Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Medical education in Africa: not always a level playing field

In a recently published interview about global health equality, Paul Farmer, physician and world-renowned anthropologist, drew attention to the plight of the world’s less fortunate countries. He speculated on why such countries remain disadvantaged; despite increasingly large amounts of financial and material resources seemingly being distributed; fairly, adequately and appropriately (Mullen 2007). In the same interview, Farmer concentrated on two major factors that he suggests may contribute to this inefficiency: the medical ‘brain-drain’ and the ‘Schweitzerian’ approach to providing and supporting health care. The former, more commonly described as medical migration, is a well known phenomenon, made worse by the increasing disparity between those nations that value the healthcare professional and those that, due to political and financial instability, fail to provide either the tools or the infrastructure to support the healthcare worker. Despite these ‘tools of the trade’ being standard in developed countries, basic diagnostics, therapeutics and a caring, clean environment are often absent in the undeveloped or developing parts of the world. Governments appear to fail in recognizing the vital nature of these essential requirements, leaving a discouraged and despondent healthcare force that is left with little opportunity other than to seek and provide service elsewhere.
Potential links between surging ice sheets, circulation changes, and the Dansgaard-Oeschger cycles in the Irminger Sea, 60-18 kyr

Surface and deepwater paleoclimate records in Irminger Sea core SO82-5 (59oN, 31 oW) and Icelandic Sea core PS2644 (68oN, 22oW) exhibit large fluctuations in thermohaline circulation (THC) from 60 to 18 calendar kyr B.P., with a dominant periodicity of 1460 years from 46 to 22 calendar kyr B.P., matching the Dansgaard- Oeschger (D-O) cycles in the Greenland Ice Sheet Project 2 (GISP2) temperature record (Grootes and $tuiver, 1997). During interstadials, summer sea surface temperatures (SSTsu) in the Irminger Sea averaged to 8oC, and sea surface salinities (SSS) averaged to -36.5, recording a strong Irminger Current and Atlantic THC. During stadials, SSTsu dropped to 2o-4oC, in phase with SSS drops by -1-2. They reveal major meltwater injections along with the East Greenland Current, which turned off the North Atlantic deepwater convection and hence the heat advection to the north, in harmony with various ocean circulation and ice models. On the basis of the IRD composition, icebergs came from Iceland, east Greenland, and perhaps Svalbard and other northern ice sheets. However, the southward drifting icebergs were initially jammed in the Denmark Strait, reaching the Irminger Sea only with a lag of 155-195 years. We also conclude that the abrupt stadial terminations, the D-O warming events, were tied to iceberg melt via abundant seasonal sea ice and brine water formation in the meltwater-covered northwestern North Atlantic. In the 1/1460-year frequency band, benthic 1580 brine water spikes led the temperature maxima above Greenland and in the Irminger Sea by as little as 95 years. Thus abundant brine formation, which was induced by seasonal freezing of large parts of the northwestern Atlantic, may have finally entrained a current of warm surface water from the subtropics and thereby triggered the sudden reactivation of the THC. In summary, the internal dynamics of the east Greenland ice sheet may have formed the ultimate pacemaker of D-O cycles.
Performance Evaluation of Co-location

Given a collection of boolean spatial features, the co-location pattern discovery process nds the subsets of features frequently located together. For example, the analysis of an ecology dataset may reveal the frequent co-location of a re ignition source feature with a needle vegetation type feature and a drought feature. The spatial co-location rule problem is diierent from the association rule problem. Even though boolean spatial feature types (also called spatial events) may correspond to items in association rules over market-basket datasets, there is no natural notion of transactions. This creates diiculty in using traditional measures (e.g. support, conndence) as well as association rule mining algorithms using support based pruning. We recently deened the problem of mining spatial co-location patterns and proposed the Co-location Miner 25], an algorithm for mining co-locations. In this paper, we present an experimental performance evaluation of Co-location Miner. For the purpose of comparison, we consider two other approaches, namely the pure geometric approach and the pure combinatorial approach. Empirical evaluation shows that the pure geometric method performs much better than the pure combinatorial method when generating size 2 co-locations; however, it becomes much slower when generating co-locations with more than 2 features. Co-location Miner integrates the best features of the above two approaches and provides the best overall performance. Experimental results also show that Co-location Miner is robust in the face of noise and scales up gracefully with increases in the number of spatial feature types, maximum size of co-location patterns, and the number of instances of spatial features.
Creating safe spaces in organizations to talk about safety.

