Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Determinants and outcomes of superstitious beliefs: a multi-study approach

ABSTRACT Two studies grounded in experiential consumption theory – law of apparent reality and model of emotion-driven choice – test path models exploring determinants and outcomes of superstitious beliefs. Based on a survey of 218 US undergraduates, Study#1 suggests yearning-for-the-past as an antecedent of superstitious beliefs, which in turn relates positively to horoscope importance. Based on a survey of 247 US adults, Study#2 again shows yearning-for-the-past as a determinant of superstitious beliefs and explores previously untested superstitious belief consequences. Study#2 results imply resistance-to-change, buying-brands-due-to-family-traditions, obsessiveness, and intention-to-buy-luck-laden-products, as outcomes that relate positively to superstitious beliefs. These studies extend the consumer behaviour literature on nostalgia, superstition, and resistance to novelty.
Contributions to the Theory of Logic Programming

Hom clauses of first-order predicate logic can be regarded as a high-level programming language when SLD-resolution, a special-purpose resolution theorem prover, is used as interpreter. Consequently, the semantics of Hom clauses can be studied both by model-theoretic and fixpoint methods (in the sense of Scott). This possibility is exploited here by identifying the least (greatest) fixpoint with a least (greatest) model. Successful termination of SLD-resolution is characterized by least fupoints. A semantic characterization of finite failure of SLD-resolution is given, which coincides with the greatest fixpoint only for a special case of clauses. It is shown that nondeterministic flowchart schemata of bounded nondeterminacy are modeled by this special case; the connection between finite failure and greatest fixpoint is then used to give a semantic characterization of termination, blocking, and nontermination of such flowchart schemata.
Improving pedagogical feedback and objective grading

It is important for learning that students receive enough of educational feedback of their work. To get the students to be seriously disposed to the feedback it has to be personal, objective and consistent. In large classes ensuring such feedback can be difficult. Grading rubrics are a solution to the objectivity and consistency. ALOHA is an online grading tool based on rubrics which all the graders have to use. Particularly, ALOHA provides features that make the grading process more convenient for the graders and the teacher. By facilitating the graders work ALOHA allows them to focus more on feedback writing. To test the effectiveness of ALOHA in objectivity and consistency we did a comparative statistical analysis on the distribution of grades. The results supported the assumptions showing improvement resulting in similar distribution of grades amongst different graders who used the tool.
Managing Conflict with Parents-in-Law in a Secular Society Steeped in Islamic Traditions: Perspectives of Married Turkish Couples

ABSTRACT In Turkey, conflicts with parents-in-law can be shaped by opposing viewpoints that can emerge from the coexistence of modern secular and Islamic traditions. The integral role of parents-in-law in Turkish families makes it important to understand the nature of conflict between couples and their in-laws, and how these conflicts are managed. Guided by structural family theory, this preliminary study aims to explore the nature and management of conflict between parents-in-law and couples. This interpretive phenomenological study analyzed semi-structured interviews conducted with four Turkish couples. Conflicts with parents-in-law appeared to be gendered in nature and stemmed from unmet expectations and family roles. Gender also influenced how conflict was resolved. Daughters-in-law tended to avoid conflict by remaining silent, and sons-in-law were more forthcoming about their dissatisfactions or took the blame to avoid conflict. In-laws of opposite sex appeared to have more contemptuous relationships compared to in-laws of the same sex. Implications for clinical work and research are discussed.
Does online service failure matter to offline customer loyalty in the integrated multi-channel context? The moderating effect of brand strength

