Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
EFFECT OF MONITORING AND EVALUATION PROCESS ON THE PERFORMANCE OF NON GOVERNMENTAL ORGANIZATION FUNDED PROJECTS IN KENYA KIAMBU COUNTY

The non-profit sector of the global economy is enormous, rapidly growing and making significant contribution to poverty reduction across the world. While the sector complements governments in development, the Non-Governmental Organizations that are major players in the non-profit sector have registered unsatisfactory performance and put their management practices to scrutiny. The general objective of this study was to establish the effect of monitoring and evaluation process on the success of NGO funded projects in Kiambu County in Kenya. The specific objectives were four. These were: to establish how monitoring and evaluation planning affects the performance of NGO funded projects; to find out the relationship between implementation of monitoring and evaluation process and the performance of NGO funded projects; to establish the effect of monitoring and evaluation baseline surveying on the performance of NGO funded projects in Kiambu county and to establish the effect of monitoring and evaluation reporting on the performance of NGO funded projects in Kiambu County. This study adopted a descriptive approach that employed survey methodology. The target population of the study was made up of the 56 chairpersons and project managers of the 56 registered NGOs operating in Kiambu County. Since all the 112 chairpersons and project managers participated in the study, the study was a census. Of the 112 respondents, 84 actually participated leading to a response rate of 75 percent. The primary qualitative and the quantitative data required for this research were obtained from the respondents by use of a self-administered questionnaire. The SPSS software was used to code and analyze the data. The findings show that M&E planning activities in NGOs positively contribute to project performance. Secondly, M&E implementation more positively contributes to project performance.Thirdly, M&E reporting helped to improve project performance and finally, baseline surveying did improve project performance of projects. Thestudy recommends the strengthening of the M&E processes in NGOs to make it strongly connected to the performance of NGO funded projects. If done, the lives of the people they serve in Kiambu County will be improved and the contribution of the projects to the national development agenda will be felt.
Curve Partitioning and Abstraction with the Local / Global Space

A novel method for the partitioning and geometric characterization of curves is presented. The method starts by generating a multi-resolution amplitude space using labeling functions which identify curved, inflexion and straight segments. Partitioning is based on the detection of curved segments, by analysing the change in amplitude along the resolution axis. Abstraction of partitioned segments occurs by forming spectra of the space (along the resolution axis), from which global and local attributes are derived (alternating, angularity, jaggedness, etc). The attributes can be used to span a low-dimensional space in which a wide range of curve geometries and hence features is expressed. The methodology is essential for the rapid construction of midand higher-level features.
Profiling BGP Serial Hijackers: Capturing Persistent Misbehavior in the Global Routing Table

BGP hijacks remain an acute problem in today's Internet, with widespread consequences. While hijack detection systems are readily available, they typically rely on a priori prefix-ownership information and are reactive in nature. In this work, we take on a new perspective on BGP hijacking activity: we introduce and track the long-term routing behavior of serial hijackers, networks that repeatedly hijack address blocks for malicious purposes, often over the course of many months or even years. Based on a ground truth dataset that we construct by extracting information from network operator mailing lists, we illuminate the dominant routing characteristics of serial hijackers, and how they differ from legitimate networks. We then distill features that can capture these behavioral differences and train a machine learning model to automatically identify Autonomous Systems (ASes) that exhibit characteristics similar to serial hijackers. Our classifier identifies ≈ 900 ASes with similar behavior in the global IPv4 routing table. We analyze and categorize these networks, finding a wide range of indicators of malicious activity, misconfiguration, as well as benign hijacking activity. Our work presents a solid first step towards identifying and understanding this important category of networks, which can aid network operators in taking proactive measures to defend themselves against prefix hijacking and serve as input for current and future detection systems.
Biomonitoring of the Workplace and Environment

