Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Reshuffling an Old Deck of Cards? The politics of local government reform in Sierra Leone

This article examines the relationship between chiefdom authority and decentralization in post-war Sierra Leone. The chieftaincy has been in crisis for some time and is widely thought to be responsible for contributing to rebel Revolutionary United Front (RUF) recruitment. However, chiefs remain an important influence in Sierra Leone, and there is little demand for an end to the chieftaincy system. Rather than an abolition of chieftaincy, governance at local level requires constructive relationships between chiefdoms and local governments and not simply a reshuffling of agrarian class relationships or old ways of doing politics. This in turn requires a reform of the chieftaincy system and the resolution of local political tensions arising from decentralization. CHIEFTAINCY IS AN INTEGRAL PART OF SIERRA LEONE'S governance structure. In rural areas, the chief is a key source of authority and frequently the only visible element of government. Until recently, the main burden of government across most of the country rested with chiefs. ' Despite this, the chieftaincy system has been in crisis for some time. In the post-independence period, chiefs became associated with the kleptocratic tendencies of the Freetown elite.2 During the war, paramount chiefs along with the other Paul Jackson (p.b.jackson@bham.ac.uk) is Director of the Department of International Development, University of Birmingham, and Director of the Global Facilitation Network for Security Sector Reform. This work is based on extensive work in Sierra Leone at local government level in 2003, 2004, and 2005 for DFID and the World Bank where he worked as part of the reform process across the country and at different levels of government. 1. R. Fanthorpe, 'Neither citizen nor subject? "Lumpen" agency and the legacy of native administration in Sierra Leone', African Affairs, 100 (2001), pp. 363-86. In most rural areas, the chieftaincy is also closely related to secret societies, an impenetrable but critical element of rural social structure that ensures a broad power base for each chief, reinforcing a predominantly male gerontocracy. 2. See P. Richards, The Political Economy of Internal Conflict in Sierra Leone, Working Paper 21 (Netherlands Institute of International Relations, Conflict Research Unit, 2004); P. Jackson, 'Chiefs, money and politicians: rebuilding local government in Sierra Leone', Public Administration and Development, 25 (2005), pp. 49-58; J. Hanlon, Is the International Community Helping to Recreate the Pre-Conditions for War in Sierra Leone? (Research paper 2005/50, World Institute for Development Economics Research, United Nations Univ., Tokyo, 2005); R. Fanthorpe, A. Jay and V. Kamara, A Review of the Chiefdom Governance Reform Programme, Incorporating An Analysis of Chiefdom Administration in Sierra Leone (Department for International Development DFID, London, 2002).
Adaptive communication and cooperative MIMO cluster formation for improved lifetime in wireless sensor networks

One of the main limitations that still keeps Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) from being adopted in a large scale is the limited energy supply, i.e. the lifetime of the nodes that constitute the network. The wireless communication between nodes is responsible for most of the energy consumed in WSNs. A promising method to improve the energy efficiency is the usage of a Cooperative Multiple Input Multiple Output (CO-MIMO) scheme, where nodes form clusters to transmit and receive signals using a virtual antenna array. This work presents a study on the energy consumption of multi-hop and single-hop transmission compared to CO-MIMO and how to select the most efficient method. It also proposes a method for adaptively choosing the number of nodes that form a CO-MIMO cluster in order to maximize the lifetime of the network and to avoid disconnections. The proposed method takes into account not only the total energy consumption but also the distribution of energy within the network, aiming to keep the energy distribution across the network as uniform as possible. The effects of the proposed methods in the total available energy of the network and in the distribution of the energy is presented by means of numerical simulations.
Learning Template Planners from Example Plans

Planners are powerful tools for problem solving because they provide a complete sequence of actions to achieve a goal from a particular initial state. Classical planning research has addressed this problem in a domain-specific manner—the same algorithm generates a complete plan for any domain specification. This generality comes at a cost; domain-independent planners have difficulty with largescale planning problems. To deal with this, researchers have resorted to hand writing domain-specific planners to solve them. An interesting alternative is to use example plans to demonstrate how to solve problems in a particular domain and to use that information to automatically learn domain-specific planners that model the observed behavior. In this paper, we present the I TERANT algorithm for identifing repeated structures in observed plans and show how to convert looping plans into domain-specific template planners, or dsPlanners. Looping dsPlanners are able to apply experience acquired from the solutions to small problems to solve arbitrarily large ones. We show that automatically learned dsPlanners are able to solve largescale problems much more quickly than state-of-the-art general-purpose planners and are able to solve problems many orders of magnitude larger than generalpurpose planners can solve.
SPARTAN system: Towards a low-cost and high-performance vision architecture for space exploratory rovers

