Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Sexuality and HIV/AIDS Profiles among Fisherfolk in Kainji Lake Basin

HIV/AIDS is spread through high risk behaviors, fishing communities are among the social groups that are most vulnerable to HIV/AIDS infection because of their lifestyle and the way they conduct their fishing activities. The objective is to examine sexual behavioral practices of fisher folk and HIV/AIDS vulnerability profile in the fisheries sector of Kainji Lake Basin. A twostage random sampling procedure was used to select 400 respondents for this study. Kainji Lake Basin was stratified into eight strata based on Kainji Lake Management and Conservation Unit (KLMCU) classification. The data were subjected to descriptive, and Mann Whitney U. The findings revealed that only 28.3% of the respondents agreed that they became sexually active between ages between 10 –15. 53.9% had two or more sexual partners. Only 7.0% of the respondents said they have had extra marital sex. 20.2% of the respondents said condom can be accessed in their community. Only 6.5% had use condom in the past 12 months.
Testing as a Service over Cloud

Testing-as-a-service (TaaS) is a new model to provide testing capabilities to end users. Users save the cost of complicated maintenance and upgrade effort, and service providers can upgrade their services without impact on the end-users. Due to uneven volumes of concurrent requests, it is important to address the elasticity of TaaS platform in a cloud environment. Scheduling and dispatching algorithms are developed to improve the utilization of computing resources. We develop a prototype of TaaS over cloud, and evaluate the scalability of the platform by increasing the test task load, analyze the distribution of computing time on test task scheduling and test task processing over the cloud, and examine the performance of proposed algorithms by comparing others
A Danger-Based Approach to Intrusion Detection

We propose a protocol for intrusion detection in distributed systems based on a relatively recent theory in immunology called danger theory. Based on danger theory, immune response in natural systems is a result of sensing corruption as well as sensing unknown substances. In contrast, traditional self-nonself discrimination theory states that immune response is only initiated by sensing nonself (unknown) patterns. Danger theory solves many problems that could only be partially explained by the traditional model. Although the traditional model is simpler, such problems result in high false positive rates in immune-inspired intrusion detection systems. We believe using danger theory in a multi-agent environment that computationally emulates the behavior of natural immune systems is effective in reducing false positive rates. We first describe a simplified scenario of immune response in natural systems based on danger theory and then, convert it to a computational model as a network protocol. In our protocol, we define several immune signals and model cell signaling via message passing between agents that emulate cells. Most messages include application-specific patterns that must be meaningfully extracted from various system properties. We finally provide a few rules of thumb to simplify the task of pattern extraction in most distributed systems. “Do not just declare things to be irreducibly complex. ” Richard Dawkins
MAPL : a Framework for Multiagent Planning with Partially Ordered Temporal Plans

This paper discusses the specifics of planning in multiagent environments. It presents the formal framework MAPL (“maple”) for describing multiagent planning domains. MAPL allows to describe both qualitative and quantitative temporal relations among events, thus subsuming the temporal models of both PDDL 2.1 and POP. Other features are different levels of control over actions, modeling of agents’ ignorance of facts, and plan synchronization with communicative actions. For global planning in multiagent domains, the paper describes a novel forward-search algorithm producing MAPL’s partially ordered temporal plans. Finally, the paper describes a general distributed algorithm scheme for solving MAPL problems with several coordinating planners. The different contributions intend to provide a simple, yet expressive standard for describing multiagent planning domains and algorithms that in the future might allow cross-evaluation of Multiagent Planning algorithms on standardized benchmarks.
[Epidemiology of obsessive-compulsive disorder in children and adolescents].

