Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The role of cognitive processes in recurrent headache

The studies reported in this thesis sought to identify the cognitive processes mediating the hypothesised relationship between stressful events and recurrent headache. The prospects for linking cognitive processes to headache, through the mechanism of sensory modulation, were also explored. A treatment study (reported in Chapter 6) compared rational-emotive therapy with progressive relaxation training and correlated changes in headache activity with alterations in rationality. The results did not support the hypothesis that rationality mediates improvements in headache. Rational-emotive therapy was no more effective in reducing headache activity (headache frequency, duration, intensity and medication consumption) than progressive relaxation training. Changes in headache activity occurring in each treatment were not correlated significantly with changes in scores on the Rationality Scale developed for the purposes of the study. It was suggested that the reduction in headache activity, observed in both treatments, may have been mediated by increases in self-efficacy which may have flowed from the acquisition of skills for the management of stressful events and headache. In a second study (reported in Chapter 7) self-efficacy, concerning control over behavioural, cognitive and affective responses (self-control-efficacy), was observed to buffer the relationship between stressful events and headache frequency. Stressful events were found to precede headache attacks more often than periods of headache freedom. Higher levels of emotional upset in response to stressful events were found to precede periods of headache freedom, whilst lower levels preceded headache episodes. It was suggested that stronger emotional reactions to stress may inhibit the processes underlying headache onset. Stressful events occurring during headache were followed by increases in the intensity of the attack. In these instances, avoidance coping was associated with higher headache intensity ratings following the event and direct coping with lower post-event ratings. The appraisal of stressful events as amenable to change and higher levels of coping behaviour were found to reduce the frequency of ensuing headache episodes. There was no differential effect of strategy use (avoidance coping, direct coping or affective regulation) on the occurrence of headache in the face of stressful events. The results were considered to support the thesis that cognitive processes may contribute to the onset of headache attacks. The final study (reported in Chapter 8) explored the prospects for linking the cognitive constructs studied in Chapter 7 to headache, through the mechanism of sensory modulation.
Cultivating Humility in Religious Leaders: The Effectiveness of a Spiritually Integrated Positive Psychology Intervention

This quasi-experimental study investigated how effective a spiritually integrated, partner-interactive positive psychology intervention (PPI) was in promoting religious leaders’ humility and life satisfaction. Seventy-one Christian pastors and lay leaders self-selected to the waitlist-control (n = 30) or humility-PPI condition (n = 41). Humility-PPI participants completed a 16-exercise workbook with a partner. Intervention effectiveness was assessed using self- and other-report measures. Hypotheses were not supported, in that there was no evidence that intervention participants exhibited greater gains in life satisfaction or in trait, relational, spiritual, or intellectual humility, compared with control participants. Postintervention feedback suggested participants varied in their preferences for specific types of exercises (e.g., insight-oriented, reflective exercises vs. action-oriented, interactive exercises). Self- and other-report ratings showed increased correlation between self- and other-report measures at Time 2 on relational humility measures, thereby giving evidence that the intervention may have been effective in helping participants become more “accurate” in their perceptions of their own relational humility. There is a need for more research on humility PPIs, and the present study indicated primarily null results. More broadly, there is a need for research evaluating PPIs that (a) are tailored to participants’ characteristics or preferences, (b) use a partner-interactive format and a self- and other-report measurement approach, (c) are developed in collaboration with pastors and scientists, (d) are spiritually integrated, (e) are developed for use in faith communities, and (f) focus on leadership development.
Implementing lean in Malaysian universities: Lean awareness level in an engineering faculty of a local university

Many academic articles were published in Malaysia promoting the goodness of lean in manufacturing and industrial sectors but less attention was apparently given to the possibility of obtaining the same universal benefits when applying lean in non-manufacturing sectors especially higher education. This study aims to determine the level of lean awareness among a local university’s community taking its Faculty of Engineering (FoE) as the case study. It also seeks to identify typical FoE’s staff perception on lean regarding its benefits and the obstacles in implementing it. A web-based survey using questionnaires was carried out for 215 respondents consisting of academic and administrative staff of the faculty. Statistical Package for the Social Science (SPSS) was used to analyze the survey data collected. A total of 13.95% of respondents returned the forms. Slightly more than half of those responded (56.7%) have encountered some of the lean terms with mean 1.43 and standard deviation 0.504. However, the large amount of standard deviation somewhat indicates that the real level of lean awareness of FoE as a group was low. In terms of lean benefits, reduction of waste was favored (93.3%) by the respondents with mean 0.93 and standard deviation 0.254. For obstacles in implementing lean, lack of knowledge was selected by most respondents (86.7%) to be the major factor with mean 0.87 and standard deviation 0.346. Through the analysis done, the study may conclude that level of lean awareness among the university‘s community was low thus may hinder implementation of lean concept.
Currency Risk and Pricing Kernel Volatility

