Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Comparison of the Effects of Communication and Conflict Resolution Skills Training on Mental Health

This study examined the effects of communication and conflict resolution skills training on mental health among Iranian couples based on the PREPARE/ENRICH program. In this study, mental health was measured by General Health Questionnaires (GHQ28). The study adopted a pre- and post-control group design in emphasizing the effects of communication training and conflict resolution skills on mental health. The participants in this research consisted of couples who were referred to the researcher by counseling center. The referrals were done for about two months in 2009. Their problems included marital problems and marital conflicts, commonly categorized as marital dissatisfaction, which were identified after a formal interview, testing and screening. In order to assign the experimental and control groups, purposive random sampling was employed. One hundred and eight participants comprised of 54 married couples were divided equally between control and experimental groups and the training sessions lasted for eight weeks. In this training program, researchers focused on the dependent variable of mental health, while communication and conflict resolution skills training were the independent variables. Specifically, the t-test statistical analysis was employed to test for the potential significant differences in couples’ scores of mental health between (i) the pre- and post-training scores for couples of the experimental group; and (ii) between the post-training scores for the couples of the two groups. The results indicated that teaching communication and conflict resolution skills had significant positive effects on the mental health scores obtained from the studied couples.
The Perception of Fixed Orthodontic Treatment and Components amongst a Sample of Specialist Orthodontists in Baghdad City

Background: Fixed appliances (braces) remain the most popular type of orthodontic appliance and are able to produce very precise tooth movement to achieve ideal results.The aim of the current studywas to investigate the trends in using fixed orthodontic appliance components and preference among a sample of specialist orthodontists living in Baghdad city. Subjects and Methods: A questionnaire was developed and distributed to 69 orthodontist specialists with postgraduate qualifications; PhD degree, Master degree, Diploma and Certificate issued by the Ministry of Health. Results: The response rate was 58% and the majority of the participants used 0.022 of an inch bracket's slot size, while few of them especially those with more than 15 years' experience seem to prefer a 0.018 of an inch. Molar bands were preferred by 55% of the participants, mainly the female orthodontists, whereas there is a high correlation found between specialists using light cure adhesives (55%) and molar tubes. Although straight wire technique was claimed to be the dominated treatment approach, only 27% of those used heavy gauge stainless steel wires that is compatible with straight wire technique. Conclusion: Most of the participant orthodontists used 0.022 of an inch preadjusted brackets bonded using standard etching technique. it is important to find that the concept of straight wire technique is not fully embraced. Raising the awareness of the orthodontist through continuing program development and training courses is required.
Rapid development of anoxic niches in supraglacial ecosystems

ABSTRACT Microorganisms play a significant role in changing the physical properties of the surface of the Greenland Ice Sheet. Cryoconite holes are a hotspot for this microbial activity, yet little is known about the REDOX conditions that develop within them. In this study, we used oxygen microelectrodes and microoptodes to measure for anoxic conditions at the microscale, for the first time revealing a potential niche for anaerobic microorganisms and anaerobic processes. The development of an anoxic zone 2 mm deep within a 6 mm-thick layer of cryoconite sediment was observed within an hour of disturbance, showing rapid acclimation to changing physical conditions. Long-term (half year) incubations of cryoconite material showed a peak of oxygen production and consumption after forty days and reached a low-activity, steady state by day 116, with a persisting anoxic zone beginning between 2 mm and 4 mm deep. Anaerobic microorganisms, which have received little attention to date, should therefore be considered an important component of the cryoconite ecosystem. We discuss the possible dynamics of oxygen concentrations in the supraglacial system and infer that anoxic zones are an important factor in the development of cryoconite sediment communities.
Expression of MACC 1 , HGF and Met gene in the prognosis of colorectal cancer patients with liver metastasis

Colorectal cancer patients are predisposed for liver metastasis after surgery. Metastasis associated factor 1 of colorectal carcinoma (MACC1), hepatocellular growth factor (HGF) and Met signal pathway are all correlated with occurrence of colorectal carcinoma. This study thus examined expressions of MACC1, HGF and Met expression, to analyze their correlation with metastasis and prognosis. A total of 50 patients diagnosed with liver metastatic colorectal carcinoma in our hospital were recruited. 30 colorectal carcinoma patients without metastasis plus 30 benign tumor patients were employed as control. ELISA was employed to measure serum MACC1, HGF and Met contents, while immunohistochemistry (IHC) staining was employed to detect expression of MACC1, HGF and Met, whose correlation with clinical features was analyzed. Metastatic group had significantly elevated MACC1, HGF and Met expression than un-metastatic group (P<0.05), which had higher levels than benign tumors (P<0.05). MACC1, HGF and Met levels were correlated with differentiation grade, number of primary lesion, size, number of liver metastatic lesions, distal metastasis, radio-/chemo-therapy and survival time (P<0.05). Colorectal cancer patients with liver metastasis had high expression of MACC1, HGF and Met, which are related with differentiation grade, number of primary lesions, size, liver metastatic lesion number, distal metastasis, chemo-/radio-therapy and survival times.
New Marine ΔR Values for the South Pacific Subtropical Gyre Region

