Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Editorial: Community health insurance (CHI) in sub‐Saharan Africa: researching the context

Community Health Insurance (CHI) is a general term for voluntary health insurance schemes organized at community level that are alternatively known as mutual health organizations medical aid societies medical aid schemes or micro-insurance schemes. The common characteristics are that they are run on a non-profit basis and they apply the basic principle of risk-sharing. The last two decades have seen an apparent boom in CHI in sub-Saharan Africa in terms of the sheer number of such initiatives and the increasing attention that some policy makers and development partners are paying to these ventures. The rationale for the current wave of promotion of CHI in Africa is based on two main factors. First the recognition that for African households financial accessibility to quality health care is a strongly felt need. Second the success of the Western European experience social health insurance initiated through small CHI schemes at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century suggesting that the financing of health care based on pooling of resources and risksharing may constitute a relevant policy option for African health care systems. (excerpt)
On the exact volume of metric balls in complex Grassmann manifolds

We evaluate the volume of metric balls in complex Grassmann manifolds. The ball is defined as a set of hyperplanes of a fixed dimension with reference to a center of not necessarily the same dimension. The normalized volume of balls corresponds to the cumulative distribution of quantization error for uniformly-distributed sources, a problem notably related to rate-distortion analysis, and to packing bounds. A generalized chordal distance for unequal dimensional subspaces is used. First, a symmetry property between complementary balls is presented, extending previous small ball results to larger radius. Then, the volume is shown to be reducible to a one-dimensional integral representation, valid for any radius. Accordingly, the overall problem boils down to evaluating a determinant of a matrix of same size than the subspace dimensionality. Examples of explicit polynomial expressions emanating from the integral formulation are given.
Design and benchmarking of ferroelectric FET based TCAM

We consider how emerging transistor technologies, specifically ferroelectric field effect transistors (or FeFETs), can realize compact and energy efficient ternary content addressable memories (TCAMs). As Moore's Law-based performance scaling trends slow, and many computational tasks of interest are now more data-centric than compute-centric, researchers are looking to improve performance/save energy by integrating efficient and compact logic/processing elements into various levels of the memory hierarchy. Potential benefits include reduced I/O traffic, energy/delay from data transfers, etc. A TCAM is an example of a logic-in-memory element that is ubiquitous in routers, caches, databases, and even neural networks. Not surprisingly, researchers continue to study how emerging technologies could lead to improved TCAMs. Recent work has considered how non-volatile (NV) memory technologies (e.g., resistive random access memory (ReRAM) or magnetic tunnel junctions (MTJs)) could best be used to construct low energy, NV TCAMs. However, acceptable Ron-Roff ratios and the two terminal nature of these devices introduce energy and area overheads. Due to hysteresis in a device's I-V curve, an FeFET-based NV TCAM, offers low area overhead, as well as search energies and search speeds that are superior to other TCAM designs (i.e., based on MTJ, ReRAM and CMOS in array- and architectural-level evaluations.)
Molecular Phylogeny of the Leafy Liverwort Lejeunea (Porellales): Evidence for a Neotropical Origin, Uneven Distribution of Sexual Systems and Insufficient Taxonomy

