Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The Effectiveness of Cognitive Behavioral Group Training on Stress Management Style Resiliency and Glycemic Hemoglobin Levels in Diabetic Patients

The purpose of this study was to determine the effectiveness of Cognitive Behavioral Group Training on Stress Management Style Resiliency and Hemoglobin Levels in diabetic patients of Shiraz city has been done. Research method was experimental and the design of pretest-posttest-with-control group kind been. Statistical population consisted of nearly nine hundred and fifty diabetic patients from the Diabetic Center of the City of Shiraz one year before and filling the case. The research community consisted of 60 people was randomly selected from the member patients of Shiraz diabetic association who were available from the sample. They were randomly bringing in two groups of experimental and control. At first pre-tests were performed by both groups and then the experiment group were trained stress management, cognitive - behavioral therapy with relaxation in 10 sessions of two hours and a half every week and during this term control group was under training other unrelated stress management programs such as drug educations. After the end of the term, both groups completed the questionnaires again. Also glycemic control index (HbA1c) test was repeated after 3 months from the first test. The research tools include resiliency questionnaires and glycemic control index (HbA1c) testing. Also, data obtained from research using descriptive statistics (mean, standard deviation, frequency, maximum and minimum) and the covariance method Manova inferential statistics and independent T-test and analysis software SPSS-18 case. The findings indicate that cognitive style group training, stress management - treated diabetic patients by increasing resiliency and decrease of the glycemic hemoglobin in the blood of diabetic patients.
On the Morphology of the SDS Film on the Surface of Borosilicate Glass

Surfactant films on solid surfaces have attracted much attention because of their scientific interest and applications, such as surface treatment agent, or for micro- or nano-scale templates for microfluidic devices. In this study, anionic surfactant sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS) solutions with various charged inorganic salts was spread on a glass substrate and dried to form an SDS thin film. Atomic force microscopy (AFM) was employed to observe the micro-structure of the SDS thin film. The effects of inorganic salts on the morphology of the SDS film were observed and discussed. The results of experiments demonstrated that pure SDS film formed patterns of long, parallel, highly-ordered stripes. The existence of the inorganic salt disturbed the structure of the SDS film due to the interaction between the cationic ion and the anionic head groups of SDS. The divalent ion has greater electrostatic interaction with anionic head groups than that of the monovalent ion, and causes a gross change in the morphology of the SDS film. The height of the SDS bilayer measured was consistent with the theoretical value, and the addition of the large-sized monovalent ion would lead to lowering the height of the adsorbed structures.
On the coarse/fine dual-stage manipulators with robust perturbation compensator

A dual-stage, fast and fine robotic manipulator is presented. By adopting merits of both coarse and fine actuator, a desirable system having the capacity of large workspace with high resolution of motion is enabled. We constructed an ultra precision XY-manipulator with dual-stage structure where the PZT driven fine stage is mounted on the motor driven XY positioner and applied it to fine tracking controls and micro-teleoperations as a slave manipulator. We describe essential merits of the compound actuation mechanism and the control strategy to successfully utilize it with a proper servo system design. Through experimental results, the effectiveness of the coarse/fine manipulation by the dual stage manipulator is shown.
PAF Complex Plays Novel Subunit-Specific Roles in Alternative Cleavage and Polyadenylation