This paper presents 31 new ΔR results of known-age, pre-AD 1950 shells from the South Pacific subtropical gyre region, spanning from the Tuamotu Archipelago in the east to New Caledonia in the west. This doubles the number of available ΔR values for the Oceania region. These values indicate that the regional offset (ΔR) from the modeled radiocarbon marine age has remained relatively constant over the last 100 yr prior to 1950. Variation from the norm can be attributed to various influences including localized upwelling around islands, the presence of a hardwater effect, direct ingestion of old carbon by the live shellfish, or enhanced exchange with atmospheric CO2 as a consequence of photosynthetic activity or increased aeration.
Medical Waste Management Practices in North Eastern Free State, South Africa

Abstract This paper presents a study undertaken to investigate the state of medical waste management practices in different hospitals in the north eastern Free State Province, South Africa. A random sample of ten (10) hospitals was selected. A stratified random sample of 138 staff members spread across the ten medical facilities was selected and face-to-face interviews were conducted. Observation of operations was carried out over a period of six months. Data collection through observation and interviews covered waste generation, storage, handling, transportation, treatment and management procedures. Data analysis made use of SPSS to generate descriptive statistics, correlations and hypothesis testing. The findings reveal that medical personnel do not treat medical waste as specified in official guidelines, there is no formal training for personnel, medical waste is not a key priority, low levels of environmental awareness, inappropriate treatment of waste at some sites, and inadequate budget allocations for medical waste management. These findings indicate that there is an urgent need for addressing issues of awareness for managers, better on-the job training for personnel, better systems for on-ward conveyance of waste from facilities to official medical waste treatment plants, an up-grade of existing incinerators and the enforcement of procedures for waste data collection.
Influence of Project Characteristics on Completion of Construction Projects in Public Secondary Schools in Bungoma County, Kenya

The focus of this paper was to investigate influence of project characteristics on completion of construction projects in public secondary schools in Bungoma County, Kenya. Purposive sampling was adopted in choice of study respondents (Principals and Chairpersons of Parent Teachers Association) who were subjected to Stratified sampling to ensure homogeneity of the selected sample in ensuring that samples are drawn from each region encompassed in the target population, then followed by simple random sampling technique from each region. With a sample size of 461 respondents (n=461), the study used questionnaire and interview schedules as primary data collection instruments. Both descriptive and inferential statistics were used in data analysis using SPSS version 21 software. Simple regression analysis was used to determine the direction and strength of the relationship between project characteristics and completion of construction projects in public secondary schools in Bungoma County, Kenya. The correlation coefficient (R) or the beta value β1 of 0.627≠0 at p=0.00 indicated that the hypothesis was accepted. The coefficient of determination, R-square of 0.393 implied that 39.3% of the variance in completion of construction projects was explained by project characteristics. From the results, there exists a statistically significant positive influence of project characteristics on completion of construction projects in public secondary schools. This implies project characteristics as a factor needs to be considered to guarantee the success of the completion of construction projects. The current study was done in public secondary schools in Bungoma County. Future studies are encouraged to be done in both private and public secondary schools in the whole country and compare the results. In addition, the research concentrated on education sector. Future research is encouraged to cover other sectors and compare the findings. The findings are of importance to the Ministry of Education in Kenya and other interested parties in future.
Determining the effectiveness of Candida guilliermondii in the biological control of Rhizopus stolonifer in postharvest tomatoes

Post-harvest losses in tomato crops can be accredited to a number of causes, which include biological causes that produce physiological deterioration; infection caused by diseases and pests that cause rotting. In this study, we assayed, in vitro and in vivo, the yeast Candida guilliermondii to determine its effectiveness as a biocontrol to reduce the rotting produced by Rhizopus stolonifer on tomatoes (Lycopersicon esculentum). The antagonistic effect was tested using a yeast biomass suspension; gas chromatography and a mass selective detector were used to identify its metabolites. According to the in vitro test, the only phase with an antagonistic response against Rhizopus stolonifer was the unfiltered water phase. In the in vivo tests, the biomass of Candida guilliermondii presented the highest percentage of protection of the tomato (87 %) compared with the unfiltered aqueous phase and the unconcentrated organic phase, which reached only 77 and 80 % respectively. These results are essential to avoid economic losses caused by fungi and to increase the shelf life of tomatoes improving the distribution of the product and preventing postharvest losses in this time of food crises, especially in developing countries.
Physical limitations on broadband scattering by heterogeneous obstacles

