Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Gender Transformation in the Academy

Gender inequality/inequity in the academy has been evidenced globally as women outnumber men seeking degrees in institutions of higher education, but remain concentrated in the lower faculty ranks and absent from administrative positions, particularly in the science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) disciplines The chapters in this volume document the gender inequality in higher education in the United States as well as in Australia, Austria, Portugal, South Africa, and Sweden. They explore the reasons for it and test or suggest remedies. Several are based on projects funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF), which seeks to address the issue as it is evidenced in STEM disciplines through ADVANCE, a program developed to increase the participation and advancement of women in these disciplines. The authors consider women's situation in the context of a variety of types of educational settings including community colleges, primarily undergraduate institutions, and research-intensive universities.
Relative influences of individual, social environmental, and physical environmental correlates of walking.

OBJECTIVES This study sought to examine individual, social environmental, and physical environmental correlates of walking. METHODS A cross-sectional survey was conducted among healthy workers and homemakers residing in metropolitan Perth, Western Australia. RESULTS Most respondents walked for transport or recreation, but only 17.2% did a sufficient amount of walking to accrue health benefits. After adjustment, the relative influences of individual, social environmental, and physical environmental factors were found to be almost equally important. CONCLUSIONS Although walking is popular, few people do enough walking to benefit their health. Those who walk as well as engage in other physical activities appear more likely to achieve recommended levels of activity. Promoting walking may require a comprehensive strategy.
Context based Application Level Intrusion Detection System

In today's interconnected networks, intrusion detection systems (IDSs), encryption devices and firewalls are crucial in providing a complete security solution. As network security has become a growing concern, system administrators lock down their networks by blocking traffic through certain ports and allowing traffic via only selected authorized ports such as HTTP. A recent survey has indicated that around 80 percent of attacks originate in the application layer. In this paper, a framework has been proposed to detect complex application level attacks that easily eludes packet level inspection solution. The proposed method enhances detection capability by performing application-level protocol analysis using semantic classification tree technique. The protocol analysis method extracts only specific fields of the protocol thereby providing significant search space reduction. The grammar based semantic processing method provides a higher level of abstraction and scalability and is a suitable option to improve detection accuracy
Students' Experiences of Blended Learning in Accounting Education at the Durban University of Technology.

The Durban University of Technology guided by the Higher Education Qualifications Framework (HEQC) identified e-learning as one of their objectives in the curriculum renewal process. To explore the impact of e-learning, blended learning, a combination of online and face-to-face interaction was implemented as a teaching approach in Accounting Education. This paper explores Accounting Education students’ experiences of blended learning The study was conducted using an action research methodology. Data was collected from the 2011 fourth year cohort of Accounting Education students who were exposed to blended learning for a period of 18 months. This data was gathered and analysed to determine students’ perceptions of a blended learning approach in Accounting Education. Results indicated that students experienced significant improvements in their performance in Accounting Education, they were more motivated to learn, they experienced increased levels of independence in the learning process and they had acquired a deeper understanding of the subject matter. Results also showed that additional learning materials were readily available via hyperlinks to websites, the students got immediate feedback from online assessments, there was greater lecturer-student interaction as well as student-student interaction through meaningful dialogue with peers and finally there was increased convenience, flexibility and access to learning in the blended learning environment. Key words: Curriculum renewal, blended learning, on-line classroom, action research, accounting education
Detection of Mycobacterium ulcerans DNA in the Environment, Ivory Coast

