Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Vision of Research on Human Linear Growth

The human body grows in length from conception to the maximal adult height over two decades. The shortest male population averages ∼150 cm and the tallest ∼183 cm. Nonetheless the dimensions of head and trunk are highly comparable, with the vast difference in the leg length. Stunting is a personal condition in which an individual has a standing height-for-age (HAZ) of less than two standard deviations of the standard curve median. It is associated with increased mortality, morbidity, and functional deficits. The process of losing relative stature is known as linear growth retardation, first attributed to chronic protein deficiency, then to an assortment of micronutrient deficiencies, and most recently to inflammation from unhygienic environmental conditions. Public health intervention trials responding to each of these possibilities have failed to produce true reversal responses measured in the 10s of centimeters. As to biological insights, there is no convenient way to separate weight from length growth with sonographic monitoring, but a third of infants can be born stunted. Normative growth (standard curves) competes with epigenetic adaptation (programming) as the beacon for in utero growth. Major investments into field trials allow us to discard multiple micronutrients and water/sanitation/hygiene interventions as measures to reverse established stunting. The preponderance of evidence is against catch-up growth during puberty. Future publications will be in the conceptual domain, resolving metrics, while the full range of stimuli and exposures impeding growth will be elucidated. Advances in measurement techniques in anthropometry and immunology and endocrinology will be mobilized to the literature.
Exploring the potential association among sleep disturbances, cognitive impairments, and immune activation in 22q11.2 deletion syndrome

22q11.2 deletion syndrome (22q11.DS) is a neurogenetic disorder caused by a microdeletion in chromosome 22. Its phenotype includes high rates of psychiatric disorders, immune system abnormalities, and cognitive impairments. We assessed the quality of sleep in 22q11.2DS and its potential link to inflammatory markers and cognitive deficits. Thirty‐three 22q11.2DS individuals and 24 healthy controls were studied. Sleep parameters were assessed by the Pittsburgh sleep quality index (PSQI) questionnaire and correlated with serum cytokine levels and cognitive functioning, measured using the Penn computerized neurocognitive battery (CNB). The 22q11.2DS individuals had significantly worse sleep quality scores than the controls, unrelated to the psychiatric or physical comorbidities common to 22q11.2DS. Interleukin 6 levels were correlated with the overall score of the PSQI questionnaire for nonpsychotic 22q11.2DS participants only. Several domains of the CNB were associated with poorer sleep quality, suggesting that cognitive impairments in 22q11.2DS may be at least partially explained by poor sleep quality. Our findings confirm sleep impairments in individuals with 22q11.2DS, which might negatively affect their cognitive functioning, and corroborate a potential role of immunological pathways in the 22q11.2DS neuro‐phenotype.
THE FIRM IN ILLYRIA: MARKET SYNDICALISM

The discussion of the feasibility of socialism has long been closed with apparently quite general agreement that an economy will not inevitably collapse as a result of nationalization of the means of production. On the theoretical side the clinching argument was probably made by Barone shortly after the controversy began [2]. Probably the best known of the arguments on the other side of the question, that of Mises [15], was published twelve years after Barone's paper and gave rise to a new set of arguments, among them those of Taylor, Lange and Lerner [11] [12]. Lange in fact explicitly (though perhaps with a touch of irony) developed market socialism as a counterexample for Mises' assertions. Today one might be inclined to take market socialism as something more than a theoretical counterexample. But as a serious proposal for social reform it leaves some important questions unanswered. For example the problem of the emergence of a bureaucracy in whose hands the economic power is largely concentrated was raised by Lange himself. Another unanswered question has to do with the behavioral response of decision-makers to such directives as the rules for determining output and changing price. Will the rules be simply obeyed or will various means of simulating compliance while serving other ends be developed? These two questions are of special interest today as one watches some Eastern European countries groping toward a less centralized form of economic organization, and as one watches Western European socialists struggle with the implications for democracy (and efficiency) of further nationalization. In the present paper a few of the implications of one possible alternative form of industrial organization are explored. In this model the means of production are nationalized and the factories turned over to the general management of elected committees of workers who are free to set price and output policy in their own material self-interest. The nature of the resulting price and output
Cost-Effective 4 GHz VCO Using Only Miniature Spirals Realized in a 0.18 μm CMOS Process for Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) Applications