The PAF complex (Paf1C) has been shown to regulate chromatin modifications, gene transcription, and RNA polymerase II (PolII) elongation. Here, we provide the first genome-wide profiles for the distribution of the entire complex in mammalian cells using chromatin immunoprecipitation and high throughput sequencing. We show that Paf1C is recruited not only to promoters and gene bodies, but also to regions downstream of cleavage/polyadenylation (pA) sites at 3’ ends, a profile that sharply contrasted with the yeast complex. Remarkably, we identified novel, subunit-specific links between Paf1C and regulation of alternative cleavage and polyadenylation (APA) and upstream antisense transcription using RNAi coupled with deep sequencing of the 3’ ends of transcripts. Moreover, we found that depletion of Paf1C subunits resulted in the accumulation of PolII over gene bodies, which coincided with APA. Depletion of specific Paf1C subunits led to global loss of histone H2B ubiquitylation, although there was little impact of Paf1C depletion on other histone modifications, including tri-methylation of histone H3 on lysines 4 and 36 (H3K4me3 and H3K36me3), previously associated with this complex. Our results provide surprising differences with yeast, while unifying observations that link Paf1C with PolII elongation and RNA processing, and indicate that Paf1C subunits could play roles in controlling transcript length through suppression of PolII accumulation at transcription start site (TSS)-proximal pA sites and regulating pA site choice in 3’UTRs.
Evaluation of Tp-e interval and Tp-e/QT ratio in patients with ankylosing spondylitis

Abstract Objectives. Ankylosing spondylitis (AS) is a chronic multi-systemic inflammatory rheumatic disorder. Several studies have suggested that the interval from the peak to the end of the electrocardiographic T wave (Tp-e) may correspond to the transmural dispersion of repolarization and that increased Tp-e interval and Tp-e/QT ratio are associated with malignant ventricular arrhythmias. The aim of this study was to evaluate ventricular repolarization by using Tp-e interval and Tp-e/QT ratio in patients with AS, and to assess the relation with inflammation. Methods. Sixty-two patients with AS and 50 controls were included. Tp-e interval and Tp-e/QT ratio were measured from a 12-lead electrocardiogram, and the Tp-e interval corrected for heart rate. The plasma level of high sensitive C-reactive protein (hsCRP) was measured. These parameters were compared between groups. Results. In electrocardiographic parameters analysis, QT dispersion (QTd) and corrected QTd were significantly increased in AS patients compared to the controls (31.7 ± 9.6 vs 28.2 ± 7.4 and 35.8 ± 11.5 vs 30.6 ± 7.9 ms, P = 0.03 and P = 0.007, respectively). cTp-e interval and Tp-e/QT ratio were also significantly higher in AS patients (92.1 ± 10.2 vs 75.8 ± 8.4 and 0.22 ± 0.02 vs 0.19 ± 0.02 ms, all P values <0.001). cTp-e interval and Tp-e/QT ratio were significantly correlated with hsCRP (r = 0.63, P < 0.001 and r = 0.49, P < 0.001, respectively). Conclusions. Our study revealed that Tp-e interval and Tp-e/QT ratio were increased in AS patients. These electrocardiographic ventricular repolarization indexes were significantly correlated with the plasma level of hsCRP.
Estimation of skeletal muscle mass by bioelectrical impedance analysis.

The purpose of this study was to develop and cross-validate predictive equations for estimating skeletal muscle (SM) mass using bioelectrical impedance analysis (BIA). Whole body SM mass, determined by magnetic resonance imaging, was compared with BIA measurements in a multiethnic sample of 388 men and women, aged 18-86 yr, at two different laboratories. Within each laboratory, equations for predicting SM mass from BIA measurements were derived using the data of the Caucasian subjects. These equations were then applied to the Caucasian subjects from the other laboratory to cross-validate the BIA method. Because the equations cross-validated (i.e., were not different), the data from both laboratories were pooled to generate the final regression equation SM mass (kg) = [(Ht2/ R x 0.401) + (gender x 3.825) + (age x -0. 071)] + 5.102 where Ht is height in centimeters; R is BIA resistance in ohms; for gender, men = 1 and women = 0; and age is in years. The r(2) and SE of estimate of the regression equation were 0.86 and 2.7 kg (9%), respectively. The Caucasian-derived equation was applicable to Hispanics and African-Americans, but it underestimated SM mass in Asians. These results suggest that the BIA equation provides valid estimates of SM mass in healthy adults varying in age and adiposity.
Contrasting effects of irrelevant speech and non-speech sounds on short-term memory

