Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Mapping of Schistosomiasis and Soil-Transmitted Helminthiasis in the Regions of Centre, East and West Cameroon

Background Schistosomiasis and soil-transmitted helminthiasis (STH) are widely distributed in Cameroon. Although mass drug administration (MDA) of mebendazole is implemented nationwide, treatment with praziquantel was so far limited to the three northern regions and few health districts in the southern part of Cameroon, based on previous mapping conducted 25 years ago. To update the disease distribution map and determine where treatment with praziquantel should be extended, mapping surveys were conducted in three of the seven southern regions of Cameroon, i.e. Centre, East and West. Methodology Parasitological surveys were conducted in April–May 2010 in selected schools in all 63 health districts of the three targeted regions, using appropriate research methodologies, i.e. Kato-Katz and urine filtration. Principal Findings The results showed significant variation of schistosomiasis and STH prevalence between schools, villages, districts and regions. Schistosoma mansoni was the most prevalent schistosome species, with an overall prevalence of 5.53%, followed by S. haematobium (1.72%) and S. guineensis (0.14%). The overall prevalence of schistosomiasis across the three regions was 7.31% (95% CI: 6.86–7.77%). The prevalence for Ascaris lumbricoides was 11.48 (95% CI: 10.93–12.04%), Trichuris trichiura 18.22% (95% CI: 17.56–18.90%) and hookworms 1.55% (95% CI: 1.35–1.78%), with an overall STH prevalence of 24.10% (95% CI: 23.36–24.85%) across the three regions. STH was more prevalent in the East region (46.57%; 95% CI: 44.41–48.75%) in comparison to the Centre (25.12; 95% CI: 24.10–26.17%) and West (10.49%; 95% CI: 9.57–11.51%) regions. Conclusions/Significance In comparison to previous data, the results showed an increase of schistosomiasis transmission in several health districts, whereas there was a significant decline of STH infections. Based on the prevalence data, the continuation of annual or bi-annual MDA for STH is recommended, as well as an extension of praziquantel in identified moderate and high risk communities for schistosomiasis.
A Unified Approach to Face Detection , Segmentation and Location Using HIT Maps

In this paper, we present a unified approach to the problems of human face detection, segmentation and location. Color and texture are used for searching skinlike regions in the images. Determining whether each region corresponds or not to a face solves the detection problem, and allows a straightforward segmentation. Then, region information is also used for locating the main facial features. Using this unified approach increases the efficiency of solving the three problems, and allows us to focus on the skin region searching, so any improvement will affect the global performance. We present some results and conclusions and advance our future work.
Spatial Patterns and Influence Factors of Conversion Coefficients between Two Typical Pan Evaporimeters in China

Pan measurement is a reliable and efficient method for indicating the evaporative demand of the atmosphere. There are several types of pan evaporimeters worldwide, and the estimation of the conversion coefficients (Kp) between them is necessary in hydrologic research. In China, E601B pans were installed at all meteorological stations beginning in 1998. They replaced the 20 cm pans (φ20). To fully use the records from the two pans and obtain long-term pan evaporation, the spatial patterns of Kp between φ20 and E601B and the factors that influence Kp are investigated based on records from 573 national meteorological stations from 1998 to 2001. In this study, The results show that higher Kp values are found in southwestern regions and lower values are found in northeastern regions during the warm seasons (from May to September), while Kp values are lower during warm seasons than during cold seasons (from October to April the following year). In addition, net radiation was found to be the dominant climate factor that affects variations in Kp, followed by relative humidity and the vapor pressure deficit. This study can improve the benefit of not only the selection of appropriate evaporimeters by meteorological departments, but also of the study of temporal variability and trends in the evaporative demand.
Computational Analysis of Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms Associated with Altered Drug Responsiveness in Type 2 Diabetes

