provided additional support for the reliability and validity of the DBSI by replicating major findings from the 2002 study and further suggesting that a large majority of the 40 items individually differentiate between primary caregivers of children with and without a history of ADHD.
Soaking in Aqueous Ammonia (SAA) Pretreatment of Whole Corn Kernels for Cellulosic Ethanol Production from the Fiber Fractions

Corn fiber is a co-product of commercial ethanol dry-grind plants, which is processed into distillers dried grains with solubles (DDGS) and used as animal feed, yet it holds high potential to be used as feedstock for additional ethanol production. Due to the tight structural make-up of corn fiber, a pretreatment step is necessary to make the cellulose and hemicellulose polymers in the solid fibrous matrix more accessible to the hydrolytic enzymes. A pretreatment process was developed in which whole corn kernels were soaked in aqueous solutions of 2.5, 5.0, 7.5, and 10.0 wt% ammonia at 105 °C for 24 h. The pretreated corn then was subjected to a conventional mashing procedure and subsequent ethanol fermentation using a commercial strain of natural Saccharomyces cerevisiae with addition of a commercial cellulase. Pretreatment of the corn with 7.5 wt% ammonia solution plus cellulase addition gave the highest ethanol production, which improved the yield in fermentation using 25 wt% solid from 334 g ethanol/kg corn obtained in the control (no pretreatment and no cellulase addition) to 379 g ethanol/kg corn (a 14% increase). The process developed can potentially be implemented in existing dry-grind ethanol facilities as a “bolt-on” process for additional ethanol production from corn fiber, and this additional ethanol can then qualify as “cellulosic ethanol” by the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA’s) Renewable Fuels Standard and thereby receive RINs (Renewable Identification Numbers).
Hemlock Poisoning and the Death of Socrates : Did Plato Tell the Truth ?

The closing pages of Plato’s Phaedo provide a stunning picture of the effects of poison upon the body of Socrates. Plato describes a slowly ascending paralysis, beginning in Socrates’ feet and creeping steadily up his legs toward his chest, with Socrates’ mind remaining clear until the end. Death arrives calmly and peacefully. It is a remarkable account, rich in emotive power and in clinical detail. But is it true?
Execute-Only Attacks against Execute-Only Defenses 1

—Execute-only defenses have been proposed as a way of mitigating information leakage attacks that have been widely used to bypass randomization-based memory corruption defenses. A recent technique, Readactor, provides one of the strongest implementations of execute-only defenses: it exploits novel hardware features to incorporate non-readable code to prevent direct information leakage, a layer of indirection to prevent indirect information leakage of pointers located on stack and heap, and code randomization as well as decoys to prevent brute-force attacks. In this paper, we demonstrate three novel attacks that can bypass Readactor as well as numerous other recent memory corruption defenses with various impacts. We analyze the prevalence of opportunities for such attacks in popular code bases and build two proof-of-concept exploits. Moreover, we implement countermeasures against our attacks in Readactor itself and discuss their implications. Our evaluations indicate that our countermeasures introduce only a modest additional overhead.
Spatio-temporal patterns in diversity of a fish assemblage along the Norwegian Skagerrak coast

Time series from 1953 to 1997 of 34 fish species sampled by beach seine at 69 stations along the Norwegian Skagerrak coast were analysed to describe spatial patterns of temporal variation in species richness and diversity. Principal Components Analyses were performed on species richness, total abundance and the Shannon diversity index. Spatially consistent temporal variation was detected on a scale exceeding that of the individual fjords. Two main spatial patterns were detected: one for the open Skagerrak, which showed large temporal variability with a decrease in the number of species for most of the study period followed by a recovery in the number of species, and another for the Oslofjord area, which did not show a recovery in the number of species. The total abundance and the Shannon diversity index for the same data set failed to reveal these spatial patterns. Underlying processes that might be related to the spatio-temporal variation of the fish assemblage, especially eutrophication and industrial pollution, and climatic changes are discussed.
Bandwidth based Distributed Denial of Service Attack Detection using Artificial Immune System 1

Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack cause a serious threat to the security of the network. There are two kinds of DDoS attack: Bandwidth dependent DDoS attack and resource consumption dependent DDoS attack. The Bandwidth dependent DDoS attack intrudes the network operation by creating congestion in the network by transmitting huge volume of traffic. Thus in this paper an efficient attack detection model has been proposed which analyses the traffic flow in the network and based on this information an artificial immune system is developed to classify the traffic into normal traffic and attack traffic. Simulations are performed to evaluate the effectiveness of the proposed approach.
Towards Validating Diagnosed Respiratory Sounds Using Dynamic Time Warping at Alexandria University Children Hospital (AUCH) - Egypt

The aim of this paper is to illustrate a new method that is suggested in order to validate the diagnosis of pulmonary diseases, in infants and children, within high accuracy. A very large database is constructed containing 500 adventitious respiratory sounds of 3 different categories, namely wheezes, stridor and rattle, in addition to 100 normal breath sounds. Sounds were collected from infants and young children till the age of 12 years old. All samples were acquired from AUCH-Egypt. Dynamic Time Warping using Short Time Fourier Transform is employed in the proposed technique, and the validation results were found to be over 85%. (Nader A. Fasseeh, Doaa A. Heiba, Mohamed M. Abougabal, Bassem S. Abdel Meguid and Mohamed Rizk M. Rizk. Towards Validating Diagnosed Respiratory Sounds Using Dynamic Time Warping at Alexandria University Children Hospital (AUCH)-Egypt. Life Sci J 2015;12(3s):12-23). (ISSN:1097-8135). http://www.lifesciencesite. com. 3
A Three-Dimensional Simulation of Coastal Upwelling off Oregon

