Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
FoneAstra: enabling remote monitoring of vaccine cold-chains using commodity mobile phones

We present a low-cost, energy-efficient system to remotely monitor the temperature and location of vaccines in a countrywide "cold-chain". Our system is based on FoneAstra [11] -- a low-cost, microcontroller-based, programmable device that extends capabilities of low-tier mobile phones that are commonly used in developing countries. In the system discussed in this paper, FoneAstra is enhanced with a digital temperature sensor and integrated with a vaccine cold-box used to store vaccines in a temperature controlled environment. FoneAstra continuously monitors the temperature of the cold-box, aggregating readings over a period of time. It uses the mobile phone to which it is coupled to send periodic SMS messages with routine temperature reports or immediate alerts if it detects abnormal temperature conditions. Additionally, it enables location-tracking of vaccines in transit, based on the mobile phone's cell tower-IDs. We present results from an ongoing lab-deployment done at PATH [18], our Seattle-based partner NGO for this project. Over the next few months, we will deploy this temperature and location monitoring system for vaccine cold-chains in several countries in which PATH operates. The client in this system, which includes a temperature sensor, FoneAstra and a mobile phone, costs $50; while the server, which includes a Netbook and a GSM modem, costs $500. We discuss how our system can scale up to enable large-scale monitoring while incurring low overhead costs.
Measuring Social Presence in Team-Based Digital Games

Increasingly, digital games offer sophisticated multiplayer experiences with teams of players able to play against “the computer” in raids or against each other in a variety of team matches. Social presence is therefore an important part of the gaming experience. However, existing measures of social presence in games lack the sophistication to deal with these more diverse gaming situations. This paper describes the development of a new questionnaire to measure the complex nature of social presence in digital games. The resulting questionnaire consists of 39 items with two main modules addressing competitive and collaborative components of social play.
Analyzing the Impact of Beliefs in Software Project Practices

Folklore and beliefs are strong in the software practitioners' community. Software engineering is a communication intensive activity. Software engineers are innovation driven and regularly use automated resources to share ideas, new paradigms and approaches to support and improve their practices. This information flow generates technical folklore and beliefs (that do not have a formal trial basis). Software engineers applying practices are influenced by these and they are inevitably taken on board in the adoption of a particular technology or practice. This paper presents an industrial case study, using a qualitative approach, to investigate the origins and impacts of beliefs on software development team practices. Its main contribution is on the understanding of creation and evolution of technical beliefs, and in studying its use for team practices improvement in the software engineering industry.
Simulation study in Probabilistic Boolean Network models for genetic regulatory networks

Probabilistic Boolean Network (PBN) is widely used to model genetic regulatory networks. Evolution of the PBN is according to the transition probability matrix. Steady-state (long-run behaviour) analysis is a key aspect in studying the dynamics of genetic regulatory networks. In this paper, an efficient method to construct the sparse transition probability matrix is proposed, and the power method based on the sparse matrix-vector multiplication is applied to compute the steady-state probability distribution. Such methods provide a tool for us to study the sensitivity of the steady-state distribution to the influence of input genes, gene connections and Boolean networks. Simulation results based on a real network are given to illustrate the method and to demonstrate the steady-state analysis.
Antioxidant Activity of Iranian Echium amoenum Fisch & C.A. Mey Flower Decoction in Humans: A cross-sectional Before/After Clinical Trial

