Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Projecting the lives saved by continuing the historical scale-up of child and maternal health interventions in Mozambique until 2030

Background Over the past 20 years, Mozambique has achieved substantial reductions in maternal, neonatal, and child mortality. However, mortality rates are still high, and to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) for maternal and child health, further gains are needed. One technique that can guide policy makers to more effectively allocate health resources is to model the coverage increases and lives saved that would be achieved if trends continue as they have in the past, and under differing alternative scenarios. Methods We used historical coverage data to project future coverage levels for 22 child and maternal interventions for 2015-2030 using a Bayesian regression model. We then used the Lives Saved Tool (LiST) to estimate the additional lives saved by the projected coverage increases, and the further child lives saved if Mozambique were to achieve universal coverage levels of selected individual interventions. Results If historical trends continue, coverage of all interventions will increase from 2015 to 2030. As a result, 180 080 child lives (0-59 months) and 3640 maternal lives will be saved that would not be saved if coverage instead stays constant from 2015 to 2030. Most child lives will be saved by preventing malaria deaths: 40.9% of the mortality reduction will come from increased coverage of artemisinin-based compounds for malaria treatment (ACTs) and insecticide treated bednets (ITNs). Most maternal lives will be saved from increased labor and delivery management (29.4%) and clean birth practices (17.1%). The biggest opportunity to save even more lives, beyond those expected by historical trends, is to further invest in malaria treatment. If coverage of ACTs was increased to 90% in 2030, rather than the anticipated coverage of 68.4% in 2030, an additional 3456 child lives would be saved per year. Conclusions Mozambique can expect to see continued reductions in mortality rates in the coming years, although due to population growth the absolute number of child deaths will decrease only marginally, the absolute number of maternal deaths will continue to increase, and the country will not achieve current SDG targets for either child or maternal mortality. Significant further health investments are needed to eliminate all preventable child and maternal deaths in the coming decades.
Parents' causal attributions about attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder: the effect of child and parent sex.

BACKGROUND Boys with attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (AD/HD) demonstrate disruptive behaviour at significantly higher rates compared to girls. Disruptive behaviour often develops as a result of negative interaction patterns within the caregiving relationship. Given the importance of parental cognitions as mediators of parental behaviour, the consideration of parent and child sex in the investigation of causal attributions regarding AD/HD may, at least partially, explain sex differences in the prevalence of disruptive behaviour among children with AD/HD. AIM To examine the effect of parent and child sex on parental causal attributions and reactions about AD/HD and to investigate the interrelationships between these variables. SAMPLE Three hundred and seventeen mothers and 317 fathers of boys and girls aged 4-6 years and enrolled in kindergartens in Athens. METHOD A Greek version of the Parental Account of the Causes of Childhood Problems Questionnaire was used, which followed a vignette about a hypothetical child displaying symptoms of AD/HD. Half of the participants received a male and another half received a female version of the vignette. RESULTS The child's sex greatly influenced parents' causal attributions about AD/HD. Higher ratings of intentionality were conferred to boys with AD/HD than girls and these attributions were related to stricter responses towards boys. In contrast, parents who considered biological dysfunction as underlying AD/HD, they mostly did so in the case of girls. Minimal effect of parent sex on causal attributions was found. CONCLUSIONS Because causal attributions of intentionality relate to the response of more strictness and such attributions are more prevalent for boys than girls, then these perceptions about the aetiology of AD/HD in boys may be at the basis of negative interaction patterns. The increase of such interaction patterns may place boys at a more vulnerable position towards the development of secondary behaviour problems.
ShuntFlow: An Efficient and Scalable Dataflow Accelerator Architecture for Streaming Applications