A basic tenet of lognormal asset pricing models is that a risky currency is associated with a low pricing kernel volatility. Empirical evidence implies that a risky currency is associated with a relatively high interest rate. Taken together, these two statements associate high-interest-rate currencies with low pricing kernel volatility. We document evidence suggesting that the opposite is true. We approximate the volatility of the pricing kernel with the volatility of the short interest rate. We find that, across currencies, relatively high interest rate volatility is associated with relatively high interest rates. This contradicts the prediction of lognormal models. One possible reason is that our approximation of the volatility of the pricing kernel is inadequate. We argue that this is unlikely, in particular for questions involving currencies. We conclude that lognormal models of the pricing kernel are inadequate for explaining currency risk and that future work should place increased emphasis on higher moments.
Functional Partitioning for Low Power Using Energy Estimation and Bounds

Partitioning a system has been shown an effective method for power reduction. Partitioning can be applied to either the controller or the datapath. A recent FSMD functional partitioning technique have shown that when partitioning is applied to both the controller AND the datapath, a much greater power saving is achievable. However, the partitioning problem is known to be NPcomplete. In this paper, we describe an algorithm that applies an efficient energy estimation and bounds model to the FSMD functional partitioning technique. This allows us to reduce the time to search through the solution space.
Solutions to the Eshelby conjectures

We present solutions to the Eshelby conjectures based on a variational inequality. We first discuss the meanings of Eshelby's original statement. By Fourier analysis, we establish the connection between the homogeneous Eshelby inclusion problem and the classic Newtonian potential problem. We then proceed to the solutions of the Eshelby conjectures. Under some hypothesis on the material properties and restricted to connected inclusions with Lipschitz boundaries, we show that one version of the Eshelby conjectures is valid in all dimensions and the other version is valid in two dimensions. We also show the existence of multiply connected inclusions in all dimensions and the existence of non-ellipsoidal connected inclusions in three and higher dimensions such that, in physical terms and in the context of elasticity, some uniform eigenstress of the inclusion induces uniform strain on the inclusion. We numerically calculate these special inclusions based on the finite-element method.
Efficient Synthesis of a Maghemite/Gold Hybrid Nanoparticle System as a Magnetic Carrier for the Transport of Platinum-Based Metallotherapeutics

The preparation and thorough characterization of a hybrid magnetic carrier system for the possible transport of activated platinum-based anticancer drugs, as demonstrated for cisplatin (cis-[Pt(NH3)2Cl2], CDDP), are described. The final functionalized mag/Au–LA–CDDP* system consists of maghemite/gold nanoparticles (mag/Au) coated by lipoic acid (HLA; LA stands for deprotonated form of lipoic acid) and functionalized by activated cisplatin in the form of cis-[Pt(NH3)2(H2O)2]2+ (CDDP*). The relevant techniques (XPS, EDS, ICP-MS) proved the incorporation of the platinum-containing species on the surface of the studied hybrid system. HRTEM, TEM and SEM images showed the nanoparticles as spherical with an average size of 12 nm, while their superparamagnetic feature was proven by 57Fe Mössbauer spectroscopy. In the case of mag/Au, mag/Au–HLA and mag/Au–LA–CDDP*, weaker magnetic interactions among the Fe3+ centers of maghemite, as compared to maghemite nanoparticles (mag), were detected, which can be associated with the non-covalent coating of the maghemite surface by gold. The pH and time-dependent stability of the mag/Au–LA–CDDP* system in different media, represented by acetate (pH 5.0), phosphate (pH 7.0) and carbonate (pH 9.0) buffers and connected with the release of the platinum-containing species, showed the ability of CDDP* to be released from the functionalized nanosystem.
Institutions and Wage Determination: A Multi-Country Approach

We present an empirical analysis of the determinants of labour cost in OECD countries, with particular reference to the impact of labour market institutions from 1960 to 1994. The main contribution of the paper is to show that labour market regulations can explain a large part of labour cost rise in OECD countries in the last decades once we control for productivity. These results are consistent with the findings of a companion paper (Nickell et al., 2001) where the effects of institutions on unemployment are examined. The model controls for macroeconomic shocks, and include the possibility of interactions among institutions. We present also a discussion of the potential problems encountered when estimating a macro pooled model like ours. We focus, among other things, on the hypothesis of poolability and on the cointegration properties of the model, suggesting a two way fixed effects specification in GLS form that corrects for heteroskedasticity and serial correlation. The explanatory power of the model is finally tested by means of a series of by country dynamic simulations.
Magnetohydrodynamics of a Pulsed Mercury Jet Entering a Solenoid at an Angle