Medicinal plants are recognized as sources of natural antioxidants that can protect from biological system oxidative stress. The present cross-sectional before/after clinical trial was carried out to investigate the antioxidant properties of the decoction of the flowers of Echium amoenum Fisch & C.A. Mey in humans. A group of 38 healthy subjects was invited to use the E. amoenum (7 mg kg−1) twice daily for 14 days. Blood samples before and after entering the study were measured for lipid peroxidation level (LPO), total antioxidant capacity (TAC) and total thiol (SH) molecules. A significant reduction of blood LPO (24.65 ± 11.3 versus 19.05 ± 9.7, P = 0.029) was observed after 14 days of E. amoenum consumption. Blood TAC (1.46 ± 0.51 versus 1.70 ± 0.36, P = 0.018) and total thiol molecules (0.49 ± 0.11 versus 0.56 ± 0.12, P = 0.001) increased after 14 days of E. amoenum consumption. In conclusion, this antioxidative stress potential of E. amoenum may be due to its bioactive antioxidant components, especially rosmarinic acid and flavonoids. In recent years the importance of oxidative stress in the pathophysiology of many human disorders has been confirmed, thus use of this plant as a dietary supplement is highly recommended.
Physical Activities and Body Composition Among Women in Fitness

Nowadays sedentary lifestyle is becoming more and more frequent all over the world. Obesity represents one of the most serious health issues (Hill et al., 2008). It develops because of misbalance between energy intake and consumption, which results from human behavior – feeding behavior, leisure time spent physiology and life quality objective factors (Haslam & James, 2005). The aim of the research is to describe women’s involved in fitness relation of body composition parameters and subjective evaluation of the amount of physical activities and objective parameters of life quality. Research methods: the study included 51 women (27 +/6 years old). TANITA BC-545 platform was applied to evaluate body composition parameters and IPAQ short version was used to state the amount of physical activities. SPSS ver.17. 0 data procession program was applied to analyze the data. Descriptive statistics (frequency, mode, mean); mathematical statistics (One-Sample Kolmogorov-Smirnov Test, Spearman rank correlation) was made. Results: the research showed that there is a number of weak significant correlations between women’s in fitness body composition parameters, the amount of physical activities, the habits of spending leisure and the life quality objective factors (0.2<|rs|<0.49; p< 0.05). Whereas there were noted strong (0.7<|rs|<0.99; p<0.01) and moderate (0.5<|rs|<0.69; p<0.01) correlations among body composition parameters. Conclusions: Women’s, involved in fitness physical activities, life quality objective factors and the habits of spending leisure have the impact on the body composition parameters.
Microwave ring resonator with a quarter-wavelength coupled-line integration

This paper proposes a novel topology of one-wavelength microstrip ring resonator which integrates a single quarter-wavelength parallel coupled-line as one of its input/output points. Such topology results in a single mode response with zero transmission at both sides of the bandpass. A complete simplified diagram of the proposed topology is developed and presented in this paper. An example of realization is performed using microstrip technology on FR4 epoxy glass substrate to verify the feasibility of the proposed idea. Measured results show good agreement with the ones from simulation.
BARF: a multiplatform open source binary analysis and reverse engineering framework

The analysis of binary code is a crucial activity in many areas of the computer sciences and software engineering disciplines ranging from software security and program analysis to reverse engineering. Manual binary analysis is a difficult and time-consuming task and there are software tools that seek to automate or assist human analysts. However, most of these tools have several technical and commercial restrictions that limit access and use by a large portion of the academic and practitioner communities. In this paper we introduce BARF, an open source binary analysis framework that aims to support a wide range of binary code analysis tasks that are common in the information security discipline. BARF is a scriptable platform that supports instruction lifting from multiple architectures, binary translation to an intermediate representation, an extensible framework for code analysis plugins and interoperation with external tools such as debuggers, SMT solvers and instrumentation tools. The framework is designed primarily for humanassisted analysis but it can be fully automated.
The surprising diversity of Mycobacterium tuberculosis: change you can believe in.

