Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Sex work and health in London

This thesis comprises 12 publications from two decades of research into sex work and health. The papers report on the risks and determinants of HIV and other sexually transmitted infections (STI) in women selling sex in London. The research combined clinical, epidemiological and anthropological methods in a programme that aimed to inform policies and interventions to reduce STI and HIV risks and improve the health and well-being of sex workers. In the accompanying commentary, chapter 1 places the papers in a broad narrative by describing the context of the work which began with the early days of the AIDS epidemic and continued through new challenges including the impact of globalisation and migration. Chapter 2 is a critical review of the major findings in relation to HIV and STI risk, and includes new tables summarising estimates of effect sizes from across the studies. I then discuss major risk factors, placing the findings in the context of the wider literature, and suggest a conceptual framework linking the determinants. Chapter 3 provides a more detailed description of the ways that different research methods were used to test specific hypotheses. In particular, I show how qualitative work uncovers the importance of structural factors, such as the organisation of flats and the distribution and consumption of drugs, in determining individual and group level behaviours and risks. I provide a brief critique of the use of mixed methods in biomedical research, and stress the importance of grounding both qualitative and quantitative work in appropriate theoretical frameworks. Chapter 4 summarises the thesis and re-asserts the need for a model of causation that incorporates social, economic, behavioural and structural factors. The development of interventions requires a synthesis of evidence from many disciplines, together with the perspective of participants whose agency will be the key to successful implementation.
Effects of Cannabis Decriminalization in the Australian Capital Territory on University Students' Patterns of Use

Prohibition has been the fundamental tenet of drug policy in most countries throughout much of this century, despite mounting evidence of its ineffectiveness in reducing production, trafficking, and consumption. Proposals for policies that favor relaxation of criminal penalties for drug use are frequently defeated with the argument that decriminalization will lead to increased use. However, this effect has not been observed in the few countries and states which have decriminalized cannabis. The most recent instance of cannabis decriminalization occurred in the Australian Capital Territory (ACT) in 1992. To evaluate the effect of decriminalization on cannabis use in the ACT, a sample of students at the Australian National University were surveyed to determine their patterns of use before and since enactment of the legislation. A control group was recruited from students at the University of Melbourne. Patterns of cannabis use were found to be very stable over time, with no significant changes discernible for either sample.
Non-Syndromic atrioventricular septal defects: a refined definition, associated risk factors, and prognostic factors for left atrioventricular valve replacement following primary repair

Congenital heart defects (CHDs) constitute a major proportion of clinically significant birth defects and are an important component of pediatric cardiovascular disease. Atrioventricular septal defects (AVSDs) include a range of anomalies characterized by atrial, ventricular, and atrioventricular (AV) valve defects. AVSDs commonly occur in the presence of a syndrome, most frequently Down syndrome; they also occur in isolation and are referred to as nonsyndromic AVSDs (NSAVSDs). These studies were performed to evaluate for presence of an intermediate phenotype in parents and siblings of a child with a NSAVSD, risk factors associated with NSAVSDs, and prognostic risk factors for left AV valve replacement following primary repair of an AVSD. It was shown that the mean body surface area-standardized AV septal length (AVSL) was significantly shorter in the NSAVSD parents and siblings than in parents and siblings of syndromic AVSD case and control children. Using ageand gender-adjusted body surface area-standardized AVSL, it was determined that there was evidence for two component distributions in parents and siblings of NSAVSD children, suggesting the presence of an intermediate. Broadening the definition of AVSD to include those with a shortened AVSL may increase the power of genetic association and mapping studies to identify susceptibility genes. Risk factors associated with NSAVSD were examined using the 19972005 National Birth Defects Prevention Study database. Mothers who actively smoked or were exposed to passive smoke anytime from one month prior to pregnancy through the end of the first trimester were more likely to have an infant with a NSAVSD. There was a suggestive association between AVSDs and use of antibacterial, antifungal, and antiviral medications. Additional investigations are warranted to investigate associations with specific medications as well as to
Fiscal Cyclicality in Brunei Darussalam

This paper examines the conduct of fiscal policy in Brunei from 2003Q1 to 2014Q2, focusing on the cyclical patterns in government expenditure. The results from a structural vector autoregression model provide evidence that fiscal policy in Brunei is procyclical, which has an expansionary effect on output and thus exacerbates the business cycle. This behaviour is primarily driven by procyclical current expenditure while capital expenditure is largely acyclical. The government should exercise caution to avoid adding cyclical pressures to the economy already afflicted by volatile oil prices. A key policy recommendation would be to adopt clear fiscal rules and better integration of the reserve funds in the budgetary framework to delink government spending from volatile oil revenues.
Avaliação do estado nutricional em relação a aspectos sócio-econômicos de adultos indígenas Suruí, Rondônia, Brasil