Although obsessive-compulsive disorders are rarely found in young subjects seen in infantile psychiatry, anamnestic studies have shown that more than one third of obsessive patients seen at adult age agree that the onset of their disorder dates back to when they were under 15 years of age. The first direct epidemiological study on the prevalence of obsessive-compulsive disorder during adolescence was recently conducted in a New Jersey county, USA. Over 5,500 high school teenagers were asked to fill in a questionnaire dealing with different aspects of mental pathology and 356 of them were selected, on the basis of their answers, to be included in further clinical examinations. Thus, the current prevalence rate of obsessive-compulsive disorder was found to be 1 (+/- 0.5)% of the general adolescent population, and the lifetime prevalence rate, 1.9 (+/- 0.7)%. These results are close to the rates of prevalence observed in the U.S. general adult population during the same period. The obsessive-compulsive cases detected in this investigation showed the same characteristics as the clinical cases usually described, except for the absence of male predominance generally observed in consulting patients; 75% of obsessive patients also presented other associated psychopathological disorders, most often major depression, overanxious disorder and/or bulimia, but only 20% of them had already consulted mental health professionals. This study shows that obsessive-compulsive disorder during adolescence is more frequent than expected, but often remains undiagnosed and untreated.
A Demonstration of Formal Policy Reasoning Using an Extended Version of  BaseVISor

This demonstration will show the practical application of a formal reasoning engine for both policy invocation and policy reconciliation. The primary features of this demonstration include the use of formal ontologies, context based policy reasoning, and support for both policy invocation and reconciliation. BaseVISor [C. Matheus et al., 2006], a forward chaining inference engine optimized for reasoning about RDF triples, is the formal reasoning engine that we have extended to support automated reasoning about policies through the addition of context-based semantics introduced by cwm/REIN [L. Kagal and T. Berners-Lee, 2005] and a formal ontology that we have extended/developed based on concepts from REIN and Ismeme [P. McDaniel and A. Prakash, 2006]. We will demonstrate the system's application to some existing scenarios taken from the body of work described in [L. Kagal and T. Berners-Lee, 2005] and [P. McDaniel and A. Prakash, 2006].
Anaerobic co-digestion of sewage sludge and food/beverage waste: laboratory study and pilot evaluation

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MO-MAHM: A parallel Multi-agent Architecture for Hybridization of Metaheuristics for multi-objective problems

Several researches have pointed the hybridization of metaheuristics as an effective way to deal with combinatorial optimization problems. Hybridization allows the combination of different techniques, exploiting the strengths and compensating the weakness of each of them. MAHM is a promising adaptive framework for hybridization of metaheuristics, originally designed for single objective problems. This framework is based on the concepts of intelligent agents and Particle Swarm. In this study we propose an extension of MAHM to the multi-objective scenario. The proposed framework is called MO-MAHM. To adapt MAHM to the multi-objective context, we redefine some concepts such as particle position and velocity. In this study the proposed framework is applied to the multi-objective Symmetric Travelling Salesman Problem. Four methods are hybridized: PAES, GRASP, NSGA-II and Anytime-PLS. Experiments with 12 bi-objective instances were performed and the results show that MO-MAHM is able to provide better non-dominated sets in comparison to the ones obtained by each of the hybridized algorithms.
Kirchhoo Simulation, Migration, and Inversion Using Finite Diierence Traveltimes and Amplitudes Part I: Eikonal and Transport Solvers

The traveltime and amplitude tables required for high frequency asymptotic approximation of the acoustic Green's function may be computed by e cient high order nite di erence solutions of the eikonal and transport equations. A particularly simple implementation is possible under the additional assumptions that incident and re ected rays carrying signi cant high-frequency energy propagate near the vertical and are rst arrivals.
Multichannel blind deconvolution in eye fundus imaging

Eye fundus imaging is vital for modern ophthalmology. Due to the acquisition process, fundus images often suffer from blurring and uneven illumination. This hinders diagnosis and the evolution assessment of a disease. We present a method for fundus image deblurring by means of multichannel blind deconvolution. It consists of a series of preprocessing steps to adjust the images so they comply with the considered degradation model, followed by the estimation of the point spread function, and image deconvolution. Results show that our approach is capable of significant resolution improvement in degraded retinal images.
Diurnal Differences in Global ERS Scatterometer Backscatter Observations of the Land Surface