The characteristics of speech that determine its greater disruption of serial recall relative to non-speech (the irrelevant sound effect) are investigated (c.f. Tremblay et al., 2000). Degraded non-words disrupted serial recall less than clear non-words. Tasks show that both vowels and consonants of degraded non-words were misperceived, with initial consonants misperceived to a greater degree. Measures that followed showed that clear sequences of non-words, with changing vowels were more disruptive than sequences with changing consonants. Degrading vowel only changing sequences reduced disruption of serial recall to a level observed with clear consonant only changing sequences, whereas degradation had no effect on disruption by consonant only changing sequences. In further experiments the acoustic complexity of speech was reduced while maintaining its intelligibility by removing fundamental frequency information. Whispered speech disrupted serial recall to the same degree as voiced speech. Alternating voiced and whispered speech sounds within a sequence did not reduce serial recall performance relative to a sequence of voiced-only speech sounds. Results indicate the formant structure of speech sounds and not fundamental frequency information is the important carrier of acoustic change. Reversing the fine structure of whispered speech damaged its intelligibility whilst preserving acoustic complexity and these sounds were as disruptive of serial recall as normal whispered speech. This indicates that vocal tract resonances (formants) of speech and not its intelligibility determine its disruptive power. The relative disruptiveness of speech and non-speech sounds was then examined. Sounds were matched for acoustic complexity, but their 'speech-likeness' was destroyed. Speech disrupted serial recall more than did non-speech. Results indicate that the biological nature of speech renders it more disruptive than non-speech. The findings refute the 'changingstate- hypothesis' which is derived from the object-oriented episodic record model. This hypothesis argues that it is the degree of acoustic variation within an irrelevant stream and not the nature of its component sounds which determines its disruption of serial memory. Biological sounds may disrupt serial memory to a greater degree since they are of behavioural relevance and provide information about the environment that may need to be attended to. The addition of an attentional mechanism to the object-oriented episodic record model that regulates the reallocation of cognitive processing resources is proposed.
Volitional and Nonvolitional Responses to Hypnotic Suggestions: Predictors and Subjective Experience

This investigation combined the data from two studies that used modified scoring of the Harvard Group Scale of Hypnotic Susceptibility (Shor & Orne, 1962) to evaluate deliberate, volitional responses to suggestions. One study also employed subjective ratings of each item of the Harvard Scale, with comparisons of nonvolitional, volitional, and non-responses. Based on the assumption that participants would have marked volitional responses as positive responses using the traditional scale, the traditional scoring method was found to inflate mean hypnotic responsiveness by nearly one point. Two hypothesized correlates of hypnotic performance, rapport with the hypnotist and a phenomenological measure of hypnosis, increased significantly when volitional responses were taken into account. The way in which participants were recruited did not predict volitional responses, but individuals who reported deliberate responses to suggestions from the Harvard Scale were less likely to express willingness to participate in future studies. Some of the volitional responses to the items were rated as subjectively more real compared to no responses, though nonvolitional responses were rated as the most real compared with compliance responses and no responses for all items. More difficult items were more likely to be performed volitionally than easier items. It is suggested that future studies using hypnotic inventories account for volitional responses. The nature of deliberately produced responses should also be examined using qualitative and quantitative data, especially with respect to how a given suggestion may affect the execution of the volitional behavior.
Learning in binocular time-to-contact perception