The “SPAring Robotics Technologies for Autonomous Navigation” (SPARTAN) activity of the European Space Agency (ESA) aims to develop an efficient, low-cost and accurate vision system for the future Martian exploratory rovers. The interest on vision systems for space robots has been steadily growing during the last years. The SPARTAN system considers an optimal implementation of computer vision algorithms for space rover navigation and is designated for application to a space exploratory robotic rover, such as the ExoMars. The goal of the present work is the development of an appropriate architecture for the vision system. Thus, the arrangement and characteristics of the rover's vision sensors will be defined and the required computer vision modules will be presented. The analysis will be performed taking into consideration the constraints defined by ESA about the SPARTAN system.
A four-month gatifloxacin-containing regimen for treating tuberculosis.

T; Odhiambo, J; Amukoye, E; Bah, B; Kassa, F; N’Diaye, A; Rustomjee, R; de Jong, BC; Horton, J; Perronne, C; Sismanidis, C; Lapujade, O; Olliaro, PL; Lienhardt, C; OFLOTUB/Gatifloxacin for Tuberculosis Project, ; , COLLABORATORS; Billy, C; Bah, H; Bah, M; Barry, MA; Barry, MT; Diallo, M; Kalle, TO; Bah, M; Gumusboga, M; Martin, A; Portaels, F; Githui, C; Okallo, G; Wanjiku, E; Allen, J; Reddy, B; Anagonou, S; Affolabi, D; Bekou, W; Guendehou, B; Makpenon, A; Monteiro, G; Vihotode, E; Washinou, A; Bah, F; Cisse, A; Diouf, C; Hane, D; Kouassi, P; Mbaye, I; Nguessan, JP; Sarr, M; Seck, A; Gomis, JF; Tissot-Dupont, H; Baisley, K; Flach, C; Webb, E; Kanyok, T; Ndiaye, K; McIlleron, H; Smythe, W; Nabangchang, K; Nabangchang, C; Crespel, F; Massart, G; Vaillant, M; Mitchison, D; Cisse, M; Hadjani, F; Kikaya, V; Manyando, C; Mbaye, A; Mbaye, M; Mbaye, I; Mbui, J; Meremikwu, M; NDiaye, JL; Suma, TK; Traore, I; Zongo, I (2014) A Four-Month GatifloxacinContaining Regimen for Treating Tuberculosis. The New England journal of medicine, 371 (17). pp. 1588-98. ISSN 0028-4793 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1056/NEJMoa1315817
Being Accountable for One's Own Governing: A Case Study of Early Educators Responding to Standards-Based Early Childhood Education Reform

As early childhood education continues to gain prominence on the agendas of policy makers across the globe, members of the field of early childhood education are concerned that these reforms will create new governing discourses that restrict how early educators are defined and limit their work with young children. While these neo-liberal policies tend to alter traditional conceptions of early education and learning, opportunities do arise for early educators to formulate responses to these policies in a way that might expand these neo-liberal conceptions of early education. Through an instrumental case study of standards-based education reform in a large urban early childhood program in the USA, the author examines one such opportunity, in which a collection of pre-kindergarten stakeholders responded to a set of particular policies that emphasize a uniform conception of learning and student performance. This article provides insight into the struggles of early childhood stakeholders as they attempt to address these governing discourses of reform, and it raises questions as to whether proactive responses can destabilize the normalizing power that exists within these policies.
Haptic medicine.

The paper introduces haptic medicine--healthcare based on loving touch for healing and preventing disease. We describe the effects of loving touch (a square inch of our skin has over 1000 nerves) on the body, brain and mind. We describe two web-based health education and media projects. The first, HYPERLINK "http://www.21stcenturymed. org" www.21stcenturymed. org is a place for health practitioners to start learning about touch and resources. The second project, Humans Without Borders, is a multi-lingual self help education website for everyday people. Teaching materials for these projects are based on our previous work with a form of haptic medicine known as psychophysiophilosophy with patients at Stanford Hospital, Kaiser Permanente and Lucille Packard Children's Hospital. We describe psychophysiophilosophy, relate motherly love to recent discoveries in neurosciences and give hints on ways to increase motherly love in each of us. We present a plan for moving into the future by re-introducing haptic medicine into our daily lives through self-help and as an adjunct for current physician practice. There is an exercise in self-help for the reader and an appendix of recent clinical research with profound benefits on the use of human touch for over 40 conditions.
Getting Counted: Markets, Media, and Reality