Streaming processing is an important and growing class of applications for analyzing continuous streams of real time data. Slidingwindow aggregations (SWAGs) dominate the computation time in such applications and dictate an unprecedented computation capacity which poses a great challenge to the computing architectures. General-purpose processors cannot efficiently handle SWAGs because of the specific computation patterns. This paper proposes an efficient accelerator architecture for ubiquitous SWAGs, called ShuntFlow. ShuntFlow is a typical type of Kernel Processing Unit (KPU) where “Kernel” represent two main categories of SWAG operations widely used in streaming processing. Meanwhile, we propose a shunt rule to enable ShuntFlow to efficiently handle SWAGs with arbitrary parameters. As a case study, we implemented ShuntFlow on an Altera Arria 10 AX115N FPGA board at 150 MHz and compared it to previous approaches. The experimental results show that ShuntFlow provides a tremendous throughput and latency advantage over CPU and GPU implementations on both reduce-like and index-like SWAGs.
What does Vibration do to Your SSD?

Vibration generated in modern computing environments such as autonomous vehicles, edge computing infrastructure, and data center systems is an increasing concern. In this paper, we systematically measure, quantify and characterize the impact of vibration on the performance of SSD devices. Our experiments and analysis uncover that exposure to both short-term and long-term vibration, even within the vendor-specified limits, can significantly affect SSD I/O performance and reliability.
NV-BNN: An Accurate Deep Convolutional Neural Network Based on Binary STT-MRAM for Adaptive AI Edge

Binary STT-MRAM is a highly anticipated embedded non-volatile memory technology in advanced logic nodes < 28 nm. How to enable its in-memory computing (IMC) capability is critical for enhancing AI Edge. Based on the soon-available STT-MRAM, we report the first binary deep convolutional neural network (NV-BNN) capable of both local and remote learning. Exploiting intrinsic cumulative switching probability, accurate online training of CIFAR-10 color images (∼ 90%) is realized using a relaxed endurance spec (switching ≤ 20 times) and hybrid digital/IMC design. For offline training, the accuracy loss due to imprecise weight placement can be mitigated using a rapid non-iterative training-with-noise and fine-tuning scheme.
The Effect of Previous Life Cycle Phase on the Growth Kinetics, Morphology, and Antibiotic Resistance of Salmonella Typhimurium DT104 in Brain Heart Infusion and Ground Chicken Extract

Growth models are predominately used in the food industry to estimate the potential growth of select microorganisms under environmental conditions. The growth kinetics, cellular morphology and antibiotic resistance were studied throughout the life cycle of Salmonella Typhimurium. The effect of the previous life cycle phase (late log phase [LLP], early stationary phase [ESP], late stationary phase [LSP] and early death phase [EDP]) of Salmonella after reinoculation in brain heart infusion broth (BHI), ground chicken extract (GCE) and BHI at pH 5, 7 and 9 and salt concentrations 2, 3 and 4% was investigated. The growth media and previous life cycle phase had significant effects on the lag time (λ), specific growth rate (μmax) and maximum population density (Ymax). At 2% and 4% salt concentration the LLP had the significantly (P<0.05) fastest μmax (1.07 and 0.69 log CFU/mL/h, respectively). As the cells transitioned from the late log phase (LLP) to the early death phase (EDP), the λ significantly (P<0.05) increased. At pH 5 and 9 the EDP had a significantly (P<0.05) lower Ymax than the LLP, ESP and LSP. As the cells transitioned from a rod shape to a coccoid shape in the EDP, the cells were more susceptible to antibiotics. The cells regained their resistance as they transitioned back to a rod shape from the EDP to the log and stationary phase. Our results revealed that growth kinetics, cell’s length, shape and antibiotic resistance were significantly affected by the previous life cycle phase.
Big: A Bivariate Gradient-Based Wirelength Model for Analytical Circuit Placement