Background Ivory Coast is a West African country with the highest reported cases of Buruli ulcer, a disabling subcutaneous infection due to Mycobacterium ulcerans. However, the prevalence of environmental M. ulcerans is poorly known in this country. Methods We collected 496 environmental specimens consisting of soil (n = 100), stagnant water (n = 200), plants (n = 100) and animal feces (n = 96) in Ivory Coast over five months in the dry and wet seasons in regions which are free of Buruli ulcer (control group A; 250 specimens) and in regions where the Buruli ulcer is endemic (group B; 246 specimens). After appropriate total DNA extraction incorporating an internal control, the M. ulcerans IS2404 and KR-B gene were amplified by real-time PCR in samples. In parallel, a calibration curve was done for M. ulcerans Agy99 IS2404 and KR-B gene. Results Of 460 samples free of PCR inhibition, a positive real-time PCR detection of insertion sequence IS2404 and KR-B gene was observed in 1/230 specimens in control group A versus 9/230 specimens in group B (P = 0.02; Fisher exact test). Positive specimens comprised seven stagnant water specimens, two feces specimens confirmed to be of Thryonomys swinderianus (agouti) origin by real-time PCR of the cytb gene; and one soil specimen. Extrapolation from the calibration curves indicated low inoculums ranging from 1 to 102 mycobacteria/mL. Conclusion This study confirms the presence of M. ulcerans in the watery environment surrounding patients with Buruli ulcer in Ivory Coast. It suggests that the agouti, which is in close contacts with populations, could play a role in the environmental cycle of M. ulcerans, as previously suggested for the closely related possums in Australia.
STATE-AND-TRANSITION MODELING AND ADAPTIVE MANAGEMENT: TOOLS FOR FUTURE CO-DEVELOPMENT OF MADAGASCAR’S NATURAL RESOURCES AND PEOPLE

Madagascar's terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems have long supported a unique set of ecological communities, many of whom are endemic to the tropical island. Those same ecosystems have been a source of valuable natural resources to some of the poorest people in the world. Nevertheless, with pride, ingenuity and resourcefulness, the Malagasy people of the southwest coast, being of Vezo identity, subsist with low-development fishing techniques aimed at an increasingly threatened host of aquatic seascapes. Mangroves, sea grass bed, and coral reefs of the region are under increased pressure from the general populace for both food provisions and support of economic opportunity. Besides purveyors and extractors, the coastal waters are also subject to a number of natural stressors, including cyclones and invasive, predator species of both flora and fauna. In addition, the aquatic ecosystems of the region are undergoing increased nutrient and sediment runoff due, in part, to Madagascar's heavy reliance on land for agricultural purposes (Scales, 2011). Moreover, its coastal waters, like so many throughout the world, have been proven to be warming at an alarming rate over the past few decades. In recognizing the intimate interconnectedness of the both the social and ecological systems, conservation organizations have invoked a host of complimentary conservation and social development efforts with the dual aim of preserving or restoring the health of both the coastal ecosystems and the people of the region. This paper provides a way of thinking more holistically about the social-ecological system within a resiliency frame of understanding. Secondly, it applies a platform known as state-and-transition modeling to give form to the process. State-and-transition modeling is an iterative investigation into the physical makeup of a system of study as well as the boundaries and influences on that state, and has been used in restorative ecology for more than a decade. Lastly, that model is sited within an adaptive management scheme that provides a structured, cyclical, objective-oriented process for testing stakeholders cognitive understanding of the ecosystem through a pragmatic implementation and monitoring a host of small-scale interventions developed as part of the adaptive management process. Throughout, evidence of the application of the theories and frameworks are offered, with every effort made to retool conservation-minded development practitioners with a comprehensive strategy for addressing the increasingly fragile social-ecological systems of southwest Madagascar. It is offered, in vii conclusion, that the seascapes of the region would be an excellent case study worthy of future …
Qualification Tests of HF RFID Foil Transponders for a Vehicle Guidance System

In the research project "TagDrive" RFID (radio frequency identification) passive transponders with 13.56 MHz operation frequency are used for an AGV (autonomous guided vehicle) and an automobile guidance system. A PMMA (polymethylmetacrylate) casing is developed for transponder protection and fixation on the floor of facility buildings and on roadway surface. To qualify both encasing and RFID system a speed and range test facility is developed to simulate the high vehicle velocity. The facility achieves a relative speed of 28 m/s (100 km/h) between reader unit and transponder. In addition a mechanical stress test facility is constructed to simulate vehicle weight and tire motion over encased transponders fixed on the ground. Finally, speed, range, mechanical, and climatic tests are carried out with existing and new test facilities.
Subspace Clustering Using Evolvable Genome Structure