Biomonitoring is a powerful tool to assess exposure to a wide variety of substances. It is superior to many other exposure assessment methodologies since it allows assessment of the actual exposure on the individual level. For decades, biomonitoring has been applied in occupational settings to assess exposure, with the main goal of checking for compliance with occupational exposure limits and the effectiveness of hygienic measures. Increasing analytical capabilities have led to continuously decreasing limits of detection, and have hence opened up biomonitoring for environmental exposure assessment. When biomonitoring is not simply used as exposure monitoring in occupational settings, but rather to assess human health risks either in the workplace or for the general public, specific criteria must be met. These criteria cover (pre-) analytical methodology, specificity of the biomarker, dose–response relationships, toxicokinetics (e.g. biological half-life) and reference values or control groups. If any of these criteria cannot be met, more research is needed before a valid health risk assessment can be made. Risk assessment is a function of hazard and exposure over time. A major problem in health risk assessment is the general lack of knowledge about low-dose-effect relationships, which prevents a reliable health risk assessment at the low exposure levels commonly found. Toxicogenomics may provide useful data to fill these voids. In addition to scientific criteria, a number of nonscientific and ethical criteria for biomonitoring studies should be addressed, such as the feasibility, the cost/benefit balance, support by the people involved, and the possibility of intervention (e.g. individual treatment, environmental measures, behavioural changes). Keywords: biomonitoring; biological monitoring; biomarker; risk assessment; exposure
SCENARIO STUDIES OF LAND USE IN NUNUKAN , EAST KALIMANTAN ( INDONESIA ) : DRIVERS , LOCAL LIVELIHOODS AND GLOBALLY RELEVANT CARBON STOCKS Desi

Global warming is caused by the rapid increase of green-house-gasses in the atmosphere, especially through carbon dioxide emission from the use of fossil fuels as well as forest and peatland conversion. Net emissions of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere can be reduced through effective protection of remaining terrestrial C stocks, and by sequestration in regrowing vegetation, where carbon is stored as biomass, necromass or soil organik matter and peat. The global atmospheric circulation system is a 'public good', and global impacts of local carbon emissions or its net storage are the basis of the current discussion on emission control and on the Clean Development Mechanism. Tropical forests are a major store of carbon, which is under threat as the conversion of natural to financial capital is the most rewarding livelihood option, in the form of logging and its subsequent degradation. Externally driven processes to 'cream off' local resources, coupled to a lack of tenure security for local people are thought to be the main factors in forest depletion but legal or illegal logging provides jobs and local employment that is at risk with logging bans (Casson and Obidzinski, 2002). Alternative livelihoods that are compatible with protection or enhancing of carbon stocks require a long term vision on, supported by security of access to, the landscape level resources, but they need to be based on sufficiently rewarding (self) employment at any point in time.
Abstract P355: Mendelian Randomization Supports Causality Between Maternal Hyperglycemia and Fetal Metabolic Programming by Leptin Epigenetic Modulation

Introduction: In utero exposure to maternal hyperglycemia is associated with increased risk of obesity later in life. Animal studies have suggested that dysregulation of leptin pathways contributes to fetal metabolic programming of obesity, but human studies are limited. Mendelian Randomization can be used to reduce confounding factors and eliminate risk of reverse causation when assessing associations between biomarkers and outcomes using genetic variants as instrumental variables. Hypothesis: Using Mendelian Randomization, we tested the hypothesis that maternal glycemia was part of causal pathways modulating newborns’ leptin epigenetic regulation. Methods: We conducted a prospective population-based cohort study of pregnant women and newborns. This study included up to 485 mother-child dyads. We measured maternal anthropometry and glycemia during pregnancy; we collected clinical data, neonatal anthropometric measurements, and cord blood samples at birth. We excluded women treated for gestational diabetes to assess the impact of maternal glycemia across the normal spectrum and avoid confounding by treatment. We built a genetic risk score (GRS10) based on 10 genetic variants known for association with fasting glucose in previous genome-wide association studies in pregnant and non-pregnant populations. We used GRS10 calculated with maternal genetic variants as an instrumental variable representing maternal glycemia. We assessed DNA methylation at 16 CpG sites near LEP (encoding for leptin) in cord blood cells. We measured leptin in cord blood by ELISA (Luminex). Results: Women were 28±4 years old and had a mean body mass index of 25.4±5.6 kg/m2 in first trimester of pregnancy. Mean maternal fasting glucose was 4.2±0.3 mmol/L at second trimester of pregnancy. Newborns were 3.409±0.464 kg at birth and mean leptin levels were 14.7±13.2 ug/L in cord blood. The GRS10 was associated with maternal fasting glucose (β= 0.0457 per risk allele; SE= 0.007; P=7.76x10-11; N= 467) and was considered as an adequate instrumental variable (r2= 0.087 with maternal fasting glucose). DNA methylation at CpG site cg12083122 demonstrated the strongest association with leptin levels in cord blood (β= -0.17; SE= 0.07; P=0.01; N=170). The association between the instrumental variable GRS10 and DNA methylation at cg12083122 (β= -0.072; SE= 0.037; P=0.05; N=166) was in the expected direction and plausible in effect size when compared to expected observational association with measured maternal fasting glucose and DNA methylation at cg12083122 (βobs= -0.43; βiv = [-0.072 / 0.0457] = -1.58; 2-stage least-square β= -1.82; P=0.17). Conclusions: Our data support that maternal glycemia is causing epigenetic adaptations at LEP gene locus in newborns, suggesting that the programming effect of maternal glycemia might have life long impact on weight regulation in offspring through leptin epigenomics.
The Churg-Strauss syndrome

