Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Life Satisfaction among Young Adults from Rural Families.

This study examined whether objective indicators of life conditions (e.g., status attainment variables, closeness to one's childhood home, and community size) and subjective measures of life circumstances (e.g., self-esteem and frustrations about limited job opportunities) would predict life satisfaction in a sample of low-income youth from rural Appalachia. Data were acquired by questionnaires as part of a longitudinal project on 322 young people in their early twenties. Multiple regression was used to analyze the data provided by these respondents. Both subjective and objective conditions of life were predictors of life satisfaction in low-income youth from rural Appalachia. Although objective attainment variables (i.e., educational and occupational attainment) did not predict, financial resources, self-esteem, and proximity to one's childhood home were positive predictors; frustrations about limited job opportunities and community size were negative predictors of life satisfaction. Several implications are discussed for intervention programs by family and other professionals.
Intertemporal Choice And Dynamics Of Risk Aversion

This paper provides a theoretical explanation for the heteroscedasticity of asset returns. In line with existing empirical results, our model yields an asymmetric relationship between stock return and volatility. Based on the simple assumptions that investors behave according to Prospect Theory and are subject to mental accounting in a dynamic setting, we analytically derive the unit-root versions of two of the best fitting heteroscedasticity models (EGARCH and TGARCH).
Knowledge, Attitude and Practice of Emergency Contraceptives Among Adama University Female Students

Background Unwanted pregnancy followed by unsafe abortion is one of the major worldwide health problems, which has many negative consequences on the health and well-being of women. Information about women's knowledge, attitude and practice of emergency contraceptives plays a major role in the reduction of unwanted pregnancy; however, there are no studies about this issue in the study area. This study assessed Adama University female students' knowledge, attitude and practice of emergency contraceptives. Method A cross-sectional study design was employed from February 1 to 30/2009, on 660 regular undergraduate female students of Adama University. Data were entered and analyzed using SPSS for windows version 16.0. Logistic regression was used to identify the association between variables and emergency contraceptive knowledge, attitude and practice. P-value less than 0.05 at 95% CI was taken for statistical significance. Results Of the total, 660 respondents, 194(29.4%) were sexually active, 63(9.4%) had history of pregnancy and 49(7.4%) had history of abortion. About 309 (46.8%) of the students had heard about emergency contraceptives and from those who heard emergency contraceptives, 27.2% had good knowledge. Majority, four hundred fifteen (62.9%) of the students had positive attitude towards it. However, only 31(4.7%) had used emergency contraceptive methods. Conclusion This study demonstrated lack of awareness, knowledge and utilization of emergency contraceptives among Adama University female students. Hence behavioral change strategies should be considered by responsible bodies to improve knowledge and bring attitudinal change on use of emergency contraception.
Models, Metrics, and Measurement in Developmental Psychology

Developmental psychology is currently used to measure psychological phenomena and by some, to re-design communities. While we generally support these uses, we are concerned about quality control standards guiding the production of usable knowledge in the discipline. In order to address these issues precisely, we provide an overview of the discipline's various facets. We distinguish between developmental models and developmental metrics and relate each to different types of quality-control devices. In our view, models are either explanatory or descriptive, and their quality is evaluated in terms of specific types of disciplinary discourse. Metrics are either calibrated measures or soft measures, and their quality is evaluated in terms of specific psychometric parameters. Following a discussion on how developmentalists make metrics, and on a variety of metrics that have been made, we discuss the two key psychometric quality-control parameters, validity and reliability. This sets the stage for a limited and exploratory literature review concerning the quality of a set of existing metrics. We reveal a conspicuous lack of psychometric rigor on the part of some of the most popular developmental approaches and invite remedies for this situation.
Carotid CTA: Radiation Exposure and Image Quality with the Use of Attenuation-Based, Automated Kilovolt Selection