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to investigate the effect of online service failure on online customer satisfaction and offline customer loyalty, and the moderating role of brand strength is also examined. While extant research on brick and click service mode recognizes the positive spillover effect from offline stores to online stores, this study analyzes the negative spillover effect from online stores to offline stores.Design/methodology/approachThis paper tests the hypotheses by two studies. Study 1 is based on a 2 (failure severity: mild vs severe) × 2 (brand strength: strong vs weak) between-subjects experimental design using scenarios in a brick and click retailer context, while study 2 is based on data collected from a scenario-based questionnaire survey and analyzed through the structural equation modeling.FindingsThe results indicate that participants exposed to severe online service failure show lower online satisfaction as compared to their counterparts exposed to mild online service failure, but they show the similar level of offline loyalty in both degrees of online service failure. Nevertheless, these results are not moderated by brand strength significantly.Research limitations/implicationsAn experimental design and a scenario-based questionnaire survey are used to test the framework. However, the generalizability of the research findings is still limited to a specific study setting. Future research in a different setting is needed to further validate the presented findings.Practical implicationsThe findings suggest that physical service providers should adopt aggressive online expansion strategy to seize the market and pay more attention to online service quality rather than online marketing only.Originality/valueThis is one of few studies to explore the risk of brick and click service mode, and provide a clear understanding of the likely occurrence of online service failure and its impact on online customer satisfaction and offline customer loyalty. It extends prior research by exploring non-existence of negative perceptual effect from online service failure to offline customer loyalty in the short run and weakening brand effect, which contributes to cross-channel spillover effect in the integrated multi-channel context and brand building in the internet era.
Microbial Contamination of Glaucoma Eyedrops Used by Patients Compared With Ocular Medications Used in the Hospital

Abstract The aim of this study was to compare the percentage of contamination of multiuse eyedrops applied by glaucoma patients at home and by the medical personnel at the outpatient department, the ward, and the operating room of our Department of Ophthalmology. Eyedrops were collected over a period of 11 months. Samples were taken from the dropper tip (smear), drops, and the residual fluid inside the bottle and cultivated on blood agar. Colony forming units were counted and identified by mass spectrometry. The percentage of contamination was significantly higher in eyedrops applied by the patients (29/119; 24.4%, P < 0.01), used in the ward (26/133; 19.5%, P < 0.01), and in the outpatient unit (6/35; 17.1%, P = 0.036) compared with that in the operating room (6/113; 5.3%). The median period of use was 1 week in the operating room compared with 4 weeks in the other groups (P < 0.01). Glaucoma medications were significantly more frequently contaminated than antibiotic and anesthetic eyedrops (P < 0.05). For eyedrops applied by the patients, the tip was more frequently contaminated than the drops and the residual internal fluid. For eyedrops from the ward, the opposite was true. Pathogenic strains (Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Serratia marcescens, Acinetobacter lwoffii, Stenotrophomonas maltophilia, and Staphylococcus aureus) were found only in 6 bottles (1.5%), whereas most of the detected microbes belonged to human or environmental flora. This study underlines the importance of hygienic handling of eyedrops and raises the question of whether single-use glaucoma medication might be preferred to reduce the risk of contamination.
Statistical learning and orthographic preferences among native Arab kindergarten and first graders

ABSTRACT The current study investigated the effect of the dominant Arabic orthographic features on children’s orthographic preferences. Forty first grade and 40 kindergarten native Arab children were tested. The results revealed that for the first grade group, high accuracy levels for acceptance of real words and rejection of pseudo-orthographic patterns were found. In addition, the first grade group showed significant preferences for accepting the connected patterns compared to the non-connected patterns as real words. For the kindergarten group, the participants showed higher tendency to accept the connected pseudo-orthographic patterns as real words than the non-connected patters. These findings were explained in light of the fact that in Arabic orthography there are high proportions of full-connected rather than non-connected patterns and this might affect the orthographic preferences of first grade and pre-school children. The statistical learning point of view was the main framework of discussing the results.
Effects of turbidity on the reactive distance, search time, and foraging success of juvenile Atlantic cod (Gadus morhua)