Highly drug-resistant strains of Mycobacterium tuberculosis (M. tuberculosis) have surfaced in the news recently. Totally drug-resistant strains, unresponsive to any current therapies, were recently identified at several locations in India [1]. Although these strains have garnered international attention, similarly pan-resistant strains have been identified in several parts of the world [2, 3]. Where they have not been found, one cannot be confident that they do not exist, as many countries do not have the laboratory capacity to diagnose resistance to second-line tuberculosis drugs. Globally, the rising rates of multidrug resistance (resistance to the 2 first-line antibiotics, isoniazid and rifampin) are alarming, suggestive of both the extent of the current problem and indicative of the future landscape of increasingly drug-resistant tuberculosis. In China, for example, nearly 6% of new tuberculosis cases are multidrug-resistant. The rates of multidrug resistance in new cases are >20% in many countries in Central Asia and Eastern Europe, where the incidence of multidrug resistance in previously treated patients soars to over 50% [4]. These sobering numbers emerge at a time of great promise in the tuberculosis field. A decade of investment in tuberculosis research is beginning to pay dividends. For the first time in nearly 40 years, several new antibiotics for tuberculosis are in late-stage clinical development [5]. The Global Alliance for TB Drug Development seeks to develop an
Constraints on the angular distribution of satellite galaxies about spiral hosts

We present, using a novel technique, a study of the angular distribution of satellite galaxies around a sample of isolated, blue host galaxies selected from the sixth data release of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. As a complement to previous studies, we subdivide the sample of galaxies into bins of differing inclination and use the systematic differences that would exist between the different bins as the basis for our approach. We parametrize the cumulative distribution function of satellite galaxies and apply a maximum likelihood, Monte Carlo technique to determine allowable distributions, which we show as an exclusion plot. We find that the allowed distributions of the satellites of spiral hosts are very nearly isotropic. We outline our formalism and our analysis and discuss how this technique may be refined for future studies and future surveys.
GraCALC: An Accessible Graphing Calculator

We present a new approach for providing mathematical and statistical graphics to people who are blind or have severe vision impairment and describe the implementation and initial evaluation of an accessible graphing calculator, GraCALC. GraCALC automatically creates a graphic from a specification of the function or a tabular data using a web based service. The graphic is then presented on a touch device, and a mixture of speech, non-speech audio and optional tactile feedback are provided to allow the users explore the screen. An overview containing a sonification of the graphic and a description similar to that created by a human transcriber is also automatically generated so as to help the user in their initial navigation.
Maternal mortality due to arterial hypertension in São Paulo City (1995-1999).

AIM To describe the case profile of maternal death resulting from hypertensive disorders in pregnancy and to propose measures for its reduction. METHODS The Committee on Maternal Mortality of São Paulo City has identified 609 cases of obstetric maternal death between 1995 and 1999 with an underreporting rate of 52.2% and a maternal mortality rate of 56.7/100,000 live births. Arterial hypertension was the main cause of maternal death, corresponding to 142 (23.3%) cases. RESULTS Ninety-five (66.9%) of the deaths occurred during the puerperal period and 34 (23.9%) occurred during pregnancy. The time of death was not reported in 13 (9.2%) cases. Seizures were observed in 41 cases and magnesium sulfate was used in four of them. The causes of death were ruled to be cerebrovascular accident (44.4%), acute pulmonary edema (24.6%), and coagulopathies (14.1%). Cesarean section was performed in 85 (59.9%) cases and vaginal delivery in 15 (16.0%). CONCLUSION Complications of arterial hypertension are responsible for the high rates of pregnancy-related maternal death in São Paulo City. Quality prenatal care and appropriate monitoring of the hypertensive pregnant patient during and after delivery are important measures for better control of this condition and are essential to reduce disorders in pregnancy.
Emissions trading: lessons learnt from the 1st phase of the EU ETS and prospects for the 2nd phase