The analytical formulation has been shown to be the most effective for circuit placement. A key ingredient of analytical placement is its wirelength model, which needs to be differentiable and can accurately approximate a golden wirelength model such as half-perimeter wirelength. Existing wirelength models derive gradient from differentiating smooth maximum (minimum) functions, such as the log-sum-exp and weighted-average models. In this paper, we propose a novel bivariate gradient-based wirelength model, namely BiG, which directly derives a gradient with any bivariate smooth maximum (minimum) function without any differentialion. Our wirelength model can effectively combine the advantages of both multivariate and bivariate functions. Experimental results show that our BiG model effectively and efficiently improves placement solutions.CCS CONCEPTS• Hardware → Electronic design automation.
Canadian Tissue Residue Guidelines for the Protection of Wildlife Consumers of Aquatic Biota TOXAPHENE

oxaphene (CAS 8001-35-2) is the common nam for a complex mixture of chlorinated camphene and bornane derivatives resulting from th chlorination of camphene (ATSDR 1994). More than tw thirds of the isomers contain 7 to 9 chlorine atoms (CCRE 1987), the molecular weight averaging 414 g ⋅mol (Eisler and Jacknow 1985). Toxaphene, also known as camphec chlorocamphene, or polychlorocamphene (PCC), typically an amber-coloured waxy solid with a pine o terpene odour (Brooks 1974; Budavari et al. 1989).
Performance-aware Wear Leveling for Block RAM in Nonvolatile FPGAs

Field programmable gate arrays (FPGAs) have been widely adopted in both high-performance servers and embedded systems. Since static random access memory (SRAM) has limited density and comparatively high leakage power, researchers have proposed FPGA architectures based on emerging non-volatile memories (NVMs) to satisfy the requirements of data-intensive and low-power applications. Block RAM is on-chip memory of FPGAs, when it is implemented with NVM, it will face the challenge of limited endurance. Traditional wear leveling strategy cannot be directly applied to block RAM because it may induce large performance overhead. In this paper, we propose a performance-aware wear leveling scheme for block RAM in FPGAs to improve its lifetime. The placement strategy is improved by injecting wear leveling guidance. The evaluation shows that 29.75% lifetime enhancement is achieved with 16.32% performance improvement at the same time, compared with traditional wear leveling. CCS CONCEPTS • Computer systems organization → Embedded hardware.
A Novel Covert Channel Attack Using Memory Encryption Engine Cache

Microarchitectural covert channel attack is a threat when multiple tenants share hardware resources such as last-level cache. In this work, we propose a novel covert channel attack that exploits new microarchitecture that have been introduced to support memory encryption – in particular, the memory encryption engine (MEE) cache. The MEE cache is a shared resource but only utilized when accessing the integrity tree data and provides opportunity for a stealthy covert channel attack. However, there are challenges since MEE cache organization is not publicly known and the access behavior differs from a conventional cache. We demonstrate how the MEE cache can be exploited to establish a covert channel communication.
Biotic resistance: exclusion of native rodent consumers releases populations of a weak invader

Biotic resistance is a commonly invoked hypothesis to explain why most exotic plant species naturalize at low abundance. Although numerous studies have documented negative impacts of native consumers on exotic plant performance, longer‐term multi‐generation studies are needed to understand how native consumer damage to exotics translates to their population‐level suppression over large landscapes. We used rodent exclosures and embedded seed‐addition experiments to evaluate the effects of rodent herbivory and granivory on populations of Tragopogon dubius, a Eurasian aster that typically occurs at low abundance across North America. Vegetation surveys encompassing 20 000 km2 of west‐central Montana grasslands established that T. dubius is regionally well distributed, occurring in 81% of 16 grasslands sampled. However, it consistently occurred at low local abundance, averaging < 0.5% cover in 1 m2 plots. In large rodent exclosures, T. dubius attained population densities that averaged over five times higher than in paired rodent‐access control plots at 11 grassland sites spread over 750 km2. This pattern was six times stronger in older compared with newer rodent exclosures, indicating enclosed populations were still increasing. Floral herbivory, which reduces or prevents reproduction in this biennial plant, decreased by 99% in rodent exclosures compared with control plots. Additionally, seedling establishment was nearly eight times higher in seed‐addition subplots within versus outside of rodent exclosures. Synthesis. Our findings illustrate how biotic resistance from granivory and florivory of native generalist rodents can provide an important ecosystem service by strongly limiting the local abundance of a widely distributed exotic weed.
Sample-Guided Automated Synthesis for CCSL Specifications

