Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The Effects of Student Engagement, Student Satisfaction, and Perceived Learning in Online Learning Environments

Studies have shown that course organization and structure, student engagement, learner interaction, and instructor presence have accounted for considerable variance in student satisfaction and perceived learning in online learning environments through a range of pathways, although no research to date has tested the mediational relationship identified. This study expanded upon the existing literature about online learning and the variables that influence student satisfaction and perceived learning. The researchers investigated the relationships among course structure/organization, learner interaction, student engagement, and instructor presence on student satisfaction and perceived learning. The results of this study were intended to inform practice related to increasing retention and improving the quality of online teaching and learning.
Investigation of Biologically-produced Solids in Moving Bed Bioreactor (MBBR) Treatment Systems

III Acknowledgements . IV List of Figures . VII List of Tables . X List of Abbreviations . XII CHAPTER 1: Introduction . 1 1.1 Background . 1 1.2 Research Objective . 6 1.3 Thesis Organization . 7 CHAPTER 2: Literature Review . 8 2.
Quantum metrology with Dicke squeezed states

We introduce a new class of quantum many-particle entangled states, called the Dicke squeezed (or DS) states, which can be used to improve the precision in quantum metrology beyond the standard quantum limit. We show that the enhancement in measurement precision is characterized by a single experimentally detectable parameter, called the Dicke squeezing &xgr; D ? > , which also bounds the entanglement depth for this class of states. The measurement precision approaches the ultimate Heisenberg limit as &xgr; D ? > attains the minimum in an ideal Dicke state. Compared with other entangled states, we show that the DS states are more robust to decoherence and give better measurement precision under typical experimental noise.
Morphology of Thin Films Formed by Oblique Physical Vapor Deposition

Physical vapor deposition is a fundamental tool to create thin films for countless applications. Deposition at oblique vapor incidence angles can lead to the growth of thin films with dramatically changed morphological features. Techniques such as oblique angle deposition (OAD) and glancing angle deposition (GLAD) utilize this fact to create self-organized nanostructures on surfaces. The changed columnar microstructure of such thin films significantly influences the film properties. The film density, for instance, influences the refractive index and therefore has impact for optical applications, like filters or antireflection coatings. Understanding the influence of the incidence angle in physical vapor deposition is an important step that allows tailoring the nanostructured surfaces for specific applications not only in optics, but also for catalysis or biosensing usage. To investigate thin film growth at oblique deposition conditions, silicon, germanium, and molybdenum nanostructured thin films were dep.
Approximation of feasibility tests for reactive walk on HRP-2

We present here an original approach to test the feasibility of footsteps for a given walking pattern generator. It is based on a new approximation algorithm intended to cope with this specific problem. The result obtained is used on the robot HRP-2, and enables it to guess a step feasibility 40,000 times faster (in 9µs) than with the normal verification process. As a consequence some advance is made towards fast online motion (re)planning based on a continuous set of possible steps.
Relationship between human perception of softness and instrument measurements

Softness, as a subjective perception, is difficult to define and quantify. For decades, panel tests have been used to judge differences in the softness of hygiene tissue samples. Panel tests can be a time-consuming and expensive process. A number of protocols have been developed to quantify the physical properties of tissues associated with softness. The Tissue Softness Analyzer (TSA) by Emtec has gained popularity in characterizing the physical properties of tissues associated with softness. The instrument was designed with softness in mind and attempts to simulate the touch of the human hand. There is currently no comprehensive study that compares the results from a TSA and human panel. In this work, panel tests were used to validate the performance of the TSA with bath tissue. It was determined that one component of the TSA measurements (TS7) linearly correlated with the panel results. Among all of the algorithms available for use with the TSA, the TP2 algorithm most accurately predicted the panel scores. The TSA performed better in predicting the softness of the samples that were dried with a conventional wet press or creped-through air-dryer.
Ligand Binding Reduces SUMOylation of the Peroxisome Proliferator-activated Receptor γ (PPARγ) Activation Function 1 (AF1) Domain

Peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor gamma (PPARγ) is a ligand-activated nuclear receptor regulating adipogenesis, glucose homeostasis and inflammatory responses. The activity of PPARγ is controlled by post-translational modifications including SUMOylation and phosphorylation that affects its biological and molecular functions. Several important aspects of PPARγ SUMOylation including SUMO isoform-specificity and the impact of ligand binding on SUMOylation remain unresolved or contradictory. Here, we present a comprehensive study of PPARγ1 SUMOylation. We show that PPARγ1 can be modified by SUMO1 and SUMO2. Mutational analyses revealed that SUMOylation occurs exclusively within the N-terminal activation function 1 (AF1) domain predominantly at lysines 33 and 77. Ligand binding to the C-terminal ligand-binding domain (LBD) of PPARγ1 reduces SUMOylation of lysine 33 but not of lysine 77. SUMOylation of lysine 33 and lysine 77 represses basal and ligand-induced activation by PPARγ1. We further show that lysine 365 within the LBD is not a target for SUMOylation as suggested in a previous report, but it is essential for full LBD activity. Our results suggest that PPARγ ligands negatively affect SUMOylation by interdomain communication between the C-terminal LBD and the N-terminal AF1 domain. The ability of the LBD to regulate the AF1 domain may have important implications for the evaluation and mechanism of action of therapeutic ligands that bind PPARγ.
Self-Transcendence Facilitates Meaning-Making and Flow Experience: Evidence from a Pilot Experimental Study

