Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Transactional sex and prevalence of STIs: a cross-sectional study of MSM and transwomen screened for an HIV prevention trial

Few studies have characterised the degree of engagement in transactional sex among men and transgender women who have sex with men and explored its association with sexually transmitted infections and human immunodeficiency virus in Ecuador. We screened 642 men who have sex with men and transgender women for a pre-exposure prophylaxis clinical trial (iPrEx) in Guayaquil, Ecuador, 2007–2009. We analysed the association of degree of engagement in transactional sex and prevalence of sexually transmitted infections including human immunodeficiency virus using chi-square and analysis of variance tests. Although just 6.2% of those who screened self-identified as sex workers, 52.1% reported having engaged in transactional sex. Compared to those who had never been paid for sex, those who had been paid were more likely to have a sexually transmitted infection (56.6% vs. 45.0%, p = 0.007) and trended towards a higher human immunodeficiency virus prevalence (16.6% vs. 10.4%, p = 0.082) at screening. Transgender women compared to other men who have sex with men were more likely to have sexually transmitted infections diagnosed at screening (75.6% vs. 50.0%, p = 0.001). Transactional sex is practiced widely but occasionally among the men who have sex with men and transgender women in Guayaquil who screened for the iPrEx study; however, engaging in transactional sex may not lead to a sex worker self-identification. Both transactional sex and being a transgender woman are associated with sexually transmitted infections prevalence.
Risk preference and optimal enterprise combinations in Kahuro division of Murang'a district, Kenya

Financing smallholder farming has been one of the major concerns of Kenya's agricultural development efforts. Many credit programs have evolved over the years but with dismal performance. In a study that sought to find the best way to finance smallholder agriculture, it became necessary to analyze and document, in the first place, the farmers' preferred enterprise patterns. Any financial innovations would hence address the preferred patterns. Of particular interest was the effect of risk preference on such patterns, which had been ignored in many previous farm management studies. Murang'a district was chosen as a typical smallholder district. Sample farmers, obtained through cluster sampling, were visited and structured questionnaires administered to cover farm events and physical resources of short rains 1995 to long rains 1996. This formed a basis for formulating the farm patterns. A quadratic programming model was used to analyze observed farm plans. The model incorporates farmers' risk preferences, revenue fluctuations, and resource and subsistence restrictions. The results showed that: (1) changes in risk preference do affect the optimal crop combinations; (2) the typical cropping pattern is rational as the farmer meets both food and cash under modest variability of income; (3) insisting on producing most subsistence food requirements by the farmers reduces efficiency and limits the feasible plans. Copyright 2005 International Association of Agricultural Economics.
Mobile Tablet Menus

Using mobile tablet technology, this study compared menu selections by millennial-age respondents to test the effects of five different menu nutrition labeling formats for attractiveness, perceived influence, and actual influence on the students’ food choices. Labeling formats presented on an iPad involved combinations of numeric caloric values, traffic-light color coding, and percentage of daily intake presented as a graphic summary. Each participant was asked to select four courses from a fine-dining restaurant menu, and each was shown one of the five nutrition labeling formats (or no information at all). Although there was no significant difference in the calorie count for the six groups, the labeling format with traffic-light color coding combined with a graphic summary of the meal’s calorie count (compared with the daily recommended intake) received the highest attractiveness ranking. This attractive graphic format also showed a significant positive correlation to its perceived influence on food choices. Overall, participants in all labeling groups indicated a strong support for inclusion of nutrition information on restaurant menus using mobile tablet technology.
Financial Management Competence of Founding Teams and Growth of New Technology–Based Firms

This article draws on the resource–based view to analyze the role founding teams’ financial management competencies play for firm growth. Prior research stressed the importance of acquiring external financial resources. In this study, we broaden the understanding of financial management in new firms. We explore the relevance of strategic financial planning competence, external financing competence, competence in financing from cash flow, and controlling competence of entrepreneurial teams for the growth of new technology–based firms. A total of 212 founding teams provided self–assessments of their financial management competencies at start–up. We apply the partial least squares approach to determine the effects of the different financial management competencies on firm growth.
The `blogosphere' as a market research tool for tourism destinations: A case study of Australia's Northern Territory

