Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Awareness and Attitude about Social, Ethical and Legal issues Related to Assisted Reproductive Techniques (A.R.T) amongst Medical Students and Interns in a Tertiary Care Hospital at Chennai

Infertility is an issue on the rise worldwide. Infertility treatment globally has undergone a gradual revolution from the traditional treatment to the use of assisted reproductive technology (ART). ART is presently the most sought after technology that successfully treats millions of infertile couples over the world. However, the utilization of ART still differs between various nations owing to varying socioeconomic, cultural and religious reasons. The sudden increase of this technology has introduced numerous social, ethical, and legal challenges. This paper assesses the awareness level and attitude amongst medical students and interns in Chennai regarding some of the most vital and tricky topics in the field of ART and outlines the ethical, legal and social challenges they bring in. This questionnaire-based study involved 427 participants who encompassed medical students and interns from tertiary care hospital at Chennai. The responses were collected, tabulated and statistically analysed. About 2/3 rd of the participants were females. 94% of the respondents declared that they are aware of ART (401), 63% answered that all the information was obtained from the medical college. Over 2/3 rd of the study population was aware of one of the ART methods. 70.8% (302) amongst the participants felt that ART solved all problems of infertility.86. 7% of the respondents (370) knew that Spousal agreement to opt for A.R. T is a must. 90.6% (387) of the study population were of the opinion that revealing the identity of the sperm donor would cause psychological, social and attitudinal issues among the recipients & the spouse. 29.6% of the participants felt that donation of the surplus embryos for research purposes was the best option. The gaps in knowledge about newer methods and procedures regarding ART were identified. Medical students must be agents of socio-medical information and this makes them good ambassadors for healthy living and fertility awareness. The introduction of government run ART centres and reduction in the cost of the services will go a long way in encouraging more persons to use the services.
Friction Characteristics of Water-Lubricated Stave Bearings.

Abstract : Experimental friction data for full-complement water-lubricated stave bearings are presented and discussed. The bearings used in the study are of similar construction to those used by the U.S. Navy for propulsion shaft support in outboard locations such as sterntube and strut bearings. Breakaway friction characteristics are compared for seven stave designs under a load of 280 kilopascals (40 pounds per square inch). The duration of load was varied from 1 minute to almost 70 hours. Dynamic friction results also are presented for each stave design under loads of 70, 280, and 700 kilopascals (10, 40, and 100 pounds per square inch, respectively) in incremental speeds up to 3.6 meters per second (700 feet per minute). The seven stave designs included two rubber compositions, two rubber hardnesses, two types of backing material, and geometrical variations. Rubber thickness and other geometrical changes had the most significant influence on dynamic friction. No correlation between static and dynamic friction was apparent. (Author)
Prevalence of Hepatitis C Virus in Nigeria: a Protocol for Systematic Review and Meta-analysis

Background: Hepatitis C virus infection is a major cause of liver cirrhosis and is responsible for a quarter of all cases of liver cancers. Globally, about 71 million people are estimated to have chronic hepatitis C, with nearly 399,000 people dying from this infection, essentially due to liver cirrhosis and liver cancer. However, the exact pooled prevalence of hepatitis C virus infection in Nigeria is unknown, hence the burden of the disease has not been adequately estimated. Methods: A search strategy is developed using MeSH, text words, and entry terms. Nine databases will be searched, including PubMed, African Journals Online (AJOL), Embase, Google Scholar, Scopus, Cochrane Library, CINAHL, Web of Science, and ResearchGate. Eligible studies will be a) observational studies; b) published or retrievable in the English language; c) must have been conducted in Nigeria, and d) must report the main measurable outcome which is the prevalence of hepatitis C virus infection in Nigeria. Searches from databases will be exported into Distiller SR software for screening, selection and extraction of data items based on inclusion and exclusion criteria. Both quality scores and the risk of bias for individual studies will be assessed and reported in Distiller SR. Extracted data items will exported into the Comprehensive Meta-Analysis Software version 3 for for statistical analysis and forest plots. Studies will be assessed for methodological, clinical, and statistical heterogeneity. Funnel Plots will be used for assessing publication bias. Subgroup analysis will be performed using categorical data. The systematic review and meta-analysis will be reported according to the PRISMA 2015 Statement. Discussion: Ethical approval will not be required since this study will be based on published data. This review will provide important data on the prevalence of hepatitis C virus infection in Nigeria and the burden of the disease. The final report of this study will be published in a peer-reviewed journal and the findings will be made available to various policymakers and health experts that manage patients at risk or infected with the hepatitis C virus.Trial Registration Number: This protocol has been registered in PROSPERO; registration number: CRD42020213806
ATAD: Assistive Technology for an Autonomous Displacement