We review the psychological theory of flow and focus on the notion of autotelic personality, arguing that self-transcendence understood within the existential tradition of Frankl and Langle can be seen as a personality disposition that is conducive to flow experience. We present a pilot quasi-experimental study conducted in a student sample (N=84) to investigate the effect of situational meaning and self-transcendence on productivity and flow experience. Students were asked to work on a creative task (which consisted in finding solutions to a social problem) in small groups. Each group was randomly assigned with an instruction presenting the problem as happening either in a distant country (low-meaning) or home country (high-meaning). The outcome variables were measures of flow, perceived meaning, and satisfaction with time. The solutions generated by students were rated by 3 experts. The results showed that the experimental manipulation had an effect on the quality of the resulting solutions, but not on the subjective experience of participants. Self-transcendent individuals tended to experience higher flow under both conditions, however, under the high-meaning condition self-transcendence exhibited a curvilinear association with the experiential outcomes. The findings suggest that self-transcendence can be considered as a candidate trait for autotelic personality and call for more replication studies
The Complete Development of Larval Caribbean Spiny Lobster Panulirus Argus () in Culture

The Caribbean spiny lobster (Panulirus argus) is the most widespread, commercially important, and extensively studied spiny lobster in the western hemisphere, yet until now it has never been successfully reared through all its planktonic (phyllosomal) stages from egg to early benthic juvenile. Here we describe the development of phyllosomal P. argus in culture including the growth, duration, and morphology for 10 distinct stages. Phyllosomata were cultured from egg to juvenile in two ways: 1) in individual cultures using small glass bowls (120 and 400 mL) to determine individual growth, and 2) in group culture using a 40 L elliptical tank to obtain samples for morphological descriptions. Six of the 20 phyllosomata cultured individually (at 25-278C ) metamorphosed after 18-21 molts (mean1⁄420) to the puerulus stage at 140-198 days (mean1⁄4 174 days). Body lengths of the final stage phyllosomata and pueruli ranged from 25.6 to 28.2 mm (mean1⁄4 27.0 mm) and 16.4 to 17.5 mm (mean1⁄4 17.0 mm), respectively. Of the 550 mass cultured (at 258C) phyllosomata, 146 were sampled for morphological examination and subsequently divided into 10 stages, each described and illustrated herein. This is the first of the five Panulirus species known from the Atlantic Ocean to be cultured completely from hatch to settlement. This success is crucial for future research on larval behavior and dispersal and may renew interest in aquaculture of this economically consequential species.
Innovative Work Practices, Information Technologies, and Working Conditions: Evidence for France

We investigate the impact of new work practices and information and communication technologies (ICT) on working conditions in France. We use a unique French dataset providing information on individual workers for the year 1998. New work practices include the use of quality norms, job rotation, collective discussions on work organization, and work time flexibility. Working conditions are captured by occupational injuries as well as indicators of mental strain. We find that individuals working under the new practices face greater mental strain than individuals who do not. They also face a higher probability of work injuries, at least for benign ones. In contrast, our results suggest that ICT contribute to make the workplace more cooperative and to reduce occupational risks and injuries.
Prediction and Quantification of Hepatic Transporter-Mediated Uptake of Pitavastatin Utilizing a Combination of the Relative Activity Factor Approach and Mechanistic Modeling