This paper presents an extremely cost-effective radio-frequency integrated circuit (RFIC) implementation technique by employing a digital logic CMOS process and reducing area occupation for voltage-controlled oscillators (VCOs) using all miniature inductors for wireless sensor network (WSN) applications. The designed VCO operates in the 4.0 GHz band with a power consumption of 1.4 mW and a phase noise of −113.6 dBc/Hz at 1 MHz, occupying a Si area of 0.283 × 0.682 mm2. In addition, we confirmed that the figure of merit (FOM) of 183.8 in our design is competitive with that of other LC-VCOs that were fabricated using the RF option and designed with conventional inductors.
Cristian Morales-Opazo Revisiting the recent food crises Agricultural Markets Instability

The book explores which factors and drivers are volatility-increasing and which others are price level-increasing, and whether these two distinctive effects can be identified and measured. It considers the extent to which increasing instability affects agents in the value chain, as well as the actual impacts on the most vulnerable households in the EU and in selected developing countries. It also analyses which policies are more effective to avert and mitigate the effects of instability.
Collaboration networks and innovation in Quebec ’ s ICT hardware cluster 1

Over the last few decades, the importance of collaboration networks has increased in scientific research in a vast number of sectors. The ICT hardware industry is no exception and both firms and academic researchers are, for different reasons, seeking to establish partnerships. In recent literature, small-world network structure has shown optimal transmission properties. In this paper, using the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada data for a 10-year period (2003-2013), two sets of collaboration networks have been created: the first is composed solely of researchers while the second set adds partnering organizations, such as private firms, to the researchers’ collaboration network. Social network analysis is then used to measure various structure-related indicators of the two resulting networks. Our results show the presence of small-world properties suggesting an efficient knowledge transmission through the collaboration network. The important role of firms as central connectors in the networks is also highlighted. This is a very first draft, please do not cite without the authors’ permission
A Review of Macro Modelling in Ethiopia

This paper examines the main features of African (and Ethiopian) macro models, with aim of developing an applied macro model for Ethiopia. Since applied macro modelling in Africa is largely informed by the IMF and World Bank models, a detailed discussion of the theoretical underpinning of these models is done. This is followed by a brief review of a number of published macro models of Africa, with the aim of examining the main features emphasised in these models. The paper then examined both academic and applied macro models in Ethiopia. Noting the paucity of macro models in Ethiopia, the paper concludes that current events call for developing an applied macro model and its institutionalization. Such a model could serve as an invaluable instrument for policy making and can be used in a sustainable manner if it is properly institutionalized.
THE PERCEPTUAL SIMILARITY OF TONE CLUSTERS: AN EXPERIMENTAL APPROACH TO THE LISTENING OF AVANT-GARDE MUSIC

This study examines the musical tone cluster as a prototypical sound of avant-garde music in the 20 th and 21 st cen-tury. Tone clusters marked a turning point from pitch-re-lated techniques of composing in earlier epochs to the sound-based materials used in avant-garde music. Henry Cowell offered the first theoretical reflection about the structure of clusters with a focus on tone density which re-lying on the number of tones and the ambitus of the cluster. In this paper we first show the results of a sound discrimi-nation experiment, where participants had to rate the sound similarity of prototypical cluster sounds with varying in densities. The results show congruency between theoretical features of the cluster structure, results of the timbre feature analysis, and perceptual evaluation of stimuli. The correlation between tone cluster density and psychoacoustical roughness was r = . 95 and between roughness and similarity ratings r = . 74. Overall, the similarity ratings of cluster sounds can be grouped into two classes of sounds: (a) those clusters with a high grade of perceptual discrim-ination depending on the cluster density and (b) those clusters of a more aurally saturated structure making it difficult to separate and evaluate them. Additionally, the relation-ship between similarity ratings and psychoacoustical features was also examined. Our findings can provide valua-ble insights into aural training methods for avant-garde music.
MAF 04: Dividend Yield as a Model for Value Investing on the JSE