Abstract The wind driven, x-y-t, two-layer β-plane numerical model developed by Hurlburt (1974) is used to investigate the effects of a bottom topography and coastline configuration, like that off Oregon, on the onset and decay of the ocean upwelling circulation. The digitized nearshore Oregon bathymetry is analyzed for dominant scales, and a smoothed version is used in model cases with several different initial states and wind stresses. Cases with topography are compared to cases with plane sea beds. Topographic variations are found to dominate over coastline irregularities in determining the longshore distribution of upwelling. Results indicate that stronger upwelling observed near Cape Blanco is primarily due to the local bottom topography and not the cape itself. Observed variations in the meridional and zonal flow are attributed to the topographic β-effect. In particular, during spin-up with an equatorward wind stress, a nearshore poleward undercurrent is most likely to develop in regions where topog.
Influence of the ITCZ on H2O2 in near surface waters in the equatorial Atlantic Ocean

H2O2 was measured in the upper water column (0–200 m) along a west‐east transect through the Equatorial Atlantic as part of the German SOLAS (Surface Ocean Lower Atmosphere) cruise Meteor 55 (M55). Vertical profiles of H2O2 showed characteristic exponential decay consistent with light profiles and rainwater inputs. Integrated (0–100 m) water column H2O2 inventories ranged from 1.1–8.9 mmol m−2 with the highest values in the Amazon Plume. H2O2 inventories were also higher at the Equatorial Upwelling and after heavy rain showers in the region of the Inter Tropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ). Analysis of rain water samples collected during the cruise gave a volume weighted mean of 10.8 μmol L−1 (range 1.5–22.3 μmol L−1). This work highlights the importance of rainwater as a major source for H2O2 in the surface waters under the ITCZ.
Systematic design of slow-light photonic waveguides

A pulse-delaying optimization scheme based on topology optimization for transient response of photonic crystal structures (PhCs) is formulated to obtain slow-light devices. The optimization process is started from a qualified W1 PhC waveguide design with group index ng≈40 obtained from a simple Edisonian parameter search. Based on this, the proposed pulse delaying and subsequent pulse restoring strategies yield a design that increases the group index by 75% to ng≈70±10% for an operational full-width at half-maximum (FWHM) bandwidth BFWHM=6 nm, and simultaneously minimizes interface penalty losses between the access ridge and the W1 PhC waveguide. To retain periodicity and symmetry, the active design set is limited to the in-/outlet region and a distributed supercell, and manufacturability is further enhanced by density filtering techniques combined with material phase projections.
5* Magic Wand: a RGBD camera-based 5 DoF pointing device for 3D interaction

This paper introduces the 5* Magic Wand, an inexpensive pointing device for 3D interaction. As users play the role of a “wizard”, the 5* Magic Wand allows them to interact with the computer by pointing to places, performing gestures, and casting “spells”. We have developed computer vision techniques to track the wand with 5 degrees of freedom, and built a real-time prototype consisting of a standard PC, a RGBD camera, and a simple stick. Finally, in order to demonstrate the applicability of the system for navigating in virtual environments, we have created a 3D application called “Magic Carpet”.
Towards a Cooperative Robotic System for Autonomous Pipe Cutting in Nuclear Decommissioning

A mobile camera is used to support an assisted teleoperation pipe-cutting system for nuclear decommissioning. The base system consists of dual-manipulators with a single mounted Kinect camera. The user selects the object from an onscreen image, whilst the computer control system automatically grasps the pipe with one end-effector and positions the second for cutting. However, the system fails in some cases because of data limitations, for example a partially obscured pipe in a challenging decommissioning scenario (simulated in the laboratory). Hence, the present article develops a new method to increase the use case scenarios via the introduction of mobile cameras e.g. for mounting on a drone. This is a non-trivial problem, with SLAM and ArUco fiducials introduced to locate the cameras, and a novel error correction method proposed for finding the ArUco markers. Preliminary results demonstrate the validity of the approach but improvements will be required for robust autonomous cutting. Hence, to reduce the pipe position estimation errors, suggestions are made for various algorithmic and hardware refinements.
Antimicrobial activity of Syzygium aromaticum extracts against food spoilage bacteria

In this study, the emphasis was on extraction of aqueous and methanolic extract from whole clove (Syzygium aromaticum) that can be efficiently used as an antimicrobial agent with an ultimate objective of developing replacements for the synthetic chemical additives in food products. Antimicrobial activity of extract revealed that the solvent extract of clove has a great potential for the inhibition of microbial load. The value of antimicrobial activites of solvent extract ranged from 12 to 17 mm in the disc diffusion method as compared to aqueous extract i.e ranged from 12 to 16 mm. Minimum Inhibitory Concentrations were found from 17 to 23 mm for solvent extract and 13 to 17 mm for aqueous exract. The sensory characteristics of bread showed that the treatments had a highly significant effect on volume, color of crust, symmetry of form, evenness of bake, character of crust, grain, color of crumb, taste and texture and overall acceptability of bread. Significantly lower total scores for the bread were exhibited by the bread supplemented with 2 and 2.5% clove extract. The results revealed that bread containing up to 1% clove extract is acceptable.