Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Understanding the meaning of autonomy in adolescent pregnancy decision-making: lessons from Ghana

Introduction adolescent pregnancy in Ghana, like in most low and middle income countries, is an issue of immense public health importance. Pregnant adolescents are faced with the stronger dilemma of either terminating the unwanted pregnancy or keeping it. This discourse which is based on findings from empirical research in Accra Ghana aims at contributing to the usefulness of understanding the meaning and scope of autonomy when it comes to providing ethically grounded, and adolescent friendly, reproductive health care services to pregnant adolescents. The aim of this work was to document the meaning and determinants of autonomous decision making among pregnant adolescents in the James Town area of Accra, Ghana. Methods thirty (30) semi-structured in depth interviews were conducted among adolescents who had been pregnant at least once, 23 in depth interviews among purposively selected stakeholders (parents, teachers, NGO staff working in reproductive health, community volunteers), and 8 focus group discussions among parents, teachers, adolescent students who had not been pregnant before, and adolescents who had at least one pregnancy in the past. Data were transcribed verbatim and analyzed thematically. Results most adolescents reported that the final decision to continue a pregnancy to term or go in for an abortion was taken by them. The partner´s willingness to take responsibility of the pregnant adolescent and baby, as well as financial considerations, were main players in deciding upon the pregnancy outcomes. Cultural desirability for children and health care provider/father paternalism (power dynamics) in the decision-making process were central considerations in the decision-making process. Unaffordable and unfriendly safe abortion services pushed adolescents to either continue pregnancies to term against their will, or opt to visit unsafe abortion care providers. Conclusion adolescents stand to make truly autonomous decisions if they are provided with the right information, at the right time, at the right place, by the right persons, and in the right way. Health system, economic, and cultural factors play significant roles in rendering pregnant adolescent autonomy meaningful when deciding upon their pregnancy outcomes. Continuing pregnancies to term against one´s will or being forced to go in for an abortion are ethically unjustified. Further research is required to examine the long-term consequences of forced pregnancy terminations or births.
A Turkish-Speaking Community Program in A Primary Care Psychotherapy Setting: How to Support and Engage A Complex Patient Population

ABSTRACT This paper presents a description of a multigroup-based psychotherapy program for Turkish-speaking individuals provided by an innovative primary care mental health service in London. As of 2021, the project offers two types of therapy: a year-long horticultural group, which is a blend between talking therapy and gardening, and a 20-week psychotherapy group. Both were designed to engage the particularly complex Turkish-speaking patient population in the London Borough of Hackney. The project is grounded in group psychotherapy and borrows elements from different theoretical orientations and therapeutic modalities including community psychology, group analytic therapy, horticultural therapy, attachment theory, and dynamic therapies. Here, we present how the program was created and developed and the specifics of the groups, together with the main themes and dynamics that emerged in the therapeutic process. The program evaluation and outcomes are illustrated by several clinical case vignettes throughout the paper.
A price for peace: troop contributing countries’ responses to peacekeeper fatalities

ABSTRACT How do states respond to fatalities of their troops in UN peacekeeping operations (PKOs)? Recent research highlights that participation in peacekeeping is costly for most states. Personnel fatalities should create further costs for contributors and often result in a reduction of their commitments. Studies that evaluate this expectation yield mixed findings. One finds no evidence that OECD countries provide fewer personnel to UN PKOs following fatalities. In contrast, another finds that fatalities generally correspond with reductions in states’ personnel commitments to UN operations in Africa but also reveals that wealthier contributors tend to withdraw at larger magnitudes than their poorer counterparts. This study builds on this work by further hypothesizing that the incentives that motivate states to participate in PKOs condition their willingness to maintain their contributions after experiencing fatalities. An analysis of states’ troop fatalities and commitments to 41 UN operations from 1990 to 2015 supports this expectation. States that are contiguous to an operation, which face greater concerns about the externalities of nearby conflicts, and states that receive side payments for their troop commitments, via foreign aid, are more willing to maintain their commitments in response to fatalities of their troops than other contributors. Additional findings suggest that non-contiguous contributors that do not receive side payments are also inclined to withdraw troops in response to upticks in organized violence surrounding a mission as well as fatalities of other contributors’ troops. These results illustrate that the motives that states face to participate in PKOs also affect their willingness to maintain their troop commitments as their costs for participation increase.
DETECTION OF SEIZURE TYPES FROM THE WAVELET ENERGY OF SCALP EEG

