Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Sociodemographic Characteristics of Tobacco Consumers in a Rural Area of Bangladesh

Bangladesh typifies many developing countries experiencing an increasing trend in tobacco consumption. However, little is known about the general pattern of tobacco consumption and about population groups who are more prone to tobacco consumption. This paper aimed at generating knowledge on tobacco consumption, especially emphasizing the identification of sociodemographic groups who are more prone to tobacco consumption vis-à-vis tobacco-related health consequences in a remote rural area in Bangladesh. Information on the tobacco consumption status of 6,618 individuals (52.1% males, 47.9% females), aged over 15 years, was collected in 1994. Both univariate and multivariate analyses were done. Individuals were categorized as consumers if they consumed tobacco in any form at all, i.e. smoke or chew. The independent variables included various characteristics of individuals and households. Overall, 43.4% of the study subjects consumed tobacco. Males were 9.38 times more likely to consume tobacco than their female counterparts. Individuals with no education were 3.62 times more likely to consume tobacco than those who had completed six or more years of schooling, and the poor were almost twice as likely to consume tobacco than the rich. Tobacco consumption in both smoke and chewing form has been a part of household consumption in Bangladesh from time immemorial. Only aggressive anti-tobacco programmes on various fronts may salvage the vulnerable groups from the menace of tobacco consumption in Bangladesh.
Protection of retinal pigment epithelial cells from oxidative damage by oltipraz, a cancer chemopreventive agent.

OBJECTIVE To determine whether oltipraz (4-methyl-5-pyrazinyl-3H-1,2-dithiole-3-thione) protects against oxidative injury in cultured human retinal pigment epithelial (hRPE) cells. METHODS Primary cultured hRPE cells were incubated with various concentrations of oltipraz followed by treatment with the chemical oxidant tert-butylhydroperoxide (tBH). Cell viability was assessed by release of lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) and cleavage of WST-1. Intracellular and mitochondrial levels of glutathione (GSH) were measured by HPLC. Glutathione S-transferase (GST), NADPH-quinone reductase (NQR), and glutathione peroxidase (GPx) were measured by specific enzyme activity assays. RESULTS Treatment of hRPE cells with oltipraz inhibited tBH-induced cell death in a concentration-dependent manner with significant inhibition at 50 micro M. Olitpraz (50 micro M) increased GSH levels in hRPE cells by approximately 18% and in hRPE mitochondrial fractions by approximately 50% after 24 hours of exposure. Treatment with oltipraz increased GST and NQR activities by approximately 21% and 11%, respectively. CONCLUSIONS Oltipraz protects hRPE cells against tBH induced injury. The mechanism of protection is likely to include increased cellular and mitochondrial GSH levels and induction of detoxification enzymes, including GST and NQR. Dietary supplementation with oltipraz or other dithiolethiones may help protect the hRPE against oxidant induced injury.
A noniterative reconstruction algorithm for LFSR PRNG

Pseudo Random Number Generator (PRNG) is widely used in computer software design. The famous Domain Name System (DNS) software - BIND uses Linear Feedback Shift Register (LFSR) based PRNG algorithm to produce randomness of its transaction IDs. In recent years, DNS cache poisoning attack occurs frequently, which exploits BIND PRNG weakness, aiming at forging BIND with fake responses. In this paper, we present detailed analysis of the LFSR PRNG algorithm of BIND 9.2. 4, which shows that its PRNG can be reconstructed. An effective noniterative reconstruction algorithm is proposed to fully reconstruct the internal states of the LFSRS. The algorithm is independent of the initial state of LFSR and of specific hardware platform. The experiment shows that our algorithm is more efficient than existing algorithm.
Friendbook: Semantic Based Friendship

: Now a day’s friend recommendation has a greater impact on social networking. Friend recommendation based on social graph may not be most relevant to reflect user’s expectation on friend selection. Propose approach Based on novel semantic friend recommendation includes life-styles similarities based on text-mining. Using Text mining daily activities of user’s are modelled as life document. In this approach user’s daily life activities, lifestyles, habits, hobbies etc. can be extracted and generating similarity measure by calculating similarity impact. When receiving friend request system gives a list of user’s with highest recommendation score. After receiving recommendation, user can provide feedback which improves further recommendation accuracy.
The impact of distributive and procedural justice on burnout: does it affect French and German teachers differently?