Abstract The Churg-Strauss syndrome is a small vessel vasculitis associated with asthma and eosinophilia. It can sometimes present in unusual ways such as mononeuritis multiplex or subarachnoid hemorrhage. The various symptoms and signs are discussed, such as fever, skin lesions and allergic rhinitis. The sudden onset of blindness and deafness can occur. Cardiac involvement is common, but central nervous system lesions are rare. The diagnosis of the syndrome is based on clinical findings such as asthma, eosinophilia, neuropathy, and sinusitis, and it can certainly mimic conditions such as the Guillain-Barré syndrome. The cause of the syndrome is uncertain, but studies have suggested that it may well be an autoimmune disease. However, an allergy may be only one of several mechanisms triggering symptoms. There seems to be no doubt that certain drugs, notably leukotriene-receptor antagonists, can be to blame, and so can eotoxin-3. Symptoms can respond to treatment with immunosupressive drugs, and since their introduction, the survival rate has been markedly increased. Trials with other drugs, such as rituximab and omalizumab are reported. In cases of intractable asthma, the diagnosis of this syndrome should be considered.
ATOMIC SPECTROSCOPY AND COLLISIONS USING SLOW ANTIPROTONS ASACUSA

Azuma, T.1, Bakos, J. S.2, Bluhme, H.3, Charlton, M.4, Eades, J.5, Hartmann, F.J.6, Hayano, R.S. 7, Higaki, H.8, Hoekstra, R.9, Hori, M.7, Horváth, D.2, Hyodo, T.1, Ichioka, T.1, Ishikawa, T.7, Iwasaki, M.10, Kambara, T.11, Kardon, B.2, Ketzer, B.6, Knudsen, H.3, Kojima, T.11, Komaki, K.1, Kuga, T.1, Kumakura, M.12 Kuroki, K.1, Matsushima, H.1, Merrison, J.3, Møller, S. P.13, Mohri, A.8, Morenzoni, E.14, Morita, N.12, Nakai, Y.11, Oshima, N.11, Rothard, H,15, Scheidenberger, C.16, Slevin, J.17, Tanuma, H.18, Torii, H. A.7, Uggerhøj, E.13, Ullrich, J.16, von Egidy, T.6, Widmann, E.11, Yamashita, K.7, Yamazaki, T.19 Yamazaki, Y.1
Pressure Difference Estimation in Carotid Bulbs using Vector Flow Imaging - A Phantom Study