Monitoring the attitudes of visitors has been an important but problematic task for destination marketing organizations (DMOs). Standard approaches have included tick box surveys and focus groups, in-depth interviews and other qualitative methods. The former are relatively cheap to administer but provide generally poor data, while the latter may provide rich data but can be expensive to implement. Consumer generated web content (including, but not limited to `blogs') may offer a way for destinations to monitor visitor attitudes. There may be particular value in a blog based market research tool because the content is provided in a less artificial setting than in surveys or interviews. The research examined different sources of consumer generated web content about travel to Australia's Northern Territory and evaluated the authorship and readership as well as the nature of the content itself. The findings suggest that valuable data can be drawn from travel blogs, but that locating and analysing relevant content is time consuming. The author proposes a targeted approach to monitoring blogs that takes into account the market segments likely to engage in blogging and the aspects of the destination likely to come under scrutiny.
A 33-Megapixel 120-Frames-Per-Second 2.5-Watt CMOS Image Sensor With Column-Parallel Two-Stage Cyclic Analog-to-Digital Converters

A 33-megapixel 120-frames/s (fps) CMOS image sensor has been developed. The 7808 × 4336 pixel 2.8-μm pixel pitch CMOS image sensor with 12-bit, column-parallel, two-stage, cyclic analog-to-digital converters (ADCs) and 96 parallel low-voltage differential signaling output ports operates at a data rate of 51.2 Gb/s. The pipelined operation of the two cyclic ADCs reduces the conversion time. This ADC architecture also effectively lowers the power consumption by exploiting the amplifier function of the cyclic ADC. The CMOS image sensor implemented with 0.18-μm technology exhibits a sensitivity of 0.76 V/lx·s without a microlens and a random noise of 5.1 erms- with no column amplifier gain and 3.0erms- with a gain of 7.5 at 120 fps while dissipating only 2.45 and 2.67 W, respectively.
Worldwide exploration of the microbiome harbored by the cnidarian model, Exaiptasia pallida (Agassiz in Verrill, 1864) indicates a lack of bacterial association specificity at a lower taxonomic rank

Examination of host-microbe interactions in early diverging metazoans, such as cnidarians, is of great interest from an evolutionary perspective to understand how host-microbial consortia have evolved. To address this problem, we analyzed whether the bacterial community associated with the cosmopolitan and model sea anemone Exaiptasia pallida shows specific patterns across worldwide populations ranging from the Caribbean Sea, and the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. By comparing sequences of the V1-V3 hypervariable regions of the bacterial 16S rRNA gene, we revealed that anemones host a complex and diverse microbial community. When examined at the phylum level, bacterial diversity and abundance associated with E. pallida are broadly conserved across geographic space with samples, containing largely Proteobacteria and Bacteroides. However, the species-level makeup within these phyla differs drastically across space suggesting a high-level core microbiome with local adaptation of the constituents. Indeed, no bacterial OTU was ubiquitously found in all anemones samples. We also revealed changes in the microbial community structure after rearing anemone specimens in captivity within a period of four months. Furthermore, the variation in bacterial community assemblages across geographical locations did not correlate with the composition of microalgal Symbiodinium symbionts. Our findings contrast with the postulation that cnidarian hosts might actively select and maintain species-specific microbial communities that could have resulted from an intimate co-evolution process. The fact that E. pallida is likely an introduced species in most sampled localities suggests that this microbial turnover is a relatively rapid process. Our findings suggest that environmental settings, not host specificity, seem to dictate bacterial community structure associated with this sea anemone. More than maintaining a specific composition of bacterial species some cnidarians associate with a wide range of bacterial species as long as they provide the same physiological benefits towards the maintenance of a healthy host. The examination of the previously uncharacterized bacterial community associated with the cnidarian sea anemone model E. pallida is the first global-scale study of its kind.
Resistive objects