The Clock Constraint Specification Language (CCSL) has been widely investigated in verifying causal and temporal timing behaviors of real-time embedded systems. However, due to limited expertise in formal modeling, it is difficult for requirement engineers to completely and accurately derive CCSL specifications from natural language-based design descriptions. To address this problem, we present a novel approach that facilitates automated synthesis of CCSL specifications under the guidance of sampled (expected) timing behaviors of target systems. By encoding sampled behaviors and incomplete CCSL constraints provided by requirement engineers using our proposed transformation templates, the CCSL specification synthesis problem can be naturally converted into a SKETCH synthesis problem, which enables the automated generation of CCSL specifications with high accuracy. Experiments on both well-known benchmarks and synthetic examples demonstrate the effectiveness and scalability of our approach.
Text messaging for enhancement of testing and treatment for tuberculosis, human immunodeficiency virus, and syphilis: a survey of attitudes toward cellular phones and healthcare.

OBJECTIVES The objective of this study was to assess knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors surrounding healthcare-related mobile phone use and text messaging among persons at risk for or infected with tuberculosis (TB) or the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). METHODS An anonymous survey was conducted in three groups of subjects: (1) HIV-infected persons attending an HIV clinic; (2) persons with latent TB infection at a public health clinic; and (3) persons presenting for TB, HIV, and syphilis screening at a community screening site. RESULTS Three hundred fifteen (n = 315) persons responded to the survey, of whom 241 (76.5%) owned a cell phone. Cell phone owners were younger and more educated than nonowners. Transportation difficulty and forgetting appointments were cited as significant barriers by 34.2% and 39.5% of respondents, respectively. Fifty-six percent of subjects felt it would be acceptable to receive text message appointment reminders, and 33% felt that text message reminders to take medications would be acceptable. Younger age and cell phone ownership were significantly associated with acceptance of text message reminders. Black and Hispanic subjects were more likely to feel that text message reminders for appointments or medications were helpful than White subjects. Further, Black and Hispanic subjects, as well as subjects with lower educational attainment, were more receptive to healthcare-related educational text messages. CONCLUSIONS Cell phones and text messaging were prevalent among our subjects attending HIV and TB clinics, and subjects were generally receptive to text messaging for healthcare-related communication. Interventions that explore the potential for text messaging to improve clinic attendance, medication adherence, and health knowledge should be explored.
RansomBlocker: a Low-Overhead Ransomware-Proof SSD

We present a low-overhead ransomware-proof SSD, called Ran-somBlocker (RBlocker). RBlocker provides 100% full protections against all possible ransomware attacks by delaying every data deletion until no attack is guaranteed. To reduce storage overheads of the delayed deletion, RBlocker employs a time-out based backup policy. Based on the fact that ransomware must store encrypted version of target files, early deletions of obsolete data are allowed if no encrypted write was detected for a short interval. Otherwise, RBlocker keeps the data for an interval long enough to guarantee no attack condition. For an accurate in-line detection of encrypted writes, we leverages entropy-and CNN-based detectors in an integrated fashion. Our experimental results show that RBlocker can defend all types of ransomware attacks with negligible overheads. Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from permissions@acm.org. DAC ’19, June 2’6, 2019, Las Vegas, NV, USA © 2019 Association for Computing Machinery.
Internal Structure Aware RDF Data Management in SSDs

In this paper, we lead the first efforts towards intelligent RDF data management in SSDs. We propose to deeply fuse the RDF data in SSDs. In detail, the operations (e.g., data query) applied to RDF can be directly achieved in SSDs. To this end, we explore two RDF data organizations (e.g., triple-based) with the consideration of the internal structure of SSDs. The experiment is conducted on the Patient Disease Drug (PDD) Graph dataset [11]. The experimental results show that the proposed two strategies achieve the comprehensive, scalable in-SSD computation from different aspects (e.g., space efficiency or query efficiency).
ASCache: An Approximate SSD Cache for Error-Tolerant Applications