Background Lejeunea is a largely epiphytic, subcosmopolitan liverwort genus with a complex taxonomic history. Species circumscriptions and their relationships are subject to controversy; biogeographic history and diversification through time are largely unknown. Methodology and Results We employed sequences of two chloroplast regions (trnL-trnF, rbcL) and the nuclear ribosomal ITS region of 332 accessions to explore the phylogeny of the Harpalejeunea-Lejeunea-Microlejeunea complex. Lejeunea forms a well-supported clade that splits into two main lineages corresponding to L. subg. Lejeunea and L. subg. Crossotolejeunea. Neotropical accessions dominate early diverging lineages of both main clades of Lejeunea. This pattern suggests an origin in the Neotropics followed by several colonizations from the Neotropics into the Paleotropics and vice versa. Most Afro-Madagascan clades are related to Asian clades. Several temperate Lejeunea radiations were detected. Eighty two of the 91 investigated Lejeunea species could be identified to species level. Of these 82 species, 54 were represented by multiple accessions (25 para- or polyphyletic, 29 monophyletic). Twenty nine of the 36 investigated species of L. subg. Lejeunea were monoicous and 7 dioicous. Within L. subg. Crossotolejeunea, 15 of the 46 investigated species were monoicous and 31 dioicous. Some dioicous as well as some monoicous species have disjunct ranges. Conclusions/Significance We present the first global phylogeny of Lejeunea and the first example of a Neotropical origin of a Pantropical liverwort genus. Furthermore, we provide evidence for the Neotropics as a cradle of Lejeunea lineages and detect post-colonization radiations in Asia, Australasia, Afro-Madagascar and Europe. Dioicy/monoicy shifts are likely non-randomly distributed. The presented phylogeny points to the need of integrative taxonomical studies to clarify many Lejeunea binomials. Most importantly, it provides a framework for future studies on the diversification of this lineage in space and time, especially in the context of sexual systems in Lejeuneaceae.
Neural Development of Binaural Tuning through Hebbian Learning Predicts Frequency-Dependent Best Delays

Birds use microsecond differences in the arrival times of the sounds at the two ears to infer the location of a sound source in the horizontal plane. These interaural time differences (ITDs) are encoded by binaural neurons which fire more when the ITD matches their “best delay. ” In the textbook model of sound localization, the best delays of binaural neurons reflect the differences in axonal delays of their monaural inputs, but recent observations have cast doubts on this classical view because best delays were found to depend on preferred frequency. Here, we show that these observations are in fact consistent with the notion that best delays are created by differences in axonal delays, provided ITD tuning is created during development through spike-timing-dependent plasticity: basilar membrane filtering results in correlations between inputs to binaural neurons, which impact the selection of synapses during development, leading to the observed distribution of best delays.
A system for decorating QR code with facial image based on Interactive Evolutionary Computation and Case-Based Reasoning

This paper proposes a system for decorating QR code, the most popular two-dimensional barcode in Japan, with a facial image by Interactive Evolutionary Computation (IEC). QR code uses Reed-Solomon code which has error correction function, so a few images can be put on some appropriate positions of the code without damaging the implanted information; however it is hard to find such appropriate positions because they depend on QR code instances and images. The proposed system allows a user to capture his/her facial image with ease, to encode a sentence into a QR code, and to find good positions for the facial image on the code. Furthermore, the proposed system enables the user to choose the most desired design by iteratively selecting candidates the system displays. A simple experiment has shown that the proposed system makes a QR code decorated with a facial image within 10 to 20 minutes involving the time when a user thinks the implanted message and chooses a color.
Beat tracking of musical performances using low-level audio features

This paper presents and compares two methods of tracking the beat in musical performances, one based on a Bayesian decision framework and the other a gradient strategy. The techniques can be applied directly to a digitized performance (i.e., a soundfile) and do not require a musical score or a MIDI transcription. In both cases, the raw audio is first processed into a collection of "rhythm tracks" which represent the time evolution of various low-level features. The Bayesian approach chooses a set of parameters that represent the beat by modeling the rhythm tracks as a concatenation of random variables with a patterned structure of variances. The output of the estimator is a trio of parameters that represent the interval between beats, its change (derivative), and the position of the starting beat. Recursive (and potentially real time) approximations to the method are derived using particle filters, and their behavior is investigated via simulation on a variety of musical sources. The simpler method, which performs a gradient descent over a window of beats, tends to converge more slowly and to undulate about the desired answer. Several examples are presented that highlight both the strengths and weaknesses of the approaches.
An evaluation of the sandwich beam in four-point bending as a compressive test method for composites