Type 2 diabetes (T2D) is one of the most frequent mortality causes in western countries, with rapidly increasing prevalence. Anti-diabetic drugs are the first therapeutic approach, although many patients develop drug resistance. Most drug responsiveness variability can be explained by genetic causes. Inter-individual variability is principally due to single nucleotide polymorphisms, and differential drug responsiveness has been correlated to alteration in genes involved in drug metabolism (CYP2C9) or insulin signaling (IRS1, ABCC8, KCNJ11 and PPARG). However, most genome-wide association studies did not provide clues about the contribution of DNA variations to impaired drug responsiveness. Thus, characterizing T2D drug responsiveness variants is needed to guide clinicians toward tailored therapeutic approaches. Here, we extensively investigated polymorphisms associated with altered drug response in T2D, predicting their effects in silico. Combining different computational approaches, we focused on the expression pattern of genes correlated to drug resistance and inferred evolutionary conservation of polymorphic residues, computationally predicting the biochemical properties of polymorphic proteins. Using RNA-Sequencing followed by targeted validation, we identified and experimentally confirmed that two nucleotide variations in the CAPN10 gene—currently annotated as intronic—fall within two new transcripts in this locus. Additionally, we found that a Single Nucleotide Polymorphism (SNP), currently reported as intergenic, maps to the intron of a new transcript, harboring CAPN10 and GPR35 genes, which undergoes non-sense mediated decay. Finally, we analyzed variants that fall into non-coding regulatory regions of yet underestimated functional significance, predicting that some of them can potentially affect gene expression and/or post-transcriptional regulation of mRNAs affecting the splicing.
Point-cloud registration using 3D shape contexts

The problem of aligning scans from a range sensor is central to 3D mapping for robots. In previous work we demonstrated a light-weight descriptor-based registration method that is suitable for creating maps from range images produced by devices such as the XBOX Kinect. For computational reasons, simple descriptors were used based only on the distribution of distances between points. In this paper, we present an alternative approach using 3D Shape Contexts that also retains angular information thereby producing descriptors that are more unique. Although this increases the computational load, intrinsic properties of the descriptor facilitate keypoint selection, leading to a more robust registration framework. This also provides greater flexibility when applying the method to sparse point clouds such as those produced by laser range scanners. Results are shown for registering new data acquired from an underground mine environment.
A Study on Factors of Influencing Faculty Use of Modern Instructional Technology in Higher Education

With the development of information technology, modern instructional technologies, such as E-Learning and M-Learning, are having a profound impact on higher education. They can be used by faculty to do their jobs easier, better, faster and more effectively, enhance learning and benefit both students and teachers. Every year, higher education institutions make a large investment in them. However, faculties do not use instructional technologies in their teaching as we expected. Some teachers like to use modern instructional technologies while others do not. What really influence faculty members' decision of use of modern instructional technology? This paper offered a model to examine the influencing factors, selected samples from population of a mid-sized university by surveying, got experimental data by interviewing these samples and analyzed the data to verify the model.
Camera image quality assessment without reference information

Blur plays an key part in evaluating of camera image quality. It leads to decrease of high frequency information and accordingly changes the image energy. Recent researches in quaternion singular value decomposition show that the quaternion's singular values and associated vectors can capture the distortion of color images, and thus singular values can be utilized to assess the sharpness of camera image. Based on this, a novel blind quality assessment method considering the integral color information and singular values of the blurred camera image is proposed for evaluating the sharpness of camera image. Pure quaternion is utilized to represent pixels of the blurred camera image and the energy of every block are obtained. Results confirm the superiority of the proposed blind algorithm in assessing camera images.
Throughput performance of time-division relaying for blank subframe ratio and RN transmission power

