Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Performance of microfinance institutions in Burkina Faso

This study tests the performance of microfinance institutions (MFIs) in Burkina Faso using indicators such as the sustainable interest rate and the subsidy dependence index. The results indicate that MFIs outreach performance remains very low compared with potential demand, and the factors responsible appear to be both the refusal of most MFIs to mobilize local savings and the high costs of supply of microfinancial services. The results also show that MFIs are not viable and sustainable. Their interest rates are kept low and do not allow them to cover all the costs. In addition, the results indicate that MFIs are dependent on subsidies. However, the oldest MFIs and/or institutions providing deposit services have the lowest subsidy dependence index. It is suggested that more attention should be placed on savings mobilization and ceilings on interest rates should be removed in order to allow MFIs to charge sustainable interest rates.
Review of Artiﬁcial Intelligence and Machine Learning Technologies: Classiﬁcation, Restrictions, Opportunities and Challenges

: Artiﬁcial intelligence (AI) is an evolving set of technologies used for solving a wide range of applied issues. The core of AI is machine learning (ML)—a complex of algorithms and methods that address the problems of classiﬁcation, clustering, and forecasting. The practical application of AI&ML holds promising prospects. Therefore, the researches in this area are intensive. However, the industrial applications of AI and its more intensive use in society are not widespread at the present time. The challenges of widespread AI applications need to be considered from both the AI (internal problems) and the societal (external problems) perspective. This consideration will identify the priority steps for more intensive practical application of AI technologies, their introduction, and involvement in industry and society. The article presents the identiﬁcation and discussion of the challenges of the employment of AI technologies in the economy and society of resource-based countries. The systematization of AI&ML technologies is implemented based on publications in these areas. This systematization allows for the speciﬁcation of the organizational, personnel, social and technological limitations. This paper outlines the directions of studies in AI and ML, which will allow us to overcome some of the limitations and achieve expansion of the scope of AI&ML applications.
The INTEGRAL mission

The ESA observatory INTEGRAL (International Gamma-Ray Astrophysics Laboratory) is dedicated to the fine spectroscopy (2.5 keV FWHM @ 1 MeV) and fine imaging (angular resolution: 12 arcmin FWHM) of celestial gamma-ray sources in the energy range 15 keV to 10 MeV with concurrent source monitoring in the X-ray ($3{-}35$ keV) and optical ( V -band, 550 nm) energy ranges. INTEGRAL carries two main gamma-ray instruments, the spectrometer SPI (Vedrenne et al. [CITE]) – optimized for the high-resolution gamma-ray line spectroscopy (20 keV–8 MeV), and the imager IBIS (Ubertini et al. [CITE]) – optimized for high-angular resolution imaging (15 keV–10 MeV). Two monitors, JEM-X (Lund et al. [CITE]) in the ($3{-}35$) keV X-ray band, and OMC (Mas-Hesse et al. [CITE]) in optical Johnson V -band complement the payload. The ground segment includes the Mission Operations Centre at ESOC, ESA and NASA ground stations, the Science Operations Centre at ESTEC and the Science Data Centre near Geneva. INTEGRAL was launched on 17 October 2002. The observing programme is well underway and sky exposure (until June 2003) reaches ~1800 ks in the Galactic plane. The prospects are excellent for the scientific community to observe the high energy sky using state-of-the-art gamma-ray imaging and spectroscopy. This paper presents a high-level overview of INTEGRAL.
An Enhanced 3D Multi-Sensor Integrated Navigation System for Land-Vehicles