Executive Summary A presentation was delivered at the 6th Annual National Patient Safety Congress in Boston (2004), and participants were encouraged to focus on methods to create safe spaces in their organizations to talk about patient safety, a precursor for a safety culture and the mainstay for understanding and continually enhancing patient safety. Key messages from that presentation were:
Motor pattern selection by nitric oxide in the stomatogastric nervous system of the crab

The gas nitric oxide (NO) serves a diversity of functions in the nervous system and plays an important role in the modulation of oscillatory networks. We investigated the actions of intrinsically produced NO on the rhythmically active gastric mill circuit within the stomatogastric ganglion (STG) of the crab, Cancer pagurus. Bath application of different NO blockers exclusively to the STG terminated spontaneously active gastric mill rhythms. Furthermore, a reduction in the activity levels of projection neurons that sustain the gastric mill rhythm was observed, suggesting that NO blockade influences feedback mechanisms that affect projection neuron activity. When STG feedback to these projection neurons was intact, their activity decreased strongly with NO blockers present exclusively in the STG. When either neuronal feedback was eliminated or projection neurons were tonically activated, NO blockade did not terminate the gastric mill rhythm, indicating an indirect ascending control of the projection neurons. Together, our results show that ascending feedback from a motor network is important in shaping network activity and that this feedback is state‐dependent and can be modulated to alter the output of the motor network.
Language emergence: Implications for applied linguistics - Introduction to the special issue

We share an interest in language. We want to understand it, its origins, structure, functions, use, acquisition, instruction, and change. We seek causes for observed effects. Scientific studies of language representation and competence and of language acquisition and use are complementary. Yet these two theoretical enterprises have traditionally been kept distinct, with models of representation (property theories) focusing on static competence, and models of acquisition (transition theories) and use focusing on dynamic process and performance. This Special Issue is motivated by the belief that our interests in language can better be furthered when it is conceived of as the emergent properties of a multi-agent, complex, dynamic, adaptive system, a conception that usefully conflates a property theory with a transition theory.
Use-Dependent Blockers and Exit Rate of the Last Ion from the Multi-Ion Pore of a K+ Channel

Quaternary ammonium blockers inhibit many voltage-activated potassium (K+) channels from the intracellular side. When applied to Drosophila Shaker potassium channels expressed in mammalian cells, these rapidly reversible blockers produced use-dependent inhibition through an unusual mechanism-they promoted an intrinsic conformational change known as C-type inactivation, from which recovery is slow. The blockers did so by cutting off potassium ion flow to a site in the pore, which then emptied at a rate of 105 ions per second. This slow rate probably reflected the departure of the last ion from the multi-ion pore: Permeation of ions (at 107 per second) occurs rapidly because of ion-ion repulsion, but the last ion to leave would experience no such repulsion.
XTE J1739–302 as a Supergiant Fast X-Ray Transient

