Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Why child health policies in post-apartheid South Africa have not performed as intended: the case of the School Health Policy

The unprecedented scale of health sector reform in the course of radical political transformation in post-apartheid South Africa is well-documented. This thesis examines child health policy reform as a crucial part of this process. The goals of broader health sector reform were to improve the overall health status of citizens, in particular those most vulnerable, and eliminate inequities in health service provision and health status outcomes. Although children were accorded explicit prioritisation during this time, child health indicators remain poor and some have worsened. Amidst the documented explanations for the poor progress with child health indicators, the specific role and contribution of child health policies had not been interrogated. The thesis examines the development, design and implementation of national child health policies, with particular focus on equity. The National School Health Policy serves as a case-study for the analysis. Three complementary policy analysis frameworks guide the enquiry. Findings are based on a documentary analysis of key policies and 81 qualitative interviews with national policy makers and managers, provincial and district managers, and service providers in three socioeconomically different provinces of South Africa. The common assertion by South African health system analysts, that "policies are good, but implementation is poor", is refuted by this research. The findings show that child health policies have many deficiencies in their design and development. These "poor policies" contribute to inadequate child health service provision, which in turn have a bearing on poor child health outcomes. In particular the failure in clearly defining and conceptualising equity in policy development and design contributed to the absence of equity considerations in the implementation phase. The explanations for these policy failures include: lack of strategic direction for child health services; poor policy making capacity; a lack of clear policy translation; and the diverse politics, power and passion of policy actors. Broader health system factors, such as an immature and poorly functioning district health system, compound these policy failures. The thesis deepens the understanding of child health policy reform through a retrospective policy analysis and so contributes to the body of knowledge on policy reform in South Africa and in low- and middle-income countries more generally.
Immigrant Politics and the Public Library

Introduction: The New Immigrants, Neo-Nativism, and the Public Library by Susan Luevano-Molina The Need for Strangers: Proposition 187 and the Immigration Malaise by Marcelo M. Suarez-Orozco Giving Birth to the Dream: Realizing a Multiethnic, Multiracial Nation by Rhonda Rios-Kravitz Mexican/Latino Immigrants and the Santa Ana Public Library: An Urban Ethnography by Susan Luevano-Molina Santa Ana Public Library Staff Perceptions of Immigrant Library Usage by Kenneth M. Knox Passport to Promise: Public Libraries as Intellectual Spaces for Immigrant Students by JoAnn Aguirre Impact of Proposition 187 on Public Libraries and Elementary Education in Tucson, Arizona by Ninfa Almance Trejo The Anti-Affirmative Action Movement in California: Implications for Public Library Services to Asian Immigrants by Xiwen Zhang Immigrants, Global Digital Economics, Cyber Segmentation, and Emergent Information Services by Richard Chabran The Practice and Politics of Public Library Services to Asian Immigrants by Xiwen Zhang Some Basic Issues of Diversity: A Contextual Inquiry by Ling Hwey Jeng Anti-Immigrant Literature: A Selected Bibliography by Evelyn Escatiola Index
AND OTHER APPROACHES TO HIGH SPEED COMMUNICATIONS

Coarse-grain parallelism in networking (that is, the use of multiple protocol processors running replicated software sending over several physical channels) can be used to provide gigabit communications for a single application. Since parallel network performance is highly dependent on real issues' such as hardware properties (e.g., memory speeds and cache hit rates), operating system overhead (e.g., interrupt handling), and protocol performance (e.g. effect of timeouts) we have performed detailed simulation studies of both a bus-based multiprocessor workstation node (based on the Sun Galaxy MP multiprocessor) and a distributed-memory parallel computer node (based on the Touchstone DELTA) to evaluate the behavior of coarse-grain parallelism. Our results indicate: /I) (Soarse-grain parallelism can deliver multiple lOOMbps with currently available hardware platforms and existing networking protocols (such as TCP/IP and parallel FDDI rings)? |2) ^Scale-up is near linear,in,ji, the number of protocol processors and channels (for small n and upto a few hundred Mbps)! <(|3) . Since these results are based on existing hardware without specialized devices (except perhaps for some simple modifications of the FDDI boards), this is a low cost solution to providing multiple lOOMbps on current machines. In addition, from both the performance analysis and the properties of these architectures, we conclude: , ' l) Multiple processors providing identical services and the use of space division multiplexing for the physical channels can provide better reliability than monolithic approaches^;! ' also provides graceful degradation and low-cost load balancing^) . Coarse-grain parallelism supports running several transport protocols in parallel to provide differenttypes of service^-For example, one TCP handles small messages for many users, other TCPs running in parallel provide high bandwidth service to a single application^ ' (3) ^Coarse grain parallelism will be able to incorporate many future improvements from related (e.g., reduced data movement, fast TCP,.fine-grain parallelism) also with a near linear speed-ups.
Toward Effective Needle Steering in Brain Tissue