The project developed in this thesis involves the design, implementation and evaluation of a new technical assistance aiming to ease the mobility of people with visual impairments. By using processing and sounds synthesis, the users can hear the sonification protocol (through bone conduction) informing them, after training, about the position and distance of the various obstacles that may be on their way, avoiding eventual accidents. In this project, surveys were conducted with experts in the field of rehabilitation, blindness and techniques of image processing and sound, which defined the user requirements that served as guideline for the design. The thesis consists of three self-contained blocks: (i) image processing, where 4 processing algorithms are proposed for stereo vision, (ii) sonification, which details the proposed sound transformation of visual information, and (iii) a final central chapter on integrating the above and sequentially evaluated in two versions or implementation modes (software and hardware). Both versions have been tested with both sighted and blind participants, obtaining qualitative and quantitative results, which define future improvements to the project. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Influence of PQ-Monitor Connection on Voltage Dip Measurements

This work addresses the influence of PQ monitor connection on the estimation of site and system voltage dip indices. It also presents the relation between sag magnitudes for phase-to-neutral and phase-to-phase monitoring. Stochastic assessment of voltage dips is used to generate fault caused events from which indices for both phase-to-neutral and phase-to-phase voltage sags are calculated. Results for one-year power quality monitoring program in a sensitive manufacturing process are also presented. Results considering the two monitor connections are analyzed.
Working Amidst Covid-19: A Study Of Growth, Relatedness, and Existence among Remote Workers

With or without the pandemic, remote working is the new norm for many. Employees are enjoying the flexibility that remote working has to offer. Being happy then leads to better productivity for workers. Employers need to learn to trust employees more working remotely. They need to be prepared to face the difficulties that come with a “no border’ world as the benefits of remote working can be better than the disadvantages. This study explores workplace needs for remote workers. 94 participants responded to the instrument. The instrument is a survey which has 4 sections. Section A has 4 items about the demographic profile. Section B has 10 items on Existence Needs through flexibility. Section C has 10 items on relatedness through work-life balance and section D has 10 items on growth through work performance. Finding reveals interesting finds on the workplace needs of employees who work from home.
Image Analysis and Automatic Composition of Ceramic Mosaics

The automatic composition of ceramic mosaics by computer vision techniques is studied. In the proposed system, images are reproduced onto a ceramic mosaic based on image resolution, ceramic tile's dimensions, available colours. A camera takes images of ceramic tiles to be used and guides a robot to pick the correct tile and place it at the right position in the mosaic. Colour-based segmentation and colour calibration are needed to select and extract the correct tile according to the colour to be reproduced. The input image is quantized and dithered to find the best representation given the available tiles. Issues related with the interface with robotic system are addressed. [ DOI : 10.1685 / CSC06103] About DOI
Comparison of human driver dynamics in simulators with complex and simple visual displays and in an automobile on the road

As part of a comprehensive program exploring driver/vehicle system response in lateral steering tasks, driver/vehicle system describing functions and other dynamic data have been gathered in seferal milieu. These include a simple fixed-base simulator with an elementary roadway delineation-only display; a fixed-base statically operating automobile with a terrain-model-based, wide angle projection system display; and a full-scale moving-base automobile operating on the road. Dynamic data with the two fixed-based simulators compared favorably, implying that the impoverished visual scene, lack of engine noise, and simplified steering wheel feel characteristics in the simple simulator did not induce significant driver dynamic behavior variations. The fixed-base vs. moving-base comparisons showed substantially greater crossover frequencies and phase margins on the road course, which can be ascribed primarily to a decrease in the driver's effective latency for the moving base. When considered with previous data, the moving-base full-scale vs. fixed-base simulator differences are ascribed primarily to the motion cues present on the road course rather than to any visual field differences.
Connectivity Preserving Formation Stabilization in an Obstacle-Cluttered Environment in the Presence of Time-Varying Communication Delays

This technical article addresses the formation stabilization problem for multiagent systems (MASs) composed of dynamical agents moving within an obstacle-cluttered environment and sharing information via nonideal wireless communication networks. A novel distributed cooperative navigation function based control strategy is proposed, which drives the MAS to a desired formation without any collision while counteracting the presence of unavoidable communication impairments originated by the wireless network. By recasting the formation stabilization problem into a consensus one and by combining the Lyapunov stability theory with Halanay’s lemma, uniformly ultimately bounded stability of the whole delayed closed-loop system is proved. In the special case of an obstacle-free environment, our approach guarantees exponential stability of the closed-loop networked system. The stability analysis also provides an estimation of the delay upper bound and allows to evaluate the stability margins with respect to the latencies that can be observed in practical application scenarios. Theoretical derivations are verified through nontrivial simulations.
An integrated mission management system for UAS civil applications