Soil moisture estimates from the European Remote Sensing Satellite (ERS)-1, ERS-2, and Metop scatterometer instruments are available as time series starting in 1991. To better understand the satellite signal backscatter data and the corresponding soil moisture estimates, differences between different overpass times are analyzed. An analysis of more than 15 years of ERS scatterometer data has shown distinct patterns in backscatter between different overpass times. Differences between backscatter data from descending (morning overpass) and ascending (evening overpass) tracks show spatial and temporal patterns that cannot be attributed to soil moisture. Based on regional studies, we highlight the main processes causing the diurnal differences in backscatter data. Data used for this study are based on preprocessed normalized backscatter [σ0(40)] and slope [σ'(40)] data from a modified TUWien WARP 5.0 algorithm. Results show that the diurnal differences in σ0(40) between descending and ascending data are systematic and are not artifacts from previous processing steps. Statistically significant diurnal differences [Δσ0(40)] are detected over about 30% of the land area, underscoring the potential significance for hydrologic remote sensing on a global scale.
The medical office of the 21st century (MOXXI): effectiveness of computerized decision-making support in reducing inappropriate prescribing in primary care.

BACKGROUND Adverse drug-related events are common in the elderly, and inappropriate prescribing is a preventable risk factor. Our objective was to determine whether inappropriate prescribing could be reduced when primary care physicians had computer-based access to information on all prescriptions dispensed and automated alerts for potential prescribing problems. METHODS We randomly assigned 107 primary care physicians with at least 100 patients aged 66 years and older (total 12 560) to a group receiving computerized decision-making support (CDS) or a control group. Physicians in the CDS group had access to information on current and past prescriptions through a dedicated computer link to the provincial seniors' drug-insurance program. When any of 159 clinically relevant prescribing problems were identified by the CDS software, the physician received an alert that identified the nature of the problem, possible consequences and alternative therapy. The rate of initiation and discontinuation of potentially inappropriate prescriptions was assessed over a 13-month period. RESULTS In the 2 months before the study, 31.8% of the patients in the CDS group and 33.3% of those in the control group had at least 1 potentially inappropriate prescription. During the study the number of new potentially inappropriate prescriptions per 1000 visits was significantly lower (18%) in the CDS group than in the control group (relative rate [RR] 0.82, 95% confidence interval [CI] 0.69-0.98), but differences between the groups in the rate of discontinuation of potentially inappropriate prescriptions were significant only for therapeutic duplication by the study physician and another physician (RR 1.66, 95% CI 0.99-2.79) and drug interactions caused by prescriptions written by the study physician (RR 2.15, 95% CI 0.98-4.70). INTERPRETATION Computer-based access to complete drug profiles and alerts about potential prescribing problems reduces the rate of initiation of potentially inappropriate prescriptions but has a more selective effect on the discontinuation of such prescriptions.
Anterior discectomy could still be an alternative to corpectomy in highly migrated cervical disc herniation

Abstract Objective: For cases of cervical disc herniation, highly migrated cervical disc (HMCD) is clinically rare and usually treated with anterior cervical corpectomy and fusion (ACCF). This study aims to analyze the feasibility of anterior cervical discectomy and fusion (ACDF) for the patients with HMCD. Method: Clinical data of 32 patients with HMCD treated with ACDF or ACCF were retrospectively reviewed. Migration distances of the disc prolapses were measured. The mJOA score was used to evaluate surgical effect. Results: ACDF was successful in 27 patients while ACCF was used for the remaining 5 because of epidural disc prolapse adhesion or unreachable migrated fragments. Complete spinal cord decompression without residual disc fragments was observed in postoperative MRI of all cases. The mean migration distance of the disc prolapses in ACDF group was 7.3 mm, comparing to 11.4 mm in ACCF group. No disc prolapse in ACDF group exceeded the axial length of the vertebral bodies while three of five in ACCF group did. Preoperative mean mJOA scores in ACDF group and ACCF group were 8.20 ± 2.75 and 6.10 ± 2.15, respectively. Postoperative mean mJOA scores in those two groups were significantly improved to 14.70 ± 1.55 (p < .001) and 12.80 ± 1.72 (p < .001), with an improvement rate of 72.80 ± 4.76% and 62.90 ± 9.46%, respectively. Conclusion: ACDF is feasible for patients with HMCD except for cases of epidural disc prolapse adhesion or huge disc prolapse which migrates over the axial length of the vertebral body. Clinical symptoms can be significantly improved with few serious complications in those patients including ones underwent alternative ACCF due to a failed ACDF.
New CFOA-based low frequency filters for biomedical and seismic applications