The experimental phase of the study included compressive tests on HTS/PMR-15 graphite/polyimide, 2024-T3 aluminum alloy, and 5052 aluminum honeycomb at room temperature, and tensile tests on graphite/polyimide at room temperature, -157 C, and 316 C. Elastic properties and strength data are presented for three laminates. The room temperature elastic properties were generally found to differ in tension and compression with Young's modulus values differing by as much as twenty-six percent. The effect of temperature on modulus and strength was shown to be laminate dependent. A three-dimensional finite element analysis predicted an essentially uniform, uniaxial compressive stress state in the top flange test section of the sandwich beam. In conclusion, the sandwich beam can be used to obtain accurate, reliable Young's modulus and Poisson's ratio data for advanced composites; however, the ultimate compressive stress for some laminates may be influenced by the specimen geometry.
Evaluation of the reasons why freshly appearing citrus peel fluorescence during automatic inspection by fluorescent imaging technique

Defective unshu oranges (Citrus reticulate Blanco var. unshu) were sorted based on fluorescent imaging technique in a commercial packinghouse but fresh appearing unshu were rejected due to fluorescence appearing on their peel. We studied the various visible patterns based on colour, fluorescence and microscopic images, where even areas of the peel that are not obviously damaged can have fluorescence, to provide a categorization of fluorescence reasons. The categorization corresponded to: 1) hole and flow; 2) influenced by damaged or rotten fruits that have released peel oil onto it; 3) immature or poor peel quality; 4) whitish fluorescence due to agro-chemicals and 5) variation of the growing season. The identification of such patterns of fluorescence might be useful for citrus grading industry to take some initiatives to make the entire automated system more efficient.
An empirical study into the structure of heuristic combinations in an evolutionary algorithm hyper-heuristic for the examination timetabling problem

A hyper-heuristic for the examination timetabling problem searches a space of constructive heuristic combinations instead of a space of examination timetables. The most optimal heuristic combination found by the search is used to construct the examination timetable. The focus of a hyper-heuristic is to generalize well rather than producing the best result for one or more problem sets in the domain. A metaheuristic such as evolutionary algorithms is usually employed to explore the heuristic space. This study reports on an empirical investigation conducted to test how the structure of the heuristic combination affects the success of the search of an evolutionary algorithm (EA) hyper-heuristic for the uncapacitated examination timetabling problem. Two structures, namely, one that combines low-level construction heuristics linearly, and applies them sequentially and a second which combines heuristics hierarchically and applies them simultaneously are investigated. The performance of the EA-based hyper-heuristic using both structures is tested on a set of eight uncapacitated examination timetabling problems. The study has revealed that the representation used does have an impact on the success of the evolutionary algorithm. In this domain the linear combination and sequential application of heuristics produced better results. The EAs with both representations were also found to perform better than other hyper-heuristic methods applied to the same problem.
Anonymized Local Privacy

In this paper, we introduce the family of Anonymized Local Privacy mechanisms. These mechanisms have an output space of three values "Yes", "No", or "$\perp$" (not participating) and leverage the law of large numbers to generate linear noise in the number of data owners to protect privacy both before and after aggregation yet preserve accuracy. We describe the suitability in a distributed on-demand network and evaluate over a real dataset as we scale the population.
Feature detection and tracking for mobile robots using a combination of ladar and color images

In an outdoor, off-road mobile robotics environment, it is important to identify objects that can affect the vehicle's ability to traverse its planned path, and to determine their three-dimensional characteristics. In the paper, a combination of three elements is used to accomplish this task. An imaging ladar collects range images of the scene. A color camera, whose position relative to the ladar is known, is used to gather color images. Information extracted from these sensors is used to build a world model, a representation of the current state of the world. The world model is used actively in the sensing to predict what should be visible in each of the sensors during the next imaging cycle. The paper explains how the combined use of these three types of information leads to a robust understanding of the local environment surrounding the robotic vehicle for two important tasks: puddle/pond avoidance and road sign detection.
The Maximum Factor Queue Length Batching Scheme for Video-on-Demand Systems