We investigated the effects of turbidity on the foraging behaviour of juvenile Atlantic cod (Gadus morhua) on mysid prey (Praunus neglectus) in the laboratory. The influence of turbidity on vision and chemoreception was examined by measuring reactive distances and search times to visual, chemical, and visualchemical prey cues over turbidity levels ranging from 0.4 to 17·m1 (beam attenuation·m1). We also compared foraging rates of juvenile cod on mysids in highly turbid water and clear water under well lit and totally dark conditions. Juvenile cod using chemical cues were able to locate mysids from significantly longer distances than when only visual cues were available. Turbidity did not affect reactive distance to chemical cues, and had only a weak negative effect on reactive distance to visual and visualchemical cues. Search time was variable, but tended to increase with turbidity. Turbidity did not affect predation rates on free-ranging mysids, but predation rates were significantly lower in dark c.
Lake trophic status can be determined by the depth distribution of sediment phosphorus

In this meta‐analysis, we examine how sediment phosphorus (P) burial pattern may be related to trophic state. We present sediment P profiles from 94 lakes that demonstrate fundamental differences in P burial between oligotrophic and eutrophic systems. In sediments of eutrophic (≥ 30 µg water column total P (TP) L‐1) lakes, P concentrations are elevated in the surficial sediments in comparison with deeper layers, representing a large P pool that can be recycled. This pattern directly contrasts with sediment P profiles in oligotrophic lakes (< 10 µg water column TP L‐1), which exhibit increasing concentrations of permanently buried P with depth. Sediment processes regulating P burial may be important regulators of internal P recycling and consequently lake trophic status. Thus, mesotrophic lakes (10 to 30 µg water column TP L‐1), which exhibit consistent P concentrations with depth, are more vulnerable to external P inputs than oligotrophic lakes because they are at their maximal sediment P burial flux. Our data suggest that thresholds in sediment P pattern may correlate with thresholds in sediment P burial processes and consequently may indicate whether deposited P will be released to the water column.
Ten-parameter deformations of the sixth-order Peregrine breather solutions of the NLS equation

In this paper, we construct new deformations of the Peregrine breather of order 6 with ten real parameters. We obtain new families of quasi-rational solutions of the one-dimensional focusing nonlinear Schrödinger (NLS) equation. With this method, we construct new patterns of different types of rogue waves. We get, as already found for the lower order, the triangular configurations and rings isolated. Moreover, one sees for certain values of the parameters the appearance of new configurations of concentric rings.
The interplay of information structure, semantics, prosody, and word ordering in Spanish intransitives

A production experiment was run to examine how information structure and verbal semantics affect word ordering and nuclear stress placement in intransitive sentences in Venezuelan Spanish. Unaccusative verbs in Spanish are said to be more likely to be subject final (VS order) than unergative verbs, while in languages like English, this is marked with stress shift (i.e., Sv, caps show the nuclear stress). It has long been contended, however, that the semantic factors underlying split intransitivity actually affect information structure, rather than syntax directly. If so, then the effect of verbal semantics on word ordering/nuclear stress placement should be able to be overridden by information structure. Venezuelan Spanish speakers described pictures using a printed unaccusative or unergative verb in response to a question manipulating the information structure type of the subject, i.e., broad focus, theme, QUD-focus, or contrastive focus. Results showed that QUD- and contrastively focused subjects were more likely to carry nuclear stress. Subject stress was also more likely for unaccusatives, but this effect was weaker. Overall stress shift was much more frequent than subject final placement, with neither information structure type nor verb type affecting the likelihood of either response type. These results raise challenges for standard assumptions about the relationship between information structure and unaccusativity, and between final subject placement and stress shift.
The impact of chronic in vivo glucocorticoid excess on the functional characteristics of human skin fibroblasts obtained from patients with endogenous Cushing's syndrome.