ABSTRACT The aim of this study was to analyze and compare the relationships between distributive and procedural justice and teachers’ burnout (emotional exhaustion, depersonalization and lack of personal accomplishment) between two countries: France and Germany. It was assumed that, due to the difference in the organizational educational structures of France and Germany, distributive and procedural justice would have different relationships on teachers’ burnout in both countries. Our samples consisted of 93 teachers in Germany and 89 teachers in France. Results of regression analysis indicated that among teachers in France, distributive justice plays a major role in the burnout process, while among teachers in Germany both distributive and procedural justice have strong impacts on burnout.
Cost Comparison between Surgical Treatments and Endoscopic Submucosal Dissection in Patients with Early Gastric Cancer in Korea

Background/Aims This study was conducted to evaluate whether medical costs can be reduced using endoscopic submucosal dissection (ESD) instead of conventional surgeries in patients with early gastric cancer (EGC). Methods Patients who underwent open gastrectomy (OG), laparoscopy-assisted gastrectomy (LAG), and ESD for EGC were recruited from three medical institutions in 2009. For macro-costing, the medical costs for each patient were derived from the expenses incurred during the patient’s hospital stay and 1-year follow-up. The overall costs in micro-costing were determined by multiplying the unit cost with the resources used during the patients’ hospitalization. Results A total of 194 patients were included in this study. The hospital stay for ESD was 5 to 8 days and was significantly shorter than the 12-day hospital stay for OG or the 11- to 17-day stay for LAG. Using macro-costing, the average medical costs for ESD during the hospital stay ranged from 2.1 to 3.4 million Korean Won (KRW) per patient, and the medical costs for conventional surgeries were estimated to be between 5.1 million and 8.2 million KRW. There were no significant differences in the 1-year follow-up costs between ESD and conventional surgeries. Conclusions ESD patients had lower medical costs than those patients who had conventional surgeries for EGC with conservative indications.
Customizable software engineering environments for flexible distributed software teams

The recent interest in carrying out software engineering in a distributed manner could lead to a future increase in the contracting of software engineers, grouped into flexible, distributed software teams. One of the implications will be a requirement for more customizable software engineering environments to meet the diverse requirements of different projects. This paper examines customizability issues and suggests the use of component-based systems to achieve a high degree of customizability. A component model for software tools is presented in which tool components are characterized by the services they provide, require and optionally can use. Implementations of early prototypes, using JavaBeans components and employing the JavaBeans Activation Framework, are presented. The integration of legacy tools into the model is explored, and two mechanisms are presented: adapters encapsulate access to tools implemented in Java, and wrappers integrate other external tools.
The Effect of Substructure on Mass Estimates of Galaxies

Large galaxies are thought to form hierarchically, from the accretion and disruption of many smaller galaxies. Such a scenario should naturally lead to galactic phase-space distributions containing some degree of substructure. We examine the errors in mass estimates of galaxies and their dark halos made using the projected phase-space distribution of a tracer population (such as a globular cluster system or planetary nebulae) due to falsely assuming that the tracers are distributed randomly. The level of this uncertainty is assessed by applying a standard mass estimator to samples drawn from 11 random realizations of galaxy halos containing levels of substructure consistent with current models of structure formation. We find that substructure will distort our mass estimates by up to ~20%—a negligible error compared to statistical and measurement errors in current derivations of masses for our own and other galaxies. However, this represents a fundamental limit to the accuracy of any future mass estimates made under the assumption that the tracer population is distributed randomly, regardless of the size of the sample or the accuracy of the measurements.
A Complete Axiomatization for Core XPath 1.0

This paper provides a complete algebraic axiomatization of node and path equivalences in Core XPath 1.0. Our completeness proof builds on a completeness result of Blackburn et al. [3] for a modal logic of finite trees. This technical report is a full version of a paper in Liber Amicorum dedicated to Jan Paredaens on the occasion of his 60th birthday.
Modelling Mixed Access-Patterns in Network-Based Systems

The usage of network-based applications is increasing, as network speeds increase. Also, the use of streaming applications, e.g BBC I-Player, Youtube etc, over the network is becoming commonplace. These applications access data sequentially. However, as processor speed and the amount of memory available increase, the rate at which streaming applications access data is much faster than the rate at which the blocks can be fetched consecutively from the network storage. In addition to sequential access, the system also needs to satisfy demand misses. Therefore, there is a need to model these access patterns for network-based storage systems.In this paper, we attempt to develop an analytical model and an algorithm which will be used to investigate the operational boundaries under which streaming applications can run without jitter and demand misses can be satisfied in reasonable time.
Gene flow from an adaptively divergent source causes rescue through genetic and demographic factors in two wild populations of Trinidadian guppies