In this paper we present an evolutionary algorithm to tackle the subspace clustering problem. Subspace clustering is recognized as more difficult than standard clustering since it requires to identify not only the clusters but also the various subspaces where the clusters hold. We propose to tackle this problem with a bio-inspired algorithm that includes many bio-like features like variable genome length and organization, functional and non-functional elements, and variation operators including chromosomal rearrangements. These features give the algorithm a large degree of freedom to achieve subspace clustering with satisfying results on a reference benchmark with respect to state of the art methods. One of the main advantages of the approach is that it needs only one subspace clustering ad-hoc parameter: the maximal number of clusters. This is a single and intuitive parameter that sets the maximal level of details of the clustering, while other algorithms require more complicated parameter space exploration. The other parameters of the algorithm are related to the evolution strategy (population size, mutation rate, .) and for them we use a single setting that turns out to be effective on all the datasets of the benchmark.
School Resources and Subgroup Performance Gains: What Works for Whom?

Using a fixed effects model, a balanced panel data set of 6,922 schools in California from 2004 to 2011 was analyzed to see whether changes in resources would affect subgroup performance at intraschool level. Seven school resources variables previously demonstrated influential to school or subgroup achievement at interschool level were tested for their effects on Academic Performance Index (API) gains of eight subgroups. Teachers’ in-district experience had the strongest positive impacts on API gains for all subgroups, ranging from 3.367 to 8.958 points, and teachers’ total experience had the largest negative impacts on subgroup API, varying between −1.120 and −5.495 points. Increases in teachers’ in-district experience, shares of highly educated and full-time equivalent teachers all offered promising outcomes for improving APIs of disadvantaged subgroups.
Subgroup analysis of Japanese patients in a phase 3 study of lenvatinib in radioiodine‐refractory differentiated thyroid cancer

Lenvatinib significantly prolonged progression‐free survival (PFS) versus placebo in patients with radioiodine‐refractory differentiated thyroid cancer (RR‐DTC) in the phase 3 Study of (E7080) Lenvatinib in Differentiated Cancer of the Thyroid (SELECT) trial. This subanalysis evaluated the efficacy and safety of lenvatinib in Japanese patients who participated in SELECT. Outcomes for Japanese patients (lenvatinib, n = 30; placebo, n = 10) were assessed in relationship to the SELECT population (lenvatinib, n = 261; placebo, n = 131). The primary endpoint was PFS; secondary endpoints included overall survival, overall response rate, and safety. Lenvatinib PFS benefit was shown in Japanese patients (median PFS: lenvatinib, 16.5 months; placebo, 3.7 months), although significance was not reached, presumably due to sample size (hazard ratio, 0.39; 95% confidence interval, 0.10–1.57; P = 0.067). Overall response rates were 63.3% and 0% for lenvatinib and placebo, respectively. No significant difference was found in overall survival. The lenvatinib safety profile was similar between the Japanese and overall SELECT population, except for higher incidences of hypertension (any grade: Japanese, 87%; overall, 68%; grade ≥3: Japanese, 80%; overall, 42%), palmar–plantar erythrodysesthesia syndrome (any grade: Japanese, 70%; overall, 32%; grade ≥3: Japanese, 3%; overall, 3%), and proteinuria (any grade: Japanese, 63%; overall, 31%; grade ≥3: Japanese, 20%; overall, 10%). Japanese patients had more dose reductions (Japanese, 90%; overall, 67.8%), but fewer discontinuations due to adverse events (Japanese, 3.3%; overall, 14.2%). There was no difference in lenvatinib exposure between the Japanese and overall SELECT populations after adjusting for body weight. In Japanese patients with radioiodine‐refractory differentiated thyroid cancer, lenvatinib showed similar clinical outcomes to the overall SELECT population. Some differences in adverse event frequencies and dose modifications were observed. Clinical trial registration no.: NCT01321554.
Learning to Discriminate Through Long-Term Changes of Dynamical Synaptic Transmission