Time-to-contact (TTC) is defined as the remaining time for an object to reach the observer. This is an important quantity for timing an action such as hitting or catching a ball. This thesis deals with learning processes in TTC perception when binocular vision is available. Chapter 1 studies the learning of TTC in relative discrimination tasks. We did not find learning in this task, but we found that simple correlates of TTC explained the judgments made by the participants. Chapter 2 studies the learning of TTC in absolute estimation tasks. We found that the variable and constant error of the responses reduced with training. Chapter 3 studied the use of feedback in calibrating the timing of TTC estimates. We found that biased timing produced changes in the constant error, suggesting that TTC calibration is guided by feedback. Chapter 4 studied if the reduction of variable error was due to an increased perceptual sensitivity to TTC. However, we failed to find transfer from the absolute estimation tasks to relative discrimination tasks, suggesting that the learning found in Chapter 2 might not be of perceptual origin. In Chapter 5 we studied a large group of participants in laboratory tasks and a natural hitting task. We found that the performance in relative discrimination and absolute estimation tasks could be used to predict hitting skill. This suggests that the perception of TTC can be linked with interceptive timing. Taken together, these results suggest that perceptual sensitivity to TTC changes slightly -if at all- with training, but changes in perceptuo-motor mapping and calibration of the estimates that increase interceptive performance do take place.
Contrastive Learning for Image Captioning

Image captioning, a popular topic in computer vision, has achieved substantial progress in recent years. However, the distinctiveness of natural descriptions is often overlooked in previous work. It is closely related to the quality of captions, as distinctive captions are more likely to describe images with their unique aspects. In this work, we propose a new learning method, Contrastive Learning (CL), for image captioning. Specifically, via two constraints formulated on top of a reference model, the proposed method can encourage distinctiveness, while maintaining the overall quality of the generated captions. We tested our method on two challenging datasets, where it improves the baseline model by significant margins. We also showed in our studies that the proposed method is generic and can be used for models with various structures.
Effects of Different Levels of Coriander (Coriandrum sativum) Seed Powder and Extract on Serum Biochemical Parameters, Microbiota, and Immunity in Broiler Chicks

The use of herbs and spices has gained increasing interest as feed additives and possible alternative to antibiotics in poultry production. The effects of using different levels of coriander seed powder or extract on selected blood parameters, intestinal microflora, and immune response of broiler chickens were investigated in this study. A total of 420-day-old broiler chicks were randomly assigned to 7 treatments with 4 replicates and fed for 42 days. Results showed that inclusion of 2.0% coriander powder in broiler diets lowered total cholesterol while blood urea was significantly higher in birds on T4 compared to T1 and T2. Furthermore, there were no treatment effects on Lactobacillus bacteria; however, the population of E. coli was significantly higher in the ileum of chickens fed T0. Noticeable significant improvements of antibody titer against Newcastle, infectious bronchitis, and infectious bursal disease were observed in birds receiving coriander extract in water. Immunoglobulin G antibody against sheep red blood cells showed significant improvement in birds fed T3; likewise, immunoglobulin M was significantly higher in birds on T2 and T3 at 28 d of age. These results revealed that coriander extract or powder can be used as antibiotic alternative in broiler feeds.
Pedestrian Counting using Deep Models Trained on Synthetically Generated Images

Counting pedestrians in surveillance applications is a com m n scenario. However, it is often challenging to obtain sufficient annotated training data, especially so fo r creating models using deep learning which require a large amount of training data. To address this problem, thi s paper explores the possibility of training a deep convolutional neural network (CNN) entirely from syntheti cally generated images for the purpose of counting pedestrians. Nuances of transfer learning are exploited to train models from a base model trained for image classification. A direct approach and a hierarchical approa ch are used during training to enhance the capability of the model for counting higher number of pedestrians. The t rained models are then tested on natural images of completely different scenes captured by different acqui sition systems not experienced by the model during training. Furthermore, the effectiveness of the cross entr opy cost function and the squared error cost function are evaluated and analyzed for the scenario where a model is t rained entirely using synthetic images. The performance of the trained model for the test images from the target site can be improved by fine-tuning using the image of the background of the target site.
Organizational Stress Among Teachers

Even though the concept of stress has received much attention in the popular press, in research, and in teacher workshops, the actual sources of work-related stress among Canadian teachers remain far from clearly established. The major purpose of this study was to obtain from teachers their perceptions of major sources of work-related stress and to assess the degree to which these stressors accounted for the overall stress on the job. This was achieved by controlling for the selected background variables of sex, age, level of education, grade level taught, years of teaching experience, size of the school, and perceived personallife stress. Major findings showed that four identifiable job-related factors accounted for a significant part of teacher work-related stress, and that the selected background variables failed to account for significant variation in job-related stress levels. The four factors which made the most substantial contribution to overall job-related stress of teachers were Role Overload, Relationships with Students, Work Load, and Relationships with Colleagues.
Test-Taking Strategy Instruction for Adolescents with Learning Disabilities [and] Reflections.

