Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Wasting Away: The Crisis of Malnutrition in India

This report is part of the collaborative efforts of the Government of India and the World Bank in nutrition, which began in 1980. It reviews the effectiveness, efficiency, and impact of public spending on nutrition in India, as well as suggesting means for improvement. Despite the progress in food production, disease control, and economic and social development since independence, India accounts for forty percent of child malnutrition in the world. The report analyzes the three main causes for malnutrition: inadequate food intakes, disease, and pernicious caring practices. Steps and improvements concerning malnutrition have been taken seriously by the Government, through target food supplementation , micro-nutrient programs, and food subsidy programs. Nevertheless, the report suggests these policies and programs have limited impact on nutrition among the poor, due to ineffective targeting, implementation, and coverage. To conclude, it is suggested that a higher level of sustained political commitment is required for India to succeed on the subject of malnutrition. This will definitely require structural actions at the national, state, and local levels in sectors such as agriculture, industry, water, and sanitation, in addition to the programs already mentioned.
Fuzzy impedance control of an electro-hydraulic actuator with an extended disturbance observer

In this paper, we deal with both velocity control and force control of a single-rod electro-hydraulic actuator subject to external disturbances and parameter uncertainties. In some implementations, both velocity control and force control are required. Impedance control and an extended disturbance observer are combined to solve this issue. Impedance control is applied to regulate the dynamic relationship between the velocity and output force of the actuator, which can help avoid impact and keep a proper contact force on the environment or workpieces. Parameters of impedance rules are regulated by a fuzzy algorithm. An extended disturbance observer is employed to account for external disturbances and parameter uncertainties to achieve an accurate velocity tracking. A detailed model of load force dynamics is presented for the development of the extended disturbance observer. The stability of the whole system is analyzed. Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed control strategy has not only a high velocity tracking performance, but also a good force adjustment performance, and that it should be widely applied in construction and assembly.
Multi-level cross-layer protocol for end-to-end delay provisioning in wireless multimedia sensor networks

Rapid developments in information and communication technology in recent years have posed a significant challenge in wireless multimedia sensor networks (WMSNs). End-to-end delay and reliability are the critical issues in multimedia applications of sensor networks. In this paper we provide a new cross-layer approach for provisioning the end-to-end delay of the network at a desirable level of the packet delivery ratio (PDR), used here as a measure of network reliability. In the proposed multi-level cross-layer (MLCL) protocol, the number of hops away from the sink is used to set a level for each node. A packet is routed through the path with the minimum hop count to the sink using this level setting. The proposed protocol uses cross-layer properties between the network and medium access control (MAC) layers to estimate the minimum delay, with which a node can deliver a packet to the sink. When a node wants to send a packet, the MLCL protocol compares this minimum delay with the time to live (TTL) of a packet. If the TTL of the packet is higher than the minimum delay, the node sends the packet through the path with the minimum delay; otherwise, the node drops the packet as the node cannot deliver it to the sink within the TTL duration. This packet dropping improves network performance because the node can send a useful packet instead of an unusable packet. The results show a superior performance in terms of end-to-end delay and reliability for the proposed protocol compared to state-of-the-art protocols.
Comparison of interferon-{gamma} release assays and tuberculin skin test in predicting active tuberculosis (TB) in children in the UK: a paediatric TB network study