We explore the idea of objects that, under some contextual conditions, become less “agreeable” to the user. Such an object may lower its performance level, become less usable, or start producing discouraging stimuli. Yet, it always remains fully functional and usable. We call such objects resistive. We describe three ways, in which making an object resistive may add value to the user. The resistive object may offer feedback on the user's past improper actions. It may encourage the user to improve her behavior at the moment. Or, it may offer the user an instant, discouraging evaluation of a bad operation on the object, which she is about to perform. In each case, resistivity is meant to help the user avoid undesirable behavior and choose a better course of action. In the paper we introduce the concepts of personal and community-wide resistive objects and provide a model of object resistivity. We exemplify the concepts with a number of ideas for resistive objects. 'otably, the examples may serve as an inspiration for quite a few experiments with end users. Finally, we hint at selected research issues.
Generating Susceptible Strain and Resistance Status of Field Populations of Spodoptera exigua (Lepidoptera: Noctuidae) Against Some Conventional and New Chemistry Insecticides in Pakistan

ABSTRACT Two field populations of Spodoptera exigua (Hübner) (Lepidoptera: Noctuidae) from Dera Ghazi Khan (D.G. Khan) and Multan, Pakistan, were tested for resistance to the 10 most commonly used insecticides in Pakistan by using a standard leaf disc bioassay on the F1 progeny. For comparison, a susceptible strain was generated from the Multan strain, which displayed lower LC50 values for most of the insecticides, by either mass rearing without exposure to insecticides or single-pair crosses against selected insecticides. The single-pair crosses generated a more susceptible strain than mass rearing. The D.G. Khan field strain was highly resistant to Cypermethrin, profenofos, spinosad, abamectin, and chlorpyrifos and moderately resistant to deltamethrin, indoxacarb, and methoxyfenozide compared with susceptible lab strain. The Multan strain was highly resistant to profenofos and indoxacarb. Both field populations were susceptible to emamectin benzoate and lufenuron. Rotating these two insecticides with others that show very low, low, or moderate levels of resistance and have different modes of action may be useful for the effective management of this pest.
A background modeling method for videos based on weighted statistical classification

In the field of intelligent video surveillance, foreground detection, moving target tracking and target recognition are the key technologies. They play an important role in target behavior analysis and understanding. In this paper a background modeling method based on weighted statistical classification is proposed. As a non-parametric background model, it uses several state categories to express multiple states of a background pixel. It does not require the background pixels to obey Gaussian distribution and needs no training. The weights are updated according to the matching history of the background pixel. The background state is determined by a threshold. Experiment results show that it obtains excellent detection results and real-time detection speed in complex scenes.
An Independent Visual Background Reduced Simulator Sickness in a Driving Simulator

Simulator sickness (SS)-virtual environment (VE) sickness is expected to become increasingly troublesome as VE technology evolves. This paper investigated using an independent visual background (IVB) to reduce SS and VE sickness. The IVB is a visual scene component that provides visual motion and orientation cues that match those from the vestibular receptors. In this study, the IVB was stationary, fixed with respect to inertial space. Two experiments were conducted. The first experiment examined the differences in visual motion-induced postural disturbance as a function of simultaneous exposure to an IVB. Subjects exhibited less balance disturbance when the IVB was presented. An expected statistically significant interaction between IVB presence-absence and visual scene motion oscillation frequency was observed. In the second experiment, subjects reported less SS when the IVB was presented during the VE exposure. We suggest that an IVB may alleviate disturbance when conflicting visual and inertial cues evoke SS.
It's All About Tax Rates: An Empirical Study of Tax Perception