Genetic rescue, an increase in population growth owing to the infusion of new alleles, can aid the persistence of small populations. Its use as a management tool is limited by a lack of empirical data geared toward predicting effects of gene flow on local adaptation and demography. Experimental translocations provide an ideal opportunity to monitor the demographic consequences of gene flow. In this study we take advantage of two experimental introductions of Trinidadian guppies to test the effects of gene flow on downstream native populations. We individually marked guppies from the native populations to monitor population dynamics for 3 months before and 26 months after gene flow. We genotyped all individuals caught during the first 17 months at microsatellite loci to classify individuals by their genetic ancestry: native, immigrant, F1 hybrid, F2 hybrid, or backcross. Our study documents a combination of demographic and genetic rescue over multiple generations under fully natural conditions. Within both recipient populations, we found substantial and long‐term increases in population size that could be attributed to high survival and recruitment caused by immigration and gene flow from the introduction sites. Our results suggest that low levels of gene flow, even from a divergent ecotype, can provide a substantial demographic boost to small populations, which may allow them to withstand environmental stochasticity.
The design and implementation of Feature-Grading recommendation system for e-commerce

In this paper we present a novel approach named Feature-Grading which is a comprehensive algorithm used to make recommendation of commodities in e-commerce business. It is a technique based on the integration of feature mining, sentimental analysis, and the records of customer historical behaviors. The overall process of Feature-Grading can be separated into 5 key steps: 1.Extracting overall feature set of a group category of commodities; 2.Extracting modifier set and negative words set; 3.Acquiring specific feature set and feature assessment set; 4.Acquiring specific feature weight set; 5.Acquiring item weight set. After these 5 steps, we are able to grade and rank all the items with an acquired grading equation. Then the needed as well as top ranking items can be recommended. Moreover, we utilize the real information of mobiles and their reviews from the famous e-commerce website Amazon.cn as our experimental data and discuss some important results which reveal that the Feature-Grading really works well. At last, we also briefly introduce the prototype recommendation system we developed on the basis of Feature-Grading.
Fast Alternating Minimization Method for Compressive Sensing MRI under Wavelet Sparsity and TV Sparsity

In this paper, we extend the alternating minimization algorithm proposed in [ Y. G. Zhu and X. L. Yang, Journal of Signal and Information Processing, 2 (2011), pp. 44-51] to compressive sensing MRI model with wavelet sparsity and total variation(TV) sparsity simultaneously. This extended approach can reconstruct the MR image from under-sampled k-space data, i.e., the partial Fourier data. We also give the convergence analysis of extended alternating minimization method. Some MR images are employed to test in the numerical experiments, and the results demonstrate that the alternating minimization method is very efficient in MRI reconstruction.
Optimal oral anticoagulant therapy in patients with mechanical heart valves.

BACKGROUND The optimal intensity of oral anticoagulant therapy for patients with mechanical heart valves (i.e., the level at which thromboembolic complications are effectively prevented without excessive bleeding) is not known. We attempted to determine the optimal intensity by calculating the incidence of both complications at different levels of anticoagulation. METHODS Data were collected on all patients with mechanical heart valves who have been seen at four regional Dutch anticoagulation clinics since 1985. The primary outcome events were episodes of thromboembolism or major bleeding. The intensity-specific incidence of each type of event was calculated as the number of events that occurred at a certain intensity of anticoagulation (expressed in terms of the international normalized ratio [INR]) divided by the number of patient-years during which the INR was at this level in the total patient population. RESULTS A total of 1608 patients were followed during 6475 patient-years. Cerebral embolism occurred in 43 patients (0.68 per 100 patient-years) and peripheral embolism in 2 (0.03 per 100 patient-years). Intracranial and spinal bleeding occurred in 36 patients (0.57 per 100 patient-years) and major extracranial bleeding in 128 (2.1 per 100 patient-years). The optimal intensity of anticoagulation, at which the incidence of both complications was lowest, was achieved when the INR was between 2.5 and 4.9. CONCLUSIONS The intensity of anticoagulant therapy for patients with prosthetic heart valves is optimal when the INR is between 2.5 and 4.9. To achieve this level of anticoagulation, a target INR of 3.0 to 4.0 is recommended.
Queueing Delay Analysis of IEEE 802.11e EDCA

The majority of analytical work on the performance of IEEE 802.11 [1] focuses on predicting the throughput and the mean delay of only the medium access, although higher layer applications and protocols are interested in the total performance of the MAC layer. Seen in this perspective, surprisingly little focus has been on predicting the queueing delay. The main contribution of this paper opposed to other works is that it presents the full delay distribution through the z-transform. As a result, the mean medium access delay is found by the first order moment of the transform, and the mean queueing delay by the second order moment. Together this gives the average total delay associated with the MAC layer. The z-transform is derived from an analytical model that works in the whole range from a lightly loaded, non-saturated channel to a heavily congested, saturated medium. The model describes the priority schemes of the Enhanced Distributed Channel Access (EDCA) mechanism of the IEEE 802.11e standard [2]. EDCA provides class-based differentiated Quality of Service (QoS) to IEEE 802.11 WLANs, and distinguishes between four different traffic classes – called Access Categories (AC). By setting the number of ACs to one, and by using an appropriate parameter setting, the results presented are also applicable to the legacy 802.11 Distributed Coordination Function (DCF) [1]. The model predictions are calculated numerically and validated against simulation results. A good match between the analytical predictions and simulations was observed.
Mobile Robots Engaging Children in Learning