In January 2005, the European Union launched an EU-wide emissions trading scheme (EU ETS) for CO 2 emissions. It covers approximately 45% of total CO 2 emissions and is thus the largest ‘cap-and-trade’ carbon trading scheme in the world – an ambitious and highly challenging policy experiment. As it emerges from its pilot phase and prepares for phase II, the EU ETS now stands at a crossroad: will it quickly address the problems experienced in phase I and establish strong price signals in Europe, or will the prevailing uncertainty continue into phase II? Phase I has indeed proved how much market design matters to its operation and signalling. Unlike normal markets, emissions trading schemes are designed markets, where the demand and supply are dependent on government decisions. The volume of allowance allocation determines scarcity levels and thus the effectiveness of the scheme. Furthermore, the various provisions in the allocation plans can influence investment and operational choices and thus the efficiency of the scheme. Decisions on auctioning and free allocation, as well as on how to split the allocation pie across sectors and installations, will also have distributional consequences. This special issue presents seven articles that consider the influence of allowance allocation, and inform the debate surrounding ‘National allocation plans in the EU ETS: lessons and implications for phase II’. Five articles focus on recent experience with the design of national allocation plans (NAPs) for the period 2008–2012 and provide qualitative and quantitative assessments. These are complemented by two numerical simulations of trade and distributional effects. We summarize their findings in the context of the debate, which we structure into the three key criteria for ETS assessment: market efficiency; distributional effects, and environmental effectiveness.
A Survey of Approximate Dynamic Programming

Multi-stage decision problems under uncertainty are abundant in process industries. Markov decision process (MDP) is a general mathematical formulation of such problems. Whereas stochastic programming and dynamic programming are the standard methods to solve MDPs, their unwieldy computational requirements limit their usefulness in real applications. Approximate dynamic programming (ADP) combines simulation and function approximation to alleviate the "curse-of-dimensionality" associated with the traditional dynamic programming approach. In this paper, the method of ADP, which abates the curse-of-dimensionality by solving the DP within a carefully chosen, small subset of the state space, was introduced; a survey of recent research directions within the field of ADP had been made.
Tailored and anisotropic dielectric constants through porosity in ceramic components

In this paper, different densities within a ceramic are used to provide a wide continuous range of dielectric constants for high-frequency applications. Cofiring different ceramic materials together to make a single unified structure to obtain different dielectric constant combinations is quite difficult due to phase stability issues and shrinkage mismatches. However, using various levels of porosity in order to alter the effective dielectric constant in the same material allows patterning different dielectric constants into a single unit. Since the structure is made from a single material, the varying porosity regions can be made compatible. Glassy-carbon-assisted and microcellular-structure-based porous titania allow for an extremely wide range of dielectric constants, ranging from 12 to 90, while maintaining a low loss tangent. Highly anisotropic materials are demonstrated herein to achieve a dielectric constant contrast of 90/9.6 using large-range aligned microcellular structure. Dielectric-resonator antennas are shown as an application of adjusting the bandwidth between 0.5% and 2.5% by tailoring the ceramic dielectric constant. A stratified-medium-loaded cavity resonator and a buried dielectric ring resonator internal to a microcellular substrate are used to demonstrate both the cofiring and variable dielectric constant capabilities of structured porosity.
Steroid Hormone Action in the Brain: Cross‐Talk Between Signalling Pathways

Ovarian steroid hormones, oestradiol and progesterone, modulate neuroendocrine functions in the central nervous system, resulting in alterations in physiology and behaviour. The classical model of steroid hormone action assumes that these neural effects are predominantly mediated via their intracellular receptors functioning as ‘ligand‐dependent’ transcription factors in the steroid‐sensitive neurones regulating genes and genomic networks with profound behavioural consequences. Studies from our laboratory demonstrate that, in addition to their cognate ligands, intracellular steroid receptors can be activated in a ‘ligand‐independent’ manner by the neurotransmitter dopamine, which alters the dynamic equilibrium between neuronal phosphatases and kinases. A high degree of cross‐talk between membrane‐initiated signalling pathways and the classical intracellular signalling pathways mediates hormone‐dependent behaviour in mammals. The molecular mechanisms, by which a multitude of signals converge with steroid receptors to delineate a genomic level of cross‐talk in brain and behaviour are discussed.
Non-contiguous finished genome sequence of Aminomonas paucivorans type strain (GLU-3)