Hypertension is a common health problem and may be caused by dysfunction of the stretch sensitive baroreceptors in the carotid bulb. Velocity changes and vortices are present in the carotid bulb, and a better evaluation of the local flow and pressures may be important to further understand hypertension. The intravascular pressure catheter is a common tool in the clinic and is currently considered to be the reference standard for intravascular pressure measurement, but the method is invasive, ionizing, and has been reported to be inaccurate. Vector flow imaging (VFI) is an angle independent, noninvasive, and nonionizing ultrasound method that can estimate pressure differences. In this study, pressure differences between the common carotid artery and the carotid bulb obtained with VFI were compared with catheter measurements in three carotid bifurcation phantoms. A fluid-structure interaction (FSI) simulation model was used as reference. Additionally, 10 repeated VFI and catheter measurements were performed in one phantom for a precision assessment. The mean absolute pressure difference between the catheter and FSI method in the three phantoms was 140.5 Pa, and 10 repeated catheter tests measured a mean pressure decrease with a large variation (mean: -133.3 Pa, SD: 786%). VFI estimated pressure increases in all phantoms with a mean standard deviation of 11.6%, and the mean absolute pressure difference compared with FSI was 16.7 Pa. Ten repeated VFI estimations found a mean pressure increase with low variation (mean: 40.1 Pa, SD: 10.9%). VFI precisely estimated small pressure differences in a carotid bifurcation phantom setup, whereas the fluid-filled pressure catheter measurements were imprecise.
Prescient Language Models : Multitask Learning for Long-term Planning in LSTM ’ s

Many applications of language models, such as those in natural language generation, are notoriously susceptible to undesirable and difficult-to-control local behavior such as repetition, truncation, or rapid topic changes. We hypothesize that attending to future context in the form of "planning" may be key to stronger, more robust models, and propose a multi-task language model architecture that jointly predicts the next word in a sequence along with a vector representation of future content. Our analysis reveals that (a) certain internal states within the standard encoderdecoder stacked LSTM architecture contain more long-term information than others, (b) hidden states consistently hold more information on future content than embedding-based representations of the input context, and (c) LSTM’s are able to form a general syntactic "plan" for at least a few upcoming tokens. We conclude by exploring and benchmarking how multitask learning with future predictions can impact existing language modeling behavior.
Character Centrality in Present-Day Dutch Literary Fiction

In the critique of literary representation, the depiction of literary characters has been studied from ideological perspectives. Hierarchies can be exposed by determining the centrality of a character relative to other characters. As an addition to such close reading methods, the present paper proposes an approach to character centrality that combines network analysis with narratology. This explorative study is based on a dataset of demographic metadata on 2,137 characters from a corpus of 170 contemporary Dutch novels. We extract social networks of characters from each novel, and rank all characters according to five centrality metrics. Then, we perform a multiple linear regression to test which of the demographic variables predicts a character’s position in the rankings. Our results suggest that immigrant and female characters score higher on two of the five centrality metrics. As a narratological evaluation, we contextualise this observed pattern in relation to a close reading of Ozcan Akyol’s Eus (2012), a novel from the corpus that thematises both descent and gender. We demonstrate that our data-driven and empirically informed approach to character centrality lays bare surprising patterns of representation which only gain relevance in light of close readings of specific cases.
Production-Ready Source Code Round-trip Engineering

s—Automated source code generation is often present in modern CASE and IDE tools. Unfortunately, the generated code often covers a basic application functionality/ structure only. This paper shows principles and algorithms used in open-source cross-platform CASE tool called CodeDesigner RAD developed at Tomas Bata University suitable for production-ready source code generation and reverse engineering which allows users to generate complete C/C++ applications from a formal visual description or for creation of UML diagrams from an existing source code. Keywords—RAD, CASE, UML, code generation, C/C++, production-ready, cross-platform, CodeDesigner, reverse, engineering
Nephroprotective Potential of Herbal Medicines: A Review

Nephrotoxicity (from Greek: nephros, "kidney") is a poisonous effect of some substances, both toxic chemicals and medication, on the kidneys. There are various forms of toxicity. Nephrotoxicity should not be confused with the fact that some medications have a predominantly renal excretion and need their dose adjusted for the decreased renal function (e.g. heparin). A large number of medicinal plants, natural products and dietary components have been evaluated as potential nephroprotective agents. This article presents a review on some reported antidiabetic medicinal plants (with their botanical name,Family and part used).
Consulting the Chrystal Ball: Firms' Foresight and a Cap-and-Trade Scheme with Endogenous Supply Adjustments