XTE J1739-302 is a transient X-ray source with unusually short outbursts, lasting on the order of hours. Here we give a summary of X-ray observations we have made of this object in outburst with the Rossi X-Ray Timing Explorer (RXTE) and at a low level of activity with the Chandra X-Ray Observatory, as well as observations made by other groups. Visible and infrared spectroscopy of the mass donor of XTE J1739-302 are presented in a companion paper. The X-ray spectrum is hard both at low levels and in outburst, but somewhat variable, and there is strong variability in the absorption column from one outburst to another. Although no pulsation has been observed, the outburst data from multiple observatories show a characteristic timescale for variability on the order of 1500-2000 s. The Chandra localization (R.A. = 17h39m11.ˢ58, decl. = -30°20′37.″6, J2000.0) shows that despite being located less than 2° from the Galactic center and highly absorbed, XTE J1739-302 is actually a foreground object with a bright optical counterpart. The combination of a very short outburst timescale and a supergiant companion is shared with several other recently discovered systems, forming a class we designate as supergiant fast X-ray transients (SFXTs). Three persistently bright X-ray binaries with similar supergiant companions have also produced extremely short, bright outbursts: Cyg X-1, Vela X-1, and 1E 1145.1-6141.
An association between the risk of cancer and mutations in the HRAS1 minisatellite locus.

BACKGROUND The role of mutations in protooncogenes and their regulatory sequences in the pathogenesis of cancer is under close scrutiny. Minisatellites are unstable repetitive sequences of DNA that are present throughout the human genome. The highly polymorphic HRAS1 minisatellite locus just downstream from the protooncogene H-ras-1 consists of four common progenitor alleles and several dozen rare alleles, which apparently derive from mutations of the progenitors. We previously observed an association of the rare mutant alleles with many forms of cancer, and we undertook the present study to pursue this observation further. METHODS We conducted a case-control study, typing 736 HRAS1 alleles from patients with cancer and 652 from controls by Southern blotting of leukocyte DNA. We also carried out a meta-analysis of this study and 22 other published studies, estimating the relative risk of cancer (such as bladder, breast, or colorectal cancer) when one of the rare HRAS1 alleles was present. RESULTS Both the present case-control study (odds ratio, 1.83; 95 percent confidence interval, 1.28 to 2.67; P = 0.002) and the present study combined with our previous study (odds ratio, 2.07; 95 percent confidence interval, 1.47 to 2.92; P < 0.001), as well as the meta-analysis of all 23 studies (odds ratio, 1.93; 95 percent confidence interval, 1.63 to 2.30; chi-square = 57.58; P < 0.001), replicated our original finding and demonstrated a significant association of rare HRAS1 alleles with cancer. We found significant associations for four types of cancer: carcinomas of the breast, colorectum, and urinary bladder and acute leukemia. We also identified suggestive but not statistically significant associations for cancers of the lung and prostate and for non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. CONCLUSIONS Mutant alleles of the HRAS1 minisatellite locus represent a major risk factor for common types of cancer. Although the relative risk associated with the presence of one rare allele is moderate, the aggregate prevalence of one rare allele is moderate, the aggregate prevalence of this class of mutant alleles implies an extremely important attributable risk: 1 in 11 cancers of the breast, colorectum, and bladder.
Automated detection of proactive remediation by teachers in reasoning mind classrooms

Among the most important tasks of the teacher in a classroom using the Reasoning Mind blended learning system is proactive remediation: dynamically planned interventions conducted by the teacher with one or more students. While there are several examples of detectors of student behavior within an online learning environment, most have focused on behaviors occurring fully within the context of the system, and on student behaviors. In contrast, proactive remediation is a teacher-driven activity that occurs outside of the system, and its occurrence is not necessarily related to the student's current task within the Reasoning Mind system. We present a sensor-free detector of proactive remediation, which is able to distinguish these activities from other behaviors involving idle time, such as on-task conversation related to immediate learning activities and off-task behavior.
Super D-branes from BRST Symmetry

Recently a new formalism has been developed for the covariant quantization of superstrings. We study properties of Dp-branes and p-branes in this new framework, focusing on two different topics: effective actions and boundary states for Dp-branes. We present a derivation of the Wess-Zumino terms for super (D)p-branes using BRST symmetry. To achieve this we derive the BRST symmetry for superbranes, starting from the approach with/without pure spinors, and completely characterize the WZ terms as elements of the BRST cohomology. We also develope the boundary state description of Dp-branes by analyzing the boundary conditions for open strings in the completely covariant (i.e., without pure spinors) BRST formulation.
Optimal FPGA module placement with temporal precedence constraints