In terms of the efficient market hypothesis, equity prices reflect all available relevant information and evidence indicates that active investing is not able to consistently offer higher returns than a strategy of passive investing. Yet a value investing strategy, following on the principles of Graham and Dodd and further expanded by Buffett and other value investors, implies that searching for and investing in companies trading below intrinsic value provides higher risk adjusted returns than comparable market proxies. Value investing may include a number of strategies such as investing in low P/E companies and investing in companies trading below net tangible value. Another value investing strategy involves finding and investing in high dividend yield companies or investing in companies offering dividend yields at least equal to 2/3 of the long-term government bond yield. The objective of this study is to evaluate whether investing in a portfolio of high dividend yield companies provides significantly greater returns than investing in a relevant market proxy or a portfolio of low dividend yield companies. This study ranks shares on the basis of dividend yields and back-tests share returns of investing in a portfolio of high dividend yield shares in relation to a relevant market proxy and/or investing in a portfolio of low dividend yield shares. In order to address to some extent the issue of survivorship bias, the relative returns of investing in high dividend yield shares as identified in prior published research reports are compared to the returns of investing in a relevant market proxy. 2016 SAAA National Teaching and Learning and Regional Conference Proceedings ISBN 978‐0‐620‐74761‐5
Landscape and Urban Planning

A wide range of studies have generally found that humans appreciate certain characteristics of natural habitats, in particular the presence of other living vertebrates. This “biophilia” may reflect evolved adaptive preferences, preferences that may continue to affect our behavior today. The present study examined whether urban Europeans pay increased attention to natural stimuli even in an unnatural environment. An aquarium was installed in the window display of a Vienna, Austria, shopping mall and its effect on the responses of passers-by recorded. Assessment was by review of videotapes and quantification of duration of stay in front of the window, periods of facing the window, and such communications as pointing in the presence of others. The total number of episodes quantified was 1002 out of a total of 12,921 persons on the videotapes. As expected, all the behavioral measures of attention and exploration that were assessed indeed increased when the aquarium was present. These findings bear implications for marketing, and moreover, for ameliorating the stress that modern city environments may place on the ancient human
Poor Families, Poor Outcomes: The Well-Being of Children and Youth

In any given year from 1987 to 1996, about one in five of all American children—some twelve to fourteen million—lived in families in which total income failed to exceed even the spartan thresholds used to define poverty. That so many of the youngest citizens of the wealthiest nation in the world are living poor is cause for concern. Indeed, the United States has a higher rate of poverty than most other Western industrialized nations (Smeeding and Rainwater 1995). And that child poverty has increased since the 1970s is also troubling (Hernandez 1993; see chapter 2). This volume explores the consequences and correlates of growing up poor as well as the mechanisms through which poverty influences children. The volume is organized around three key topics, with a primary focus on the research findings and a secondary concern with their policy implications. First, we examine the consequences of income poverty for children and youth and show that children raised in low-income families score lower than children from more affluent families do on assessments of health, cognitive development, school achievement, and emotional well-being. We examine both the effects of longerand shorter-term poverty upon children and the effects of the timing of poverty bouts upon well-being in the first two decades of life. The last two themes have implications for public policy vis-à-vis the timing of income supports to families. A second key topic is whether or not links between income poverty and child well-being are due to income per se or to the other family conditions that often occur with poverty. For example, poor families are also more likely to be headed by a single parent, a parent with low educational attainment, an unemployed parent, a parent in the low-wage market, a divorced parent, or a young parent. These familial conditions might account in large measure for the association between low income and less favorable outcomes for children. Specifically, we ask whether or not the effects of income poverty are due to household structure, parents’ age, or parents’ education. If, for example, family income does not matter
IVUS Image Segmentation Using Superpixel-Wise Fuzzy Clustering and Level Set Evolution

Reliable detection of the media-adventitia border (MAB) and the lumen-intima border (LIB) in intravascular ultrasound (IVUS) images remains a challenging task that is of high clinical interest. In this paper, we propose a superpixel-wise fuzzy clustering technique modified by edges, followed by level set evolution (SFCME-LSE), for automatic border extraction in 40 MHz IVUS images. The contributions are three-fold. First, the usage of superpixels suppresses the influence of speckle noise in ultrasound images on the clustering results. Second, we propose a region of interest (ROI) assignment scheme to prevent the segmentation from being distracted by pathological structures and artifacts. Finally, the contour is converged towards the target boundary through LSE with an appropriately improved edge indicator. Quantitative evaluations on two IVUS datasets by the Jaccard measure (JM), the percentage of area difference (PAD), and the Hausdorff distance (HD) demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed SFCME-LSE method. SFCME-LSE achieves the minimal HD of 1.20 ± 0.66 mm and 1.18 ± 0.70 mm for the MAB and LIB, respectively, among several state-of-the-art methods on a publicly available dataset.
Two-Stage Modeling and Control of Concurrent Tasks in a Multi-Kernel GPGPU Environment

