Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Staff’s Perceptions of Vision and Long Term Principal Leadership in South African schools: An Exploratory Study

This article reports on the perceptions of school staff on vision as part of the long term leadership task of their principals. A quantitative study was conducted using the long term leadership model as a theoretical framework to guide the compilation of the long term leadership questionnaire. This investigation showed that the majority of respondents agree that vision is an important determinant of long term leadership in schools. Vision impacts on the involvement of stakeholders, the effectiveness of school management and the quality of teaching and learning. Another finding was that respondents’ perceptions of the vision of their school principals has statistically significant correlations in relation to vision communication, values management, staff development and empowerment as factors which also impact on long term leadership provision in schools. These findings have significant implications for the development of long term leadership training materials for principals. DOI: 10.5901/mjss.2014. v5n4p406
Work-Family Trajectories and the Higher Cardiovascular Risk of American Women Relative to Women in 13 European Countries.

OBJECTIVES To investigate whether less-healthy work-family life histories contribute to the higher cardiovascular disease prevalence in older American compared with European women. METHODS We used sequence analysis to identify distinct work-family typologies for women born between 1935 and 1956 in the United States and 13 European countries. Data came from the US Health and Retirement Study (1992-2006) and the Survey of Health, Aging, and Retirement in Europe (2004-2009). RESULTS Work-family typologies were similarly distributed in the United States and Europe. Being a lone working mother predicted a higher risk of heart disease, stroke, and smoking among American women, and smoking for European women. Lone working motherhood was more common and had a marginally stronger association with stroke in the United States than in Europe. Simulations indicated that the higher stroke risk among American women would only be marginally reduced if American women had experienced the same work-family trajectories as European women. CONCLUSIONS Combining work and lone motherhood was more common in the United States, but differences in work-family trajectories explained only a small fraction of the higher cardiovascular risk of American relative to European women.
“How Much Can One Book Do?”: Exploring Perceptions of a Common Book Program for First-Year University Students

Abstract This article reports on student surveys and faculty interviews with regard to a university pilot project of a common book program for first-year students. We found that a minority of students read the book and the book was integrated into only some faculty members’ courses. First-year students varied in their perceptions of the impact the project had on selected literacy skills, with small to moderate gains reported. In addition, the program did not create a sense of community for students or faculty members. Some students and all faculty members believed the program had the potential to have a greater impact on students’ university-level skills and to create a sense of community in future years. Practical implications for common book programs and suggestions for future research are discussed.
Multi-Modal Multi-Task Learning for Automatic Dietary Assessment

We investigate the task of automatic dietary assessment: given meal images and descriptions uploaded by real users, our task is to automatically rate the meals and deliver advisory comments for improving users' diets. To address this practical yet challenging problem, which is multi-modal and multi-task in nature, an end-to-end neural model is proposed. In particular, comprehensive meal representations are obtained from images, descriptions and user information. We further introduce a novel memory network architecture to store meal representations and reason over the meal representations to support predictions. Results on a real-world dataset show that our method outperforms two strong image captioning baselines significantly.
Fighting AIDS the Cuban way.

Cuba is using elements of classical public health practice in its national AIDS control program. Its AIDS policy appears to be successful. Cuba has 927 HIV-positive cases and 187 AIDS cases (111 deaths) in a population of more than 10 million. Its neighbors have cumulative AIDS prevalence rates at least on par with those of the US. Puerto Rico (around 3 million population) has more than 8000 AIDS cases. Cuba's health system provides for a family physician for every 12 apartment blocks. This physician lives in the community and makes home visits. Medical testing and screenings, including HIV screening, are routine in Cuba. Cuba has the most comprehensive HIV testing program in the world. This program detects fewer than 125 new HIV-positive cases annually. Cuba's successful health system existed before the advent of AIDS. More than 60% of HIV-positive persons are heterosexuals. Many were infected while serving abroad (internationalists) or as sexual partners of internationalists. Cuba considered AIDS as just another health threat and handled it accordingly. It did not worry about offending high risk populations. HIV-infected persons living in the HIV/AIDS sanatoria receive full salaries regardless of their work status and are expected to follow rules that serve to benefit themselves as well as Cuban society. They must accept the three safe sex commandments of the sanatoria before being allowed to leave after completion of a 6-month probationary period. Some patients are allowed to return home after the probationary period. Residents who practice unsafe sex lose their right to leave unchaperoned. All residents receive an individually tailored regimen, which regimen includes exercise, interferon or AZT, and a high calorie and protein diet (5000 kc/day). The Cuban AIDS program focuses on protecting gays, women, and children.
Spatial distribution of biomass and links to reported disturbances in tropical lowland forests of southern Mexico