In urban areas, Global Positioning System (GPS) accuracy deteriorates due to signal degradation and multipath effects. To provide accurate and robust navigation in such GPS-denied environments, multi-sensor integrated navigation systems are developed. This paper introduces a 3D multi-sensor navigation system that integrates inertial sensors, odometry and GPS for land-vehicle navigation. A new error model is developed and an efficient loosely coupled closed-loop Kalman Filter (Extended KF or EKF) integration scheme is proposed. In this EKF-based integration scheme, the inertial/odometry navigation output is continuously corrected by EKF-estimated errors, which keeps the errors within acceptable linearization ranges which improves the prediction accuracy of the linearized dynamic error model. Consequently, the overall performance of the integrated system is improved. Real road experiments and comparison with earlier works have demonstrated a more reliable performance during GPS signal degradation and accurate estimation of inertial sensor errors (biases) have led to a more sustainable performance reliability during long GPS complete outages.
Design Research on Pedagogically Motivated Multimodal Course in English: Tools for Student Engagement Enhancing Learning Outcomes

This design research focuses on best practices on student engagement and learning outcomes of a pilot multimodal English course for first-year students on social field and health care at the Diaconia University of Applied Sciences, Finland. The students are provided with iPads, but the implementation of the course considers versatile devices. The 10-week blended learning course with online learning material and exercises is targeted for students not yet achieving the UAS skill requirement B1 in speaking, writing, listening and reading comprehension, vocabulary and grammar. The course aims at enhancing students' language competence and confidence. A special emphasis is put on motivation and emotions through visual design with icons, collaborative learning tasks, goal-centered learning and storytelling, in order to strengthen the basic skills required on the following field-specific and working-life oriented language course. The layout and structure familiarize international exchange programs and international professionalism by creating a storyboard centered on around the world-travel theme. Social media tools and new methods of communication (Instagram, e-cards, livestreaming, Google maps etc.) were integrated in the learning tasks, bringing a motivating and fun element into studying grammar as well as written and oral skills. Student engagement is achieved through positive self-assessment, guidance towards self-regulated learning, encouragement towards international work, peer assignments, and partly self-paced as well as collaborative learning as different groups are brought together on the same course platform. Students' learning outcome is visualized and assessed through placement test, online exercise results, peer and teacher feedback, learning diary, submitted study plan, the course exam and a questionnaire complementing the study results. The planning of the online course material was based on the notion of world citizenship, multicultural awareness and sensitivity, international professionalism, and multimedia-based learning. Using new apps in learning tasks should be well guided, otherwise they will not contribute to the learning outcomes. The learning process can be jammed by technical difficulties, lack of guidance or poor IT-skills, and it affects the self-regulatory learning outcomes and feedback given. However overcoming the obstacles brings self-confidence and encourages to use the language
Prerequisites for Affective Signal Processing (ASP) - Part II

In [1–3], a series of prerequisites for affective signal processing (ASP) was defined: validation (e.g., mapping of constructs on signals), triangulation, a physiology-driven approach, contributions of the signal processing community, identification of users, theoretical specification, integration of biosignals, and physical characteristics. This paper defines three additional prerequisites: historical perspective, temporal construction, and real-world baselines.
The diversity and abundance of littoral microflora in Chicoco -mud along the lower reaches of the New – Calabar River, Niger-Delta, Nigeria

: The diversity and abundance of littoral microflora in C hicoco -mud along the lower reaches of the New-Calabar River, Niger-Delta, Nigeria, was undertaken from June to October 2008 covering wet and dry seasons. Five stations were randomly chosen while littoral benthic samples were collected at Extreme Low Neap or Spring Tides. Microfloral results indicate the presence of the Raphidophyceae (3 – 5%), Pennatea (69 – 76%) and Centricae (20 – 28%) Bacillariophyceae. Seasonal variations were minimal , however , in wet season , average Margalef’s Species Richness Index (d) varied from 2.070 – 2.196, Shannon-Weiner Diversity Index (H) varied from 1.016 – 1.084 bit/Individual (Ind.) and Equitability (E) from 0.947 – 0.958 while in dry season ‘d’ varied from 2.007 – 2.194 , ‘H’ from 1.047 – 1.135 and ‘E’ from 0.943 – 0.954 bits/Ind. ; Nevertheless , Hutcheson t test for ‘H’ between Stations indicated ‘significant’ and ‘not-significant’ differences at P < 0.05 level. The most abundant and only species amongst the Raphidophyceae was the ‘red tide causing’ and toxic Chattonella antiqua (Y.Itada.) . C. Ono , while for the Centricae it was Coscinodiscus eccentricus Ehrenb. and Stephanodiscus niagarae Ehrenb. and for the Pennatea – Nitzschia sigmoidea (Nitzsch.) W. Smith , Navicula anglic Ralfs , Surirella fastuosa (Ehrenb.) Ehrenb. and Tropidoneis lepidoptera (Greg.) Cleve. Chicoco-mud ‘stations’ and ‘monthly’ physicochemical data indicated that Sand, Silt, Clay, Fibre, Wet conductivity, TOC , pH ,Avail. P., and NO -3 – N were significantly different and affected the diversity and abundance of microflora , thus the continuous use of Chicoco -mud for land reclamation should be discouraged.
Metabolic Profiling, Antiviral Activity and the Microbiome of Some Mauritian Soft Corals