Mobile robots are machines that can move and act in the real world, making it possible to generate a multitude of interplay situations, which can engage children and encourage interaction in a variety of different ways. Mobility, appearance, interaction modalities (e.g., sound, light, moving parts) and behaviour (predetermined and adaptive) can all have an influence in sustaining the interest (and therefore learning) of typically developing children or children with specific deficits such as autism. This paper summarizes findings from two of our on-going projects, one using a spherical mobile robot and the other using a humanoid-like robot toy.
Perception and attitude of general practitioners regarding generic medicines in Karachi, Pakistan: A questionnaire based study

Objectives: In developing countries out-of-pocket payments (OOP) are as high as 80% of healthcare spending. Generic medicines can be instrumental in reducing this expenditure. The current study is aimed to explore the knowledge, perception, and attitude of general practitioners towards generic medicines in Karachi, Pakistan. Methods: This exploratory, descriptive study was conducted on a sample of 289 randomly selected general practitioners who were dispensing at their private clinics in Karachi, Pakistan. The questionnaires were distributed and collected by hand. Data was entered to SPSS version 17. Fischer’s exact test was applied to see the association between variables. Results: A total of 206 questionnaires were included in the study. A response rate of 71.3% was achieved. Out of 206 respondents, 139 (67.5%) were male while 67 (32.5%) respondents were female. Close to three quaters of the respondents (n= 148; 71.8%) showed correct knowledge about generic medicines being a ‘copy of the brand name medicines’ and ‘interchangeable with brand name medicines’ (n= 148; 71.8%). In terms of safety, the majority of respondents (n=85; 41.26%) incorrectly understood that the generic medicines are less safe than brand name medicines. The total percentage of correct responses was seen in 53% of the respondents. More than half of the respondents agreed that locally manufactured medicines are of the same effectiveness as brand name medicines (n=114; 55.4%). Male practitioners with practice experience of 11-15 years showed positive perception towards the quality of multinational products. The Majority of respondents believed that their prescribing decision is influenced by medical representatives (n=117; 56.8%). More than three-quarters of the respondents expressed their wish to prescribe low cost medicines in their practice (n=157; 76.2%). More than one third of the respondents expressed their uneasiness to prescribe products from all local manufacturers (n=72; 35%). Conclusion: There were gaps identified in the knowledge of respondents. Although good perception and attitude were noted among the respondents, dissemination of information regarding generic medicines may perhaps strengthen generic prescribing. There is a need to introduce ‘Quality by Design’ concept in local manufacturing units. This, in turn, can inculcate confidence in prescribers towards locally manufactured generic medicines.
A Human-annotated Dataset for Evaluating Tweet Ranking Algorithms

Social media monitoring is now an essential part of brand management, political science, and news production. Automatic tweet ranking and content recommendation methods are required, in order to support human analysts in deriving useful insights from large-scale social media data. To facilitate the development and comparative evaluation of tweet ranking methods, a task for which re-tweets do not form a reliable gold standard, a new, openly available Twitter corpus has been created. A number of results for several popular recommendation algorithms are presented for this corpus.
String Theory and Black Holes

This thesis aims to make precise the microscopic understanding of Hawking radiation from the D1/D5 black hole. We present an explict construction of all the shortmultiplets of the ${\cal N}=(4,4)$ SCFT on the symmetric product $\tilde{T}^4/S(Q_1Q_5)$. An investigation of the symmerties of this SCFT enables us to make a one-to-one correspondence beween the supergravity moduli and the marginal opeerators of the SCFT. We analyse the gauge theory dynamics of the splitting of the D1/D5 system into subsystems and show that it agrees with supergravity. We have shown that the fixed scalars of the D1/D5 system couple only to (2,2) operators thus removing earlier discrepancies between D-brane calculations and semiclassical calculations. The absorption cross-section of the minimal scalars is determined from first principles upto a propotionality constant. We show that the absorption cross-section of the minimal scalars computed in supergravity and the SCFT is independent of the moduli.
Online Information Retrieval for Language Learning

The reading material used in a language learning classroom should ideally be rich in terms of the grammatical constructions and vocabulary to be taught and in line with the learner’s interests. We developed an online Information Retrieval system that helps teachers search for texts appropriate in form, content, and reading level. It identifies the 87 grammatical constructions spelled out in the official English language curriculum of schools in Baden-Wurttemberg, Germany. The tool incorporates a classical efficient algorithm for reranking the results by assigning weights to selected constructions and prioritizing the documents containing them. Supplemented by an interactive visualization module, it allows for a multifaceted presentation and analysis of the retrieved documents.