Background: The uncertainty of our understanding of the spatial variation in tropical forest biomass is still very high, due to lack of information on the effect of disturbances on carbon dynamics. Results: The spatial variation of aboveground living biomass (AGLB) in the tropical lowland forests of Mexico was high and show links with recorded human and natural disturbances. Areas with high biomass are limited to southeast Yucatan and east Chiapas. In plots with fire, land-use change and grazing, AGLB was approximately 20% lower than in undisturbed plots. Plots with forest management had higher AGLB. Conclusion: The high biomass outlier plots are an indication of the stock enhancement potential of the forests. The inventory design could be improved by collecting more quantitative information on disturbance intensity and history.
Prognostic Factors for Treated Canine Malignant Lymphoma

The aim of this study was to investigate the prognostic importance of different clinical, immunohistologic and tumorproliferation characteristics in dogs with malignant lymphoma treated with chemotherapy. From 74 dogs with malignant lymphoma at least one enlarged peripheral lymph node was taken for biopsy before chemotherapy following a standardized protocol (vincristine, cyclophosphamide, prednisolone, doxorubicin, and L-asparaginase). The variables evaluated as prognostic factors were age, sex, and tumor stage, as well as histomorphologic grade (Kiel classification, Working Formulation), immunophenotype (using markers for CD3 and CD79a), and cell proliferation (Ki-67, proliferation cell nuclear antigen, mitotic index, and argyrophil nucleolar organizer regions [AgNORs]) in extirpated lymph nodes. All markers were used on routinely formalin-fixed, paraffin-embedded tissues. The AgNORs were assessed qualitatively, based on the AgNOR pattern distribution, and quantitatively using image analysis and routine counting. In both univariate and multivariate survival analyses, AgNORs were a valuable prognostic marker for the treatment of canine malignant lymphomas. Based on the results of the multivariate analysis longer survival time correlated with a B-cell type, a larger mean AgNOR area, a larger total AgNOR area, a shorter distance between two AgNORs, and a smaller AgNOR area to nucleus ratio. Longer disease-free survival time correlated with a smaller number of AgNORs per nucleus, a larger mean AgNOR area, a larger maximal AgNOR area, and a larger total AgNOR area. This study clearly demonstrates the additional benefit of the use of AgNORs in predicting treatment outcome in dogs with malignant lymphoma.
INEQUITY IN EQUITY: How "Equity" Can Lead to Inequity for High-Potential Students

Over the past three decades, the achievement of waves of American students with high intellectual potential has declined as a result of inequity in educational treatment. This inequity is the result of an extreme form of egalitarianism within American society and schools, which involves the pitting of equity against excellence rather than promoting both equity and excellence, anti-intellectualism, the “dumbing-down” of the curriculum, equating aptitude and achievement testing with elitism, the attraction to fads by schools, and the insistence of schools to teach all students from the same curriculum at the same level. In this article we provide recommendations for creating positive change—recommendations that emphasize excellence for all, that call for responsiveness to individual differences, and that suggest basing educational policies on well-grounded research findings in psychology and education. Educational policies that fail to take into account the vast range of individual differences among students—as do many that are currently in use—are doomed to be ineffective.
Conservative Management of Lumbar Disc Herniation With Associated Radiculopathy: A Systematic Review

Study Design. A systematic review of randomized controlled trials. Objective. To determine the efficacy and adverse effects of conservative treatments for people who have lumbar disc herniation with associated radiculopathy (LDHR). Summary of Background Data. Although conservative management is commonly used for people who have LDHR, the efficacy and adverse effects of conservative treatments for this condition are unclear. Methods. We searched 10 computer databases for trials published in English between 1971 and 2008. Trials focusing on people with referred leg symptoms and radiologic confirmation of a lumbar disc herniation were included if at least 1 group received a conservative and noninjection treatment. Results. Eighteen trials involving 1671 participants were included. Seven (39%) trials were considered of high quality. Meta-analysis on 2 high-quality trials revealed that advice is less effective than microdiscectomy surgery at short-term follow-up, but equally effective at long-term follow-up. Individual high-quality trials provided moderate evidence that stabilization exercises are more effective than no treatment, that manipulation is more effective than sham manipulation for people with acute symptoms and an intact anulus, and that no difference exists among traction, laser, and ultrasound. One trial showed some additional benefit from adding mechanical traction to medication and electrotherapy methods. Adverse events were associated with traction (pain, anxiety, lower limb weakness, and fainting) and ibuprofen (gastrointestinal events). Conclusion. Advice is less effective than microdiscectomy in the short term but equally effective in the long term for people who have LDHR. Moderate evidence favors stabilization exercises over no treatment, manipulation over sham manipulation, and the addition of mechanical traction to medication and electrotherapy. There was no difference among traction, laser, and ultrasound. Adverse events were associated with traction and ibuprofen. Additional high-quality trials would allow firmer conclusions regarding adverse effects and efficacy.
An ST2‐dependent role of bone marrow‐derived group 2 innate lymphoid cells in pulmonary fibrosis