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE: CTA is considered the imaging modality of choice in evaluating the supraaortic vessels in many institutions, but radiation exposure remains a matter of concern. The objective of the study was to evaluate a fully automated, attenuation-based kilovolt selection algorithm in carotid CTA in respect to radiation dose and image quality compared with a standard 120-kV protocol. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Ninety-eight patients were included: 53 examinations (patient age, 66 ± 12 years) were performed by use of automated adaption of tube potential (80–140 kV) on the basis of the attenuation profile of the scout scan (study group), and 45 examinations (patient age, 67 ± 11 years) were performed by use of a standard 120-kV protocol (control group). CT dose index volume and dose-length product were recorded from the examination protocol. Image quality was assessed by ROI measurements and calculations of SNR and contrast-to-noise ratio. Subjective image quality was evaluated by 2 observers with the use of a 4-point scale (3, excellent; 0, not diagnostic). RESULTS: Subjective image quality was rated as “excellent” or “good” in all examinations (study group, 2.8; control group, 2.8). The algorithm automatically selected 100 kV in 47% and 80 kV in 34%; 120 kV was retained in 19%. An elevation to 140 kV did not occur. Compared with the control group, overall CT dose index volume reduction was 33.7%; overall dose-length product reduction was 31.5%. In the low-kilovolt scans, image noise and mean attenuation of ROIs inside the carotid arteries were significantly higher than in 120-kV scans, resulting in a constant or increased (80-kV group) contrast-to-noise ratio. CONCLUSIONS: The attenuation-based, kilovolt selection algorithm enables a dose reduction of >30% in carotid artery CTA while maintaining contrast-to-noise ratio and subjective image quality at adequate levels.
A Rent-Protection Theory of Corporate Ownership and Control

This paper develops a rent-protection theory of corporate ownership structure - and in particular, of the choice between concentrated and dispersed ownership of corporate shares and votes. The paper analyzes the decision of a company's initial owner whether to maintain a lock on control when the company goes public. This decision is shown to be very much influenced by the size that private benefits of control are expected to have. Most importantly, when private benefits of control are large - and when control is thus valuable enough - leaving control up for grabs would attract attempts by rivals to grab control and thereby capture these private benefits; in such circumstances, to preclude a control grab, the initial owner might elect to maintain a lock on control. Furthermore, when private benefits of control are large, maintaining a lock on control would enable the company's initial shareholders to capture a larger fraction of the surplus from value-producing transfers of control. Both results suggest that, in countries in which private benefits of control are large, publicly traded companies will tend to have a controlling shareholder. It is also shown that separation of cash flow rights and voting rights will tend to be used in conjunction with a controlling shareholder structure but not with a dispersed ownership structure. Finally, the paper analyzes why companies might make control partially contestable, as many US companies currently do by adopting antitakeover arrangements. The results of the paper are consistent with the available evidence, can explain the observed patterns of corporate ownership, and yield testable predictions for future empirical work. The analysis also implies that a corporate law system that effectively limits private benefits of control can produce more efficient choices of ownership structure.
Managing the Culture: the key to effective change

Abstract This article argues that the management of organisational culture is the key to successful innovation. Contemporary management of change literature alludes to the necessity to bring about a change of culture in order to foster an appropriate climate for change, but inadequately addresses the issue of operationalising such a phenomenon. Drawing on the wealth of empirical studies on the implementation of the Technical and Vocational Education Initiative (TVEI), the author argues that this innovation ‐‐ by virtue of its implicit emphasis on a context‐driven as opposed to knowledge‐driven curriculum ‐‐ necessitated a change of culture, leading to consideration of the key factors involved in this process. In identifying key factors, it is further argued that the changed power relationship implicit in the policy text of TVEI came to be mirrored at the managerial level in order to provide a culture in which the innovation would flourish. As such, the ‘new’ managerialism was bom.
Time optimal synthesis based upon sequential abstraction and maximizing parallelism