In this paper we apply conjoint analysis to study the influence of changes in the tax rate and the tax base on the perceived tax burden. Our results show that the majority of individuals do not make rational tax decisions based on the actual tax burden, but rather use simple decision heuristics. This leads to the importance of the tax rate being significantly overestimated and the importance of the tax base being significantly underestimated. Furthermore we determine framing effects and show that under specific assumptions, a rise in the actual tax burden can lead to a electoral success.
Estrogen Receptor-&agr; Mediates the Protective Effects of Estrogen Against Vascular Injury

Blood vessel cells express the 2 known estrogen receptors, &agr; and &bgr; (ER&agr;, ER&bgr;), which are thought to mediate estrogen inhibition of vascular injury and atherosclerosis, but the relative role of ER&agr; and ER&bgr; in these events is controversial. Estrogen inhibits the vascular injury response to the same extent in ovariectomized female wild-type mice and in the original single gene knockout mice for ER&agr; (ER&agr;KOChapel Hill [ER&agr;KOCH]) and ER&bgr; (ER&bgr;KOChapel Hill [ER&bgr;KOCH]). In double gene knockout mice generated by crossing these animals (ER&agr;,&bgr;KOCH), estrogen no longer inhibits medial thickening after vascular injury, but still inhibits vascular smooth muscle cell proliferation and increases uterine weight. The partial retention of estrogen responsiveness in ER&agr;,&bgr;KOCH mice could be due either to the presence of a novel, unidentified estrogen receptor or to functional expression of an estrogen receptor-&agr; splice variant in the parental ER&agr;KOCH mice. To distinguish between these possibilities, we studied recently generated mice fully null for estrogen receptor &agr; (ER&agr;KOStrasbourg [ER&agr;KOSt]) and examined the effect of estrogen on the response to vascular injury. In the present study, we show that after vascular injury in ovariectomized ER&agr;KOSt mice, estrogen has no detectable effect on any measure of vascular injury, including medial area, proteoglycan deposition, or smooth muscle cell proliferation. These data demonstrate that estrogen receptor-&agr; mediates the protective effects of estrogen on the response to vascular injury.
Factors associated with antiepileptic drug use among elderly nursing home residents.

UNLABELLED BACKGROUND. Epilepsy, a chronic condition defined as two or more recurrent, unprovoked seizures, has the highest incidence at the end of life. Antiepileptic drugs (AEDs) are the primary therapeutic mode. Approximately 10%-11% of elderly nursing home residents receive one or more AEDs, a higher prevalence than would be expected in this age group. In the research literature, there is not a clear explanation of variations in AED use in nursing homes. The purpose of this study was to examine the prevalence and variations in use of AEDs by resident characteristics, AEDs used, drug dosage, and AED combinations in treatment regimens. METHODS This was a retrospective, cross-sectional study of residents (N = 21,551) in a convenience sample of nursing homes in 24 states and the District of Columbia. The unit of analysis was the individual resident. The study period was a single day in 1995. Bivariate and multivariate analyses were used to test differences. RESULTS The prevalence of AED use was 10.5% across all elderly residents. In a multivariate analysis, factors associated with AED treatment included seizure indication, age group, and geographic region. AED use by age group showed declining use as the residents aged, from 65-74 to 75-84 to > or =85 years. CONCLUSIONS The inverse relationship between AED use and age group was unexpected because the incidence of epilepsy increases with advancing age. This finding raises important questions about the future use of these drugs in elderly nursing home residents.
Time to Go? Duration Dependence in Forced Migration

In this paper we introduce some theoretical and methodological refinements to account for effects of duration dependence in forced migration flows that have not been noticed in previous research. The engine of previous theoretical arguments on forced migration has been a decision theoretic model in which the potential migrants estimate the threat to their security and then weigh this threat against costs and benefits of leaving. Moreover, in previous arguments and empirical tests the costs and benefits for relocating have been treated as being the same for all people in a country. We relax this assumption, allowing the costs and benefits of relocating to be different for different individuals. This implies that some people more readily relocate than others. Over time this generates a selection effect in the population that remains behind, such that the remaining population will become increasingly unwilling or unable to relocate. The implications of our theoretical refinement are borne out empirically. Contrary to previous research we find that the accumulated stock of forced migrants decrease rather than increase the probability of new migration. Furthermore, we find that forced migrant flows abate rather than soar over time. The authors would like to thank Mats Hammarström and two anonymous referees for helpful comments and Tarek Abou Chabake for providing UNHCR data. Replication data and do-files can be downloaded from http://www.pcr. uu.se/personal/anstallda/melander.htm. Both authors contributed equally to all parts of the article.
Vitamin B12 Intake and Status in Early Pregnancy among Urban South Indian Women