We consider the optimal placement of hardware modules in space and time for FPGA architectures with reconfiguration capabilities, where modules are modeled as three-dimensional boxes in space and time. Using a graph-theoretic characterization of feasible packings, we are able to solve the following problems. (a) Find the minimal execution time of the given problem on an FPGA of fixed size, (b) Find the FPGA of minimal size to accomplish the tasks within a fired time limit. Furthermore, our approach is perfectly suited for the treatment of precedence constraints for the sequence of tasks, which are present in virtually all practical instances. Additional mathematical structures are developed that lead to a powerful framework for completing optimal solutions. The usefulness is illustrated by computational results.
Role of GCN2-Independent Signaling Through a Noncanonical PERK/NRF2 Pathway in the Physiological Responses to Dietary Methionine Restriction

Restricting availability of essential amino acids (EAAs) limits aminoacylation of tRNAs by their cognate EAAs and activates the nutrient-sensing kinase, general control nonderepressible 2 (GCN2). Activated GCN2 phosphorylates eukaryotic initiation factor 2 (eIF2), altering gene-specific translation and initiating a transcriptional program collectively described as the integrated stress response (ISR). Central GCN2 activation by EAA deprivation is also linked to an acute aversive feeding response. Dietary methionine restriction (MR) produces a well-documented series of physiological responses (increased energy intake and expenditure, decreased adiposity, and increased insulin sensitivity), but the role of GCN2 in mediating them is unknown. Using Gcn2−/− mice, we found that the absence of GCN2 had no effect on the ability of MR to reduce body weight or adiposity, increase energy intake and expenditure, increase hepatic transcription and release of fibroblast growth factor 21, or improve insulin sensitivity. Interestingly, hepatic eIF2 phosphorylation by MR was uncompromised in Gcn2−/− mice. Instead, protein kinase R–like endoplasmic reticulum (ER) kinase (PERK) was activated in both intact and Gcn2−/− mice. PERK activation corresponded with induction of the ISR and the nuclear respiratory factor 2 antioxidant program but not ER stress. These data uncover a novel glutathione-sensing mechanism that functions independently of GCN2 to link dietary MR to its metabolic phenotype.
Assessment of food consumption, energy and protein intake in the meals offered in four Spanish nursing homes

Background/objective: The elderly, and especially those attending nursing homes, are at great risk from certain nutritional deficiencies. The aim of this study was to examine the percentage of energy wasted, energy and protein intake and percentage consumed of meal offered by a group of healthy institutionalized elderly in four nursing homes in Spain. Design and methods: This was a multicentre observational study of a sample of the institutionalized population over the age of 65. Our final sample comprised a total of 62 individuals. Dietary data were collected using double weight method for each meal during 21 days. We calculated the following consumption variables: percentage of food consumed (% food consumed) for each subject in each meal. We also calculated the energy intake (kcal/day), the wasted energy (kcal/day), the protein intake (g protein/ day) and the energy density (kcal/g meal) for each of the meals eaten. To analyse the overall differences we used analysis of variance test (ANOVA). The significance level used was 0.05 (p < 0.05). Results: The largest meals were lunch (781 g/day [728.4, 833.6]) and dinner (653 g/day [612.1, 693.9]). The percentage of total consumption was 81.9% [79.3, 84.6]. The average energy consumption was 1,575.4 kcal/day [1,508.3, 1,642.6]. The percentage of caloric distribution varied depending on the center. The highest percentage of wasted food was found in the main meals. Forty four percent did not consume enough energy to meet the recommended intakes. Protein intake was 63.6 g protein / day [61.2, 66.1]. 12.5% of women and 4.55% of men did not consume the recommended intakes for the elderly. Breakfast and the bedtime snack had the highest energy density with 1.10 [0.9, 1.25] and 1.04 [0.9, 1.08] kcal/g food served respectively [Energy density]. Discusion/conclusions: The best strategy for increasing the energy intake of the institutionalized elderly without raising the amount of food that is rejected may be to provide higher energy density foods in the same serving sizes.
A Home Divided: Women and Income in the Third World