Short-term synaptic plasticity is modulated by long-term synaptic changes. There is, however, no general agreement on the computational role of this interaction. Here, we derive a learning rule for the release probability and the maximal synaptic conductance in a circuit model with combined recurrent and feedforward connections that allows learning to discriminate among natural inputs. Short-term synaptic plasticity thereby provides a nonlinear expansion of the input space of a linear classifier, whereas the random recurrent network serves to decorrelate the expanded input space. Computer simulations reveal that the twofold increase in the number of input dimensions through short-term synaptic plasticity improves the performance of a standard perceptron up to 100. The distributions of release probabilities and maximal synaptic conductances at the capacity limit strongly depend on the balance between excitation and inhibition. The model also suggests a new computational interpretation of spikes evoked by stimuli outside the classical receptive field. These neuronal activities may reflect decorrelation of the expanded stimulus space by intracortical synaptic connections.
Accoucher en France : prise en charge de la naissance en population générale

Nous avons realise un etat des lieux de la prise en charge des femmes au moment d’un accouchement en France, dans un contexte ou la medecine fondee sur les preuves occupe une place de plus en plus importante dans la pratique des professionnels, ou la fermeture de nombreuses maternites entraine une concentration des naissances dans des etablissements publics et specialises de plus en plus grands, et ou l’on souhaite repondre aux besoins des femmes et a certaines de leurs demandes.Dans une premiere partie nous avons decrit comment les caracteristiques des maternites contribuent a expliquer les variations dans la prise en charge des femmes. Nous avons aborde la question pour la duree du sejour en post-partum et l’organisation de la prise en charge medicale a la sortie de la maternite, et pour les actes realises pendant l’accouchement chez des femmes a bas risque (declenchement, cesarienne, extraction instrumentale et episiotomie). Dans une deuxieme partie nous avons cherche a estimer la part des cesariennes avant travail potentiellement evitables et la part des declenchements sans motif medical et nous avons recherche quels facteurs etaient associes a ces actes.Le contenu des soins differait peu selon la taille ou le niveau de specialisation de la maternite, sauf pour les interventions potentiellement evitables ou sans motif medical, plus frequentes dans les petites maternites moins specialisees, et les durees de sejour en maternite, beaucoup plus courtes dans les grandes maternites et celles de type 3. A l’inverse, le statut prive de la maternite influencait de maniere forte la prise en charge des femmes : les interventions y etaient plus frequentes, parfois en reponse a des demandes des femmes (declenchements sans motif medical). Les caracteristiques medicales des femmes avaient un impact sur la realisation des interventions obstetricales, avec des associations similaires a celles deja publiees, mais les caracteristiques sociales des femmes influaient peu sur le contenu des soins.Les resultats fournissent un bilan general, utile pour evaluer les politiques de sante publique. Ils soulevent des questions sur l’organisation des services et les processus qui conduisent aux decisions de realiser certaines interventions obstetricales.
Preference coalition formation algorithm for buyer coalition

Coalition stability is a major concept in coalition formation. One important problem in many stability concepts in n-person game theories is one assumption that the preference of each agent is publicly known. The coalition is said to be stable if there is no objections by any subset of agents according to the publicly known preference. Such assumption is contrastive with the situation of several software agent applications. Individual agents in the applications have private preferences and make a decision according to his/her preferences instead of common knowledge. This study proposes a novel preference coalition formation algorithm for a buyer coalition that attempts for unambiguous considering private preference of individual buyer within the buyer coalition process. The theoretical foundations of the study are rooted in the fields of multi criteria decision making, human practical reasoning, and n-person game theories. The existing literature on multi-criteria decision making, human practical reasoning, and n-person game theories were reviewed in order to determine an appropriate algorithm for the proposed buyer coalition framework with emphasis on private preference of individual buyer. For validation of the proposed algorithm, simulation software was developed to demonstrate results of a variety of simulations.
Measuring visitors’ perceptions of experience quality Croatian wine cellars