Aim: To evaluate the vitamin B12 status of South Indian women in early pregnancy and its relationship with sociodemographic, anthropometry and dietary intake. Methods: Cross-sectional study among 366 pregnant urban South Indian women ≤14 weeks of gestation with outcome variables defined as low vitamin B12 blood concentration (<150 pmol/l) and impaired vitamin B12 status [low vitamin B12 plus elevated methylmalonic acid (MMA) >0.26 µmol/l)]. Results: Low plasma vitamin B12 concentration was observed in 51.1% of the women, while 42.4% had impaired B12 status. Elevated MMA, elevated homocysteine (>10 µmol/l) and low erythrocyte folate (<283 nmol/l) were observed among 75.8, 43.3 and 22.2% of the women, respectively. The median (25th, 75th percentile) dietary intake of vitamin B12 was 1.25 (0.86, 1.96) µg/day. Lower maternal body weight was associated with higher vitamin B12 concentration [prevalence ratios (PR) (95% CI) 0.57 (0.39, 0.84)]. The predictors of impaired vitamin B12 status were no consumption of yoghurt [PR (95% CI) 1.63 (1.03, 2.58)] or fish [PR (95% CI) 1.32 (1.01, 1.71)] and primiparity [PR (95% CI) 1.41 (1.05, 1.90)]. Conclusion: A high prevalence of vitamin B12 deficiency in early pregnancy among urban South Indian women was related to primiparity and to a low consumption of yoghurt and fish.
Asymmetries in the flypaper effect: empirical evidence for the Flemish municipalities

Recent empirical work on US governments indicates an asymmetry in the flypaper effect: the elasticity of public spending with respect to changes in grants differs significantly for positive and negative changes. Using a panel of data on Flemish municipalities covering the period 1989–1996, we also find clear evidence of asymmetrical reactions. More precisely, the results suggest the presence of a fiscal replacement type of asymmetry: when grants grow, municipalities spend most of the additional revenue. However, when grants fall, spending is unaffected and municipalities compensate the loss through additional taxation.
Reevaluating the mechanisms of focal ictogenesis: The role of low‐voltage fast activity

The mechanisms that control the transition into a focal seizure are still uncertain. The introduction of presurgical intracranial recordings to localize the epileptogenic zone in patients with drug‐resistant focal epilepsies opened a new window to the interpretation of seizure generation (ictogenesis). One of the most frequent focal patterns observed with intracranial electrodes at seizure onset is characterized by low‐voltage fast activity in the beta‐gamma range that may or may not be preceded by changes of ongoing interictal activities. In the present commentary, the mechanisms of generation of focal seizures are reconsidered, focusing on low‐voltage fast activity patterns. Experimental findings on models of temporal lobe seizures support the view that the low‐voltage fast activity observed at seizure onset is associated with reinforcement and synchronization of inhibitory networks. A minor role for the initiation of the ictal pattern is played by principal neurons that are progressively recruited with a delay, when inhibition declines and synchronous high‐voltage discharges ensue. The transition from inhibition into excitatory recruitment is probably mediated by local increase in potassium concentration associated with synchronized interneuronal firing. These findings challenge the classical theory that proposes an increment of excitation and/or a reduction of inhibition as a cause for the transition to seizure in focal epilepsies. A new definition of ictogenesis mechanisms, as herewith hypothesized, might possibly help to develop new therapeutic strategies for focal epilepsies.