OBJECTIVE Chronic exposure to elevated glucocorticoid (GC) concentrations induces detrimental effects in several tissues. In the skin, GCs provoke intense alterations on various parameters of the physiology of fibroblasts, cumulatively leading to skin atrophy and impaired wound healing. As there are concerns that GCs may generate permanent adverse functional changes, we have investigated whether chronic in vivo exposure to GC excess results in persisting defects in skin fibroblasts. DESIGN AND METHODS We have studied in vitro primary skin fibroblast cultures obtained from patients suffering from endogenous Cushing's syndrome (CF), as well as from sex- and age-matched normal donors (NF). The following functional parameters were investigated: cell proliferation, secretion of collagen, matrix metalloproteinases (MMPs) and their inhibitors (tissue inhibitors of metalloproteinases; TIMPs) and contractile capacity. RESULTS CFs, grown under standard culture conditions in the absence of a hypercortisolemic milieu, exhibited an increased proliferative capacity and a higher final cell culture density compared with NFs. Collagen synthesis, in the absence or presence of transforming growth factor-beta, was equal to that of NFs. However, CFs secreted comparatively lower levels of MMP-1, MMP-2 and TIMP-1, and nearly equal levels of TIMP-2. CFs also exhibited an increased ability to contract gels of polymerized collagen. CONCLUSIONS Collectively, these functional characteristics of CFs are in contrast to the known catabolic effects of GCs, and suggest that prior exposure to GC excess is not associated with a persisting adverse outcome in the functional phenotype of the fibroblasts.
A comparison of task-based mental fatigue between healthy males and females

ABSTRACT Background: The issue of cognitive sex differences has been a topic of interest for researchers for several decades. The present study investigated the relatively new area of sex differences in mental fatigue. Methods: Mental fatigue was evaluated via a modified visual analogue mood scale (VAMS) and Activation Deactivation Adjective Checklist (AD-ACL) before and after a task designed to induce mental fatigue. The participants performed a reaction time task in three blocks of 17 min, without any rest time between the blocks. Results: Mental fatigue increased after each 17-min block for both sexes with no significant differences between males and females (P = .54). Females had slower reaction time within the first block but slightly faster reaction time within the second and third blocks (P ≤ .001). Conclusion: Although no significant differences in mental fatigue between male and female groups were found, the results may suggest that task unfamiliarity had a more negative influence on reaction times in females than males.
NUMERICAL BLOW-UP SOLUTIONS FOR SOME SEMILINEAR HEAT EQUAT IONS

This paper concerns the study of the numerical approximation for the following initial-boundary value problem, where and . We give some conditions under which the solution of a semidiscrete form of the above problem blows up in a nite time and estimate its semidiscrete blow-up time. Under some assumptions, we also show that the semidiscrete blow-up time converges to the continuous blow-up time when the mesh size goes to zero. Finally, we give some numerical results to illustrate our analysis.
Billiards in regular 2n‐gons and the self‐dual induction

We build a coding of the trajectories of billiards in regular 2n‐gons, similar but different from the one in J. Smillie and C. Ulcigrai [in ‘Beyond Sturmian sequences: coding linear trajectories in the regular octagon’, Proc. Lond. Math. Soc. (3) 102 (2011) 291–340], by applying the self‐dual induction [S. Ferenczi and L.Q. Zamboni, ‘Structure of K‐interval exchange transformations: induction, trajectories, and distance theorems’, J. Anal. Math. 112 (2010) 289–328] to the underlying one‐parameter family of n‐interval exchange transformations. This allows us to show that, in that family, for n=3 non‐periodicity is enough to guarantee weak mixing, and in some cases minimal self‐joinings, and for every n we can build examples of n‐interval exchange transformations with weak mixing, which are the first known explicitly for n>6.
Kähler-Ricci solitons on homogeneous toric bundles

Abstract We deal with homogeneous toric bundles M over generalized flag manifolds GC /P, where G is a compact semisimple Lie group and P a parabolic subgroup. Using symplectic data, we provide a simple characterization of the homogeneous toric bundles M which are Fano; we then show that a homogeneous toric bundle M admits a Kähler-Ricci solitonic metric if and only if it is Fano.
Learning to read music cooperatively in a choral setting: A case study