Firms that do not fit into established business categories tend to be overlooked, but new markets often form around these “misfits. ” Because being seen as part of a growing population makes new populations seem real, counting them is important to mainstreaming new markets. Yet, if firms outside the mainstream are overlooked, how can they be counted? Extending the embeddedness perspective to social cognition about markets, this research exposes the media's central role in market formation. Using a new method for extracting data about market networks from media coverage, this study demonstrates that early entrants benefit from inviting coverage that makes a few-but not too many-links to other entrants, thus helping audiences perceive an emerging category. As the market matures, however, references to rivals become unhelpful. These findings illustrate the value of a linguistic turn to empirical studies of meaning construction and the reification of social structure.
A new approach to improving the accuracy of elemental analysis in laser mass spectrometry

It is shown that the main reason affecting the accuracy and reproducibility of the elemental analysis of solids with a laser source of ions is the difference in the ionization cross sections of different elements in the generation of laser plasma. Computer modeling was carried out for the evaporation of the sample and generation of laser plasma at different values of laser power density. The aim of modelling was to determine the cause of the low accuracy of analysis by direct selection of ions from the plasma. The researches have shown that we cannot get satisfactory accuracy of analysis using analytical signal formed only on the base of single-charged ions. At the same time, in the formation of an analytical signal, as a sum of the intensities of the mass peaks of all charges of each element, the accuracy of the analysis does not depend either on the ionization cross section or on the nonreproducibility of the laser radiation power. It is shown that this approach completely eliminates the “matrix effect. ”
Regulation of Iron on Bacterial Growth and Production of Thermostable Direct Hemolysin by Vibrio parahaemolyticus in Intraperitoneal Infected Mice

Pathogenesis of Vibrio parahaemolyticus is not clearly understood. Effects of iron on the bacterial proliferation and production of thermostable direct hemolysin (TDH) in intraperitoneal infected mice were studied. Injection of bacterial culture in the presence of ferric ammonium citrate (100 μg/ml) significantly enhanced the lethality for mice, and simultaneously activated bacterial proliferation in vivo. The iron‐limited cultures showed better proliferation than those iron‐rich cultures in response to the addition of supplementary iron source. Production of TDH by the hemolytic strains ST550 and D62 was higher in the iron‐limited cultures than the iron‐rich cultures. Production of TDH by both the iron‐limited or iron‐rich cultures was inhibited by the addition of iron. In conclusion, the virulence enhancement effect of iron in V. parahaemolyticus was probably by activating bacterial proliferation in vivo and not by stimulating the production of TDH. V. parahaemolyticus precultured in iron‐limited condition may be more adaptable to in vivo environment.
Temporal Changes in Outer Surface Proteins A and C of the Lyme Disease-Associated Spirochete, Borrelia burgdorferi, during the Chain of Infection in Ticks and Mice

ABSTRACT The Lyme disease-associated spirochete, Borrelia burgdorferi, is maintained in enzootic cycles involvingIxodes ticks and small mammals. Previous studies demonstrated that B. burgdorferi expresses outer surface protein A (OspA) but not OspC when residing in the midgut of unfed ticks. However, after ticks feed on blood, some spirochetes stop making OspA and express OspC. Our current work examined the timing and frequency of OspA and OspC expression by B. burgdorferi in infected Ixodes scapularis nymphs as they fed on uninfected mice and in uninfected I. scapularis larvae and nymphs as they first acquired spirochetes from infected mice. Smears of midguts from previously infected ticks were prepared at 12- or 24-h intervals following attachment through repletion at 96 h, and spirochetes were stained for immunofluorescence for detection of antibodies to OspA and OspC. As shown previously, prior to feeding spirochetes in nymphs expressed OspA but not OspC. During nymphal feeding, however, the proportion of spirochetes expressing OspA decreased, while spirochetes expressing OspC became detectable. In fact, spirochetes rapidly began to express OspC, with the greatest proportion of spirochetes having this protein at 48 h of attachment and then with the proportion decreasing significantly by the time that the ticks had completed feeding. In vitro cultivation of the spirochete at different temperatures showed OspC to be most abundant when the spirochetes were grown at 37°C. Yet, the synthesis of this protein waned with continuous passage at this temperature. Immunofluorescence staining of spirochetes in smears of midguts from larvae and nymphs still attached or having completed feeding on infected mice demonstrated that OspA but not OspC was produced by these spirochetes recently acquired from mice. Therefore, the temporal synthesis of OspC by spirochetes only in feeding ticks that were infected prior to the blood meal suggests that this surface protein is involved in transmission from tick to mammal but not from mammal to tick.
The electrolytes of muscle and liver in potassium-depleted rats.

