Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The determinants of customers' loyalty in mobile telecommunications industry in Kenya: a case of subscribers in Kakamega Municipality

This study investigated the determinants of customer loyalty a case o f mobile phone subscribers in Kakamega municipality . The determinants constituted the independent variables and included the price, service quality and switching barriers while loyalty characterized the dependent variable.With increased competition brought by reduction in calling rates due to downward revision of interconnection fees by the regulator, attactractive innovations and the launch o f mobile number portability, subscribers are spoiled for choices.Attempts by competing operators to win subscribers by engaging in calling rates reduction strategies never succeeded.Safaricom still command a higher market share in terms of subscriptions of 68.6 % (cck,201 l). How to change the present situation is the concern of these operators.For Safaricom how to retain the market share is the biggest challenge.Therefore, the researcher sought to understand the factors that consumers’ consider as they choose to be loyal to mobile service provider.The study was conducted through descriptive research survey design with data being collected in the last week of June 2012 using a questionaire from a sample of 110 respondents among the mobile phone subscribers in Kakamega Municipality . The sample was picked using a non-probability sampling technique called convenience due to large and mobile nature of the target population. The collected data was analysed using both descriptive and inferential statisticical techniques.Demographic characteristcis of the respondents were analysed descriptively.Correlation and multiple regression analyses were used to examine the relationships between service quality, switching barriers, price and customer loyalty. The results indicated that there was positive relationship between service quality,switching barriers and customer loyalty. However, the results showed that there was no relationship between price and customer loyalty. The results indicated a strong a positive relationship between service quality and customer loyalty.The results of the findings suggest that telecom management needs to emphasise on service quality. Due to the fact that telecom firms do not provide tangible products, their service quality is usually assessed by measures of the service provider’s relationship with customers.
Land Use Changes in the Transboundary Mara Basin: A Threat to Pristine Wildlife Sanctuaries in East Africa

The Mara basin across Kenya and Tanzania is the lifeline to the Maasai Mara and Serengeti Game reserves respectively, both world-famous for their rich wildlife and natural beauty. The river plays an important ecological role during the annual wildlife migration between the two parks. Moreover, the basin also accommodates natural forests at its source on the Mau Escarpment, large-scale mechanized farming, smallholder subsistence farms, communal pastoral grazing lands and some wetlands. Draining into the Lake Victoria and ultimately forming the upper catchments of the Nile Basin, the Mara is considered to be one of the more serene sub-catchments of the Lake Victoria basin. This perception notwithstanding, there is growing evidence of unprecedented land use change in the upper catchments, resulting from deforestation affecting the headwaters, while current privatization of pastoral lands is attracting immigrants to the watershed with the population growth reaching 7% annually. This deterioration from the “pristine” Mara is affecting the hydrology of the river and its environments, with adverse impacts on wildlife and human environments starting to show. In this connection, a study is being undertaken to determine the impacts of land use change on the Mara basin and the consequent impacts on the flow regimes of the river. The study utilizes remotely sensed data and GIS tools, as well as ground truth studies to identify changes in land use/cover, hydrology and hydrochemistry. Preliminary analysis using Landsat TM satellite data has shown that in just 14 years between 1986 and 2000, agricultural land has increased by 55% through the combined encroachment of forests and savannah grasslands, which have in turn reduced by 23% and 24% respectively. In addition, destruction of closed forests has seen land under tea/open forest increase by 82%. These changes have caused sharp increases in flood peaks, attenuation of the river hydrographs and reduction in base flows, factors that could not be linked to changes in rainfall amounts and characteristics. Consequently, wildlife such as hippos can only swim knee-deep in the dry-season, due to the low flows of the Mara River. In addition, there has been increased sedimentation of downstream wetlands, causing them to expand by a factor of 131%, thereby forcing farmers and livestock to abandon formerly arable lands. Research on developing coping strategies is continuing, but these early results provide evidence for the need for urgent action to save the Mara ecosystems, and ultimately its wildlife and human livelihoods.
ASSOCIATION OF TNF-α-308G>A POLYMORPHISMAND CELIAC DISEASE.