With increased density, flash memory becomes more vulnerable to errors. Error correction incurs high overhead, which is sensitive in SSD cache. However, some applications like multimedia processing have the intrinsic tolerance of inaccuracies. In this paper, we propose ASCache, an approximate SSD cache, which allows bit errors in a controllable threshold for error-tolerant applications, so as to reduce the cache miss ratio caused by incorrect cache pages. ASCache further trades the strictness of error correction mechanisms for higher SSD access performance. Evaluations show ASCache reduces the average read latency by at most 30% and the cache miss ratio by 52%.
Transmit or Discard: optimizing Data Freshness in Networked Embedded Systems with Energy Harvesting Sources

This paper explores how to optimize the freshness of real-time data in energy harvesting based networked embedded systems. We introduce the concept of Age of Information (AoI) to quantitatively measure the data freshness and present a comprehensive analysis on the average AoI of the real-time data with stochastic update arrival and energy replenishment rates. Both an optimal offline solution and an effective online solution are designed to judiciously select a subset of the real-time data updates and determine their corresponding transmission times to optimize the average AoI subject to energy constraints. Our extensive experiments have validated the effectiveness of the proposed solutions, and showed that these two methods can significantly improve the average AoI by 47.2% comparing to the state-of-the-art solutions for low energy replenishment rate.
A Dose Escalation Study of Trientine Plus Carboplatin and Pegylated Liposomal Doxorubicin in Women With a First Relapse of Epithelial Ovarian, Tubal, and Peritoneal Cancer Within 12 Months After Platinum-Based Chemotherapy

Background: Epithelial ovarian cancer (EOC) is the leading cause of gynecological cancer-related deaths worldwide. Preclinical studies found that copper-lowering agents could re-sensitize platinum-resistant cancer cells by enhancing the human copper transporter 1 (hCtr1)-mediated uptake of platinum. In the clinic, re-sensitization of platinum-resistance in relapsed EOC has been discovered by the application of trientine plus platinum (NCT01178112). However, no pharmacokinetic data of trientine has been reported in cancer patients. Purpose: Our study aimed to explore the safety and activity of trientine combined with carboplatin and pegylated liposomal doxorubicin (PLD) in patients with EOC, tubal, and peritoneal cancer who experienced disease progression during platinum-based chemotherapy or showed relapse <12 months after completing first-line chemotherapy. Also, we aimed to demonstrate pharmacokinetic parameters and to discover potential biomarkers in our EOC patients. Methods: In this dose escalation study, 18 Asian patients in six dosing cohorts received fixed doses of carboplatin (AUC 4) and PLD (LipoDox®, TTY Biopharm Co. Ltd., Taipei, Taiwan) (40 mg/m2, day 1 per 4-week cycle), and escalated daily trientine doses (range: 300–1800 mg; initiated 7 days before the 1st combination cycle) according to a 3 + 3 design. Results: No dose-limiting toxicity or treatment-related death was observed. Four patients (22.2%) developed grade 3 drug-related adverse events (AEs), whereas no grade 4 AEs were encountered. Anemia and grade 2 dizziness were the most common hematological toxicity and neurotoxicity, respectively. In a pharmacokinetics comparison with healthy volunteers in the literature, our patients achieved greater absorption after oral trientinem, and more rapid elimination of triethylenetetramine dihydrochloride at high doses. The clinical benefit rate was 33.3 and 50.0% in the platinum-resistant and the partially platinum-sensitive group, respectively. A high baseline serum iron level and low serum copper level might help differentiate subgroups of patients with different clinical responses. Nevertheless, no associations of the clinical response with the levels of serum hCtr1, ceruloplasmin, or copper were observed. Conclusion: Combination therapy with carboplatin, trientine, and PLD was well-tolerated and safe. Our results encourage the development of a future phase II trial. Clinical trial registration: ClinicalTrials.gov # NCT03480750.