__________________________________________________________________ Nutritional status in relation to socioeconomic level of Suruí Indian adults in Rondônia, Brazil. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the nutritional status of adults (age ≥ 20 years) in Suruí society, in the southwestern Amazon. Given the complexity of indigenous peoples’ health and its contemporary links to Brazil’s nutrition transition, health and nutrition problems in indigenous communities are discussed within a historical context of changing culture and economy. The first part of this study contextualizes the attention to Indian’s health in Brazil and introduces the theoretical basis of nutritional assessment. Then the history the Suruí people is examined and the field research activities in the villages are described in details. Two articles, still unpublished, are presented. By comparing anthropometric data from 1980s, the first article comments on adult’s nutritional status, showing a high prevalence of overweight and obesity, which is uncommon among Amazon native groups. The second article examines the nutritional profile in relation to Suruí villages’ socioeconomic divisions. This article highlights the differences in weight and body mass index means when the Suruí are distributed across three distinct socioeconomic levels. The last part of this study presented some final considerations. Given the transformations in eating habits and lifestyle after interactions with Brazilian society, the Suruí have faced a clear and specific nutrition transition process. With respect to the possibility of the emergence of chronic diseases, the high prevalence of obesity shows the necessity of taking into consideration aspects related to food and nutrition processes in indigenous villages, in order to improve the services they are offered. Key-words: South American Indians; Nutritional Status; Amazonia
Robust Semi-Supervised Non-Negative Matrix Factorization With Structured Normalization

Non-negative matrix factorization (NMF) approximates a non-negative data matrix with the product of two low-rank non-negative matrices by minimizing the cost of such approximation. However, traditional NMF models cannot be generalized in the cases when the dataset contains outliers and limited knowledge from domain experts. In this paper, we propose a robust semi-supervised NMF model (RSS-NMF) to overcome the aforementioned deficiency. RSS-NMF utilizes the $L_{2} / L_{1}$ -norm to encourage approximation and makes the model insensitive to outliers by prohibiting them from dominating the cost function. To incorporate the discriminative information, RSS-NMF utilizes the structured normalization method when learns a diagonal matrix to normalize the coefficients such that they get close to the label indicators of the given labeled examples. Although the multiplicative update rule (MUR) can be adopted to minimize RSS-NMF, it converges slowly. In this paper, we adopt a fast gradient descent algorithm (FGD) to optimize RSS-NMF and prove its convergence to a stationary point. FGD uses a Newton method to search the optimal step length and thus, FGD converges faster than MUR. The experimental results show the promise of RSS-NMF comparing with the representative clustering models on several face image datasets.
DETERMINATION OF HUMAN TEMPERAMENT BASED ON THE LITERATURE OF UNANI SYSTEM OF MEDICINE

The Temperament (mizaj) theory is backbone of Unani system of medicine. This system categorizes individuals according to the temperament. Temperament indeed occupies a very important place in Unani system of medicine and forms the basis of pathology diagnosis and treatment in this medical system. The etidal or equilibrium of this distinct temperament i.e. maintenance of constant internal environment in different individuals leads to a healthy body i.e. normal body functions. Any derangement of temperament from etadal or imbalance of normal temperament results in su-e-mizaj which causes deranged body functions i.e. diseases. It becomes essential for a physician to start the treatment after determining his temperament so that the patient having specific mizaj can be treated according to his own mizaj. In this paper we have discussed the determinants of temperament as described in literature of Unani system of medicine.
APPRAISAL OF URBANISATION, TOWNSHIP AND HOUSING TRENDS FOR A DESIRED FUTURE IN MALAYSIA

This paper reviews the trend of township planning in Malaysia by featuring measures for the preparation of urban housing, and utilising the contemporary shifts in town ‘landscaping’. Learning from the Habitat III, a competitive township is essential for better and vibrant society. In Malaysia, the competitiveness, capital at present can be measured in policy implementation financially and transformative technologies support with any cutting-edge human capital strategy. The objectives of this paper are to investigate the strategic angle of sustainable urban development and to suggest better future urbanisation, township and housing in Malaysia. Detailed review was done through content analysis aiming at well-being and economic stability of its residents. The content in focus comprised housing integration, housing assistance, economic participation, and technology and design. It was found that Malaysia must be aware and compatible with such challenges to align with the national aspiration for harmonious living standards for future planning and housing development.
Residual + Capsule Networks (ResCap) for Simultaneous Single-Channel Overlapped Keyword Recognition