This paper shows the system performance of time-division relaying against a blank subframe ratio (BSR) in an access link and transmission power for a relay node (RN). The average user throughput and the cell edge user throughput are described by system level computer simulation. Time-division relaying improves the average user throughput by 30% as compared to a conventional system when the transmission power for the RN is 36 dBm and the BSR is 4/10. Moreover, a high BSR degrades user throughput performance. These results provide a remarkably effective solution for the design of time-division relaying.
Hyper-Activation of Notch3 Amplifies the Proliferative Potential of Rhabdomyosarcoma Cells

Rhabdomyosarcoma (RMS) is a pediatric myogenic-derived soft tissue sarcoma that includes two major histopathological subtypes: embryonal and alveolar. The majority of alveolar RMS expresses PAX3-FOXO1 fusion oncoprotein, associated with the worst prognosis. RMS cells show myogenic markers expression but are unable to terminally differentiate. The Notch signaling pathway is a master player during myogenesis, with Notch1 activation sustaining myoblast expansion and Notch3 activation inhibiting myoblast fusion and differentiation. Accordingly, Notch1 signaling is up-regulated and activated in embryonal RMS samples and supports the proliferation of tumor cells. However, it is unable to control their differentiation properties. We previously reported that Notch3 is activated in RMS cell lines, of both alveolar and embryonal subtype, and acts by inhibiting differentiation. Moreover, Notch3 depletion reduces PAX3-FOXO1 alveolar RMS tumor growth in vivo. However, whether Notch3 activation also sustains the proliferation of RMS cells remained unclear. To address this question, we forced the expression of the activated form of Notch3, Notch3IC, in the RH30 and RH41 PAX3-FOXO1-positive alveolar and in the RD embryonal RMS cell lines and studied the proliferation of these cells. We show that, in all three cell lines tested, Notch3IC over-expression stimulates in vitro cell proliferation and prevents the effects of pharmacological Notch inhibition. Furthermore, Notch3IC further increases RH30 cell growth in vivo. Interestingly, knockdown of Notch canonical ligands JAG1 or DLL1 in RMS cell lines decreases Notch3 activity and reduces cell proliferation. Finally, the expression of Notch3IC and its target gene HES1 correlates with that of the proliferative marker Ki67 in a small cohort of primary PAX-FOXO1 alveolar RMS samples. These results strongly suggest that high levels of Notch3 activation increase the proliferative potential of RMS cells.
Flexible On-Line Construction of IRA Codes for Packet Erasure Correction with Application to Aeronautical Communications

In many applications erasure correcting codes are used to recover packet losses at high protocol stack layers. The objects (e.g. files) to be transmitted often have variable sizes, resulting in a variable number of packet to be encoded by the packet-level encoder. In this paper, algorithms for the (on-line) flexible design of parity-check matrices for irregular-repeat-accumulate codes are investigated. The proposed algorithms allow designing in fast manner parity-check matrices that are suitable for low-complexity maximum-likelihood decoding. The code ensembles generated by the proposed algorithms are analyzed via extrinsic information transfer charts. Numerical results show how the designed codes can attain codeword error rates as low as 10^{-5} without appreciable losses w.r. t. the performance of idealized maximum-distance separable codes. The application of the proposed techniques to the upcoming aeronautical communication standard is investigated, proving the efficiency and the flexibility of the approach.
An Intelligent Collaborative E-learning Strategy

Evaluating learners in terms of collaboration capabilities in a collaborative e-learning session can be quantified based on several parameters. These parameters include learner's contribution in the collaborative e-learning session. They also include learner's collaboration history in collaborative e-learning sessions and the collaboration capabilities of the group in which he participates. These parameters can be used as inputs to a model that generates a set of recommendations for the next step that should be taken towards the e-learning objectives. These recommendations can be used to enroll the learner in an e-learning session that best fits his collaboration capabilities. In this paper, a fuzzy inference system is introduced to estimate learner's collaboration in terms of a proposed metric called collaboration-index. This index can be utilized to guide the e-learning system for advising the learner to the best choice of the next collaborative e-learning session. Simulation study has been carried out to evaluate the performance of the proposed strategy. Simulation results show that the proposed strategy provides a positive impact on collaborative e-learning environments.
FEM evaluation of performance of axial flux slotted permanent magnet machines