Background The value of interferon-gamma release assays (IGRA) to diagnose active tuberculosis (TB) in children is not established, but these assays are being widely used for this purpose. The authors examined the sensitivity of commercially available IGRA to diagnose active TB in children in the UK compared with the tuberculin skin test (TST). Methods The authors established a paediatric tuberculosis network and conducted a retrospective analysis of data from children investigated for active TB at six large UK paediatric centres. All centres had used TST and at least one of the commercially available IGRA (T-Spot.TB or Quantiferon-Gold in Tube) in the diagnostic work-up for active TB. Data were available from 333 children aged 2 months to 16 years. The authors measured the sensitivity of TST and IGRA in definite (culture confirmed) and probable TB in children, agreement between TST and either IGRA, and their combined sensitivity. Results Of 333 children, 49 fulfilled the criteria of definite TB, and 146 had probable TB. Within the definite cohort, TST had a sensitivity of 82%, Quantiferon-Gold in tube (QFT-IT) had a sensitivity of 78% and T-Spot.TB of 66%. Neither IGRA performed significantly better than a TST with a cut-off of 15 mm. Combining the results of TST and IGRA increased the sensitivity to 96% for TST plus T-Spot.TB and 91% for TST plus QFG-IT in the definite TB cohort. Conclusions A negative IGRA does not exclude active TB disease, but a combination of TST and IGRA increases the sensitivity for identifying children with active TB.
Cost-effective resource segmentation in hierarchical mobile edge clouds

The fifth-generation (5G) network cloudification enables third parties to deploy their applications (e.g., edge caching and edge computing) at the network edge. Many previous works have focused on specific service strategies (e.g., cache placement strategy and vCPU provision strategy) for edge applications from the perspective of a certain third party by maximizing its benefit. However, there is no literature that focuses on how to efficiently allocate resources from the perspective of a mobile network operator, taking the different deployment requirements of all third parties into consideration. In this paper, we address the problem by formulating an optimization problem, which minimizes the total deployment cost of all third parties. To capture the deployment requirements of the third parties, the applications that they want to deploy are classified into two types, namely, computation-intensive ones and storage-intensive ones, whose requirements are considered as input parameters or constraints in the optimization. Due to the NP-hardness and non-convexity of the formulated problem, we have designed an elitist genetic algorithm that converges to the global optimum to solve it. Extensive simulations have been conducted to illustrate the feasibility and effectiveness of the proposed algorithm.
Evolución temporal del hemograma en niños con malaria

Introduction: There are few Colombian studies about the relations between malaria, intestinal parasites, malnutrition and the hemogram. Objectives: To know the temporal evolution of hemogram in children with malaria (aged 4-10 years) followed during 30 days. Methodology: This study is part of a larger project, which has a non-blinded balanced experimental design. Results: 93 children were evaluated. Malnutrition risks were as follows: 52% chronic, 47% global, 15% acute. 88% had intestinal parasites (80% of them were pathogens) and 35% were polyparasitized. Hemoglobin (average in g/dL) at days 1 and 8: 10.3 and at day 30: 11.8. Chronic malnutrition and intestinal parasites did not significantly influence hemoglobin levels at days 1 and 30. Apparently, malnutrition had more influence (although not statistically significant) than intestinal parasites. During the acute episode of malaria, the leukocyte count was normal and it changed to very mild leukocytosis within the next 30 days. Leukocyte analysis revealed decreased neutrophils and basophils, increased eosinophils, mild lymphocytosis and marked monocytopenia, both of them stable. Lymphocytosis and monocytopenia were in contrast with the findings of other studies. Conclusions: These children with malaria (90% P. vivax), intestinal parasites and chronic malnutrition, had anemia (mild, homogeneous, normocytic) before therapy, but they recovered from it in 30 days after effective antimalarial treatment; 80% also suffered from thrombocytopenia; at day 1, they showed neutropenia, basopenia, and eosinophilia, along with normal lymphocytes and severe monocytopenia. It is necessary to treat simultaneously these diseases in order to improve the health status of these children.
Cerebellar Codings for Control of Compensatory Eye Movements