Two volunteer cooperative teams of ninth grade girls were studied for six months to discover whether and how they learned to read music. The two teams represented novice students and students who had received private instruction. Study teams represented the population of the freshman Girls Chorus. Teams met regularly during daily chorus rehearsals, with only occasional help from the director. These meetings were analyzed through video tape recordings to observe if students employed traditional teaching and learning strategies to assist each other in learning. It was determined that team members regularly use certain teaching and learning strategies to assist in the cooperative constructing of their knowledge. Chorus members demonstrated significant gains (P = .05) in their ability to read music using the Iowa Tests of Music Literacy LEVEL 1. It was concluded that this cooperative learning method is an effective alternative for teaching chorus students to read music.
Comparison of three methods for concentration of rotavirus from artificially spiked shellfish samples.

Materials and Methods Shellfish is cheap and highly proteinaceous food whose consumption has increased globally. Shellfish by virtue of their filter feeding habit can concentrate pathogenic organisms such as enteric viruses and bacteria present in contaminated water [1]. A number of human enteric viruses including norovirus, aichi, rotavirus, enterovirus, adenovirus, astrovirus, sapovirus, Hepatitis A and Hepatitis E virus have been detected in shellfish, although not all have been clearly linked with documented disease outbreaks [2, 3]. Faecal indicator bacteria routinely used to access sanitary quality of water is successful only in prevention of shellfish borne infection of bacterial origin and have limited predictive value for pathogenic viruses [4]. Hence there is need for methods that can be used for direct virological examination of samples in order to access the health risk due to enteric viruses. Identification of enteric virus from shellfish is difficult due to the low concentration of virus and the presence of substances liable to interfere with enzyme system used for amplification [5,6]. The main inhibitors in shellfish are acid polysaccharides [7]. Effective preliminary sample treatment steps such as concentration of virus from shellfish are therefore essential before RNA/DNA isolation for final PCR accuracy and reproducibility [8]. The aim of the study is to compare three methods namely Proteinase K treatment [9, 10], precipitation with polyethylene glycol 8000 [11], and use of lysis buffer [12] for concentration of rotavirus from shellfish after artificially spiking the shellfish with known concentration of faecal sample containing rotavirus.
Cognitive Communications in White Space: Opportunistic Scheduling, Spectrum Shaping and Delay Analysis by

A unique feature, yet a challenge, in cognitive radio (CR) networks is the user hierarchy: secondary users (SU) wishing for data transmission must defer in the presence of active primary users (PUs), whose priority to channel access is strictly higher. Under a common thread of characterizing and improving Quality of Service (QoS) for the SUs, this dissertation is progressively organized under two main thrusts: the first thrust focuses on SU’s throughput by exploiting the underlying properties of the PU spectrum to perform effective scheduling algorithms; and the second thrust aims at another important QoS performance of the SUs, namely delay, subject to the impact of PUs’ activities, and proposes enhancement and control mechanisms. More specifically, in the first thrust, opportunistic spectrum scheduling for SU is first considered by jointly exploiting the memory in PU’s occupancy and channel fading. In particular, the underexplored scenario where PU occupancy presents a long temporal memory is taken into consideration. By casting the problem as a partially observable Markov decision process, a set of multi-tier tradeoffs are quantified and illustrated. Next, a spectrum shaping framework is proposed by leveraging network coding as a spectrum shaper on the PU’s traffic. Such shaping effect brings in predictability of the primary spectrum, which is utilized by the SUs to carry out adaptive channel sensing by prioritizing channel access order, and hence significantly improve their throughput. On the other hand, such predictability can make wireless channels more susceptible to jamming attacks. As a result, caution must be taken in designing wireless systems to balance the throughput and the jamming-resistant capability.