Recent research has exploited the inherent bending of a bevel-tipped needle during insertion, accomplishing steering of the needle by rotating the needle shaft. Combining this technique with the observation that a straight trajectory can be accomplished by spinning the needle at a constant rate during insertion, this paper presents a novel technique for proportional control of the curvature of the trajectory via duty-cycled spinning of the needle. In order to accommodate this technique to very soft tissues such as the brain, several custom needle prototypes have also been designed in order to increase the steering versatility of the system by maximizing the attainable curvature. The paper describes the needle-steering system and the needle prototypes, and presents preliminary results from tests in an artificial brain tissue substitute
User Preferences-Based Automatic Device Selection for Multimedia User Tasks in Pervasive Environments

Multimedia task composition involves automatic matching and selection of multimedia services across various devices in the pervasive environment. During the composition process, various QoS attributes are considered for selection of the service components implementing those services. However, the existing approaches about multimedia service composition do not consider user's perspective about utilizing services and devices. The automatic selection of service components keeps the user out of the whole process. The result is that the end-user may not always be satisfied with the final set of automatically chosen components and devices. In this paper, we propose a solution for multimedia task composition based on user preferences vis-a-vis device capabilities. User tasks are defined in terms of abstract services, which may also specify their requirements. Both of these criteria are considered simultaneously and a quantitative model for selection of service components and devices is presented.
QSOs in the Combined SDSS/GALEX Database

We discuss selection of QSO candidates from the combined SDSS and GALEX catalogs. We discuss properties of QSOs within the combined sample and note uncertainties in number counts and completeness, compared with other SDSS-based samples. We discuss color and other properties with redshift within the sample and the spectral energy distributions for subsets. We estimate the numbers of faint QSOs that are classified as extended objects in the SDSS imaging and consequent uncertainties that follow.
Greater efficacy of chemotherapy plus bevacizumab compared to chemo- and targeted therapy alone on non-small cell lung cancer patients with brain metastasis

Control of non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC) with brain metastasis is clinically challenging. This study retrospectively evaluated the efficacy of different adjuvant therapies for 776 cases of advanced NSCLCs with brain metastasis who treated with chemotherapy, chemotherapy plus bevacizumab, tyrosine kinase inhibitor (TKI) alone, or supportive care. The median progression-free survival (mPFS) and median overall survival (mOS) of patients treated with chemotherapy plus bevacizumab were 8.5 and 10.5 months, respectively, which were better than those of patients treated with other three therapies(P < 0.01). For patients with EGFR-mutated NSCLC, the efficacy of TKI treatment was not statistically better than that of chemotherapy plus bevacizumab but was significantly better than that of other therapies. Moreover, for patients with EGFR wild-type NSCLC, the mPFS and mOS after chemotherapy plus bevacizumab were greater than those with other two therapies (P < 0.01). The local response rate (RR)and disease control rate (DCR)with regimen including pemetrexed were greater than those with regimen including paclitaxel (P < 0.05). Chemotherapy plus bevacizumab was more effective for NSCLC patients with brain metastasis. Further studies will investigate the benefit of TKI alone for patients with EGFR-mutated. For patients with EGFR wild-type, chemotherapy plus bevacizumab did improve PFS and OS. Furthermore, regimens including pemetrexed led to a greater RR.
Modulation of endoplasmic reticulum stress and cardiomyocyte apoptosis by mulberry leaf diet in experimental autoimmune myocarditis rats

Mulberry is commonly used as silkworm diet and an alternative medicine in Japan and China, has recently reported to contain many antioxidative flavanoid compounds and having the free radical scavenging effects. Antioxidants reduce cardiac oxidative stress and attenuate cardiac dysfunction in animals with pacing-induced congestive heart failure. Hence we investigated the cardioprotective effect of mulberry leaf powder in rats with experimental autoimmune myocarditis. Eight-week-old Lewis rats immunized with cardiac myosin were fed with either normal chow or a diet containing 5% mulberry leaf powder and were examined on day 21. ML significantly decreased oxidative stress, myocyte apoptosis, cellular infiltration, cardiac fibrosis, mast cell density, myocardial levels of sarco/endo-plasmic reticulum Ca2+ ATPase2, p22phox, receptor for advanced glycation end products, phospho-p38 mitogen activated protein kinase, phospho-c-Jun NH2-terminal protein kinase, glucose regulated protein78, caspase12 and osteopontin levels in EAM rats. These results may suggest that mulberry diet can preserve the cardiac function in experimental autoimmune myocarditis by modulating oxidative stress induced MAPK activation and further afford protection against endoplasmic reticulum stress mediated apoptosis.
Template-based circuit understanding