Quantification of the fraction transported (ft) by a particular transporter will facilitate more robust estimations of transporter interactions. Using pitavastatin as a model uptake transporter substrate, we investigated the utility of the relative activity factor (RAF) approach and mechanistic modeling to estimate ft in hepatocytes. The transporters evaluated were organic anion-transporting polypeptides OATP1B1 and OATP1B3 and sodium-taurocholate cotransporting polypeptide. Transporter-expressing human embryonic kidney 293 cells and human hepatocytes were used for determining RAF values, which were then incorporated into the mechanistic model to simulate hepatocyte uptake of pitavastatin over time. There was excellent agreement between simulated and observed hepatocyte uptake of pitavastatin, indicating the suitability of this approach for translation of uptake from individual transporter-expressing cells to more holistic in vitro models. Subsequently, ft values were determined. The largest contributor to hepatocyte uptake of pitavastatin was OATP1B1, which correlates with what is known about the in vivo disposition of pitavastatin. The ft values were then used for evaluating in vitro–in vivo correlations of hepatic uptake inhibition with OATP inhibitors rifampicin and cyclosporine. Predictions were compared with previously reported plasma exposure changes of pitavastatin with these inhibitors. Although hepatic uptake inhibition of pitavastatin was 2–3-fold underpredicted, incorporation of scaling factors (SFs) into RAF values significantly improved the predictive ability. We propose that calibration of hepatocytes with standard transporter substrates and inhibitors would allow for determination of system-specific SFs, which could subsequently be used for refining predictions of clinical DDI potential for new chemical entities that undergo active hepatic uptake.
Early detection of spontaneous blood loss using amplitude modulation of Photoplethysmogram

The present study was designed to investigate can the amplitude modulation (AM) of Photoplethysmogram (PPG) be used as an indicator of blood loss and if so what is the best PPG probe site. PPG from ear, finger and forehead probe sites, standard ECG, and Finapres blood pressure waveforms were continuously recorded from 8 healthy volunteers during baseline, blood withdrawal of 900 ml followed by the blood reinfusion. The instantaneous amplitude modulations present in heart rate (AMHR) and breathing rate (AMBR) band frequencies of PPG were extracted from high-resolution time-frequency spectrum. HR and pulse pressure showed no significant changes during the protocol. The AMHR significantly (P<0.05) decreased at 100 ml through 900 ml blood loss from ear and finger probe sites. The mean percent decrease in AMHR at 900 ml blood loss compared to baseline value was 45.2%, 42.0%, and 42.3% for ear, finger and forehead PPG signals, respectively. In addition, significant increases in AMBR were found due to blood loss in ear and finger PPG signals. Even without baseline AMHR values, 900 ml blood loss detection was shown possible with specificity and sensitivity both 87.5% from ear PPG signals. The present technique has great potential to serve as a valuable tool in the intraoperative and trauma settings to detect hemorrhage.
Maternal intake of omega-3 and omega-6 polyunsaturated fatty acids during mid-pregnancy is inversely associated with linear growth

Abstract This study investigates relations of maternal N-3 and N-6 polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFA) intake during pregnancy with offspring body mass index (BMI), height z-score and metabolic risk (fasting glucose, C-peptide, leptin, lipid profile) during peripuberty (8–14 years) among 236 mother–child pairs in Mexico. We used food frequency questionnaire data to quantify trimester-specific intake of N-3 alpha-linolenic acid, eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) and docosahexaenoic acid (DHA); N-6 linoleic acid and arachidonic acid (AA); and N-6:N-3 (AA:EPA+DHA), which accounts for the fact that the two PUFA families have opposing effects on physiology. Next, we used multivariable linear regression models that accounted for maternal education and parity, and child’s age, sex and pubertal status, to examine associations of PUFA intake with the offspring outcomes. In models where BMI z-score was the outcome, we also adjusted for height z-score. We found that higher second trimester intake of EPA, DHA and AA were associated with lower offspring BMI and height z-score. For example, each 1-s.d. increment in second trimester EPA intake corresponded with 0.25 (95% CI: 0.03, 0.47) z-scores lower BMI and 0.20 (0.05, 0.36) z-scores lower height. Accounting for height z-score in models where BMI z-score was the outcome attenuated estimates [e.g., EPA: −0.16 (−0.37, 0.05)], suggesting that this relationship was driven by slower linear growth rather than excess adiposity. Maternal PUFA intake was not associated with the offspring metabolic biomarkers. Our findings suggest that higher PUFA intake during mid-pregnancy is associated with lower attained height in offspring during peripuberty. Additional research is needed to elucidate mechanisms and to confirm findings in other populations.
Detecting Linguistic Characteristics of Alzheimer’s Dementia by Interpreting Neural Models

Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is an irreversible and progressive brain disease that can be stopped or slowed down with medical treatment. Language changes serve as a sign that a patient’s cognitive functions have been impacted, potentially leading to early diagnosis. In this work, we use NLP techniques to classify and analyze the linguistic characteristics of AD patients using the DementiaBank dataset. We apply three neural models based on CNNs, LSTM-RNNs, and their combination, to distinguish between language samples from AD and control patients. We achieve a new independent benchmark accuracy for the AD classification task. More importantly, we next interpret what these neural models have learned about the linguistic characteristics of AD patients, via analysis based on activation clustering and first-derivative saliency techniques. We then perform novel automatic pattern discovery inside activation clusters, and consolidate AD patients’ distinctive grammar patterns. Additionally, we show that first derivative saliency can not only rediscover previous language patterns of AD patients, but also shed light on the limitations of neural models. Lastly, we also include analysis of gender-separated AD data.
Reliability-Oriented Verification of Mission-Critical Software Systems