This paper presents an Integrated Mission Management System for Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS). The system consists in a number of mission and flight software modules that control the UAS path and the operation of its on-board payload in a coordinated manner. The overall system is called UAS Service Architecture Layer (USAL). An important requirement of the system is that it should be highly adaptable to perform a broad range of civil missions. To achieve this goal the flight plan and mission specifications are separated from the modules that perform its execution. The flight plan is described using a formalism speci fically designed for UAS civil applications. State Chart XML is used to provide a state based model for the UAS behavior during the mission. USAL o ers additional capabilities oriented to the automated reaction to contingencies. This paper describes the alternative aifi eld specifi cation mechanism and the contingency management architecture employed in the USAL.
Implementing Agile project methods in globally distributed teams

The objective of the study was to generate a ‘theory’/ ‘hypothesis’ on the important factors to focus on in implementing agile project methods in globally distributed teams. Using the grounded theory method, five key categories emerged from the so-called theoretical sampling, which entails the joint collection of data, coding and analysis. The study involved 33 individuals in four different companies, three in the Philippines and one in Sweden. The data collected for this thesis consisted of individual interviews in the Philippines and Sweden (Sept-Dec 2014), focus group sessions, observations of formal agile practices and experiences in the substantive area, conducted in the Philippines during the period Sept-Nov 2014. The following five key categories emerged as the main concerns of the individuals involved in implementing agile project methods in globally distributed teams in software development projects: (i) Working Communication, (ii) Self-organizing Teams, (iii) People-centric organization, (iv) Continuous Learning and (v) Sustaining Infrastructure. The respondents meant that these concerns should be addressed and resolved in such a way that the implementation of Agile project methods would resemble the case of a collocated Agile project team. The key categories, their fundamental characteristics and the subconcepts behind them were presented and analyzed in relation to the empirical data.The analysis included reported incidents and direct citations from the respondents, focus groups and from observations during the field study, in order to shed light on the process used to arrive to the categories, as well as explain the characteristics of the concepts in the emerging ‘grounded hypothesis’.
On new and current treatments for Diamond-Blackfan anemia

Diamond-Blackfan anemia (DBA) is a rare congenital disease where the patients suffer from macrocytic anemia due to reduced numbers of erythroid precursors in the bone marrow. Most patients carry mutations in ribosomal proteins, such as ribosomal protein S19 (RPS19), which causes deficient ribosome biogenesis and affects protein translation. Ribosomal protein mutations also cause increased apoptosis in erythroid precursors due to upregulation of the tumor suppressor p53 and reduced translation of certain mRNAs important for erythropoiesis. This leads to a reduction of the pool of cells able to differentiate and give rise to red blood cells. DBA patients receive glucocorticoid treatment or blood transfusions to alleviate the anemia, but both treatments have severe side effects which negatively affects the quality of life for the patients. For this reason, it is important to gain deeper understanding of the mechanisms underlying DBA and utilize this knowledge to develop more disease-specific treatments for DBA. Studying mechanisms behind current treatments could provide knowledge needed to develop new therapies. About 40% of all DBA patients receive glucocorticoid treatment, but the disease specific mechanisms behind glucocorticoid treatment in DBA are not fully elucidated. Work presented here identifies that glucocorticoid treatment reduces p53 upregulation and increases the survival and delays differentiation of Rps19 deficient erythroid precursors. In the search for new disease mechanisms behind DBA, we discovered increased levels of unbound intracellular heme in purified Rps19 deficient erythroblasts. To identify of genes able to modify the disease phenotype we performed a custom shRNA based screen for 750 genes hypothesized to affect the DBA phenotype. The screen identified that knock down of the heme-sensing regulator of eukaryotic initiation factor 2a mediated translation (HRI) improved erythroid precursor proliferation in Rps19 deficient mice and reduced both elevated heme levels and decreased the increased p53 activity. A small drug screen identified a1-microglobulin (A1M) to increase proliferation of both Rps19 deficient murine erythroid precursors as well as erythroid percursors from DBA patients by reducing heme levels. Interestingly, A1M treatment did not affect either heme synthesis or p53 activity. Together, these studies show that glucocorticoid treatment decreases p53 activity in Rsp19 deficient erythroid precursors and that elevated heme levels are seen in a mouse model for DBA. Work presented here propose that targeting elevated heme levels in DBA can be used as a new therapeutic strategy. (Less)
Fast Blind Adaptive Algorithms for Equalization and Diversity Reception in Wireless Communications Using Antenna Arrays