When verifying or reverse-engineering digital circuits, one often wants to identify and understand small components in a larger system. A possible approach is to show that the sub-circuit under investigation is functionally equivalent to a reference implementation. In many cases, this task is difficult as one may not have full information about the mapping between input and output of the two circuits, or because the equivalence depends on settings of control inputs. We propose a template-based approach that automates this process. It extracts a functional description for a low-level combinational circuit by showing it to be equivalent to a reference implementation, while synthesizing an appropriate mapping of input and output signals and setting of control signals. The method relies on solving an exists/forall problem using an SMT solver, and on a pruning technique based on signature computation.
Amyloid β-protein (Aβ) assembly: Aβ40 and Aβ42 oligomerize through distinct pathways

Amyloid β-protein (Aβ) is linked to neuronal injury and death in Alzheimer's disease (AD). Of particular relevance for elucidating the role of Aβ in AD is new evidence that oligomeric forms of Aβ are potent neurotoxins that play a major role in neurodegeneration and the strong association of the 42-residue form of Aβ, Aβ42, with the disease. Detailed knowledge of the structure and assembly dynamics of Aβ thus is important for the development of properly targeted AD therapeutics. Recently, we have shown that Aβ oligomers can be cross-linked efficiently, and their relative abundances quantified, by using the technique of photo-induced cross-linking of unmodified proteins (PICUP). Here, PICUP, size-exclusion chromatography, dynamic light scattering, circular dichroism spectroscopy, and electron microscopy have been combined to elucidate fundamental features of the early assembly of Aβ40 and Aβ42. Carefully prepared aggregate-free Aβ40 existed as monomers, dimers, trimers, and tetramers, in rapid equilibrium. In contrast, Aβ42 preferentially formed pentamer/hexamer units (paranuclei) that assembled further to form beaded superstructures similar to early protofibrils. Addition of Ile-41 to Aβ40 was sufficient to induce formation of paranuclei, but the presence of Ala-42 was required for their further association. These data demonstrate that Aβ42 assembly involves formation of several distinct transient structures that gradually rearrange into protofibrils. The strong etiologic association of Aβ42 with AD may thus be a result of assemblies formed at the earliest stages of peptide oligomerization.
Stability Analysis and Stabilization for Bimodal Piecewise Linear Systems Based on Eigenvalue Loci

In this paper, we consider convergence and stability analysis for a class of bimodal piecewise linear systems. We first provide two necessary and sufficient conditions for the planar bimodal piecewise linear systems to be stable. These two conditions are given in terms of eigenvalue loci of subsystems and coefficients of characteristic polynomials, respectively. Then, an extension to the higher-order case is addressed. We discuss some properties of trajectories of the higher-order bimodal piecewise linear systems, and we derive a necessary condition and a sufficient condition for the stability. The conditions are given in terms of the eigenvalue loci and the observability of subsystems. The sufficient condition for stability allows existence of unstable dynamics, while the conventional Lyapunov approach requires that all subsystems are stable. Furthermore, we discuss a stabilizing controller design based on the derived sufficient condition.
E-Government towards Transparency: A Comparative Analysis Applied To the Italian Public Sector

Recently, the issues concerning the complex area of the performance assessment applied to the Public Institutions have shown a continuing and growing interest: these processes also have a valid support in the development of ICT applications inside the Public Sector, also referred as Public Management Information Systems (PMIS). Moreover, the analysis of the quality of websites can have a particular significance that is the ability to respond appropriately to the needs of citizens and enterprises, profoundly changed by the present global financial crisis. The aim of this research is to explore how the quality of websites (and related online services provided by the Public Institutions) can also be considered a valid support to improve the administrative transparency. The research has been conducted through a comparative assessment applied to two sectors of the Italian Public Administration: the field of Fiscal Agencies and that relating to the municipalities, capital cities of the Italian Regions.
Self-organization without conservation: are neuronal avalanches generically critical?