Introduction Judith Bruce and Daisy Dwyer 1. The material consequences of reproductive failure in rural South Asia Mead Cain 2. Intergenerational contracts: familial roots of sexual stratification in Taiwan Susan Greenhalgh 3. Women are good with money: earning and managing in an Indonesian city Hanna Papanek and Laurel Schwede 4. Women's work and poverty: women's contribution to household maintenance in South India Joan P. Mencher 5. Household budgeting and financial management in a lower-income Cairo neighborhood Homa Hoodfar 6. The nonpooling household: a challenge to theory Eleanor R. Fapohunda 7. Dynamic approaches to domestic budgeting: cases and methods from Africa Jane Guyer 8. Income allocation and marriage options in Urban Zambia Monica Munachonga 9. The constraints on and release of female labor power: Dominican migration to the United States Patricia R. Pessar 10. The impact of Agrarian reform on men's and women's incomes in rural Honduras Constantina Safilios-Rothschild 11. Renegotiating the marital contract: intrahousehold patterns of money allocation and women's subordination among domestic out workers in Mexico city Martha Roldan 12. The black four of hearts: toward a new paradigm of household economics Nancy Folbre.
Draft Genome Sequences of Two Marinitoga camini Isolates Producing Bacterioviruses

ABSTRACT Here, we present the draft genome sequences of two thermophilic Marinitoga strain members of the Thermotogales order, Marinitoga camini DV1155 and Marinitoga camini DV1197. These strains were isolated from deep-sea hydrothermal vents of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge.
Observer backstepping control for variable speed wind turbine

This paper presents an observer backstepping controller as feasible solution to variable speed control of wind turbines to maximize wind power capture when operating between cut-in and rated wind speeds. The wind turbine is modeled as a two-mass drive-train system controlled by the generator torque. The nonlinear controller aims at regulating the generator torque such that an optimal tip-speed ratio can be obtained. Simply relying on the measured rotor angular velocity the proposed observer backstepping controller guarantees global asymptotic tracking of the desired trajectory while maintaining a globally uniformly ultimately bounded torsional angle. The proposed controller shows convincing performance when simulated in closed loop within a stochastic environment.
ECG signal quantization effects in the analysis of atrial fibrillation

During last years spectral analysis techniques applied to the ECG have contributed to the knowledge and management of atrial fibrillation (AF). In this matter, it is proved the utility of parameters extracted from the atrial activity (AA) in the time-frequency domain for episode analysis and characterization. These techniques are mostly applied to high resolution 12-lead ECGs. Nevertheless, these high resolution recordings are not always available in the clinical practice and recordings from low resolution acquisition systems, e.g. Holter systems, must be used instead. In this work we analyze the effects of ECG quantization on the AA extraction quality carried out by one of the most recent techniques, independent component analysis (ICA), and the suitability of time-frequency parameters in low resolution recordings.
Induction of respiratory immune responses in the chicken; implications for development of mucosal avian influenza virus vaccines

The risk and the size of an outbreak of avian influenza virus (AIV) could be restricted by vaccination of poultry. A vaccine used for rapid intervention during an AIV outbreak should be safe, highly effective after a single administration and suitable for mass application. In the case of AIV, aerosol vaccination using live virus is not desirable because of its zoonotic potential and because of the risk for virus reassortment. The rational design of novel mucosal-inactivated vaccines against AIV requires a comprehensive knowledge of the structure and function of the lung-associated immune system in birds in order to target vaccines appropriately and to design efficient mucosal adjuvants. This review addresses our current understanding of the induction of respiratory immune responses in the chicken. Furthermore, possible mucosal vaccination strategies for AIV are highlighted.