Recent evidence supports that bone marrow (BM)‐derived hematopoietic progenitor cells play an important role in lung injury and fibrosis. While these cells give rise to multiple cell types, the ST2 (Il1rl1)‐expressing group 2 innate lymphoid cells (ILC2s) derived from BM progenitors have been implicated in tissue repair and remodeling, including in lung fibrosis. To further investigate the precise role of BM‐derived ILC2s in the pathogenesis of fibrotic lung disease, their importance in the bleomycin‐induced lung fibrosis model was evaluated by analyzing the effects of selective ST2 deficiency in the BM compartment. The results showed that while ST2‐sufficient control mice exhibited activation of lung IL‐33/ST2 signaling, ILC2 recruitment, IL‐13 induction, and fibrosis, these responses were significantly diminished in ST2‐deficient‐BM chimera mice, with selective loss of ST2 expression only in the BM. This diminished response to bleomycin was similar to that seen in ST2 global knockout mice, suggesting the predominant importance of ST2 from the BM compartment. In wild‐type mice, ILC2 recruitment to the lung was accompanied by a concomitant decrease in ST2+ BM cells. ST2‐deficient BM cells were unresponsive to IL‐33‐induced ILC2 maturation. Finally, lineage‐negative wild‐type, but not ST2‐deficient BM cells from bleomycin‐treated mice stimulated lung fibroblast type I collagen expression, which was associated with elevated TGFβ expression in the BM cells. Taken together, these findings suggested that the BM‐derived ILC2s were recruited to fibrotic lung through the IL‐33/ST2 pathway, and contributed to fibroblast activation to promote lung fibrosis. Copyright © 2018 Pathological Society of Great Britain and Ireland. Published by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Persian leopard's (Panthera pardus saxicolor) unnatural mortality factors analysis in Iran

Due to the relatively low offspring survival rate, surviving adult leopards play a critical role in the species’ viability. The unnatural mortality of leopards, caused by human activities can seriously compromise the species’ long-term population survival. An analysis of spatial distribution and sex ratio of unnatural mortality of 147 recorded Persian leopard (Panthera pardus saxicolor) carcasses during a fifteen-year period (from 2000–2015) in Iran indicated that road mortality is the second most frequent cause of unnatural mortality of Persian leopards’ after illegal hunting (or prey poisoning, such as poisoned meat) by villagers, shepherds and military forces. The greatest percent of unnatural mortality events were recorded in the Golestan provinc in the north of Iran and eastern most parts of the Hyrcanian forests. Using distribution models of species, based on road accident locations as species data, we mapped the species’ distribution and critical areas of unnatural mortality of Persian leopard that can be used in prioritizing leopard-human conflicts management. Our results showed that mortality records were significantly higher in non-protected compared to protected areas. Males constituted 65 percent of the records used in the study as males dispersed more widely compared to the females. This imbalance can have severe demographic effects. A large proportion of leopards’ activity, occurrence area, and habitat lies in non-protected areas, which is mirrored by the greater number of unnatural mortality outside protected areas. Most of the incidents were due to human factors, thus management interventions such as traffic speed limitations, signs, cameras, and faunal bridges as well as increasing public participation and awareness (especially among rural communities) will positively affect the species’ conservation programs. This research aimed to produce unnatural mortality of leopards’ risk map throughout Iran and discuss the different aspects of this phenomenon, major human-caused threats and the efficiency of the legal protected areas in satisfying the species’ ecological requirements. We propose management interventions such as traffic speed limitations, signs, cameras, and faunal bridges as well as increasing public awareness and participation, especially among rural communities, to support the species’ conservation.
On Off-Peak Pricing: An Alternative Solution