The gross effects of withholding potassium from the diet of young rats has been the subject of a number of investigations (Osborne and Mendel, 1918; Miller, 1923; Leulier and Vanhems, 1934; Schrader, Prickett and Salmon, 1937; Grijns, 1938; Heppel and Schmidt, 1938). In general it was found that the deficiency results in failure to continue growth followed by death after a variable number of weeks. No reports are available in the literature dealing with chemical studies of the tissues of potassiumdepleted animals. The present investigation was designed to determine the effect of potassium deprivation on the concentration of the principal electrolytes in serum, muscle and liver tissue. In normal muscles the concentration of potassium is much greater than . that of sodium. It is generally held that potassium is concentrated inthe intracellular phase while sodium is largely restricted to the extracellular phase (see Fenn, 1936, and Manery and Hastings 1939). The most striking result of the work reported here lies in the fact that the muscles of animals deprived of potassium take up sodium instead of potassium. This occurs to such an extent that in some instances the muscles of the experimental animals are found to be richer in sodium than in potassium. We have here a clear-cut example of a condition in which sodium must occur largely as an intracellular cation.
The use of on-animal acoustical recording devices for studying animal behavior

Audio recordings made from free-ranging animals can be used to investigate aspects of physiology, behavior, and ecology through acoustic signal processing. On-animal acoustical monitoring applications allow continuous remote data collection, and can serve to address questions across temporal and spatial scales. We report on the design of an inexpensive collar-mounted recording device and present data on the activity budget of wild mule deer (Odocoileus hemionus) derived from these devices applied for a 2-week period. Over 3300 h of acoustical recordings were collected from 10 deer on their winter range in a natural gas extraction field in northwestern Colorado. Analysis of a subset of the data indicated deer spent approximately 33.5% of their time browsing, 20.8% of their time processing food through mastication, and nearly 38.3% of their time digesting through rumination, with marked differences in diel patterning of these activities. Systematic auditory vigilance was a salient activity when masticating, and these data offer options for quantifying wildlife responses to varying listening conditions and predation risk. These results (validated using direct observation) demonstrate that acoustical monitoring is a viable and accurate method for characterizing individual time budgets and behaviors of ungulates, and may provide new insight into the ways external forces affect wildlife behavior.
Trait Voting in U.S. Senate Elections

Assessments of candidates’ personal attributes are known to affect vote choice in presidential elections, but little work has explored trait perceptions and trait voting in congressional contests. In this article, I examine the role of candidate traits in U.S. Senate campaigns, drawing on unique survey data from the 2006 midterms. I find that voters’ evaluations of candidate qualities are less influenced by party stereotypes than in presidential elections and are strongly related to whether a candidate is an incumbent. And just as in campaigns for the White House, trait perceptions affect vote choice. But sitting Senators hold trait advantages that incumbent presidents do not necessarily receive, which makes leadership a particularly influential attribute in Senate races. In addition, trait voting is not contingent on campaign intensity and is strongest among the least politically aware citizens. In general, the results provide evidence for the applicability of presidential trait theories to congressional elections but show that incumbency and political awareness condition their effects in Senate contests.
PERFORMANCE ANALYSIS OF LOGIC COVERAGE CRITERIA USING MUMCUT AND MINIMAL MUMCUT

Logic coverage criteria are central aspect of programs and specifications in the testing of software. A Boolean expression with n variables in expression 2 n distinct test cases is required for exhaustive testing . This is expensive even when n is modestly large. The possible solution is to select a small subset of all possible test cases which can effectively detect most of the common faults. Test case prioritization is one of the key techniques for making testing cost effective. In present study performance index of test suite is calculated for two Boolean specification testing techniques MUMCUT and Minimal-MUMCUT. Performance index helps to measure the efficiency and determine when testing can be stopped in case of limited resources. This paper evaluates the testability of generated single faults according to the number of test cases used to detect them. Test cases are generated from logic expressions in irredundant normal form (IDNF) derived from specifications or source code. The efficiency of prioritization techniques has been validated by an empirical study done on bench mark expressions using Performance Index (PI) metric.
Efficient Scheduling of Sensor Activity for Information Coverage in Wireless Sensor Networks

In this paper, we are concerned with algorithms for scheduling the sensing activity of sensor nodes that are deployed to sense/measure point-targets in wireless sensor networks using information coverage. Defining a set of sensors which collectively can sense a target accurately as an information cover, we propose an algorithm to obtain disjoint set of information covers (DSIC), which achieves longer network life compared to the set of covers obtained using an exhaustive-greedy-equalized heuristic (EGEH) algorithm proposed in the literature. We also present a detailed complexity comparison between the DSIC and EGEH algorithms.