Abstract The purpose of this investigation was to design and evaluate the effects of teaching a comprehensive test‐taking strategy to adolescents with learning disabilities. The strategy, which comprised a carefully sequenced set of cognitive and overt behaviors designed for the test‐taking task, was taught to six secondary students using a seven‐stage instructional methodology including description, modeling, verbal rehearsal, initial practice, advanced practice, posttesting, and generalization. We employed a multiple‐probe across‐subjects design to assess the students' acquisition of the strategy. Increases in the students' use of the strategy corresponded to their participation in instruction. Follow‐up probes indicated that the students maintained their use of the strategy for up to 11 weeks after we terminated instruction. Permanent‐product evidence indicated that all six students applied the strategy while taking tests in selected mainstream classes, and their test grades in those classes were highe.
Capacity Sharing and Cost Allocation among Independent Firms in the Presence of Congestion

We analyze the benefit of production/service capacity sharing for a set of independent firms. Firms have the choice of either operating their own production/service facilities or investing in a facility that is shared. Facilities are modeled as queueing systems with finite service rates. Firms decide on capacity levels (the service rate) to minimize delay costs and capacity investment costs possibly subject to service level constraints. If firms decide to operate a shared facility they must also decide on a scheme for sharing the costs. We formulate the problem as a cooperative game and identify a cost allocation that is in the core. The allocation rule charges every firm the cost of capacity for which it is directly responsible, its own delay cost, and a fraction of buffer capacity cost that is consistent with its contribution to this cost. In settings where unit delay costs are private information, the cooperative capacity sharing game becomes embedded with a non-cooperative information reporting game. We show how a cost allocation rule can be designed to induce all firms to report truthfully this information. Moreover, we show that, under this allocation rule, truth telling is a dominant strategy, with each firm reporting truthfully its private information regardless of the reporting decisions of other firms.
Above-IC 300 Mhz AIN SAW oscillator

This paper reports on the fabrication of an AlN SAW resonator above a commercial CMOS technology using the SilTerra MEMS on CMOS process platform. As a proof of concept, a sustaining amplifier, placed in the same substrate, along with the SAW, has been designed in order to amplify the signal provided by the SAW. Characterization of both the SAW alone and the oscillator has been carried out.
Legal Institutions, Corporate Governance and Aggregate Activity: Theory and Evidence

This paper investigates the interaction between legal institutions and financial arrangements and the effects that these have on corporate decisions and aggregate activity, both theoretically and empirically. In the theoretical part, we develop a two country general equilibrium model with overlapping generations and asymmetric information in the credit market. We show that, at the steady state equilibrium, the country providing tighter legal enforcement has a larger aggregate output level and a bigger capital stock. Moreover, on the level of the individual firm, credit financing, capital stock and firm size are also higher where the judicial system is working better, while the leverage ratio is the same in the two countries. The driving force behind these results is that improvements in the legal protection of the creditor rights to repossess a collateral asset, increase the investment rate of return, by tempering the inefficiencies due to asymmetric information. In the empirical part, we provide evidence that confirms our theoretical predictions: firms located in Spanish or Italian judicial districts where courts are more efficient (the number of backlogs is lower, the number of concluded trials is larger or the average length of a trial is shorter) have access to a larger amount of external finance and have a larger size. We also document that Italian regions with more effective courts are endowed with a higher stock of private capital and enjoy a higher welfare level, if measured by the added value or the gross domestic product