textabstractThis thesis focuses on the control of the cerebellum on motor behaviour, and more specifically on the role of the cerebellar Purkinje cells in exerting this control. As the cerebellum is an online control system, we look at both motor performance and learning, trying to identify components involved at the molecular, cellular and network level. To study the cerebellum we used the vestibulocerebellum, with visual and vestibular stimulation as input and eye movements as recorded output. The advantage of the vestibulocerebellum over other parts is that the input given is highly controllable, while the output can be reliably measured, and performance and learning can be easily studied. In addition, we conducted electrophysiological recordings from the vestibulocerebellum, in particular of Purkinje cells in the flocculus. Combining the spiking behaviour of Purkinje cells with visual input and eye movement output allowed us to study how the cerebellum functions and using genetically modified animals we could determine the role of different elements in this system. To provide some insights in the techniques used and the theory behind them, we will discuss the following topics in this introduction: compensatory eye movements, the anatomy of pathways to, within and out of the flocculus, the cellular physiology of Purkinje cells in relation to performance and the plasticity mechanisms related to motor learning.
Cohort-based personalized query auto-completion

Query auto-completion (QAC) facilitates query formulation by predicting completions for given query prefix inputs. Most web search engines use behavioral signals to customize query completion lists for users. To be effective, such personalized QAC models rely on the access to sufficient context about each user’s interest and intentions. Hence, they often suffer from data sparseness problems. For this reason, we propose the construction and application of cohorts to address context sparsity and to enhance QAC personalization. We build an individual’s interest profile by learning his/her topic preferences through topic models and then aggregate users who share similar profiles. As conventional topic models are unable to automatically learn cohorts, we propose two cohort topic models that handle topic modeling and cohort discovery in the same framework. We present four cohort-based personalized QAC models that employ four different cohort discovery strategies. Our proposals use cohorts’ contextual information together with query frequency to rank completions. We perform extensive experiments on the publicly available AOL query log and compare the ranking effectiveness with that of models that discard cohort contexts. Experimental results suggest that our cohort-based personalized QAC models can solve the sparseness problem and yield significant relevance improvement over competitive baselines.
The supervision of doctoral dissertations using a collaborative cohort model

The Collaborative Cohort Model (CCM) for research supervision was developed and piloted as an alternative to the Apprentice Master Model (AMM), which is currently used with most doctoral dissertations. The CCM was developed in response to concerns about completion rates and the quality of research supervision. The feedback from the initial cohort of doctoral students who have experienced the model is presented.
Mortalidad por dengue hemorrágico en niños en Colombia: más allá del choque

Unusual clinical manifestations such as hepatitis, encephalitis, myocarditis and even death might be associated to the severe forms of dengue hemorrhagic fever. Aim: To describe mortality cases in children younger than 13 years of age at the Hospital Universitario in Neiva, Colombia. Design: Descriptive study with retrospective collection of data. Place: Neiva, Huila, Colombia. Population: Children younger than 13 years of age. Measurements: All death patients with diagnosis of dengue hemorrhagic fever from 2000 to 2006 were registered; clinical variables and laboratory data were analyzed by age groups by using non parametric tests. Results: Out of 1,448 patients with dengue hemorrhagic fever, 338 were admitted to the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit with 15 deaths (lethality 1.03%); 40% of admissions were in state III whereas 60% in state IV. Gastrointestinal symptoms and vascular leakage signs were present in 100% of cases. There was a higher tendency to hypotension, fewer platelet counts and higher serum transaminases in children between 1 to 5 years; there were no statistical differences between variables in none of the groups. Nine patients died as a consequence of acute myocarditis (60%) with heart rhythm alterations, from which two had elevated serum transaminases; three died because of acute hepatitis (20%) and three died with disseminated vascular coagulation (20%). Conclusion: Mortality associated to dengue hemorrhagic fever is not only due to hypovolemic shock and currently, other organs such as liver and myocardium might be target of the disease.
Kemahiran berfikir aras tinggi dalam sukatan pelajaran sejarah tingkatan empat