Arq Gastroenterol • 2019. v. 56 no 4 out/dez • 451 Dear Editor, we read the publication on “Association of TNF-α-308G>A polymorphism with susceptibility to celiac disease: a systematic review and meta-analysis” with a great interest(1). Aflatoonian et al. concluded that “the TNF-α-308G>A polymorphism plays an important role in celiac disease susceptibility. However, our results are still needed to strengthen by further studies in different ethnicities and larger sample sizes(1)”. We would like to share ideas on this report. First, it is agreeable that a larger sample sizes of subjects are require to strength the conclusion. Nevertheless, we should not forget to recognize the effect of other genetic polymorphisms that might result in susceptibility to celiac disease (such as 174 G/C and -572 G/C of IL-6 gene polymorphisms(2)). Association of TNF-α-308G>A polymorphism and celiac disease
Selective Adversarial Learning for Mobile Malware

Machine learning models, including deep neural networks, have been shown to be vulnerable to adversarial attacks. Adversarial samples are crafted from legitimate inputs by carefully introducing small perturbation to the input so that the classifier is fooled. Adversarial retraining, which involves retraining the classifier using adversarial samples, has been shown to improve the robustness of the classifier against adversarial attacks. However, it has been also shown that retraining with too many samples can lead to performance degradation. Hence, a careful selection of the adversarial samples that are used to retrain the classifier is necessary, yet existing works select these samples in a randomized fashion. In our work, we propose two novel approaches for selecting adversarial samples: based on the distance from cluster center of malware and based on the probability derived from a kernel based learning (KBL). Our experiment results show that both of our selective mechanisms for adversarial retraining outperform the random selection technique and significantly improve the classifier performance against adversarial attacks. In particular, selection with KBL delivers above 6% improvement in detection accuracy compared to random selection. The method proposed here has greater impact in designing robust machine learning system for security applications.
Software developers' perceptions about angularjs

A construcao de aplicacoes Web atualmente exige o uso de novas tecnologias e modelos de desenvolvimento para oferecer uma melhor experiencia aos usuarios. Um exemplo e o modelo single-page que e usado para o desenvolvimento de interfaces de usuario Web. Esse modelo usa comunicacao assincrona (AJAX) para evitar recarregar a pagina inteira a cada acao do usuario que modifica o estado da aplicacao. As aplicacoes desenvolvidas com esse modelo sao chamadas de Single-Page Applications (SPAs). Existem importantes desafios no desenvolvimento de SPAs. Dado que uma maior parte dasfuncionalidades das aplicacoes e implementada no lado do cliente, maiores e mais complexas bases de codigo JavaScript sao necessarias. Isso requer, por exemplo, tomada de decisoes sobre como estruturar o codigo para melhorar sua manutenibilidade. Pararesolver esse tipo de problema, uma nova familia de frameworks JavaScript surgiu para fornecer estrutura usando o padrao de desenvolvimento arquitetural MVC (ou uma variacao dele). Desses frameworks o mais popular e AngularJS. Apesar dessa popularidade,nao ha um conhecimento claro sobre a forma como as suas propriedades arquiteturais e funcionalidades afetam a experiencia de desenvolvimento de aplicacoes Web. Dado que esse conhecimento pode contribuir para a evolucao das ferramentas e a adocao de melhores praticas no desenvolvimento, nesta dissertacao de mestradoapresenta-se um estudo empirico sobre a experiencia de desenvolvimento fornecida pelo AngularJS baseado em percepcoes e experiencias de desenvolvedores. Para isso, usamos dois surveys como principais instrumentos de pesquisa. O primeiro survey foi utilizado para pesquisar aspectos gerais de AngularJS e o segundo para pesquisar o desempenho do framework. Recebemos 460 e 95 respostas, respectivamente. As principais contribuicoes deste trabalho incluem a identificacao das caracteristicas mais apreciadas deAngularJS, os aspectos mais problematicos do framework, praticas comuns para lidar com problemas de desempenho, e causas gerais e tecnicas desses problemas.
Clinical Aspects of Scrub Typhus Initially Misdiagnosed as Kawasaki Disease

Objectives: To analyze the clinical characteristics of scrub typhus (ST) initially misdiagnosed as Kawasaki disease (KD) in children. Methods: This study was conducted through a review of medical records of children with ST from March 2005 to June 2015. Results: Among 182 incomplete KD patients, 11 patients were ST. Red lips, strawberry tongue, and BCG site redness were not reported. Presence of eschars was reported in 5 patients. Group 1 patients (n = 6) were initially treated by using intravenous immunoglobulin (IVIG) and among them, one patient had an eschar after IVIG use. Group 2 patients (n = 5) were also initially diagnosed as KD but were not treated because eschar was detected in four patients before use of IVIG. One patient had no eschar but had a positive serologic test before IVIG use. Conclusions: When children have symptoms similar to KD but without red lips and strawberry tongue, clinicians should search for an eschar and perform serologic tests for ST.
Copper-64 radiopharmaceuticals for PET imaging of copper trafficking in neurological disorders