With software systems increasingly being employed in critical contexts, assuring high reliability levels for large, complex systems can incur huge verification costs. Critical system developers often encounter serious difficulties in satisfying reliability requirements at competitive and acceptable cost and time. Currently, it is not clear how engineers should plan an effective verification strategy oriented to improve the final reliability, since it is not trivial to figure out what activities mainly impact the reliability-cost trade-off and how much they affect reliability. Most often, crucial choices in the verification activity are left to the engineers� intuition, which base their decisions on personal expertise and on past experience, due to the lack of convincing approaches coping with them. However, when dealing with high reliability targets and tight time/cost constraints, engineers responsible for verification should have quantitative evidences of the consequences of their choices, and base their decision on them. One fundamental aspect in a reliability-oriented verification process concerns the identification of the most critical parts of the system, i.e., the major contributors to its unreliability. This is crucial to conveniently distribute efforts for verification. However, even suitably allocating efforts, engineers should know what verification techniques most impact the final reliability, and what techniques are most suited for the features of the system under test. Hence, the proper selection of verification techniques that best adapt to the specific system being developed is another critical challenge to be addressed. Coping with these issues, engineers could tune a verification process for their systems simply following a quantitative reasoning able to highlight cost/benefits of each choice. Based on these considerations, the thesis proposes a solution to carrying out an effective verification specifically oriented to improve reliability. It intends to provide engineers with quantitative means that should be adopted and embedded in their process, to allow them conveniently allocating efforts and selecting techniques for the system under test. The thesis first identifies the major open challenges to be faced, by trying to figure out what are the most crucial steps that engineers need to take for an effective planning. Then, to cope with them, it proposes: i) an optimization model to allocate verification effort to different system components in order to achieve a required reliability level at minimum verification costs; ii) an approach, based on empirical analyses, to quantitatively support the selection of the best verification techniques; iii) a procedure to improve verification processes in the considered class of systems, able to iteratively refine results across the developed projects.
Autophagy and Its Implications Against Early Full Nutrition Support in Critical Illness

The timing, dose, and route of early nutrition support in critically ill patients have been highly controversial for years. Despite the association of a caloric deficit with adverse outcome, several recent large, randomized, controlled trials have demonstrated a prolongation of organ failure and increased muscle weakness with increasing doses of nutrition in the acute phase of critical illness. A potential explanation for the negative impact of early, full feeding on outcome is feeding-induced suppression of autophagy, a cellular repair process that is necessary to clear intracellular damage. Whether nutrition management in critically ill patients should be guided by its effects on autophagy is a topic of debate. Currently, however, autophagy cannot be monitored in clinical practice. Moreover, clinical management should be guided by high-quality randomized controlled trials, which currently do not support the use of early full nutrition support.
Efficiency and Function: Design and Analysis of Smart Actuators and Systems using Fluidic Artificial Muscles.

CHAPMAN, EDWARD MICHAEL: Efficiency and Function: Design and Analysis of Smart Actuators and Systems using Fluidic Artificial Muscles (Under the direction of Dr. Matthew Bryant). This work is comprised of three distinct contributions to the literature in the modeling and analysis of fluidic artificial muscles (FAMs) and systems which utilize them. First, a fully-coupled electrohydraulic system with single FAMs is used to study design parameter effects on the efficiency of a quadrupedal climbing robot. Its results indicate that increased actuator efficiency does not necessarily lead to increased system efficiency. This indicates that it is necessary to consider the FAM as well as the whole system must both be considered in order to optimize system efficiency. Secondly, the work explores the biomimicry of FAMs by presenting a novel way of controlling the activation of multiple FAM’s in parallel ‘bundles. ’ It does so by taking advantage of elastic nonlinearities in FAM bladders to control the pressure at which a specific FAM is recruited; called ‘threshold pressure. ’ Placing multiple FAMs with different threshold pressure under the control of a single throttle valve recruits some muscles before others. This is dubbed passive variable recruitment and is inspired by Henneman’s size principle, which governs the activation of mammalian muscle. The study indicates that activating FAMs in this way is advantageous in variable output systems which operate primarily in low-load, low-stroke regimes but require occasional outputs of large stroke and/or force. Lastly, the work explores multiple fully coupled electro-hydraulic systems and addresses the design considerations for increased performance and efficiency of both variable recruitment bundles and a single FAM. We propose an analytic model for predicting the upper-limit of performance of a given FAM bundle recruitment level as a function of load, FAM design parameters, and motor and pump operating characteristics. © Copyright 2018 by Edward M. Chapman