This study seeks to investigate the extent to which the recently revised Form Four History Syllabus has incorporated the Higher Order Thinking Skills. The study also investigates the views of Curriculum and Education department officials as regards to the incorporation of the skills. The teachers’ interpretation of these Higher Order Thinking Skills and the difficulty faced in infusing these skills in the classroom are also presented. Document analysis of the History Syllabus and Specifications for the purpose of identifying the Higher Order Skills was undertaken. These data were also supported with data collected through interviews with six teachers and three Education officials from the History department of the Curriculum Development Centre and State Education Department. The data were again reinforced through the administering of a questionnaire to 163 teachers throughout a particular district in Perak. The findings of the research suggest that the Higher Order Thinking skills are indeed incorporated in the From Four History Syllabus. Findings of this study also show that the teachers’ interpretations of the Higher Order Thinking Skills vary according to their understanding of these skills. However, the majority of teachers concur that the Higher Order Thinking skills are reflected in the form Four Syllabus.
Telemedicine in the Diagnosis and Managemnt of Congenital Heart Disease

Several telemedicine applications have become well established in paediatric cardiology but there is potential for improvement in and expansion of existing programmes and opportunities for new applications. This chapter shall discuss why telemedicine has an important role to play in paediatric cardiology, examine current applications from fetus to adult, including the evidence base and suggest what future steps may be taken to promote the use of telemedicine in paediatric cardiology. We shall also consider what equipment and personnel are necessary for successful tele-cardiology. However, before examining the role of telemedicine in paediatric cardiology, it is first important to understand what congenital heart disease is and how it presents to clinicians.
Drug-Induced Proarrhythmia: QT Interval Prolongation and Torsades de Pointes

Drug-induced torsades de pointes (TdP), a life-threatening polymorphic ventricular tachycardia associated with prolongation of the QT interval, has been the main safety reason for the withdrawal of non-cardiac agents from clinical use over the last decade. This complication is commonly referred to as drug-induced proarrhythmia. The present review highlights on the mechanisms underlying the drug-induced QT interval prolongation and TdP as well as on the identification of easily recognized risk factors that predispose to this potentially life-threatening condition.
OSCE based assessment of three commonly performed pediatric dentistry procedures.

Assessment holds the key to the entire learning process. Assessment is one of the defining features of students’ approaches to learning. Types of evaluation or assessment tend to determine students’ approaches to learning. Assessment needs to be valid, reliable and reproducible. The traditional methods of assessment have been challenged. Dissatisfaction has been expressed over their validity and reliability. Several new methods and tools are now available, the use of which requires special training. The need of the hour is to adopt academic practices that are in consonance with those prevailing in the developed countries. This paper suggests an Objective structured clinical evaluation (OSCE) based assessment of three commonly performed pediatric dentistry procedures during under-graduation in India.
Exploring Culture in Locally Published English Textbooks for Primary Education in Turkey

Since language and culture are closely interwoven, the integration of culture into textbooks used for teaching English as a second/foreign language has become a widely accepted phenomenon. This study investigates the cultural elements in locally published English textbooks used for Turkish primary schools following two major curriculum innovations in ELT. A total of 18 textbooks, of which 8 were published after the 1997 curriculum innovation and 10 after the curriculum innovation introduced in 2005, were investigated to find out the extent to which textbooks contain references to the source (Turkish) culture, the target (British/American) culture and the international target culture. A quantitative analysis of the cultural elements demonstrated that while references to the source and target cultures included in textbooks published between 1997 and 2005 outnumber international target cultural components, a different trend was obtained in the cultural analysis of bookspublished after the 2005 curriculum innovation. The study reveals that representations of the source culture, the target culture and the international target culture are favoured in locallyproduced ELT textbooks in a fairly balanced way.
Effect of Patient-Specific Preanalytic Variables on CSF Aβ1-42 Concentrations Measured on an Automated Chemiluminescent Platform.