Soft corals, recognized as sessile marine invertebrates, rely mainly on chemical, rather than physical defense, by secreting intricate secondary metabolites with plausible pharmaceutical implication. Their ecological niche encompasses a diverse community of symbiotic microorganisms which potentially contribute to the biosynthesis of these bioactive metabolites. The emergence of new viruses and heightened viral resistance underscores the urgency to explore novel pharmacological reservoirs. Thus, marine organisms, notably soft corals and their symbionts, have drawn substantial attention. In this study, the chemical composition of four Mauritian soft corals: Sinularia polydactya, Cespitularia simplex, Lobophytum patulum, and Lobophytum crassum was investigated using LC–MS techniques. Concurrently, Illumina 16S metagenomic sequencing was used to identify the associated bacterial communities in the named soft corals. The presence of unique biologically important compounds and vast microbial communities found therein was further followed up to assess their antiviral effects against SARS-CoV-2 and HPV pseudovirus infection. Strikingly, among the studied soft corals, L. patulum displayed an expansive repertoire of unique metabolites alongside a heightened bacterial consort. Moreover, L. patulum extracts exerted some promising antiviral activity against SARS-CoV-2 and HPV pseudovirus infection, and our findings suggest that L. patulum may have the potential to serve as a therapeutic agent in the prevention of infectious diseases, thereby warranting further investigation.
Few-Shot Classification Using Tensor Completion

—Machine learning is increasingly applied to tackle classification challenges in various real-world contexts. Recently, there has been a growing interest in tensor-based modeling techniques within the machine learning community. In this work, we combine classification and tensor decomposition methods to reformulate the classification problem as a tensor completion task. Specifically, a tensor of scores of the samples is learned, where the sample values correspond to indices in the tensor, containing the scores for each class. Subsequently, when we encounter new data points, we can classify them by extracting the score values from the learned tensor at the indicated sample position, assigning them to the class with the highest score. Given that only a fraction of tensor entries can be obtained from a limited training set of samples, we utilize Tucker decomposition in conjunction with the hinge loss function to complete the score tensor, considering the discrete nature of the predicted class variable. Our experimental results across various real-world classification tasks reveal that this proposed tensor-based learning approach enhances classification performance, especially when dealing with a constrained number of training samples, outperforming state-of-the-art methods.
Diﬀerentiable Piecewise-B´ezier Surfaces on Riemannian Manifolds

We generalize the notion of B´ezier surfaces and surface splines to Riemannian manifolds. To this end we put forward and compare three possible alternative deﬁnitions of B´ezier surfaces. We furthermore investigate how to achieve C 0 - and C 1 -continuity of B´ezier surface splines. Unlike in Euclidean space and for one-dimensional B´ezier splines on manifolds, C 1 -continuity cannot be ensured by simple conditions on the B´ezier control points: it requires an adaptation of the B´ezier spline evaluation scheme. Finally, we propose an algorithm to optimize the B´ezier control points given a set of points to be interpolated by a B´ezier surface spline. We show computational examples on the sphere, the special orthogonal group, and two Riemannian shape spaces.
"Size, clutch size and nesting distribution in leatherbacks on Playa Norte, Costa Rica"