2 DECLARATION . 3 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS . 4 TABLE OF CONTENTS . 6 LIST OF FIGURES . 11 LIST OF TABLES . 19 ABBREVIATIONS . 20 Chapter 1Copper radiopharmaceuticals in nuclear medicine: opportunities and challenges . 24 1.1 AIMS . 24 1.2 CHEMISTRY OF COPPER . 24 1.2.1 Copper (I) . 25 1.2.2 Copper (II) . 26 1.3 BIOCHEMISTRY OF COPPER . 27 1.3.1 Dietary copper and gastrointestinal absorption . 28 1.3.2 Intracellular copper trafficking . 29 1.3.2.1 Copper entry into cells . 31 1.3.2.2 Copper delivery into the mitochondria. 33 1.3.2.3 Copper transfer into the trans-Golgi network . 34 1.3.2.4 Copper incorporation into Cu/Zn superoxide dismutase-1 . 35 1.3.3 Copper transport into circulation . 36 1.3. 4 In the liver . 38 1.3. 5 Copper-dependent enzymes . 41 1.3. 5.1 Cu/Zn superoxide dismutase-1 . 40 1.3. 5.2 Cytochrome c oxidase . 43 1.3. 5.3 Lysyl oxidase . 45 1.3. 5.4 Dopamine β-hydroxylase . 46 1.3. 5.5 Tyrosinase . 47 1.4 RADIOCHEMISTRY OF COPPER . 47 1.4. 1 Copper radionuclides: physical properties and production methods . 47 1.4. 2 Copper radiopharmaceuticals in nuclear medicine . 51 1.4. 2.1 Copper-labelled bioconjugates . 51 1.4. 2.2 Copper-labelled nanoparticles . 55 1.4. 2.3 Copper dithiocarbamates . 56 1.4. 2.4 Copper bis(thiosemicarbazone) complexes . 57 1.4. 2.5 Radioactive copper salts . 67 7 1.5 CONCLUDING REMARKS . 70 Chapter 2Brain copper metabolism in health and disease . 72 2.1 AIMS . 72 2.2 COPPER METABOLISM IN THE CNS . 72 2.2.1 Copper content and distribution in the CNS . 72 2.2.2 Functions of copper in the CNS . 73 2.2.3 Copper uptake into the CNS . 77 2.2.4 Astrocyte regulation of brain copper homeostasis . 79 2.2.5 Copper trafficking in the CNS . 81 2.2. 6 Copper buffering in the CNS . 85 2.3 COPPER IN NEUROLOGICAL DISORDERS . 87 2.3.1 Menkes disease . 88 2.3.2 Wilson’s disease. 89 2.3.3 Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis . 91 2.3. 4 Parkinson’s disease . 94 2.3. 5 Prion diseases . 96 2.3. 6 Huntington’s disease . 98 2.3. 7 Niemann-Pick disease type C . 100 2.3. 8 Alzheimer’s disease . 101 2.3. 8.1 Copper homeostasis in AD . 104 2.3. 8.2 Copper-induced synaptic toxicity in AD . 106 2.3. 8.3 Copper-induced oxidative stress in AD . 108 2.3. 8.4 Therapeutic approaches based on copper supplementation . 108 2.3. 8.5 Therapeutic approaches based on copper redistribution . 111 2.3. 8.6 Cu-BTSCs for the delineation of brain copper trafficking in AD . 114 2.4 CONCLUDING REMARKS . 116 Chapter 3PET imaging of brain copper trafficking in a mouse model of Alzheimer’s disease: potential new diagnostics . 119 3.1 AIMS . 119 3.2 INTRODUCTION . 119 3.2.1 Diagnosis of AD. 119 3.2.2 The TASTPM mouse model of AD . 125 3.3 MATERIALS AND METHODS . 126 3.3.1 Chemistry . 126 3.3.2 Radiochemistry . 128 3.3.3 Animals . 128 3.3. 4 Genotyping . 129
Estimating Demand With Unobserved No-Purchases on Revenue-Managed Data