BACKGROUND Cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) biomarkers are increasingly used to confirm the accuracy of a clinical diagnosis of mild cognitive impairment or dementia due to Alzheimer disease (AD). Recent evidence suggests that fully automated assays reduce the impact of some preanalytical factors on the variability of these measures. This study evaluated the effect of several preanalytical variables common in clinical settings on the variability of CSF β-amyloid 1-42 (Aβ1-42) concentrations. METHODS Aβ1-42 concentrations were measured using the LUMIPULSE G1200 from both freshly collected and frozen CSF samples. Preanalytic variables examined were: (1) patient fasting prior to CSF collection, (2) blood contamination of specimens, and (3) aliquoting specimens sequentially over the course of collection (i.e., CSF gradients). RESULTS Patient fasting did not significantly affect CSF Aβ1-42 levels. While assessing gradient effects, Aβ1-42 concentrations remained stable within the first 5 1-mL aliquots. However, there is evidence of a gradient effect toward higher concentrations over successive aliquots. Aβ1-42 levels were stable when fresh CSF samples were spiked with up to 2.5% of blood. However, in frozen CSF samples, even 0.25% blood contamination significantly decreased Aβ1-42 concentrations. CONCLUSIONS The preanalytical variables examined here do not have significant effects on Aβ1-42 concentrations if fresh samples are processed within 2 h. However, a gradient effect can be observed on Aβ1-42 concentrations after the first 5 mL of collection and blood contamination has a significant impact on Aβ1-42 concentrations once specimens have been frozen.
A Review of the COX-2 Inhibitors

Introduction Celecoxib and rofecoxib are both COX-2 selective inhibitors, which have recently been introduced in a number of countries for the treatment of osteoarthritis and rheumatoid arthritis. Meloxicam, a NSAID with preferential selectivity towards COX-2 inhibition, has also been promoted for use in these conditions and in ankylosing spondylitis. Heralded as a major advance in pain management because of their unique pharmacological properties, they are claimed to produce the analgesie benefits of NSAIDs with a much greater safety profile.
Women's mental health in South Africa : women's health

Mental health is a neglected topic, and that of women's mental health even more so, with the latter receiving little attention within the South African public health sector. This chapter provides a selective, focused overview of women's mental health issues requiring public sector attention in South Africa. It reports global and South African prevalence rates and burden of disease estimates for common mental disorders in women, focusing on depressive and anxiety disorders. Several key factors which impact on the mental health status of South African women are discussed, namely gender disadvantage, poverty, gender violence, HIV and peripartum depression. Policy and programme implications of women's mental health issues are noted, and recommendations for effecting a comprehensive, multi-sectora approach to improving the mental health status of women are outlined.
Profile of and risk factors for poststroke cognitive impairment in diverse ethnoregional groups

Objective To address the variability in prevalence estimates and inconsistencies in potential risk factors for poststroke cognitive impairment (PSCI) using a standardized approach and individual participant data (IPD) from international cohorts in the Stroke and Cognition Consortium (STROKOG) consortium. Methods We harmonized data from 13 studies based in 8 countries. Neuropsychological test scores 2 to 6 months after stroke or TIA and appropriate normative data were used to calculate standardized cognitive domain scores. Domain-specific impairment was based on percentile cutoffs from normative groups, and associations between domain scores and risk factors were examined with 1-stage IPD meta-analysis. Results In a combined sample of 3,146 participants admitted to hospital for stroke (97%) or TIA (3%), 44% were impaired in global cognition and 30% to 35% were impaired in individual domains 2 to 6 months after the index event. Diabetes mellitus and a history of stroke were strongly associated with poorer cognitive function after covariate adjustments; hypertension, smoking, and atrial fibrillation had weaker domain-specific associations. While there were no significant differences in domain impairment among ethnoracial groups, some interethnic differences were found in the effects of risk factors on cognition. Conclusions This study confirms the high prevalence of PSCI in diverse populations, highlights common risk factors, in particular diabetes mellitus, and points to ethnoracial differences that warrant attention in the development of prevention strategies.