Figure 1 gives an overview of the configuration for production of pions by a proton beam impinging on a long, thin target, followed by capture of low-momentum, forward pions in a channel of solenoid magnets with rf cavities to compress the bunch energy while letting the bunch length grow, thus rotating the bunch in phase space. This configuration was conceived for a muon collider [2, 3] with a 4-MW proton beam, and is similar to that being considered for a neutrino factory based on a muon storage ring [4, 5].
Consumer-brand congruence and conspicuousness: an international comparison

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to understand how congruence influences product evaluations in an international Latin culture context, as moderated by the public vs private nature of the product and user-image vs product-personality congruence. Design/methodology/approach Participants were recruited from two universities in Spanish-speaking, Latin cultures: Spain – Latin Europe (n=340) and Uruguay – Latin America (n=400). All participants were asked to indicate product-personality congruence (i.e. congruence between one’s self and the product) and user-image congruence (i.e. congruence between a product’s typical user and the product) for two private and two public products. Findings Two types of congruence (product-personality and user-image) positively influence brand evaluations more for publicly consumed than for privately consumed brands for consumers in both Latin cultures, with effect sizes being greater than prior research in other cultures. Research limitations/implications This research supports congruence theory in showing that similarity between a consumer and a brand leads to more favorable attitudes. Limitations include the sole use of student subjects and examination in only two countries of Latin culture. Practical implications Regardless of a brand’s personality, brands should seek consumers with similar personality traits, especially in Latin cultures. Originality/value This research addresses several limitations in prior research by examining both publicly and privately consumed products in one study, exploring congruence across Latin cultures, and testing products not confounded by addictive properties.
Heterogeneous axonal arborizations of rat thalamic reticular neurons in the ventrobasal nucleus

The γ‐aminobutyric acid (GABA)‐containing neurons of the thalamic reticular nucleus (nRt) are a major source of inhibitory innervation in dorsal thalamic nuclei. Individual nRt neurons were intracellularly recorded and labelled in an in vitro rat thalamic slice preparation to investigate their projection into ventrobasal thalamic nuclei (VB). Camera lucida reconstructions of 37 neurons indicated that nRt innervation ranges from a compact, focal projection to a widespread, diffuse projection encompassing large areas of VB. The main axons of 65% of the cells gave rise to intra‐nRt collaterals prior to leaving the nucleus and, once within VB, ramified into one of three branching patterns cluster, intermediate, and diffuse. The cluster arborization encompassed a focal region averaging approximately 25,000 μm2 and contained a high density of axonal swellings, indicative of a topographic projection. The intermediate structure extended across an area approximately fourfold greater and also contained numerous axonal swellings. The diffuse arborization of nRt neurons covered a large region of VB and contained a relatively low density of axonal swellings. Analysis of somatic size and shape revealed that diffuse arborizations arose from significantly smaller, fusiform‐shaped somata. Cytochrome oxidase reactivity or parvalbumin immunoreactivity was used to delineate a discontinuous staining pattern representing thalamic barreloids. The size of a cluster arborization closely approximated that of an individual barreloid. The heterogeneous arborizations from nRt neurons may reflect a dynamic range of inhibitory influences of nRt on dorsal thalamic activity. © 1996 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Part-Of-Speech Tagging of Thai Corpus with the Logically Combined Neural Networks

This paper presents a new part-of-speech (POS) tagger for the Thai corpus that is able to use the di erent lengths of contexts as needed for tagging. The new tagger is constructed by the logically combined neural networks, all of which are idividual taggers with xed but di erent lengths of contexts in inputs. Computer experiments show that the tagger has a success rate of over 87% for tagging over 3,000 untrained data when about 8,000 data that we have on hand are used for training. The error rate can be controlled as required by adjusting the output threshold of neural networks and switching the kinds of logical operations. These results are not only better than those obtained by the individual taggers, but are also better than the result of English POS tagging obtained by the neural network tagger proposed by Schmid (1994), provided a similar training condition: only 10,000 data available for training, is given.
Anti-windup strategy for linear systems with amplitude and dynamics restricted actuator

This paper addresses the problem of the determination of regions of stability for linear systems with amplitude and successive dynamics restricted actuator through anti-windup strategies. The objective by designing anti-windup gains is to guarantee the stability of the closed-loop system and the respect of the controlled output constraints for a region of admissible initial states as large as possible. Based on the modeling of the closed-loop system resulting from the controller plus the anti-windup loop as a linear system with a dead-zone and dynamics restricted nonlinearities, constructive stability conditions are formulated by using quadratic and Lure approach associated with the Finsler's lemma. Numerical procedures are discussed.
High speed CMOS vision chips

This paper presents novel high speed vision chips based on multiple levels of parallel processors. The chip integrates CMOS image sensor, multiple-levels of SIMD parallel processors and an embedded microprocessor unit. The multiple-levels of SIMD parallel processors consist of an array processor of SIMD processing elements (PEs) and a column of SIMD row processors (RPs). The PE array and RPs have an O(N×N) parallelism and an O(N) parallelism, respectively. The PE array, RPs and MPU can execute low-, mid- and high-level image processing algorithms, respectively. Prototype chips are fabricated using the 0. 18µm CMOS process. Applications including target tracking, pattern extraction and image recognition are demonstrated.
Psychometric Properties of the RMARS Scale in High School Students.