Epilepsy is a disabling and devastating neurological disorder, characterized by recurrent seizures. These seizures are caused by the abrupt disturbance of the brain and are categorized into various types based on the clinical manifestations and localization. Seizures with clinical manifestations require immediate medical attention. In this work, an attempt has been made to differentiate the seizures with and without clinical manifestations using wavelet energy of scalp EEG signals. For this purpose, scalp EEG records from the publically available Temple University Hospital (TUH) database are considered in this work. The first four seconds of scalp EEG during seizure is subjected to seven-level Daubechies (db4) wavelet decomposition and energy is extracted from the resultant coefficients. These features are used to develop k-Nearest Neighbor (k-NN) classification model for the detection. The results show that the energy associated with most of the sub-bands exhibits significant difference (p<0.05) in these two types of seizures. It is found that the machine learning model based on k-NN achieves an accuracy of 87.6% and precision of 87.3%. Therefore, it appears that the proposed approach could aid in detecting life-threatening seizures in clinical settings.
Iron production in Ptolemaic Egypt: From the Abu Gerida specular hematite mines to the Hamama smelting workshop

Although ancient Egypt has a firmly established record of mining and metallurgy of gold and copper, iron production in ancient Egypt is less well documented. Evidence of ancient iron manufacture in Egypt is to be found in the burnt plant remains, slag fragments, and a furnace‐like structure discovered in the Hamama workshop in the Eastern Desert of Egypt. The iron ore required for iron production was delivered from the nearby specular hematite mines of the Abu Gerida area. This Egyptian specularite is geochemically distinguished from other Mediterranean varieties of specularite such as those in Elba, Tuscany, and Seriphos Island. The bloomery iron smelting process in the Hamama workshop produced two types of slags: furnace slags and tapping slags. These two types show different petrographic features and geochemical signatures. Some of the geochemical signatures of the slags, such as their high calcium contents, were derived from charcoal, while others were related to the ore used during the smelting process. Radiocarbon dating of the charred plant remains from the Hamama workshop suggests that the iron smelting activities took place in the early Ptolemaic era. Iron production was seasonal and was conducted by locals who most likely had dynamic socioeconomic ties with the urban centers of the Nile valley.
COPING WITH COVID; UNDERSTANDING AND MITIGATING DISADVANTAGES EXPERIENCED BY FIRST GENERATION SCHOLARS STUDYING ONLINE

ABSTRACT This article examines the implications of the transition to online or blended learning for first generation scholars (FGS) brought about by Covid-19. We present the findings of a mixed methods project that draws data from both in-depth qualitative interviews and a large quantitative survey of students at Durham University. We offer a comparative analysis of how FGS contrast to the general student body in relation to a range of key challenges that Covid-19 and the consequent ‘online pivot’ posed to university life including technological, social and resource based issues. Our findings demonstrate that FGS were particularly affected by this shift to online or blended learning. The final substantive section discusses a range of potential mitigation strategies adopted by the School of Government and International Affairs, Durham University, with the assumption that some, at least, of these, and our data, will be of wider relevance in the sector.
Trust, financial literacy, and financial market participation

Abstract Willingness to participate in financial markets is important for financial well-being, including the accumulation of retirement savings through self-directed pension programs. We consider the roles of two key factors, trust and financial literacy in financial market participation. We find both are strongly related to participation. Although trust is more uniformly correlated with increases in financial market participation, the relationship between financial literacy and engagement is u-shaped, with increases in financial literacy first associated with reductions and subsequently with increases in the levels of participation. Our findings suggest trust and financial literacy play different roles and that each is related to investment behaviors in important ways.
Regional Bicycle Network Evaluation and Strategic Planning: A Quantitative Methodological Approach Despite Limited Data Sources for Cycling

In cases where budgets and space are limited, the realization of new bicycle infrastructure is often hard, as an evaluation of the existing network or the benefits of new investments is rarely possible. Travel demand models can offer a tool to support decision makers, but because of limited data availability for cycling, the validity of the demand estimation and trip assignment are often questionable. This paper presents a quantitative method to evaluate a bicycle network and plan strategic improvements, despite limited data sources for cycling. The proposed method is based on a multimodal aggregate travel demand model. Instead of evaluating the effects of network improvements on the modal split as well as link and flow volumes, this method works the other way around. A desired modal share for cycling is set, and the resulting link and flow volumes are the basis for a hypothetical bicycle network that is able to satisfy this demand. The current bicycle network is compared with the hypothetical network, resulting in preferable actions and a ranking based on the importance and potentials to improve the modal share for cycling. Necessary accompanying measures for other transport modes can also be derived using this method. For example, our test case, a city in Austria with 300,000 inhabitants, showed that a shift of short trips in the inner city toward cycling would, without countermeasures, provide capacity for new longer car trips. The proposed method can be applied to existing travel models that already contain a mode choice model.
Breaking Cuckoo Hash: Black Box Attacks