Overlapped speech poses a significant problem in a variety of applications in speech processing including speaker identification, speaker diarization, and speech recognition among others. To address it, existing systems combine source separation with algorithms for processing non-overlapped speech (e.g. source separation + follow-on speech recognition). In this paper we propose a modified network architecture to simultaneously recognize keywords from overlapped speech without explicitly having to perform source separation. We build our network by adding capsule layers to a ResNet architecture that has shown state-of-the-art performance on a traditional keyword recognition task. We evaluate the model on a series of 10-word overlapped keyword recognition experiments, using speaker dependent and speaker independent training. Results indicate that Residual + Capsule (ResCap) network shows marked improvement in recognizing overlapped speech, especially in experiments where there is a mismatch in the number of overlapped speakers between the training set and the test set.
The Relationship Between Institutional Factors, Citation and Altmetric Counts of Publications from Finnish Universities

The goals of this research were two-fold. First, this research set out to investigate possible institutional characteristics that may or may not have an influence on online attention or, in other words, the number of altmetric events surrounding the scientific articles from that institution. The results suggest that international connections are important in the accumulation of altmetric events, possibly due to the creation of weak ties between researchers and their institutions. Second, it was studied whether the institutional research profile, i.e. in what fields the institution published, matched with the distribution of altmetric events across the same fields of science. Our analysis shows that the universities’ research profiles are not always reflected in the online events. Overall, the results of both goals of this research reflect a complex system where the received online attention can be attributed to many different factors.
Las remesas internacionales del PTAT y su impacto en el capital humano en México

Este ensayo tiene como propositos construir un indicador de formacion de capital humano a partir de una base de datos propia generada por una encuesta a jornaleros mexicanos que trabajan en Canada, quienes se encuentran inscritos en el Programa de Trabajadores Agricolas Temporales (PTAT), y desarrollar un modelo LOGIT para detectar factores independientes a los expuestos en las teorias sobre capital humano que tengan intervencion positiva o negativa. Conforme a los resultados del modelo se concluye que las remesas que llegan a Mexico por parte de los migrantes inscritos en el PTAT son efectivamente generadoras de capital humano a partir del efecto que tienen los factores exogenos regionales, sociales, economicos y demograficos que fueron considerados.
Factors Influencing ASEAN and International Students of Higher Education Programs in Thailand

This study aims to understand the factors affecting graduate study choices of ASEAN and international students in Thailand. Quantitative and qualitative methods were applied in this study. The result showed that majority of international students between 2013 - 2015 were Chinese while among the ASEAN, students from Myanmar, Cambodia, and Laos were the highest. Among 42 factors, the most influential factor was quality of teachers who influence the selection by international students and ASEAN students significantly at the 0.05 level. International students place an emphasis on politics and security, while ASEAN students focus on future career prospects after graduation. The development of Thailand’s competitiveness as an education hub in ASEAN is also possible. Thailand has the knowledge that is needed to enhance developing countries. It is recognized internationally for agriculture, public health, and education.
Effects of osteoporosis and drugs on bone biomechanics.

16 New Zealand White (NZW) rabbits were ovariectornised (OVX) and 20 left intact as age-matched controls. 4 controls were killed at time 0, then 4 from each group at 1,3,6 and 12 months post-OVX. Serum oestradiol and body weight were recorded. Post-mortem of the OVX animals confirmed that all ovarian tissue had been removed. Femoral and humeral diaphyses were tested in 4-point bending, metatarsals in torsion and cancellous bone from the femora and humeri in compression. Oestradiol levels were not altered by OVX and there were no significant reductions in strength, stiffness or density of cancellous or cortical bone 12 months post-OVX, except that OVX femoral strength was significantly lower than control strength (p < 0.05). In conclusion, the species was not a suitable model for post-menopausal osteoporosis. Due to the failure of the rabbit model, it was necessary to revert to the rat model of post-menopausal osteoporosis. Two mechanical tests were used to investigate the efficacy of an anti-resorptive therapy (Oestradiol-3-benzoate) and an anabolic therapy (Parathyroid Hormone). An indentation test examined the properties of cancellous bone material, while the femoral neck bending test examined the properties of the bone as an organ by reproducing the in vivo events leading to a shear fracture of the hip. Biornechanical variables were related to Bone Mineral Density, a measure of bone mass currently in use in clinical practice, by scanning the bones using peripheral quantitative computed tomography (pQCT) before mechanical testing took place. It was found that cancellous bone density and indentation strength decreased and cortical bone density increased 6 weeks post-OVX: high levels of oestradiol-3benzoate prevented these changes . Total bone mineral density was strongly correlated with indentation strength (r=0.92). Parathyroid hormone did not restore cancellous bone density of OVX to sham levels but restored biornechanical strength. z: 1
Informing the development of a prevention intervention targeting men who have sex with men (MSM) with acute HIV infection: a report based on review of literature and interviews with strategic informants