Cellar door experiences represent the core of wine tourism activities and provides wineries with an opportunity to offer a memorable experience to the visitor, which in turn can lead to the creation of a long-term relationship between customer and brand. This study aims to measure visitors experience quality perceptions within the tasting room setting. Data was collected during the summer season of 2017 at four Dalmatian wineries (Croatia). Descriptive statistics were used to analyze the collected data. Learning was the highest rated experience dimension while environment recorded the lowest mean in our study. The proposed wine experience quality scale offers an empirical framework that is easy to use and generalizable in wine tourism contexts.
ISO far-IR spectroscopy of the black hole candidate GRS 1915 + 105

We have observed the black hole candidate and Galactic superluminal source GRS 1915+105 with ISO LWS and SWS in March 1996 and March 1997 when the source was at fairly low X-ray and radio flux levels. If the source is asso- ciated with a dense molecular cloud, then corresponding far-IR continuum and line flux es should be easily detectable and the data should constrain models for accretion from ISM (Maloney et al. 1997). The integrated flux es in the SWS (2.3 - 45.2 � m) and LWS (43.2 - 195.6 � m) are 2.5× 10 −17 and 8.9× 10 −17 W/cm 2 , respectively. The continuum above 50 � m is well represented by thermal black body radiation of T = (25.9 ± 0.8) K, modified by a dust emissivity component ǫ � λ −1.5 . This can be indicative of a dust cloud with radius rDust � 0.3 pc, and mass MDust � 5.5 M⊙. However, we do not detect significant line emission in the background subtracted LWS spectrum of GRS 1915+105, as predicted by Maloney et al. (1997) for far-IR lines of the am- bient ISM excited by compact objects, and the 3σ upper limits are below 7.5 to 9.6 × 10 −20 W/cm 2 for prominent lines as (OI), (OIII), (NII) and (CII). The non-detection of fine-strucure lines implies that either GRS 1915+105 is not embedded in a dense molecular cloud or, if the source would be indeed close to such a cloud, the source X-ray luminosity averaged over the past few hundred years is significantly below 10 37 erg/s so that line intensities are low. We conclude that the far-IR continuum emission from the source region, wit hT=2 6Kn o tunusual for the ISM, is most likely not related to GRS 1915+105 and that most probably GRS 1915+105 is not surrounded by dense ISM, so that the lack of detected line emission is a consequence of the absence of material suitable for irradation.
Parallel Algorithm for On-Line Ranking in Trees

A node k-ranking of a graph G = (V, E) is a proper node coloring C: V  {1, 2, . , k} such that any x-y path in G with C(x) = C(y) contains an internal node z with C(z) C(x). In the on-line version of this problem, the nodes v1, v2, . , vn are coming one by one in an arbitrary order; and only the edges of the induced subgraph G[{v1, v2, . , vi}] are known when the color of vi has to be chosen. This paper gives an on-line ranking algorithm for general trees in parallel with O(nlogn) time using O(n/logn) processors on CREW PRAM model, and the cost is O(n).
Release of weak and strong copper-complexing agents by algae1

By means of potentiometric titrations, the copper-complexing properties of organic compounds released by 21 algal species are characterized. Most eucaryotic species released measurable amounts (10/sup -6/ M) of copper-complexing agents that could be modeled as weak organic acids with log)*K/sub CuL. / = 0.5. Of seven blue-green algal species studied, four produced about 5 x 10/sup -7/ M concentrations of strong copper-complexing agents with conditional stability constants in the range 10/sup 8/ to 10/sup 12/; two produced complexing agents similar to those produced by the eucaryotes. In time-course experiments with three chlorophytes and two cyanophytes, the release of measurable concentrations of copper-complexing agents occurred principally during stationary phase.