Axial-flux permanent magnet machines with slotted windings exhibit a significant cogging torque due to the magnetic anisotropy of the stator. The same produces a harmonic content in machine back EMF. The paper introduces and discusses a simple and powerful FEM algorithm that gives a numerical evaluation of both cogging torque and back EMF. Parametric analysis leads to a machine design that most meets the requirements for low cogging torque and limited higher harmonic content in back EMF.
Geospatial Information System for tracking and navigation of mobile objects

Geospatial Information System (GIS) is a tool for manipulating, integrating and displaying geographically referenced information. It is a powerful system with high accuracy that is being used as the main backbone for a variety of path planning and navigation technologies widely used in the industry today. Tracking, security management, fleet management and industrial robot navigation are some regular applications. This paper presents the development of a Geospatial information system for path planning and navigation of mobile objects. The system involves a GIS implemented using Google maps to visualize the routes of mobile objects acquired from GPS receivers over a GPRS network. A spatial database built into the system records the geographic information for later referencing. In addition, the GIS module is developed to perform route assignments and display historical information saved in the data repository.
Reforming higher education systems in europe since the 80s : between utilitarianism and justice ?

We present in this paper the main characteristics and motivations for reforming higher education systems, first in England (a successful process from the point of view of the policy-makers) since the early 80s and then at the European level since the mid-90s. We stress the shift from a Humboldtian model with relatively autonomous universities (with a protective state funding them and allowing them to pursue their own agenda) to a new model where universities increasingly become tools of wider economic (and social) policies. We stress the role of English reforms as models for European-wide reforms in order to maximize the contribution of higher education to competitiveness, innovation and employability objectives. We make a link with the various theories of justice at our disposal, and we stress the dominance of the utilitarian views. We should nevertheless stress that some elements of the “new model” (as principles of fairness concerning a right level of accountability, the introduction of top-up fees, the stress on equality of opportunity) also involve other philosophical perspectives (Rawlsian, for example).
Agricultural Biotechnology Risks and Economic Development: A Call for a Public-Private Partnerships to Stimulate Investments into African Biotechnology Industries

What makes or breaks the decision for an MNC to enter an emerging market beyond incentives for profit-maximization? What role exists for public-private partnerships as a mechanism for value capture in agricultural biotechnology investments into uncertain markets? The objective of the paper is to provide the necessary theoretical framework by which future research may empirically assess the discounted value and probability of R&D investments into the African agricultural biotechnology sector. A partnership model lies at the foundation for creating marketing channels between industries with high fixed costs and high social utility value. Stimulating intellectual and scientific investments in agricultural biotechnology are contingent on prioritization of public policy, wherein optimal investment strategy into developing markets becomes a balance between providing adequate incentives for investment without compensating technological dissemination to smallholders. A strong regulatory environment not only ensures market power for the private industry and but forces change in the general expectations from and attitude towards the hybrid seed and agriculture innovation. It is, additionally, imperative to create a linkage between the private sector and the smallholder. Not only are multinationals currently the gatekeepers of intellectual capacity for agricultural biotechnology research, but also possess capacity to enter the market and provide products en masses. The lack of immediate profit incentives may be balanced by public sector partnerships that might cushion risks and eventually expand market opportunities for the smallholder.
Accelerated recognition of handwritten Urdu digits using Shape Context based gradual pruning

Prototype based object recognition requires measuring similarities between the test object and the prototype categories. When multiple instances per object are stored in the prototype set, this task becomes computationally expensive. To increase the efficiency, pruning techniques are used. In this work we have presented a gradual pruning approach based on the dissimilarities between the test object and the objects in the prototype set. A mathematical expression has been derived analytically for the savings in computational time. This approach is applied to the task of hand written Urdu digit recognition using Shape Context. Compared to the classical (non-pruned) and step pruning approaches, our gradual pruning based method is found to be faster without compromise on accuracy.
Sleep-Deprivation Induces Changes in GABAB and mGlu Receptor Expression and Has Consequences for Synaptic Long-Term Depression