In this paper, new physical limitations on the extinction cross section and broadband scattering are investigated. A measure of broadband scattering in terms of the integrated extinction is derived for a large class of scatterers based on the holomorphic properties of the forward scattering dyadic. Closed-form expressions of the integrated extinction are given for the homogeneous ellipsoids, and theoretical bounds are discussed for arbitrary heterogeneous scatterers. Finally, the theoretical results are illustrated by numerical computations for a series of generic scatterers.
Instability, turbulence, and enhanced transport in accretion disks

Recent years have witnessed dramatic progress in our understanding of how turbulence arises and transports angular momentum in astrophysical accretion disks. The key conceptual point has its origins in work dating from the 1950s, but its implications have been fully understood only in the last several years: the combination of a subthermal magnetic field (any nonpathological configuration will do) and outwardly decreasing differential rotation rapidly generates magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) turbulence via a remarkably simple linear instability. The result is a greatly enhanced effective viscosity, the origin of which had been a long-standing problem. The MHD nature of disk turbulence has linked two broad domains of magnetized fluid research: accretion theory and dynamos. The understanding that weak magnetic fields are not merely passively acted upon by turbulence, but actively generate it, means that the assumptions of classical dynamo theory break down in disks. Paralleling the new conceptual understanding has been the development of powerful numerical MHD codes. These have taught us that disks truly are turbulent, transporting angular momentum at greatly enhanced rates. We have also learned, however, that not all forms of disk turbulence do this. Purely hydrodynamic turbulence, when it is imposed, simply causes fluctuations without a significant increase in transport. The interplay between numerical simulation and analytic arguments has been particularly fruitful in accretion disk theory and is a major focus of this article. The authors conclude with a summary of what is now known of disk turbulence and mention some knotty outstanding questions (e.g., what is the physics behind nonlinear field saturation? ) for which we may soon begin to develop answers. [S0034-6861(98)00501-7]
Cover crops use in Midwestern US agriculture: perceived benefits and net returns

Abstract Despite being generally accepted as a promising conservation practice to reduce nitrate pollution and promote soil sustainability, cover crop adoption in Midwestern US agriculture is low. Based on focus groups, surveys and partial budgets, we calculated the annual net returns to cover crop use for farmers in Illinois, Iowa and Minnesota; and elicited farmers’ perceptions about the pros and cons of incorporating cover crops to their row cropping systems. The novelty of our methodology resides in comparing each farmer's practices in the portion of their cropping system with cover crops (typically small), against their practices in the other portion of their cropping system without cover crops. The resulting comparisons, accounting for farmer heterogeneity, are more robust than the typical effects calculated by comparing indicators across cover crop users and unrelated non-adopters. Our results highlight the complicated nature of integrating cover crops into the crop production system and show that cover crops affect whole farm profitability through several channels besides establishment and termination costs. Despite farmers’ positive perceptions about cover crops and the availability of cost-share programs, calculated annual net returns to cover crops use were negative for most participants.
SDSS-IV/MaNGA: SPECTROPHOTOMETRIC CALIBRATION TECHNIQUE

Mapping Nearby Galaxies at Apache Point Observatory (MaNGA), one of three core programs in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey-IV, is an integral-field spectroscopic survey of roughly 10,000 nearby galaxies. It employs dithered observations using 17 hexagonal bundles of 2″ fibers to obtain resolved spectroscopy over a wide wavelength range of 3600–10300 Å. To map the internal variations within each galaxy, we need to perform accurate spectral surface photometry, which is to calibrate the specific intensity at every spatial location sampled by each individual aperture element of the integral field unit. The calibration must correct only for the flux loss due to atmospheric throughput and the instrument response, but not for losses due to the finite geometry of the fiber aperture. This requires the use of standard star measurements to strictly separate these two flux loss factors (throughput versus geometry), a difficult challenge with standard single-fiber spectroscopy techniques due to various practical limitations. Therefore, we developed a technique for spectral surface photometry using multiple small fiber-bundles targeting standard stars simultaneously with galaxy observations. We discuss the principles of our approach and how they compare to previous efforts, and we demonstrate the precision and accuracy achieved. MaNGA's relative calibration between the wavelengths of Hα and Hβ has an rms of 1.7%, while that between [N ii] λ6583 and [O ii] λ3727 has an rms of 4.7%. Using extinction-corrected star formation rates and gas-phase metallicities as an illustration, this level of precision guarantees that flux calibration errors will be sub-dominant when estimating these quantities. The absolute calibration is better than 5% for more than 89% of MaNGA's wavelength range.
Role and clinical significance of miRNA-381 in prostate cancer