Discrete-choice models such as the multinomial-logit (MNL) model are increasingly being used to model customer purchase behaviour in hotels, airlines, fashion retail and e-commerce. Their estimation however has proved difficult in practice. One reason for this difficulty is well-known: most firms in retail do not, or unable to, record customers who were interested in purchasing but did not buy the product (``no-purchasers"). Estimating demand even with the simplest discrete-choice model such as the MNL becomes challenging then as we do not know the fraction that have chosen an outside option (not purchased). Indeed, the parameters of the MNL model may not be identifiable with such data. Some previous approaches have proposed using ``market-share" to pin down the parameter associated with the outside option. However, in many industries, market-share data is difficult to obtain, and for some, such as fashion products, has little meaning. In this paper we point out an additional difficulty that arises in practice: Many firms constantly monitor sales and optimize their prices and assortments based on partially observed demand. This leads to an optimization-induced endogeneity as the input used for estimation has been processed by optimization that takes both past data as well as future demand trends in setting controls. As we demonstrate, methods that work well on randomly generated assortments may do badly on optimized assortment data. In this paper we propose a robust method when the firm cannot observe no-purchases, has no market-share information, and the optimization-induced endogeneity exists in the data. The method is a two-step GMM (Generalized Method of Moments) procedure for which we show the estimates are consistent, and we give intuition for its robustness. In Monte-Carlo simulations the performance of our method matches existing methods on randomly generated controls, and is superior in accuracy and robustness when optimization-induced endogeneity is present. On a large real-world data set from the fashion industry --- subject to markdowns as well as stock-outs and unknown management controls --- our method provides very reasonable and robust estimates compared to existing methods.
Fetal public Vγ9Vδ2 T cells expand and gain potent cytotoxic functions early after birth

Significance Early-life immune responses have been described as suboptimal, with neonates and infants being susceptible to infections. Vγ9Vδ2 T cells are the first T lymphocytes to be generated in the human fetus. Their T cell receptor-mediated responses to in vitro stimulation and their effector functions at birth are weaker compared with those in adults, possibly reflecting the need for tolerance in utero. However, here we show that upon transition to the prominent microbial exposure early after birth, public fetal-derived Vγ9Vδ2 T cells expand and differentiate into potent cytotoxic effector cells. Thus, they provide newborns with a first line of antimicrobial effector T cells in order to combat infections in early life. Vγ9Vδ2 T cells are a major human blood γδ T cell population that respond in a T cell receptor (TCR)-dependent manner to phosphoantigens which are generated by a variety of microorganisms. It is not clear how Vγ9Vδ2 T cells react toward the sudden microbial exposure early after birth. We found that human Vγ9Vδ2 T cells with a public/shared fetal-derived TCR repertoire expanded within 10 wk postpartum. Such an expansion was not observed in non-Vγ9Vδ2 γδ T cells, which possessed a private TCR repertoire. Furthermore, only the Vγ9Vδ2 T cells differentiated into potent cytotoxic effector cells by 10 wk of age, despite their fetal origin. Both the expansion of public fetal Vγ9Vδ2 T cells and their functional differentiation were not affected by newborn vaccination with the phosphoantigen-containing bacillus Calmette–Guérin (BCG) vaccine. These findings suggest a strong and early priming of the public fetal-derived Vγ9Vδ2 T cells promptly after birth, likely upon environmental phosphoantigen exposure.
The Ecology of Coralline Algal Crusts: Convergent Patterns and Adaptative Strategies

Although crustose coralline algae (Rhodophyta, Corallinaceae) are among the most abundant marine organisms to live on hard substratum within the photic zone, relatively little is known about their ecology at the species level. This is due in part to difficulties in identification; strong similarities in appearance exist among phylogenetically distant taxa. The study of such convergent morphological and anatomical properties of corallines provides insight into interpreting the adaptive value of some characters or the "strategies" (55) of some of these plants. Crustose corallines are nonarticulated calcareous red algae that commonly grow prostrate on hard substrata and as epibionts on other plants and animals. Although these algae are globally abundant (18, 109), until recently most coralline research has been taxonomic. Early ecological accounts were largely confined to distributional studies. In the 1960s and 1970s, interest in the ecology of corallines grew as problems with their taxonomy were resolved. The corallines were generally recognized to be abundant (26, 43, 44, 69, 71, 96) and geologically important (14, 18, 74). It was suggested that "once obstacles arising from taxonomic problems are generally overcome, it seems likely that the group will be included more often in ecological studies or may even become 'popular subjects' " (18). However,
Examining the Non-Participation of Some Youth in Agriculture in the Midst of Acute Unemployment in Ghana