Long term depression (LTD) in the CA1 region of the hippocampus, induced with a 20-Hz, 30 s tetanus to Schaffer collaterals, is enhanced in sleep-deprived (SD) rats. In the present study, we investigated the role of metabotropic glutamate receptors (mGluRs), γ-Aminobutyric acid (GABA) B receptors (GABAB-Rs) and N-methyl-D-aspartic acid receptors (NMDARs) in the LTD of the population excitatory postsynaptic potential (pEPSP). The requirement of Ca2+ from L- and T- type voltage-gated calcium channels (VGCCs) and intracellular stores was also studied. Results indicate that mGluRs, a release of Ca2+ from intracellular stores and GABAB-Rs are required for LTD. Interestingly, while mGlu1Rs seem to be involved in both short-term depression and LTD, mGlu5Rs appear to participate mostly in LTD. CGP 55845, a GABAB-R antagonist, partially suppressed LTD in normally sleeping (NS) rats, while completely blocking LTD in SD rats. Moreover, GS-39783, a positive allosteric modulator for GABAB-R, suppressed the pEPSP in SD, but not NS rats. Since both mGluRs and GABAB-Rs seem to be involved in the LTD, especially in SD rats, we examined if the receptor expression pattern and/or dimerization changed, using immunohistochemical, co-localization and co-immunoprecipitation techniques. Sleep-deprivation induced an increase in the expression of GABAB-R1 and mGlu1αR in the CA1 region of the hippocampus. In addition, co-localization and heterodimerization between mGlu1αR/GABAB-R1 and mGlu1αR/GABAB-R2 is enhanced in SD rats. Taken together, our findings present a novel form of LTD sensitive to the activation of mGluRs and GABAB-Rs, and reveal, for the first time, that sleep-deprivation induces alterations in the expression and dimerization of these receptors.
Dimensions of child punishment in two Central American countries: Guatemala and El Salvador.

OBJECTIVE Severe physical punishment of children is an important issue in international child health and welfare. This study examines such punishment in Guatemala and El Salvador. METHODS Data came from nationally representative surveys of women aged 15-49 and men aged 15-59 residing in Guatemala (2002) and El Salvador (2002-2003). The surveys included questions about punishment experienced during childhood, with response options ranging from verbal scolding to beating. In Guatemala, parents were asked how they disciplined their children; questions allowed them to compare how they were punished in their childhood with how they punished their own children. Bivariate and multivariate analyses are presented. RESULTS In Guatemala, 35% of women and 46% of men reported being beaten as punishment in childhood; in El Salvador, the figures were 42% and 62%, respectively. In both countries, older participants were relatively more likely than younger participants to have been beaten as children. Witnessing familial violence was associated with an increased risk of being beaten in childhood. In Guatemala, having experienced physical punishment as a child increased the chance that parents would use physical punishment on their own children. Multivariate analyses revealed that women who were beaten in childhood were significantly more likely in both countries to be in a violent relationship. CONCLUSIONS The use of beating to physically punish children is a common problem in Guatemala and El Salvador, with generational and intergenerational effects. Its negative and lingering effects necessitate the introduction of policies and programs to decrease this behavior.
Evaluation of Innovation Performance in Construction with ANFIS

This study aims to measure the innovation performance of consulting companies in Thailand construction industry. Input variables include factors associated with quality objectives, engineering objectives, innovation objectives and technical information resource Adaptive neuro-fuzzy inference systems (ANFIS) is used to develop an evaluation model by applying Sugeno ANFIS. The decision makers can use the fuzzy neural network approach to adjust the resource allocation to meet the company’s objectives.