The Ramadge-Wonham supervisory control paradigm has been shown effective in dealing with logic control. Nevertheless, time-related performance is always one of the major concerns in industry. Current methods for synthesizing time optimal supervisors are incapable of dealing with large discrete event systems with massive state spaces. This paper proposes an approach for finding a time optimal accepting trace for large discrete event systems based upon sequential language projection. The algorithm is tested on a linear cluster tool to show their effectiveness.
CORONARY VASODILATORY RESPONSE TO A NOVEL PEPTIDE, ADRENOMEDULLIN 2

1. Adrenomedullin‐2 (AM2) is a novel peptide originally found in a fish and it is structurally related to mammalian AM or fish AM1. Cloning of AM2 cDNA in the mouse, rat and human has been successful. In the present study, the vasodilatory effect of synthetic human AM2 was analysed in isolated artery ring preparations of porcine.
Seminonparametric Estimation Of Conditionally Constrained Heterogeneous Processes: Asset Pricing Applications

The extent to which specification error can explain rejection of the intertemporal capital asset pricing model is investigated using seminonparametric representations of the law of motion and utility. The authors find (1) consumption growth and asset returns display conditional heterogeneity, but this does not account for rejection of models assuming additively separable, constant relative risk aversion utility; (2) the model is accepted upon relaxation of the utility function in the direction of nonseparable utility; and (3) relaxation reduces overprediction of the conditional variance of consumption growth, overprediction of the conditional covariance of asset returns with consumption growth, and the equity premium. Copyright 1989 by The Econometric Society.
Adaptive Sampling For Efficient Online Modelling

Troy Wilson, BComm (Hons 1), MQF Doctor of Philosophy The University of Sydney June 2017 Adaptive Sampling for Efficient Online Modelling This thesis examines methods enabling autonomous systems to make active sampling and planning decisions in real time. Gaussian Process (GP) regression is chosen as a framework for its non-parametric approach allowing flexibility in unknown environments. The first part of the thesis focuses on depth constrained full coverage bathymetric surveys in unknown environments. Algorithms are developed to find and follow a depth contour, modelled with a GP, and produce a depth constrained boundary. An extension to the Boustrophedon Cellular Decomposition, Discrete Monotone Polygonal Partitioning is developed allowing efficient planning for coverage within this boundary. Efficient computational methods such as incremental Cholesky updates are implemented to allow online Hyper Parameter optimisation and fitting of the GP’s. This is demonstrated in simulation and the field on a platform built for the purpose. The second part of this thesis focuses on modelling the surface salinity profiles of estuarine tidal fronts. The standard GP model assumes evenly distributed noise, which does not always hold. This can be handled with Heteroscedastic noise. An efficient new method, Parametric Heteroscedastic Gaussian Process regression, is proposed. This is applied to active sample selection on stationary fronts and adaptive planning on moving fronts where a number of information theoretic methods are compared. The use of a mean function is shown to increase the accuracy of predictions whilst reducing optimisation time. These algorithms are validated in simulation. Algorithmic development is focused on efficient methods allowing deployment on platforms with constrained computational resources. Whilst the application of this thesis is Autonomous Surface Vessels, it is hoped the issues discussed and solutions provided have relevance to other applications in robotics and wider fields such as spatial statistics and machine learning in general.
Unexpected Stories: Life History and the Limits of Representation

The author first used life history as a research method in her master of education thesis at a Canadian university. She now believes that the issues and questions that arose from that experience were mired in a critical perspective that reflected realist assumptions. Increasing dissatisfaction with her efforts to work through the life history data gathered in 1995 has led her to problematize the methodological implications of studying research participants’ lives this way. Main points discussed include questions and issues with voice and collaborative methodologies, the epistemological assumptions that frame life history research, and a discussion of victory narratives within the redemptive culture of the human and social sciences. And, just what do we do with “unexpected stories”?
Evidential relevance in scene to offender transfer cases: development and analysis of a likelihood ratio for offence level propositions