There is a historic trend of growing unemployment problem in Ghana. The effect is even multiplied for graduates whose hope after school is to secure decent jobs to start their lives. The formal sector has proven over the years to be incapable of absorbing the existing job seekers and expectation is that these unemployed youth will like to grasp any legal and available job opportunity. In the contrary, it is amazing that these unemployed youth do not find it as a necessity to undertake agriculture as a source of livelihood in the midst of the acute unemployment. This study sought to fill the knowledge gap by examining the puzzle of unemployed youth non-participation in agriculture in the Bawku Municipality. The study engaged the case study research design within a mixed research methodological paradigm to scrutinize the problem. Primary data was gathered from a sample of 200 unemployed youth respondents using questionnaires and from stakeholders using interview guides. The analysis revealed that the unemployed youth are not involved in agriculture because of lack of interest and passion for agriculture; they are busily looking for other ‘better’ jobs; historical losses by youth and family members in Int. J. Modern Soc. Sci., 2017, 6(2) : 128-153 Copyright © 2017 by Modern Scientific Press Company, Florida, USA 129 agriculture; land access challenges; and financial constraints. It was however identified that majority of the youth 144(72%) had plans of going into agriculture in the future. The study recommended that effort should be made to address the identified challenges and further participatory empirical research should be conducted on how to incite and sustain youth interest in agriculture.
Választási gazdaságpolitika és a folyó fizetési mérleg alakulása Közép-Kelet-Európában

Demokratikus orszagok kormanyai altalaban hajlamosak osztogatassal keszulni a valasztasokon valo megmerettetesre, es ebből a szempontbol a kozep-kelet-europai regio uj demokraciai sem latszanak kiveteleknek. A cikk a valasztasi gazdasagpolitika e regiobeli sajatossagait vizsgalja. Az ilyen osztogatas itt is főkent fiskalis termeszetű, megsem mindig konnyű megtalalni a koltsegvetesbeli nyomait, egyreszt a - kulonosen az 1990-es evek első feleben - rendkivul problematikus allamszamvitel miatt, masreszt azert, mert ezekben az orszagokban a gazdasagi atmenet első eveiben az allam konnyen oszthatott anyagi kedvezmenyeket allami, sőt, maganvallalatok tőkejenek terhere is. Ezzel szemben a vizsgalt orszagoknak az a sajatossaga, hogy kicsik - az Europai Unio osszehasonlitasul szerepeltetett kisebb tagallamainal is joval kisebbek es nyitottabbak -, megkonnyiti a valasztasi osztogatas hatasanak megfigyeleset a folyo fizetesi merlegek romlasaiban, ami bar az elemző kozgazdasz szamara megfigyelesi hasznot jelent, komoly karokat okoz az erintett orszagoknak. Journal of Economic Literature (JEL) kod: C23, F41, H60.
Abiotic stress trigger mitochondrial defense system: A comprehensive review.

Mitochondria are small organelles widely distributed within the cells of living organisms. Its main function is the oxidative phosphorylation-coupled ATP synthesis. Under abiotic stress conditions mitochondrial function is significantly affected triggering the mitochondrial stress response. However, the stressful conditions could increase the chance of ROS generation in various cellular organelles. Plant cells struggle ROS generation through the induction of specific enzymatic and non-enzymatic defense systems. Nevertheless, the excessive accumulation of ROS within mitochondria induce mitochondrial signaling and the cellular responses to mitochondrial dysfunction in a process known as mitochondrial retrograde regulation. The exclusive accumulation of ROS cause severe disorders in ROS homoeostasis that stimulate progremmed cell death. The inner mitochondrial membrane have uncoupling mitochondrial proteins (UMP) to keep mitochondrial integrity and function at both normal and stress conditions. Mitochondria can perform nonphosphorylating respiration under the stress conditions, like the presence of respiration inhibitors, by the help of specific proteins called alternative oxidases (AOX). The expression of AOX or its mRNA has been reported to be induced by various abiotic stress conditions. The expression of AOX play an important role in acclimation to many stress conditions like salinity, temperature and drought in various plant species.