The purpose of this study was to determine if there is a structure of variables that allows us to understand the level of Anxiety towards Mathematics in high school students from the municipalities of Zacatal and Jamapa, Veracruz, Mexico. This was based on the seminal works of Richardson and Suinn [1972], who developed the Mathematics Anxiety Rating Scale (MARS) instrument with 98 items. This was later modified by Alexander and Martray [1989] to develop the Revised Mathematics Anxiety Rating Scale (RMARS) with only 25 items. For this study, the test was applied to a sample of 200 high school students of first, third and fifth semesters. The reliability of the test was α: 0.934 per item and 0.693 per dimension, which suggests acceptable validity and consistency in terms of what Hair, et al. point out [1979]. For the test of the H1 and H2 hypotheses, Exploratory Factor Analysis with extraction of the Principal Components and the Chic> Chit> statistic suggest that, as a whole, the dimensions of the RMARS scale explain mathematical anxiety. In addition, they indicate that anxiety towards mathematics classes is greater than anxiety towards exams and mathematical tasks; all this accounts for 74 % of the assimilable variance. For H3, the ANOVA test is used to show if there is a difference in means. The results suggest that there are no differences by Gender, Age. Or School Grade, although the MATHTEST dimension in Gender, showed differences in variances.
Study of Harmonics-to-Noise Ratio and Critical-Band Energy Spectrum of Speech as Acoustic Indicators of Laryngeal and Voice Pathology

Acoustic analysis of speech signals is a noninvasive technique that has been proved to be an effective tool for the objective support of vocal and voice disease screening. In the present study acoustic analysis of sustained vowels is considered. A simple-means nearest neighbor classifier is designed to test the efficacy of a harmonics-to-noise ratio (HNR) measure and the critical-band energy spectrum of the voiced speech signal as tools for the detection of laryngeal pathologies. It groups the given voice signal sample into pathologic and normal. The voiced speech signal is decomposed into harmonic and noise components using an iterative signal extrapolation algorithm. The HNRs at four different frequency bands are estimated and used as features. Voiced speech is also filtered with 21 critical-bandpass filters that mimic the human auditory neurons. Normalized energies of these filter outputs are used as another set of features. The results obtained have shown that the HNR and the critical-band energy spectrum can be used to correlate laryngeal pathology and voice alteration, using previously classified voice samples. This method could be an additional acoustic indicator that supplements the clinical diagnostic features for voice evaluation.
A prognostic model based on nodal status and Ki-67 predicts the risk of recurrence and death in breast cancer patients with residual disease after preoperative chemotherapy.

BACKGROUND Preoperative chemotherapy (PCT) allows for in vivo testing of treatment effects on tumor and its microenvironment. Aim of this analysis was to evaluate the effect of PCT on tumor biomarker expression and to evaluate the prognostic role of treatment-induced variation of these biomarkers (molecular response). METHODS Two hundred and twenty-one stage II-III breast cancer patients were included. The following parameters were evaluated at baseline and on surgical specimens after PCT: estrogen receptor (ER), progesterone receptor (PgR), human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2), Ki-67, p53, human epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR), vascular endothelial growth factor receptor 2 (VEGFR2), and apoptosis. RESULTS A pathological complete response was observed in 8.8% of the patients. PCT induced a significant reduction in the expression of ER, PgR, Ki-67, and apoptosis. As by multivariable model, Ki-67 > or = 15% and nodal positivity after preoperative chemotherapy (PCT) were significant predictors of worse disease-free survival [hazard ratio (HR) 3.79, P < 0.0001 and HR 2.31, P = 0.037, respectively]. Ki-67 > or = 15% after PCT was also a significant predictor of overall survival (HR 3.75, P = 0.013). On the basis of these two parameters, patients were classified into three groups: (i) low risk (negative nodes and Ki-67 <15%), (ii) intermediate risk (nodal positivity or Ki-67 > or = 15%), and (iii) high risk (nodal positivity and Ki-67 > or = 15%). As compared with the low-risk group, the HRs for recurrence were 3.1 and 9.3 for the intermediate- and high-risk group, respectively (P = 0.0001); the HRs for death were 2.4 and 6.5 for the intermediate- and high-risk group, respectively (P = 0.042). CONCLUSIONS Ki-67 and nodal status have been used to generate a simple and easily reproducible prognostic model, able to discriminate patients with worse prognosis among the heterogeneous group of women with residual disease after PCT.