The unrivaled computing capabilities of modern GPUs meet the demand of processing massive amounts of data seen in many application domains. While traditional HPC systems support applications as standalone entities that occupy entire GPUs, there are systems where multiple tasks are meant to be run at the same time in the same device. To that end, systemlevel resource management mechanisms are needed to fully unleash the computing power of GPUs in large data processing. In our previous work, we designed and implemented a push-based DBMS named G-SDMS that supports concurrent data processing on GPUs under NVidia’s CUDA framework. This paper focuses on resource allocation of multiple GPU applications towards optimization of system throughput in the context of systems such as G-SDMS. Our approach is to control the launching parameters of multiple GPU kernels as provided by compile-time performance modeling as kernel-level optimization. Specifically, we construct a multi-dimensional knapsack model to maximize concurrency in a multi-kernel environment. We present an in-depth analysis of our model and develop an algorithm based on dynamic programming technique to solve the model. We prove the algorithm can find optimal solutions (in terms of thread concurrency) to the problem and bears pseudopolynomial complexity on both time and space. Such results are verified by extensive experiments running on our microbenchmark that consists of real-world CUDA kernels. Furthermore, solutions identified by our method also significantly reduce the total running time of the workload, as compared to sequential and random scheduling schemes. We also present a more general pre-processing model with batch-level control to enhance performance.
Metadata Protection Considerations for TLS Present and Future (draft)

TLS 1.3 takes important steps to improve both performance and security, so far offers little protection against traffic analysis or fingerprinting using unencrypted metadata or other side-channels such as transmission lengths and timings. This paper explores metadata protection mechanisms for TLS, including already-included provisions (e.g., record padding), provisions not yet included but potentially feasible in TLS 1.3 (e.g., optional or encrypted headers), and provisions that are likely too ambitious to achieve in TLS 1.3 but may be worth considering for a future “TLS 2.0” (e.g., fully encrypted and authenticated negotiation/handshaking). In addition, we briefly explore how these metadata protection provisions might apply to the datagram-oriented DTLS, or to a version of TLS supporting out-of-order
Urdu Translation, Reliability and Validity of Personality Assessment Questionnaire- Adult Version

The aim of the present study was to translate Personality Assessment Questionnaire -Adult version (Adult PAQ, Rohner, 2005) in Urdu and to determine validity and reliability of the Urdu version of Adult Personality Assessment Questionnaire (Adult PAQ, Urdu translation by Munaf, Huassain & Kamrani, 2009), and its subscales of hostility and aggression, dependence, negative self-esteem, negative self-adequacy, emotional unresponsiveness, emotional instability, and negative world view. A sample of 164 university students participated in the study. Results show that its validity and reliability was found to be adequate. Content validity of the scales was also established as adequate. Further Internal consistency, split half, correlation with the English version, inter item correlation, item total correlations and descriptive results are reported for the testing sample in the section of results.
Glucosinolate and Isothiocyanate Contents of Frozen Broccoli, Brussels Sprouts and a Whole-food Cruciferous Supplement Over Time

Cruciferous vegetables have gained status as a functional food. Putative chemoprotective effects of cruciferous vegetables have been attributed to glucosinolates, which can be hydrolyzed to isothiocyanates (ITCs). Indole-3-carbinol (I3C), a product of glucobrassicin hydrolysis, is associated with in vitro and in vivo chemoprotective effects. The total glucosinolate and ITC contents and selected glucosinolate profiles of frozen broccoli and Brussels sprouts and a whole-food cruciferous supplement were determined. Brussels sprouts contained more total glucosinolates and glucobrassicin, whereas the supplement contained more ITC than either vegetable. Steaming the vegetables for 3-4 min did not affect glucosinolate or ITC content, except for decreases in glucobrassicin and gluconasturttin and an increase in ITC content in broccoli. Total glucosinolate, glucobrassicin, and ITC content declined over time in frozen broccoli and the supplement, but not in Brussels sprouts; however, substantial variability was observed. Interventions using whole-food cruciferous vegetables, should consider the cultivar, myrosinase content, and phytochemical degradation during storage.
HERBICIDE TOLERANCE IN PLANTS

Should the development of herbicide-tolerant plants be a focus of sustainable agricultural research? According to an Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) publication from 1985, herbicides comprised roughly 60 percent of the pesticides used in the United States, about 500 million pounds of the roughly 860 million pounds of pesticides used annually in this country. Of these 860 million pounds of pesticides, including herbicides, estimates are that perhaps at most, 1 percent reach their target pests. The rest simply contaminate soil, water, crops, and farm workers.