SUMMARY Oscillation in demand, and sales irregularity, is not an uncommon phenomenon; it occurs in the restaurant trade, retail stores, holiday resorts, in the use of recreational facilities, etc. But the economic problem is usually discussed in the context of public utilities, especially in the demand for electric power where an independent peak and off-peak demand arises and different prices are charged. The varying prices are attributable ultimately to the presence of heavy capital costs and (relatively) unimportant variable costs. Further, as a precondition, it is essential that the user-costs of equipment be nearly nominal; otherwise there would be no point in using equipment to sell output at moments of low demand and low price. Given these conditions the peak-off-peak problem arises. Steiner, in a major article, distinguishes two cases: (1) a ‘shifting’ peak, and (2) a ‘firm’ peak. In the former case output is uniform at both ‘hours’ but price is different, according to his solution. In the ‘firm’ peak, price at the peak-hour covers the full capital costs; at the off-peak hour the price is zero and the capacity output is not fully absorbed. Steiner's solution for the ‘shifting’ peak is criticized for uniform output requires emergency stand-by capacity. This may render his price policy uneconomic. For the ‘firm-peak’, Steiner has rejected his own logic of uniform output by his intuitive refusal to accept a negative price. Nevertheless, his solution involves a ‘give-away’—meaning that output is handed over free to off-peak users. This ‘free-ride’ outcome is indefensible on equity grounds; it negates some basic relations in an economy based on private property. The proposal suggested here is that the proper pricing policy should seek to maximize the sum of peak plus off-peak output. In this solution both groups can benefit. As an important virtue in the public utility sector the policy is easy to explain. Further, if it is somewhat compromised on allocational grounds, it possesses important merits from an equity standpoint.
A market selection and inventory ordering problem under demand uncertainty

We study an integrated market selection and inventory control problem that was initially proposed by Geunes et al. [Naval Research Logistics, 51(1):117-136, 2004]. This problem generalizes the classical EOQ problem by incorporating the market choice decisions. In this note, we further consider the problem with stochastic demand in which we assume the demand mean and variance are known for each market. We show that the problem can be formulated as an unconstrained nonlinear binary IP model. Its special structure leads to efficient solution algorithms and we summarize some interesting observations via numerical experiments.
Poverty, property rights and socio-economic incentives for land conservation: the case for Kenya

Rural poverty and land degradation are closely related, making resource management by poor rural households a crucial issue in solving the development and poverty problems facing the country. The present study responds to paucity of empirical studies on the link between poverty and land conservation in Kenya. The key hypothesis tested is that poverty in assets hinder adoption of land conservation practices among small holder farming households. The results suggest that assets are important determinants of adoption of land conservation practices, a confirmation that the poor will be less likely to conserve than the rich. The results suggest the need for policy measures that offer incentives for land conservation. African Journal of Economic Policy Vol. 11(1) 2004: 35-68
A genetic algorithm for management of coding resources in VANET

This project aims to improve the throughput, energy consumption and overhead of vehicular ad hoc network (VANET) by optimising the network coding (NC) using Genetic Algorithm (GA). VANET shows a promising technology as it could enhance the traffic efficiency and promote traffic safety on the road systems. The conventional store-and-forward transmission protocol used in the intermediate node(s) simply stores the received packet and then send at a later time to the destination. However, the rapid changing in VANET topology has made the conventional store-and-forward approach inefficient to meet the throughput and reliability demand posed by VANET. Hence, NC is proposed to perform additional functions on the packet in the source or intermediate node(s). However, the chances to perform NC in wireless network is highly unlikely if the packet is not transmit to the potential NC node. Therefore, GA based network routing (GANeR) is embedded into network to search for shortest path from the source to the destination. It showed that the developed GANER in this work provides a better route with coding opportunities and reduces energy consumption in the network. The total energy consumed by GANER is 5.6% fewer than NC in wireless network transmission and forwarding structure (COPE).
Anomaly and Change Detection in Graph Streams through Constant-Curvature Manifold Embeddings

Mapping complex input data into suitable lower dimensional manifolds is a common procedure in machine learning. This step is beneficial mainly for two reasons: (1) it reduces the data dimensionality and (2) it provides a new data representation possibly characterised by convenient geometric properties. Euclidean spaces are by far the most widely used embedding spaces, thanks to their well-understood structure and large availability of consolidated inference methods. However, recent research demonstrated that many types of complex data (e.g., those represented as graphs) are actually better described by non-Euclidean geometries. Here, we investigate how embedding graphs on constant-curvature manifolds (hyper-spherical and hyperbolic manifolds) impacts on the ability to detect changes in sequences of attributed graphs. The proposed methodology consists in embedding graphs into a geometric space and perform change detection there by means of conventional methods for numerical streams. The curvature of the space is a parameter that we learn to reproduce the geometry of the original application-dependent graph space. Preliminary experimental results show the potential capability of representing graphs by means of curved manifold, in particular for change and anomaly detection problems.