This paper presents new low frequency filters. The proposed filters are built around a floating active inductor (FAI), a capacitance multiplier and/or a resistance multiplier. The proposed FAI, capacitance (resistance) multipliers uses two current feedback operational amplifiers (CFOAs) and five passive components and can realize relatively large values of inductances, capacitances and resistances that cannot be fabricated on chips. Experimental and simulation results that confirm the functionality of the proposed circuits are obtained using the commercially available CFOA AD844. The proposed filters would be useful for very low frequency applications such as biomedical devices used in the electrocardiogram (ECG), the electroencephalograph (EEG) measurements and the pacemaker detector as well as in seismic measurements.
Plastic debris in the open ocean

Significance High concentrations of floating plastic debris have been reported in remote areas of the ocean, increasing concern about the accumulation of plastic litter on the ocean surface. Since the introduction of plastic materials in the 1950s, the global production of plastic has increased rapidly and will continue in the coming decades. However, the abundance and the distribution of plastic debris in the open ocean are still unknown, despite evidence of affects on organisms ranging from small invertebrates to whales. In this work, we synthetize data collected across the world to provide a global map and a first-order approximation of the magnitude of the plastic pollution in surface waters of the open ocean. There is a rising concern regarding the accumulation of floating plastic debris in the open ocean. However, the magnitude and the fate of this pollution are still open questions. Using data from the Malaspina 2010 circumnavigation, regional surveys, and previously published reports, we show a worldwide distribution of plastic on the surface of the open ocean, mostly accumulating in the convergence zones of each of the five subtropical gyres with comparable density. However, the global load of plastic on the open ocean surface was estimated to be on the order of tens of thousands of tons, far less than expected. Our observations of the size distribution of floating plastic debris point at important size-selective sinks removing millimeter-sized fragments of floating plastic on a large scale. This sink may involve a combination of fast nano-fragmentation of the microplastic into particles of microns or smaller, their transference to the ocean interior by food webs and ballasting processes, and processes yet to be discovered. Resolving the fate of the missing plastic debris is of fundamental importance to determine the nature and significance of the impacts of plastic pollution in the ocean.
Comparison of decoding complexities for LDPC and convolutional self-doubly-orthogonal codes

The complexities of iterative belief propagation decoding techniques for randomly constructed low-density parity-check (LDPC) block codes and nonrecursive convolutional self-doubly-orthogonal codes (CSO2Cs) are analyzed and compared on the basis of their decoding latencies expressed in the number of code symbols. Although, in principle, they have the same computational complexities, the pipeline decoder structure for CSO2Cs has a much smaller implementation complexity than the block decoder structure for LDPC block codes, but at a cost of small loss in the error performance of decoding.
Weed control efficiency and yield of finger millet [Eleusine coracana (L.) Gaertn.] influenced due to different establishment techniques, levels and time of application of nitrogen