The present paper focuses on the analysis and discussion of a likelihood ratio (LR) development for propositions at a hierarchical level known in the context as 'offence level'. Existing literature on the topic has considered LR developments for so-called offender to scene transfer cases. These settings involve--in their simplest form--a single stain found on a crime scene, but with possible uncertainty about the degree to which that stain is relevant (i.e. that it has been left by the offender). Extensions to multiple stains or multiple offenders have also been reported. The purpose of this paper is to discuss a development of a LR for offence level propositions when case settings involve potential transfer in the opposite direction, i.e. victim/scene to offender transfer. This setting has previously not yet been considered. The rationale behind the proposed LR is illustrated through graphical probability models (i.e. Bayesian networks). The role of various uncertain parameters is investigated through sensitivity analyses as well as simulations. Language: en
The locus of naming difficulties in children with dyslexia: Evidence of inefficient phonological encoding

Twenty-four children with dyslexia (aged 7;7 to 12;1) and twenty-four age-matched controls named pictures aloud while hearing nonsense syllables either phonologically related (i.e., part of) or unrelated to the target picture name. Compared with controls, dyslexics had slower reaction times overall and, for low frequency items, the degree of facilitation from phonologically related sound segments relative to unrelated segments was proportionally greater. Within the dyslexic group, phonological facilitation was greater and picture naming speed slower for poorer compared with better readers. Phonological facilitation and picture naming speed was unrelated to reading ability in the normal readers. The results suggest that phonological encoding during speech production is less efficient in some children with dyslexia and that hearing part of the target word strongly facilitates this process. The findings are consistent with the hypothesis that dyslexia can arise from poorly specified output phonological representations.
An integrative model of consumer satisfaction in the context of e‐services

This research examines how customer satisfaction affects its antecedent and outcome variables such as expectation, performance, disconfirmation, word-of-mouth, brand loyalty, attribution and repurchase. This research also takes the important integrative step of understanding the consumer behavioural constructs of consumer satisfaction. Although researchers have focused on the antecedents of consumer satisfaction, our integrative model has extended the outcomes of consumer behaviour on consumer satisfaction. Furthermore, this model strongly suggests a positive view of the inter-relationships between the antecedent variables and outcome variables of satisfaction. In particular, our model is not consistent with Oliver's attribution models in which satisfaction is a consequence of attribution processing. All hypothesized variables were supported by our empirical study. The findings present a variety of guides to formulating marketing strategies for both practitioners and academics.
Integration of Methane Steam Reforming and Water Gas Shift Reaction in a Pd/Au/Pd-Based Catalytic Membrane Reactor for Process Intensification

Palladium-based catalytic membrane reactors (CMRs) effectively remove H2 to induce higher conversions in methane steam reforming (MSR) and water-gas-shift reactions (WGS). Within such a context, this work evaluates the technical performance of a novel CMR, which utilizes two catalysts in series, rather than one. In the process system under consideration, the first catalyst, confined within the shell side of the reactor, reforms methane with water yielding H2, CO and CO2. After reforming is completed, a second catalyst, positioned in series, reacts with CO and water through the WGS reaction yielding pure H2O, CO2 and H2. A tubular composite asymmetric Pd/Au/Pd membrane is situated throughout the reactor to continuously remove the produced H2 and induce higher methane and CO conversions while yielding ultrapure H2 and compressed CO2 ready for dehydration. Experimental results involving (i) a conventional packed bed reactor packed (PBR) for MSR, (ii) a PBR with five layers of two catalysts in series and (iii) a CMR with two layers of two catalysts in series are comparatively assessed and thoroughly characterized. Furthermore, a comprehensive 2D computational fluid dynamics (CFD) model was developed to explore further the features of the proposed configuration. The reaction was studied at different process intensification-relevant conditions, such as space velocities, temperatures, pressures and initial feed gas composition. Finally, it is demonstrated that the above CMR module, which was operated for 600 h, displays quite high H2 permeance and purity, high CH4 conversion levels and reduced CO yields.
Higher extensions between modules for SL_2