Introduced less than twenty years ago, cuckoo hashing has a number of attractive features like a constant worst case number of memory accesses for queries and close to full memory utilization. Cuckoo hashing has been widely adopted to perform exact matching of an incoming key with a set of stored (key, value) pairs in both software and hardware implementations. This widespread adoption makes it important to consider the security of cuckoo hashing. Most hash based data structures can be attacked by generating collisions that reduce their performance. In fact, for cuckoo hashing collisions could lead to insertion failures which in some systems would lead to a system failure. For example, if cuckoo hashing is used to perform Ethernet lookup and a given MAC address cannot be added to the cuckoo hash, the switch would not be able to correctly forward frames to that address. Previous works have shown that this can be done when the attacker knows the hash functions used in the implementation. However, in many cases the attacker would not have that information and would only have access to the cuckoo hash operations to perform insertions, removals or queries. This article considers the security of a cuckoo hash to an attacker that has only a black box access to it. The analysis shows that by carefully performing user operations on the cuckoo hash, the attacker can force insertion failures with a small set of elements. The proposed attack has been implemented and tested for different configurations to demonstrate its feasibility. The fact that cuckoo hash can be broken with only access to its user functions should be taken into account when implementing it in critical systems. The article also discusses potential approaches to mitigate this vulnerability.
The Determining the Flight Routes of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles Groups Based on Improved Ant Colony Algorithms

It is proposed to use an improved ant colony algorithm to determine the flight paths of unmanned aerial vehicles groups to the objects of intrest. A study was conducted on the application of the MAX-MIN Ant System to simultaneously determine the flight paths of several groups of unmanned aerial vehicles from different airfields to different objects of interest. Obstacles in the path of the unmanned aerial vehicles flight are also taken into account. As an example, the problem of a unmanned aerial vehicles breakthrough of an air defense system is considered. The number of unmanned aerial vehicles required to destroy the object of impact with a given probability is taken into account. The efficiency of the algorithm in the conditions of non - stationary environment is also investigated. Keywords— unmanned aerial vehicle, group, ant colony algorithm, route, flight, optimization
Monte Carlo simulations for water adsorption in porous materials: Best practices and new insights

Technologies based on water adsorption such as water harvesting from air have tre-mendous potential in mitigating important global crises such as water scarcity. An important challenge to the deployment of such technologies is finding optimal adsorbent materials. Given the large materials space of available adsorbents, large-scale computational screening can be extremely helpful for this task. This work explores the methods and details associated with such screening procedures and recommends best practices. We also shed light on the limitations of traditionally used and inexpensive to compute prescreening approaches involving geometric and energetic features to predict water adsorption behavior of porous materials. Such approaches can provide general trends to predict adsorption behavior but may lead to the overlook of potentially important structures due to the complex nature of water adsorption. This study offers insights for future water adsorption simulations to facilitate the development of optimal water adsorbents.
A Unified Dialogue Management Strategy for Multi-intent Dialogue Conversations in Multiple Languages

Building Virtual Agents capable of carrying out complex queries of the user involving multiple intents of a domain is quite a challenge, because it demands that the agent manages several subtasks simultaneously. This article presents a universal Deep Reinforcement Learning framework that can synthesize dialogue managers capable of working in a task-oriented dialogue system encompassing various intents pertaining to a domain. The conversation between agent and user is broken down into hierarchies, to segregate subtasks pertinent to different intents. The concept of Hierarchical Reinforcement Learning, particularly options, is used to learn policies in different hierarchies that operates in distinct time steps to fulfill the user query successfully. The dialogue manager comprises top-level intent meta-policy to select among subtasks or options and a low-level controller policy to pick primitive actions to communicate with the user to complete the subtask provided to it by the top-level policy in varying intents of a domain. The proposed dialogue management module has been trained in a way such that it can be reused for any language for which it has been developed with little to no supervision. The developed system has been demonstrated for “Air Travel” and “Restaurant” domain in English and Hindi languages. Empirical results determine the robustness and efficacy of the learned dialogue policy as it outperforms several baselines and a state-of-the-art system.
Stable isotopes as measure of niche breadth of nesting green turtles (Chelonia mydas) on Rocas Atoll, Brazil