Objective: This study was to investigate the role and mechanism of miRNA-381 in prostate cancer. Methods: Totally 51 prostate cancer patients diagnosed and operated in our hospital from February 2013 to August 2015 were enrolled. And, 39 healthy volunteers were set as controls. Cancer tissues, the corresponding peritumoral tissues and blood specimens were collected. Quantitative RT-PCR was applied to detect the changes of COX-2 mRNA and miRNA-381 expression. ELISA was applied to detect COX-2 protein expression in blood. Dual luciferase reporter assay was applied to verify whether miRNA-381 could direct bind to COX-2 mRNA. MTT assay was applied to detect the cell proliferation of agomiR-381 and siRNA transfected LNCaP human prostate cells. Western Blot was applied to detect the changes of COX-2 protein expression in agomiR-381 transfected LNCaP human prostate cells. Results: The expressions of COX-2 mRNA and protein were significantly up-regulated in cancer tissues and blood in prostate cancer patients, while the relative expression of miRNA-381 was significantly down-regulated. Up-regulated expression of miRNA-381 resulted in significantly down-regulated expression of COX-2 mRNA and protein and decreased cell proliferation rate of LNCaP cells. Dual luciferase reporter showed that miRNA-381 regulated the expression of COX-2 by binding to the 3’-UTR. The cell proliferation rate of LNCaP cells were also decreased after siRNA silencing COX-2 expression. Conclusion: The expression of COX-2 was significantly up-regulated in cancer tissues and blood in prostate cancer patients and this increase may be related to the down-regulated expression of miRNA-381. Our data suggests that miRNA-381 may regulate cell proliferation and expression of related proteins in prostate cancer cells through COX-2.
Experimental verification of spherical-wave effect on the AVO response and implications for three-term inversion

Spherical-wave offset-dependent reflectivity is investigated by measuring ultrasonic reflection amplitudes from a water/Plexiglas interface. The experimental results show substantial deviation of the measured amplitudes from the plane-wave reflection coefficients at large angles. However, full-wave numerical simulations of the point source reflection response using the reflectivity algorithm show excellent agreement with the measurements, demonstrating that the deviation from the plane-wave response is caused by the wavefront curvature. To analyze the effect of wavefront curvature on elastic inversion, we simulate the spherical-wave reflectivity at different frequencies and invert for elastic parameters by least-square fitting of the plane-wave (Zoeppritz) solution. The results show that the two-parameter inversion based on the intercept and gradient is robust, although estimation of three parameters ( VP , VS , and density) that use the curvature of the offset variation with angle (AVA) response is prone.
Effect of lactic acid source on properties of silver carp restructured with alginate gel

Silver carp, Hypophthalmichthys molitrix, is an invasive species in the United States which can be used to make value-added products. The objective of this study is to compare different acidification methods’ effect on developing silver carp patties by using alginate as a cold setting binder. There were four treatments: lactic acid bacteria (LAB) fermentation (F), control (C), encapsulated lactic acid (En) and powdered lactic acid (LA). Fish were mixed with the same amount of sodium alginate (3.6%), calcium carbonate (1.2%) and dextrose (3%). The F treatment was inoculated with log5/g fish Lactobacillus. curvatus in sterile peptone water, the C treatment had sterile peptone water as a blank control. Then the two treatments were incubated at 37 o C for 30 hours. After obtaining the level of different lactic acid amounts (LD) from the F and C treatments, the LD was applied to En and LA and then they underwent fermentation for 30 hours. Bacteria count, pH and lactic acid concentrations were determined at 0h, 6h, 10h, 18h, 25h and 30h for every treatment. After cooking, the puncture test and texture profile analysis were conducted to test the internal bindings of the four treatments. Results showed that F had the lowest pH, highest level of lactic
A New Early Silurian Prioniodontid Conodont with Three P Elements from Iran and Associated Species

A prioniodontid conodont Arianagnathus jafariani gen. et sp. nov. from the late Llandovery part of the Niur Formation of the Derenjal Mountains, East Central Iran had an apparatus bearing 3 pairs of P elements. Pa elements of its apparatus are closest to those of Icriodella sandersi (Llandovery—Wenlock boundary interval, Wales, Great Britain) in the weak development of an icrion. Due to the small sample size not all S-elements have been identified but those present are similar to those described in the Icriodella and Icriognathus apparatuses. Based on similarities with previously described apparatus Notiodella we suggest that Arianagnathus jafariani gen. et sp. nov. probably had an apparatus of 17 elements. Arianagnathus is therefore an important additional example that has potential for aiding the future revision of the palaeobiological arrangement of elements within and the phylogeny of conodont apparatuses with 3 P elements, one of which is icrion bearing. The completely known apparatus of associated Ozarkodina derenjalensis sp. nov. shows similarity to some unnamed Ozarkodina from Wales, Great Britain. Many of the conodonts found in the Llandovery part of the studied section are cosmopolitan; the new conodont species seem to have their possible closest relatives in Avalonia.