A field experiment was conducted to study the weed control efficiency and yield of finger millet [Eleusine coracana (L.) Gaertn. ] influenced due to different establishment techniques, levels and time of application of nitrogen. The field experiment was laid out in split-split plot design with 48 treatments and three replications. Total number of 48 treatments consisted of four techniques of establishment as main plot (T1–Recommended transplanting at 20 x 15 cm, T2–Random transplanting, T3–Random broadcasting of 30 days old seedlings (Awatni), T4–Random broadcasting of 20 days old seedlings (Awatni), three nitrogen levels in sub-plot (F1–60 kg N/ha, F2–80 kg N/ha and F3–100 kg N/ha) and four times of nitrogen application as sub-sub plot [S0–Basal (half dose through suphala (15:15:15), S1–2 splits-TP, 30 DAT, S2–3 splits-TP, 30 and 60 DAT and S3–4 splits- TP, 20, 40 and 60 DAT]. Thus, it can be concluded that for obtaining higher grain and straw yield from kharif finger millet under south Konkan region of Maharashtra, the kharif finger millet should be grown by recommended transplanting at 20 x 15 cm techniques of crop establishment along with 100 kg nitrogen per ha by splitting it into three equal splits (at transplanting, 30 and 60 DAT).
RANK Ligand-induced Elevation of Cytosolic Ca2+ Accelerates Nuclear Translocation of Nuclear Factor κB in Osteoclasts*

RANK ligand (RANKL) induces activation of NFκB, enhancing the formation, resorptive activity, and survival of osteoclasts. Ca2+ transduces many signaling events, however, it is not known whether the actions of RANKL involve Ca2+ signaling. We investigated the effects of RANKL on rat osteoclasts using microspectrofluorimetry and patch clamp. RANKL induced transient elevation of cytosolic free Ca2+concentration ([Ca2+] i ) to maxima 220 nm above basal, resulting in activation of Ca2+-dependent K+ current. RANKL elevated [Ca2+] i in Ca2+-containing and Ca2+-free media, and responses were prevented by the phospholipase C inhibitor U73122. Suppression of [Ca2+] i elevation using the intracellular Ca2+ chelator 1,2-bis(O-aminophenoxy)ethane-N,N,N′,N′-tetraacetic acid (BAPTA) abolished the ability of RANKL to enhance osteoclast survival. Using immunofluorescence, NFκB was found predominantly in the cytosol of untreated osteoclasts. RANKL induced transient translocation of NFκB to the nuclei, which was maximal at 15 min.U73122 or BAPTA delayed nuclear translocation of NFκB. Delays were also observed upon inhibition of calcineurin or protein kinase C. We conclude that RANKL acts through phospholipase C to release Ca2+ from intracellular stores, accelerating nuclear translocation of NFκB and promoting osteoclast survival. Such cross-talk between NFκB and Ca2+ signaling provides a novel mechanism for the temporal regulation of gene expression in osteoclasts and other cell types.
Uterine Smooth Muscle S-Nitrosylproteome in Pregnancy

The molecular mechanisms involved in uterine quiescence during gestation and those responsible for induction of labor are not completely known. Nitric oxide relaxes uterine smooth muscle in a manner disparate from that for other smooth muscles because global elevation of cGMP after activation of soluble guanylyl cyclase does not relax the muscle. S-Nitrosylation, the covalent addition of an nitric oxide (NO) group to a cysteine thiol is a likely mechanism to explain the ability of NO to relax myometrium. This work is the first to describe the myometrial S-nitrosylproteome in both pregnant and nonpregnant tissue states. Using the guinea pig model, we show that specific sets of proteins involved in contraction and relaxation are S-nitrosylated in laboring and nonlaboring muscle and that many of these proteins are uniquely S-nitrosylated in only one state of the tissue. In particular, we show that S-nitrosylation of the intermediate filament protein desmin is significantly increased (5.7-fold, p < 0.005) in pregnancy and that this increase cannot be attributed solely to the increase in protein expression (1.8-fold, p < 0.005) that accompanies pregnancy. Elucidation of the myometrial S-nitrosylproteome provides a list of mechanistically important proteins that can constitute the basis of hypotheses formed to explain the regulation of uterine contraction/relaxation.