The study analysed the niche breadth of nesting green turtles, Chelonia mydas, on Rocas Atoll, Brazil, through stable isotopes (δ15N and δ13C), comparing samplings of egg yolk and carapace collected from two nesting groups (2017 and 2019). The mean δ15N values in egg yolk and carapace were 7.1‰ (2017) and 6.8‰ (2019), and 7.8‰ (2017) and 7.3‰ (2019), respectively. For δ13C, the mean values were -17.4‰ (2017) and -17.5‰ (2019) in egg yolk, and -18.4‰ (2017) and -17.9‰ (2019) in carapace. The results suggest herbivory in coastal-benthic environments as the main feeding pattern in this nesting population. The niche breadth was similar between 2017 and 2019 in both tissues. In general, the trophic diversity (NR, CR, CD and SEA) was comparable between years as well as the trophic redundancy (MNND and SDNND), which was overall high. The niche metrics pointed to a homogeneous feeding pattern in the two nesting groups (2017 and 2019). This study adds a piece to solve the puzzle of adult green turtle trophic ecology.
High-Speed Cutting of Synthetic Trabecular Bone– A Combined Experimental-Computational Investigation

Orthopaedic surgical cutting instruments are required to generate sufficient forces to penetrate bone tissue, while minimizing the risk of thermal and mechanical damage to the surrounding environment. This study presents a combined experimental-computational approach to deter-mine relationships between key cutting parameters and overall cutting performance of a polyu-rethane-based synthetic trabecular bone analogue under orthogonal cutting conditions. An ex-perimental model of orthogonal cutting was developed, whereby an adaptable cutting tool fix-ture driven by a servo-hydraulic uniaxial test machine was used to carry out cutting tests on Sawbone® trabecular bone analogues. A computational model of the orthogonal cutting process was developed using Abaqus/Explicit, whereby an Isotropic Hardening Crushable Foam elas-tic-plastic model was used to capture the complex post-yield behaviour of the synthetic trabecu-lar bone. It was found that lower tool rake-angles resulted in the formation of larger discontin-uous chips and higher cutting forces, while higher rake angles tended to lead to more continu-ous chip formation and lower cutting forces. The computational modelling framework provided excellent predictions of both chip formation and axial cutting forces over the wide range of cut-ting parameters, when compared to experimental observations. This represents the first experi-mentally-validated computational modelling framework for orthogonal cutting of trabecular bone and excellent potential to be applied to more complex three-dimensional cutting processes in the future.
Multiple C-C bond formation upon electrocatalytic reduction of CO2 by a molecular catalyst

Molecular macrocycles show very promising electrocatalytic properties for the reduction of carbon dioxide. Up to now, only C1 products were produced by these catalysts. We show here that iron phthalocyanine, a commercially available molecule based on earth abundant elements, can produce light hydrocarbons upon electrocatalytic reduction of CO2 in aqueous conditions and neutral pH. When an electrochemical potential of -0.7 to -1.1 V vs. RHE is applied to a glassy carbon electrode modified with iron phthalocyanine, carbon monoxide is generated as main product. An increasing fraction of hydrogen is observed as the potential is decreased and small amounts of C1 to C4 saturated and unsaturated products are evolved. Control experiments in the absence of CO2 or catalyst does not produce any of these compounds. X-ray spectroscopic analysis of the electrode during catalysis show that the molecular catalyst remains intact and is responsible from the reaction.
Scattering of a finite length anisotropic medium cylinder

Based on the conservation of electromagnetic energy, a theoretical model of equating the electromagnetic anisotropic medium to the electromagnetic isotropic medium is established. The correctness of this proposed model is verified, and how to use the model is presented. The equivalent permittivity of an anisotropic medium cylinder is researched by using the proposed model. It is found that the equivalent permittivity increases with the increase of the volume of the cylinder, and the electromagnetic mechanism of this phenomenon is presented. The analytical expression of the scattered field of an anisotropic cylinder being irradiated by a plane electromagnetic wave with a general direction is studied. It is found that the geometrical size of the finite length and the angle between the electromagnetic wave propagation direction and the symmetry axis of the cylinder have a great effect on the scattering of the anisotropic medium cylinder.
Development and Validation of an English Language Teacher Professional Identity Scale (ELTPIS)

The notion of teacher professional identity has become a regular fixture in numerous theoretical and empirical studies in both mainstream and L2 teacher education. Consequently, a number of scales have been designed and developed to quantify this construct. To be sure, the extant instruments are general with regard to both context and subject matter, and this line of inquiry has not addressed the quantification of the concept in the ELT profession. The present study was, therefore, an attempt to provide a (re)conceptualization of L2 teachers’ professional identity through exploring its underlying components. To this end, an initial 61-item, self-assessment questionnaire was developed using a comprehensive review of the related literature and experts’ opinion. The trial scale was then administered to a sample of 676 ELT teachers. Results of exploratory factor analysis reduced the instrument to 42 items, leading to a six-factor model which indicated that L2 teacher identity includes: researching and developing one’s own practice; language awareness; institutional and collective practice; engaging learners as whole persons; appraising one’s teacher self; and sociocultural and critical practice. Confirmatory factor analysis substantiated the resultant six-factor model as a robust and valid tool for measuring ELT teachers’ professional identity.