During 8 years (2006-2013) data was collected from leatherbacks nesting on Playa Norte, Costa Rica. In this study relationships between Curved Carapace Length (CCL)/Width (CCW) and clutch size were examined as well as the difference in CCL and clutch size between newly recorded turtles and previously recorded turtles. Clutch size increased significantly with larger CCL/CCW and newly recorded turtles (assumed to likely be younger) were significantly smaller and laid fewer eggs than previously recorded turtles. Out of 181 recorded individuals only 5,5% were recorded more than once on Playa Norte in different breeding seasons and the number of newly recorded turtles was relatively high compared to other studies. A more frequent consistency of surveys and an extension of the beach length could contribute to more representative results.
BJGP OPEN Engagement with emotional concerns in general practice: thematic analysis of GP consultations

Background Emotional concerns (defined as any expression of low mood, anxiety or psychosocial stress) are an important part of the biopsychosocial care model used in modern medical practice. Previous work has demonstrated variable engagement with emotional concerns and that improved communication has been associated with reductions in emotional distress. Aim To examine how emotional concerns are engaged with during routine GP consultations. Design and Setting Secondary study using the HARI database. The available dataset contains 231 recordings from 10 GPs across 8 urban and suburban practices recorded in 2017 and 2018. Method The dataset was reviewed to identify any consultations containing emotional concerns (as defined as any expression of low mood, anxiety or psychosocial stress) before being imported into NVivo 12 to facilitate thematic analysis and coding. Reflexive inductive thematic analysis resulted in two major themes. Results Engagement with emotional concerns is dynamic throughout consultations (Theme 1). This dynamism relates to competing areas of focus, immediate versus delayed engagement and re-iteration of concerns throughout consultations. Emotional concerns can be engaged with in a similar way to physical concerns (Theme 2) using a diagnostic and treatment-based approach, however in addition to this therapeutic listening and conversation is utilised.
A General Framework for Safe Decision Making: A Convex Duality Approach

We study the problem of online interaction in general decision making problems, where the objective is not only to find optimal strategies, but also to satisfy some safety guarantees, expressed in terms of costs accrued. We propose a theoretical framework to address such problems and present BAN-SOLO, a UCB-like algo-rithm that, in an online interaction with an unknown environment, attains sublinear regret of order O ( √ T ) and plays safely with high probability at each iteration. At its core, BAN-SOLO relies on tools from convex duality to manage environment exploration while satisfying the safety constraints imposed by the problem
HEPATITIS B AWARENESS AMONG NURSING STAFF AND THEIR VACCINATION

: The present study is to design about the hepatitis B awareness among nursing staff and their vaccination. Nursing staff are at high risk of hepatitis B Virus (HBV) infection during treatment of their patents. The present study is cross-sectional by nature. The study also investigate the HBV vaccination coverage in Jhang city, nursing to look into their attitudes towards the importance of vaccines and to reveal reasons associated with not being vaccinated. The objective of the study were; To study the Knowledge ,attitude and practice regarding hepatitis B awareness among nursing staff and their vaccination, to identify the perception of nursing staff towards hepatitis B awareness among nursing staff and their vaccination. To identify the factors that affect the hepatitis B awareness among nursing staff and their vaccination. The population of the study were all nursing staff in Jhang city. A well-managed self-contractor questionnaire distributed to 120 nursing staff in different hospital in Jhang City. Descriptive statistics and using suitable statistical techniques used by data analyzed. After the collection of data, the researcher analyzed the data by T Test. Primary information was also collected in this regard and compared to assess the probability and significance of this study. The result shows that highly significant (P<0.05) ** difference was found between awareness and vaccination among nursing staff. The above result shows that significant (P<0.05) difference was found between young age would have low level of awareness and their vaccination as compare to old age nursing staff.
A new semi-terrestrial Cryptorchestia Lowry et Fanini, 2013