To combat the multipath and time-variant fading of wireless communication channels, antenna arrays are usually used to improve the quality and increase the capacity of communication service. This paper investigates the fast blind adaptive algorithms for the equalization and diversity combining in wireless communication systems using antenna arrays. Two second-order statistics based algorithms, SOSA and MSOS, for equalization and diversity combining are proposed and their convergence in noiseless and noisy channels is analyzed. Since the proposed algorithms use only second-order statistics or correlation of the channel outputs, they converge faster than the higher-order statistics based algorithms, which is also connrmed by computer simulation examples.
Motivação do afroempreendedorismo feminino e a economia étnica

As mulheres vêm conquistando cada vez mais espaço no campo profissional e no setor econômico e essa evolução também ocorre no campo do empreendedorismo. No Brasil, a desigualdade social é desoladora, e quando se detém um olhar sobre mulheres negras no poder, na frente de grandes empresas, estas são as mais discriminadas no país. No entanto, é reconhecido que as empreendedoras negras encaram muitas dificuldades e preconceitos ao abrir um novo empreendimento na sociedade. O objetivo principal desta pesquisa é levantar qual a motivação empreendedora das afroempreendedoras na região metropolitana de São Luís do Maranhão. Esse estudo adotou a estratégia de pesquisa quantitativa com caráter exploratória através da elaboração de formulário eletrônico contendo afirmações com opções baseadas na escala Likert, o qual foi aplicado a 52 empreendedoras negras na região metropolitana de São Luís, no estado do Maranhão. Os resultados indicam que maior parte das respondentes é motivada a empreender pelos principais fatores: Independência Financeira, Desigualdade Racial e por Necessidade de Sobrevivência.
COEFFICIENT OF FRICTION IN PEDESTRIAN THROW

Calculation of speed from pedestrian throw distance is now a standard means of accident reconstruction. This method involves a calculation based on the coefficient of friction of the pedestrian as they slide and bounce along the road surface. There have been a number of staged experiments designed to measure the coefficient of friction of pedestrians along the road surface. These experiments involve dropping dummies from moving vehicles and measuring the distance travelled by the dummy along the road between first contact and rest. There is strong evidence to show that horizontal momentum during pedestrian throw is significantly reduced by the initial vertical impact with the ground. Failure to account for this phenomenon results in a coefficient of friction that is too high. (A)
A pilot study of the effect of improved hygiene kits on handwashing with soap among internally displaced persons in Ethiopia.

Background Internally displaced persons (IDPs) forced to flee from their homes due to conflict and drought are at particular risk of morbidity and mortality due to diarrhoeal diseases. Regular handwashing with soap could substantially reduce the risk of these infections, but the behaviour is challenging to practice routinely while living in resource-poor, informal settlements. To mitigate these challenges, humanitarian aid organisations distribute hygiene kits including soap and handwashing infrastructure. Our study aimed to assess the effect of improved kits on handwashing behaviours among IDPs in Moyale, Ethiopia. Methods The pilot study evaluated three interventions separately; liquid soap, a good quality scented bar soap and a mirror as additions to a regular hygiene kit. The kit was distributed to all study groups, with 3 of the study groups receiving one of the interventions each. Three to six weeks after distribution, behaviour change was assessed through structured observations, surveys and focus group discussions. Results Handwashing with soap was rare at key times both in all study groups. In the group that received liquid soap, handwashing with soap was seen at 20% of key times. In the control arm this was 17%, while in the two other intervention arms prevalence was <11%. Both quantitative and qualitative data collection indicated that liquid soap encourages handwashing with soap at key times. The good quality scented bar soap and mirror were not found to have an observed effect on behaviour but were viewed as desirable by participants who also reported that the standard bar soap distributed in hygiene kits was not nice to use. Conclusion This study was to our knowledge the first randomised intervention study on handwashing among IDPs living in a non-camp setting. The study shows that improved kits have potential to make handwashing more desirable and easier to practice, and further research including formative assessments prior to the design of hygiene kits should be conducted to ensure maximal uptake. The challenges of doing research in conflict-affected regions had considerable implications on the design and implementation of this study.Trial registration The trial was registered at www.ClinicalTrials. gov 6 September 2019 (reg no: NCT04078633)