We calculate Ext^*_{SL_2(k)}(\Delta(\lambda), \Delta(\mu)), Ext^*_{SL_2(k)}(L(\lambda), \Delta(\mu)), Ext^*_{SL_2(k)}(\Delta(\lambda), L(\mu)), and Ext^*_{SL_2(k)}(L(\lambda), L(\mu)), where \Delta(\lambda) is the Weyl module of highest weight \lambda, L(\lambda) is the simple SL_2(k)-module of highest weight \lambda and our field k is algebraically closed of positive characteristic. We also get analogous results for the Dipper-Donkin quantisation. To do thus we construct the Lyndon-Hochschild-Serre spectral sequence in a new way, and find a new condition for the E_2 page of any spectral sequence to be the same as the E_\infty page.
Submesoscale Sea Ice-Ocean Interactions in Marginal Ice Zones

Signatures of ocean eddies, fronts, and filaments are commonly observed within marginal ice zones (MIZs) from satellite images of sea ice concentration, and in situ observations via ice-tethered profilers or underice gliders. However, localized and intermittent sea ice heating and advection by ocean eddies are currently not accounted for in climate models and may contribute to their biases and errors in sea ice forecasts. Here, we explore mechanical sea ice interactions with underlying submesoscale ocean turbulence. We demonstrate that the release of potential energy stored in meltwater fronts can lead to energetic submesoscale motions along MIZs with spatial scales O(10 km) and Rossby numbers O(1). In low-wind conditions, cyclonic eddies and filaments efficiently trap the sea ice and advect it over warmer surface ocean waters where it can effectively melt. The horizontal eddy diffusivity of sea ice mass and heat across the MIZ can reach O(200 m^2 s^(−1)). Submesoscale ocean variability also induces large vertical velocities (order 10 m d^(−1)) that can bring relatively warm subsurface waters into the mixed layer. The ocean-sea ice heat fluxes are localized over cyclonic eddies and filaments reaching about 100 W m^(−2). We speculate that these submesoscale-driven intermittent fluxes of heat and sea ice can contribute to the seasonal evolution of MIZs. With the continuing global warming and sea ice thickness reduction in the Arctic Ocean, submesoscale sea ice-ocean processes are expected to become increasingly prominent.
Cloning, sequencing, and expression of the mig gene of Mycobacterium avium, which codes for a secreted macrophage-induced protein

Mycobacterium avium is an intracellular pathogen that has evolved to be a frequent cause of disseminated infection in immunocompromised patients. Although these bacilli are readily phagocytized, they are able to survive and even multiply within human macrophages. The process whereby mycobacteria circumvent the lytic functions of the macrophages is currently not well understood, but this is a key aspect in the pathogenicity of all pathogenic mycobacteria. Previously, we identified a gene in M. avium, designated mig (for macrophage-induced gene), the expression of which is induced when the bacilli grow in human macrophages (G. Plum and J. E. Clark-Curtiss, Infect. Immun. 62:476-483, 1994). In the present study we show that (i) the nucleotide sequence of the mig gene has an open reading frame of 295 amino acids with a strong bias for mycobacterial codon usage, (ii) the mig gene also codes for a putative signal peptide of 19 amino acid residues, (iii) mig is induced by acidity to be expressed as an early-secreted 30-kDa protein, and (iv) the Mig protein exhibits an AMP-binding domain signature. However, beyond this motif which is common to enzymes that activate a large variety of substrates, no homologies to known sequences are found. We also show that (v) Mycobacterium smegmatis strains expressing the Mig protein have a limited advantage for survival in macrophages. These findings may be concordant with a role of the mig gene in the virulence of M. avium.