Aminomonas paucivorans Baena et al. 1999 is the type species of the genus Aminomonas, which belongs to the family Synergistaceae. The species is of interest because it is an asaccharolytic chemoorganotrophic bacterium which ferments quite a number of amino acids. This is the first finished genome sequence (with one gap in a rDNA region) of a member of the genus Aminomonas and the third sequence from the family Synergistaceae. The 2,630,120 bp long genome with its 2,433 protein-coding and 61 RNA genes is a part of the GenomicEncyclopedia ofBacteria andArchaea project.
Optical and microphysical properties of smoke over Cape Verde inferred from multiwavelength lidar measurements

Lidar measurements of mixed dust/smoke plumes over the tropical Atlantic ocean were carried out during the winter campaign of SAMUM-2 at Cape Verde. Profiles of backscatter and extinction coefficients, lidar ratios, and Ångstr¨om exponents related to pure biomass-burning aerosol from southern West Africa were extracted from these observations. Furthermore, these findings were used as input for an inversion algorithm to retrieve microphysical properties of pure smoke. Seven measurement days were found suitable for the procedure of aerosol-type separation and successive inversion of optical data that describe biomass-burning smoke. We inferred high smoke lidar ratios of 87 ± 17 sr at 355 nm and 79 ± 17 sr at 532 nm. Smoke lidar ratios and Ångström exponents are higher compared to the ones for the dust/smoke mixture. These numbers indicate higher absorption and smaller sizes for pure smoke particles compared to the dust/smoke mixture. Inversion of the smoke data set results in mean effective radii of 0.22 ± 0.08 μm with individual results varying between 0.10 and 0.36 μm. The single-scattering albedo for pure biomass-burning smoke was found to vary between 0.63 and 0.89 with a very low mean value of 0.75 ± 0.07. This is in good agreement with findings of airborne in situ measurements which showed values of 0.77 ± 0.03. Effective radii from the inversion were similar to the ones found for the fine mode of the in situ size distributions.
A Genetic Algorithm for K-Mean Clustering

Clustering techniques have obtained adequate results when are applied to data mining problems. Clustering is the process of subdividing an input data set into a desired number of subgroups so that members of the same subgroup are similar and members of different subgroups have diverse properties. Many heuristic algorithms have been applied to the clustering problem, which is known to be NP Hard. Genetic algorithms have been used in a wide variety of fields to perform clustering, however, the technique normally has a long running time in terms of input set size. In this paper we investigate the use of Genetic Algorithms to determine the best initialization of clusters, as well as the optimization of the initial parameters. The genetic algorithm uses the most time efficient techniques along with preprocessing of the input data set. The experimental results show the great potential of the Genetic Algorithms for the improvement of the clusters. The techniques of clustering are most used in the analysis of information or Data Mining, this method was applied to Data Set at
Preparation and Characterization of a Gastric Floating Dosage Form of Capecitabine

Gastrointestinal disturbances, such as nausea and vomiting, are considered amongst the main adverse effects associated with oral anticancer drugs due to their fast release in the gastrointestinal tract (GIT). Sustained release formulations with proper release profiles can overcome some side effects of conventional formulations. The current study was designed to prepare sustained release tablets of Capecitabine, which is approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for the treatment of advanced breast cancer, using hydroxypropyl methylcellulose (HPMC), carbomer934P, sodium alginate, and sodium bicarbonate. Tablets were prepared using the wet granulation method and characterized such that floating lag time, total floating time, hardness, friability, drug content, weight uniformity, and in vitro drug release were investigated. The sustained release tablets showed good hardness and passed the friability test. The tablets' floating lag time was determined to be 30–200 seconds, and it floated more than 24 hours and released the drug for 24 hours. Then, the stability test was done and compared with the initial samples. In conclusion, by adjusting the right ratios of the excipients including release-retarding gel-forming polymers like HPMC K4M, Na alginate, carbomer934P, and sodium bicarbonate, sustained release Capecitabine floating tablet was formulated.