The latest reform of the European Emissions Trading System (EU ETS) will set in motion range of changes to the scheme including the Market Stability Reserve (MSR). It will postpone the issue date of allowances as a function of the unused allowances in circulation, i.e. the so-called ’surplus’, and cancel allowances as a function of the reserve size from 2023 onwards. Both aspects of the MSR have implications for market outcomes which in turn depend on the nature of foresight experienced by market participants. We distinguish between perfect, limited and imperfect foresight and analyze a perfectly competitive allowance market by a partial equilibrium model in discrete time. Our investigation yields that the current design put in place by the reform is only sensible if two market failures are taken into account: excessive supply by the regulator and regulated entities not experiencing perfect foresight.
Acetyl-11-keto-β-boswellic acid attenuates titanium particle-induced osteogenic inhibition via activation of the GSK-3β/β-catenin signaling pathway

Rationale: Peri-prosthetic osteolysis (PPO) is mainly induced by wear particles and represents the leading cause of implant failure and revision surgery. Previous studies have identified mitigation of wear particle-induced inflammation and bone resorption as the main approaches to treat PPO. Recently, wear particle-induced reduction of bone formation around the prosthesis was identified as a major factor in the development of PPO. Acetyl-11-keto-β-boswellic acid (AKBA), a derivative of frankincense, has been shown to play a potential role in bone metabolism. However, whether AKBA enhances bone formation in wear particle-induced osteolysis remains unknown. In this study, we examined whether AKBA attenuates titanium particle-induced osteogenic reduction. Methods: Titanium particles were used to induce osteolysis in murine calvaria, and micro-CT and histological analyses were used to evaluate the results. Mouse osteoblast cells, MC3T3-E1 were co-cultured with titanium particles to determine their effect on osteoblast formation in vitro. Results: We demonstrated that AKBA treatment significantly inhibited titanium particle-induced osteogenic inhibition by enhancing osteogenesis both in vivo and in vitro. AKBA treatment also enhanced the phosphorylation of GSK-3β, decreased the degradation of β-catenin, and increased the translocation of β-catenin from the cytoplasm to the nucleus. Taken together, these results showed that AKBA treatment attenuated titanium-induced osteogenic inhibition by activating the GSK-3β/β-catenin signaling pathway. Conclusion: These findings suggest that AKBA is a promising new target in the prevention and treatment of PPO.
Attractors of variation in Hungarian inflectional morphology

Abstract We use algorithmic learning and statistical methods over a form frequency list (compiled from the Hungarian web corpus) to investigate variation in Hungarian verbal inflection. Our aims are twofold: (i) to give an adequate description of this variation, which has not been described in detail in the literature and (ii) to explore the range and depth of lexical attractors that potentially shape this variation. These attractors range from closely related ones, such as the shape of the word form or the behaviour of the verb’s paradigm, to broad ones, such as the behaviour of similar verbs or the phonotactics of related verb forms. We find that verbal variation is predominantly determined by similarity to related verb forms rather than by word shape or by word frequency. What is more, the effect of similarity is better approximated using inflected forms as opposed to base forms as points of comparison. This, in turn, supports a rich memory model of morphology and the mental lexicon.
The object-related negativity ( ORN ) component as an objective measure of concurrent sound segregation

Electroencephalography (EEG) is a popular technique for deriving objective measures of auditory function due to its sensitivity to fine details of auditory processing, its high temporal precision, and its applicability across a wide range of participant groups with low testing burden. I will discuss the suitability of a specific EEG measure as a tool for objectively studying the perceptual segregation of concurrent sound sources: namely the object-related negativity (ORN) component of the event-related brain potential (ERP). The ORN component was introduced by Alain and colleagues almost twenty years ago to reflect the perceptual segregation of simultaneous sounds. I will show recent ORN results from healthy young adults and from elderly listeners with slight hearing impairment, indicating high sensitivity of the ORN at group level. I will extend these results towards the question whether ORN is sensitive enough to measure sound segregation abilities at single-subject level. Based on detailed correlation analyses between ORN measurements and perceptual judgments in young and elderly listeners, I will point out promises but also caveats in using the ORN for individual diagnostics of auditory function.