Recent experiments on cortical neural networks have revealed the existence of well-defined avalanches of electrical activity. Such avalanches have been claimed to be generically scale invariant—i.e. power law distributed—with many exciting implications in neuroscience. Recently, a self-organized model has been proposed by Levina, Herrmann and Geisel to explain this empirical finding. Given that (i) neural dynamics is dissipative and (ii) there is a loading mechanism progressively ‘charging’ the background synaptic strength, this model/dynamics is very similar in spirit to forest-fire and earthquake models, archetypical examples of non-conserving self-organization, which have recently been shown to lack true criticality. Here we show that cortical neural networks obeying (i) and (ii) are not generically critical; unless parameters are fine-tuned, their dynamics is either subcritical or supercritical, even if the pseudo-critical region is relatively broad. This conclusion seems to be in agreement with the most recent experimental observations. The main implication of our work is that, if future experimental research on cortical networks were to support the observation that truly critical avalanches are the norm and not the exception, then one should look for more elaborate (adaptive/evolutionary) explanations, beyond simple self-organization, to account for this.
Теории финансовых пузырей

The article represents a review of the different theories of financial bubbles developed within modern financial theory. It is a concluding article in a series of three articles devoted to the theoretical foundations of financial bubbles. The previous articles are published in the e-journal The Corporate Finance, vol. 13-14, # 1-3, 2010.
The contribution of innovations in total factor productivity of organic olive enterprises

This paper measures the contribution of innovations in total factor productivity(TFP) of organic olive farmers. By constructing an innovation variable instead of the use of a time trend, technical change is replaced by technical difference and TFP growth becomes TFP difference. Primary cross section data on organic olive enterprises from a Greek region is used in the application of the restricted frontier profit function. Farmers are classified into groups according to their innovative ‘profile’. TFP difference among consecutive innovation groups is decomposed into technical difference and adjustment in innovativeness effects. Furthermore, efficiency differences among innovation groups are estimated. Results indicate that more innovative farmers perform better than less innovative ones regarding TFP and efficiency scores. Adoption of innovations has a positive contribution in the reduction of inefficiency and profit-loss. The rate of technical difference is always positive in the formulation of TFP difference whereas the adjustment in innovativeness effects varies among the innovation groups. Finally, high-tech capital is more or less under-utilized, regardless of the innovation group.
X-RAY EMITTING STARS IN THE NGC 1333 STAR FORMING REGION

We present the results of a very deep ROSAT HRI X-ray observation of the highly active star forming region NGC 1333. In total we could detect 20 X-ray sources, 16 of which we assume to be members to the cluster of pre main sequence stars. Since most of the stars in NGC 1333 are still deeply embedded in the molecular cloud (AV < 5 30 mag), we use near infrared data to estimate individual extinctions for the calculation of X-ray luminosities. One of the X-ray sources is identied with the optically invisible, very deeply embedded (AV 28 mag) infrared class I source SVS16, for which we nd an extremely high X-ray luminosity of 2:8 10 32 erg/sec, making this object one of the most X-ray luminous pre main sequence stars known to date. Since we have already performed similar sensitive ROSAT observations of the young cluster IC 348 (the second active star forming region in the Perseus molecular cloud complex), we compare the X-ray properties of the young stars in NGC 1333 to those in IC 348. We nd no evidence for a signicant change of the X-ray luminosity function during the rst few million years in the life of the pre main sequence stars.
The Rise of the Sunbelt

In the last 50 years, population and incomes have increased steadily throughout much of the Sunbelt. This paper assesses the relative contributions of rising productivity, rising demand for Southern amenities and increases in housing supply to the growth of warm areas, using data on income, housing price and population growth. Before 1980, economic productivity increased significantly in warmer areas and drove the population growth in those places. Since 1980, productivity growth has been more modest, but housing supply growth has been enormous. We infer that new construction in warm regions represents a growth in supply, rather than demand, from the fact that prices are generally falling relative to the rest of the country. The relatively slow pace of housing price growth in the Sunbelt, relative to the rest of the country and relative to income growth, also implies that there has been no increase in the willingness to pay for sun-related amenities. As such, it seems that the growth of the Sunbelt has little to do with the sun.
Who Does an Elite Organization Emulate?

We advance theories of the diffusion of innovations by examining the structure of emulation that emerged in one bank's benchmarking program. Prestigious firms and firms linked to the bank through executive migration were disproportionately likely to be recruited as benchmarking partners and, once visited, to be highly influential. Firms tied to the bank by board interlocks and geographic proximity were neither overrepresented nor influential. The bank also paid modest attention to other financial service providers, particularly rival money centers. These relationships hold net of area-specific recognition for excellence, which promotes attention but not influence, and financial performance, which affects neither. We emphasize the way organizational identity and decision-making processes activate and deactivate network ties as potential channels of innovation diffusion.