A new species of the semi-terrestrial talitrid genus Cryptorchestia Lowry et Fanini, 2013, Cryptorchestia ciscaucasica sp.n. , is described from western Abkhazia and the western part of the Ciscau-casian Plain, reaching Rostov-on-Don and the Tsimly-ansk Reservoir, Russia. The new species is obviously related to the Western European C. garbinii Ruffo, Turaco et Latella, 2014. Both species are genetically separated for 2.5% by COI mtDNA gene marker, geographically isolated and can be easily distinguished by the shape of antennas I–II and the spinulation of propo-dus (palm) of both gnathopods I–II in males and females. It is very likely that these species were separated by episodes of cooling/glaciation, the most powerful of which occur during the Cromerian Stage of the Middle Pleistocene, about 0.5–0.8 Mya, and survived during some unfavorable periods in the southern ref-ugium of the Caucasus and southwestern Europe, respectively.
Preparation of Protoplasts from Populus (Populus × xiaohei T. S. Hwang et Liang) and Establishment of Transient Expression System

Poplar, as a typical woody plant, is an ideal raw material for the production of lignocellulose biofuel. However, the longer life cycle is not conducive to the rapid identi�cation of poplar genes. At present, many model plants have used protoplasts for gene function identi�cation and high-throughput analysis. In this paper, a simpli�ed and e�cient protoplast isolation and transient expression system of Populus (Populus × xiaohei T. S. Hwang et Liang) is described. Firstly, we proposed an e�cient enzyme hydrolysis method for isolating protoplasts from leaves of Populus × xiaohei. Secondly, we further optimized the conditions of protoplast transformation mediated by PEG, and established an e�cient transient expression system of protoplasts of Populus × xiaohei. Finally, the subcellular localization of three identi�ed Dof transcription factors (PnDof19,PnDof20 and PnDof30) was also observed in the nucleus by using this scheme, which proved that the method was feasible. In general, this e�cient method of protoplast isolation and transformation can be used for the study of protein subcellular localization and can be applied to other �elds of molecular biology, such as protein interaction, gene activation and so on.
Options for Reflective Learning on the Characteristics of Scientific Inquiry within a Students’ Participation Project in Authentic Scientific Research.

From 2012 to 2014 high school students participated in the Sparkling Science Project: “Pollen and Respirable Dust – Mutual Allergy Triggers? “ The project had the aim to investigate – together with the students – potential connections between allergy triggering substances in pollen and respirable dust. The students were involved in the research within three disciplines: Microbiology, Analytical Chemistry and Botany. One goal of the project was to increase the understanding of the students about how science works, including the understanding of basic principles of scientific knowledge acquisition, scientific thinking and reasoning, investigation practices, standards and values of research procedures – in other words to deepen their understanding of Nature of Science (NOS) and Nature of Scientific Inquiry (NOSI). For the development of knowledge about NOS / NOSI both an active participation in research processes and an explicit reflection on NOS / NOSI aspects are important. In the educational research accompanying, therefore, special attention was called to the development of tools for the students to reflect and to further develop their views on science and scientific research. Through a formative mind map setting, reflective workshops on NOS / NOSI as well as open questionnaires the students’ views on scientific research were recorded. Experiences with those different methods were documented and discussed with regard to the further development of the Sparkling Science project.
Real-Time Illumination Capture and Rendering on Mobile Devices Real-Time Illumination Capture and Rendering on Mobile Devices

: We present our efforts to develop methods for rendering 3D objects on mobile devices using real-world dynamic illumination from the user’s environment. To achieve this, we use the front and back cameras on the mobile device to estimate the light distribution in the environment in real time. We then create a dynamic illumination map and render the object at interactive rates in a browser on the device using a web-based graphics API. This project achieves one of the goals of our related work on realistic visualization of virtual objects: to make virtual objects appear to be situated within the scene they are observed in.