In a video-on-demand environment, batching of video requests is often used to reduce I/O demand and improve throughput. Since viewers may defect if they experience long waits, a good video scheduling policy needs to consider not only the batch size but also the viewer defection probabilities and wait times. Two conventional scheduling policies for batching are the first-come-first-served (FCFS) policy, which schedules the video with the longest waiting request, and the maximum queue length-(MQL) policy, which selects the video with the maximum number of waiting requests. Neither of these policies leads to entirely satisfactory results. MQL tends to be too aggressive in scheduling popular videos by considering only the queue length to maximize batch size, while FCFS has the opposite effect by completely ignoring the queue length and focusing on arrival time to reduce defection. In this paper, we introduce the notion of factored queue length and propose a batching policy that schedules the video with the maximum factored queue length. We refer to this as the MFQL policy. The factored queue length is obtained by weighting each video queue length with a factor which is biased against the more popular videos. An optimization problem is formulated to solve for the best weighting factors for the various videos. We also consider MFQL implementation issues. A simulation is developed to compare the proposed MFQL variants with FCFS and MQL. Our study shows that MFQL yields excellent empirical results in terms of standard performance measures such as average latency time, defection rates, and fairness.
Unitary operation attack and the improvement on probabilistic quantum key distribution

This study points out that a malicious communicant in Hwang et al.'s probabilistic quantum key distribution (PQKD) protocol can manipulate the secret key without being detected by using the unitary operation attack. Accordingly, the security requirements of a PQKD protocol, i.e., unpredictability and fairness, cannot be satisfied in their protocol. A possible solution is also provided to solve the problem.
CONS should not CONS its arguments, or, a lazy alloc is a smart alloc

Lazy allocation is a model for allocating objects on the execution stack of a high-level language which does not create dangling references. Our model provides safe transportation into the heap for objects that may survive the deallocation of the surrounding stack frame. Space for objects that do not survive the deallocation of the surrounding stack frame is reclaimed without additional effort when the stack is popped. Lazy allocation thus performs a first-level garbage collection, and if the language supports garbage collection of the heap, then our model can reduce the amortized cost of allocation in such a heap by filtering out the short-lived objects that can be more efficiently managed in LIFO order. A run-time mechanism called result expectation further filters out unneeded results from functions called only for their effects. In a shared-memory multi-processor environment, this filtering reduces contention for the allocation and management of global memory.Our model performs simple local operations, and is therefore suitable for an interpreter or a hardware implementation. Its overheads for functional data are associated only with assignments, making lazy allocation attractive for mostly functional programming styles. Many existing stack allocation optimizations can be seen as instances of this generic model, in which some portion of these local operations have been optimized away through static analysis techniques.Important applications of our model include the efficient allocation of temporary data structures that are passed as arguments to anonymous procedures which may or may not use these data structures in a stack-like fashion. The most important of these objects are functional arguments (funargs), which require some run-time allocation to preserve the local environment. Since a funarg is sometimes returned as a first-class value, its lifetime can survive the stack frame in which it was created. Arguments which are evaluated in a lazy fashion (Scheme delays or "suspensions") are similarly handled. Variable-length argument "lists" themselves can be allocated in this fashion, allowing these objects to become "first-class". Finally, lazy allocation correctly handles the allocation of a Scheme control stack, allowing Scheme continuations to become first-class values.
Effects of Asian Dust Particles on the Early-Stage Antigen-Induced Immune Response of Asthma in NC/Nga Mice