To inform the development of a prevention intervention targeted to MSM with acute HIV infection (AHI), we conducted a literature review and strategic informant interviews with a sample of care providers and community leaders who serve the gay community in British Columbia. The literature indicated that interventions based on at least one behavioural change theory or model using multiple delivery methods with greater intervention exposure may have greater effectiveness. Strategic informants felt that the intervention should be delivered by counsellors who possess an in depth awareness of gay culture and sexuality and the ability to provide emotional support to persons with AHI. Informants believed that if MSM with AHI felt supported it would provide them with the basis to utilize knowledge gained in counselling to develop skills and self-efficacy in relation to safer sex. A key concern identified by the informants was stigmatization implied by language used to describe AHI.
The Impact of Borehole Wells and a Hygiene and Sanitation Program on Diarrhea: Evidence from Rural Southwest Uganda

Diarrheal disease is the second leading cause of death for children under age ve, killing approximately 2,089 children a day (WHO, 2013). Clean water access, sanitation facilities, and good hygiene behavior are solutions to decreasing child mortality and morbidity caused by fecal contamination. I estimate the impact of borehole wells and a hygiene and sanitation program on diarrhea by creating a retrospective panel. I ask mothers to rank children from the most to least diarrhea when under the age of two and use this ranking to compare siblings, where at least one had been exposed to the program. The methodology causes bias in the dependent variable and I therefore do not nd a statistically signicant impact of borehole wells or the hygiene
Caractérisation des mécanismes de régulation de l'activité du facteur de transcription IRF-3

Activation of the innate arm of the immune system following pathogen infections rely on the activation of latent transcription factors involved in the induction of a subset of genes responsible for pathogen's clearance. One of these transcription factors, Interferon Regulatory Factor 3 (IRF3), is an essential mediator of the innate immune response. Sustained activation of this transcription factor is also proposed to play a major role in acute and chronic inflammatory diseases. IRF3 is constitutively express in a variety of tissues where it is maintained in a latent conformation in the cytoplasm. Upon viral infection, IRF-3 is phosphorylated within its C-terminus extremity by the IKK-related kinases TANK-binding protein (TBKI) and IKKi inducing a conformationnal change that allows its homodimerization. In this conformation, IRF3 translocates into the nucleus via an atypical nuclear localization sequence (NLS) where its associates with coactivators CREB-binding protein (CBP)/p300 (histone acetyltransferases), inducing its sequestration into this compartment and allowing DNA binding activity. Following its activation, use pharmacological inhibitors has suggested that IRF-3 is targeted to the proteasome machinery. However, the molecular mechanisms involved in this process were unknown. Thus, the principal objective of this thesis was to characterize the signaling pathways involved in regulating the transcriptional activity of IRF3. We show for the first time that IRF3 is polyubiquitinated following its phosphorylation in its C-termÎnal end by TBKI and IKKi. This process, which is mediated in part by a SCF complex E3 ligase, is important for recognition of IRF3 by the proteasome machinery. Lysine residues (K) are the major receptor for covalent attachment of ubiquitin but also for acetyl and me th yI motieties. Interestingly, K77 of IRF3 is conserved among aIl the IRF members and was proposed to be part of an atypical NLS. Thus, we next addressed the role of K77 in IRF3 activity. Replacing lysine 77 with an arginine residue or mutating the atypical NLS by replacing the two basic residues Lys-Arg to neutral residues Asn-Gly, creating IRF3 KR77178NG completely abrogated the DNA binding activity of IRF3. In addition, the
A study of Kampo medicines in a diabetic nephropathy model

The effects offour Kampo medicines，Ompi－to，Hachimi－jio－gan，Keishi－bukuryo－gan and Sairei－t6，were investi－ gated in rats with diabetic nephropathy induced by subtotal nephrectomy and injection of streptozotocin・To evaluate their effects on the glycation reaction，excessive activity of the polyo豆pathway and oxidative stress（abnormal bio－ chemical processes induced by persistent hyperglycemia），we determined levels ofthe血alor endproducts ofthese proc． esses：advanced glycation endproducts（AGEs）and sorbitol in the kidney and lipid peroxidation in the serum．These three processes were all enhanced in rats with untreated diabetic nephropathy．Oral administration of all four medi． cines significantly lowered AGEs levels．The renal sorbitol concentration was significantly lowered in the Hachimi－ jio－gan一，Sairei－to－and Keishi－bukuryo－gan－treated groups compared with the untreated control group．Semm lipid peroxidation was significantly lowered in the Keishi－bukuryo－gan，Ompi－to and Sairei－to groups，while creatinine clearance and urinary protein excretion（parameters of renal function）were amehorated by Keishi－bukuryo－gan and Hachimi－jio－gan，respectively，indicating retardation ofthe progression ofdiabetic nephropathy。 These results suggest the potential therapeutic usefulness of Kampo medicines as a treatment for diabetic nephropathy．It is believed that their act重ons may occur through different mechanisms．