Asian dust (AD) can aggravate airway inflammation in asthma, but the association between AD and the development of asthma remains unclear. This study aimed to investigate the effects of AD on the early stage of antigen sensitization using a mouse model of asthma, as well as the role of leukotrienes (LTs) in antigen-induced airway inflammation potentiated by AD particles. NC/Nga mice were co-sensitized by intranasal instillation of AD particles and/or Dermatophagoides farinae (Df) for five consecutive days. Df-sensitized mice were stimulated with an intranasal Df challenge at seven days. Mice were treated with the type 1 cysteinyl LT (CysLT1) receptor antagonist orally 4 h before and 1 h after the allergen challenge. At 24 h post-challenge, the differential leukocyte count, inflammatory cytokines, and LTs in bronchoalveolar lavage fluid were assessed, and airway inflammation was evaluated histopathologically. AD augmented neutrophilic and eosinophilic airway inflammation with increased CysLTs and dihydroxy-LT in a mouse model of asthma. The CysLT1 receptor antagonist was shown to attenuate both neutrophilic and eosinophilic airway inflammation augmented by AD. Therefore, exposure to AD may be associated with the development of asthma and LTs may play important roles in airway inflammation augmented by AD.
Plasma phospholipid arachidonic acid content and calcium metabolism in idiopathic calcium nephrolithiasis.

BACKGROUND Reports of an increase in plasma and erythrocyte phospholipid arachidonic acid content and in urinary prostaglandin E2 (PGE2) excretion in patients with idiopathic calcium nephrolithiasis suggested their crucial role in the pathogenesis of hypercalciuria, a well-known risk factor for lithogenesis. METHODS To confirm this hypothesis, 15 healthy subjects and 20 nephrolithiasis patients were evaluated for plasma phospholipid polyunsaturated fatty acid content and PGE2 concentration, serum parathyroid hormone, 25 hydroxyvitamin D3, 1, 25-dihydroxyvitamin D3, and bone-specific alkaline phosphatase levels, as well as urinary excretion of calcium, biochemical markers of bone resorption (hydroxyproline and crossLaps), and intestinal calcium absorption. Furthermore, the effect of a 30-day fish-oil diet supplementation on the previously mentioned parameters was investigated in the patients. RESULTS At baseline, patients compared with controls showed higher levels of plasma phospholipid arachidonic acid content (P = 0.002), PGE2 (P = 0.0004), serum 25-vitamin D3 (P = 0.001), and 1,25-vitamin D3 (P = 0.001), urinary excretion of calcium (P = 0.001), hydroxyproline (P = 0.007), and crossLaps (P = 0.019), as well as intestinal calcium absorption (P = 0.03 at 60 min). Fish oil supplementation induced a reduction in the plasma phospholipid arachidonic acid level (P < 0.0001), and except for serum concentrations of 25-vitamin D3, normalized baseline blood and urinary parameters, including intestinal calcium absorption. A close correlation between plasma PGE2 and serum 1,25-vitamin D3 (P = 0.004) and between phospholipid arachidonic acid and intestinal calcium absorption (P = 0.0002) and calciuria (P = 0.007) was observed, as well as between urine excretion of crossLaps and hydroxyproline (P < 0.0001), crossLaps and calcium (P < 0.0001), and hydroxyproline and calcium (P < 0.0001). CONCLUSIONS These findings indicate that the phospholipid arachidonic acid content anomaly could represent the primary event responsible for the mosaic of metabolic and clinical alterations that are distinctive features of renal stone formers, and suggest that a common pathogenetic mechanism might account for the several forms of hypercalciuria detected in idiopathic calcium nephrolithiasis.
Direct observation of the work function evolution of graphene-two-dimensional metal contacts

The work function evolution of a graphene monolayer under two-dimensional metal electrodes was studied by combining in situ metal deposition and ultraviolet photoelectron spectroscopy under an ultra-high vacuum system. The process of the charge transfer at the graphene–metal interfaces was investigated. The transfer of electrons from metal to graphene and then from graphene to metal, with deposition of the metal, was observed. The work function of the graphene–metal contact shifted, and was finally stopped at the theoretical work function of the metal when the metal turned from a two-dimensional film into a bulk material. Meanwhile, the energy barrier of the metal–graphene interface could be tailored by altering the metal thickness. This research makes it possible to use the graphene device in future applications.