Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Can work-related stress and job satisfaction affect job commitment among nurses? A cross-sectional study

Background: Considering the significant role of nurses in health care and the importance of commitment in public health, the aim of this study was to examine the association between work-related stress, and job satisfaction and commitment among nurses. Methods: This cross-sectional study has been performed among 100 nurses working in a teaching hospital affiliated to Mazandaran University of Medical Sciences, northern Iran, in 2015. The participants were assessed by standard questionnaires on work-related stress, and job satisfaction and commitment. Descriptive indexes were analysed via regression and correlation. Results: The participants were aged between 25 and 45 years. In total, 85% of nurses held a bachelor degree and the rest were postgraduates. Most of the nurses (77%) had experience in their job for more than 10 years. Total score of mean job commitment showed a high score among nurses (102.9±8.9); job satisfaction also showed a mean of (261.6±27.44). Total score of work-related stress was (112.0±11.99). The results indicated that job satisfaction and work-related stress explained 54% of variance in job commitment. The overall job satisfaction (Beta = 0.471, p<0.05) and overall work stress (Beta = -0.635, p<0.102) influenced job commitment. Conclusion : The results of the present study showed that work stress and job satisfaction affects job commitment among nurses. Therefore, it is advisable to pay more attention to job satisfaction and stress in these sensitive occupations, to promote commitment and job efficacy.
Multiscale and multiphysics computational models of processes in shock wave lithotripsy

DANIEL FOVARGUE: Multiscale and multiphysics computational models of processes in shock wave lithotripsy (Under the direction of Sorin Mitran) This thesis presents two computational models applied to processes in shock wave lithotripsy. The first is a multiphysics model of the focusing of an acoustic pulse and the subsequent shock wave formation that occurs in a refracting electromagnetic lithotripter. This model solves both the linear elasticity equations and the Euler equations with a Tait equation of state in arbitrary subsets of the full computational domain. It is implemented within BEARCLAW and uses a finite-volume Riemann solver approach. The model is validated using a standard lens design and is shown to accurately predict the effects of a lens modification. This model is also extended to include a kidney stone simulant in the domain in which a simple isotropic damage law is included. The second computational model is a 3D multiscale fracture model which predicts crack formation and propagation within a kidney stone simulant by utilizing a continuum-mesoscopic interaction. The simulant included in the model is realistic in that the data representing the stone is drawn from μCT image data. At the continuum scale the linear elasticity equations are solved while incorporating an anisotropic damage variable, again using a finite-volume Riemann solver within BEARCLAW. At the mesoscale, damage accumulates based on experimentally informed probability distributions and on predefined surfaces representing a granular structure. In addition to the computational models, some experimental results
Differential dynamic programming

where u(t) is a vector of control variables. Find that function u on [0, T] which minimises F[x(T)~\. This is equivalent to the Mayer problem in the calculus of variations. With appropriate modifications it represents the control of a rocket trajectory, control of a batch chemical reactor, and some other engineering problems. The chief remaining interest in the problem, for engineering applications, lies in finding efficient computational methods. These have to be iterative numerical methods, and the most favoured start with a non-optimal u and successively improve it by hill-climbing methods. Jaoobson and Mayne present new algorithms for this purpose, which they derive from Bellman's dynamic programming. The essential novelty lies in using the idea of strong variations. Greater computational efficiency is claimed, and is supported by a number of computed examples. The generalisations which are treated include control constraints, discretetime systems, and stochastic systems. Emphasis in the book is on numerical aspects, and it does not give a broad account of optimal control. For this reason its appeal will be to specialists rather than to the majority of students of control.
A tailored occupational therapy approach to cognitive rehabilitation of chemotherapy-related cognitive side effects in breast cancer survivors: two case studies of premenopausally affected women

espanolEn este articulo se describe un programa de terapia ocupacional adaptado para rehabilitar los efectos cognitivos secundarios asociados a la quimioterapia. Se incluye una revision de la literatura de la rehabilitacion cognitiva, asi como de los ensayos farmacologicos utilizados para mejorar la cognicion en pacientes de cancer de mama. Se exponen dos estudios de caso ambulatorios de mujeres jovenes premenopausicas afectadas de cancer de mama (ambas portadoras de mutaciones del gen BRCA-1) para examinar la funcion de tecnicas de terapia ocupacional adaptadas para el desarrollo de estrategias compensatorias y para administrar rehabilitacion cognitiva. La evaluacion neuropsicologica antes y despues de la terapia ocupacional se utiliza para documentar el resultado de la terapia ocupacional adaptada para el rendimiento cognitivo. Los estudios de casos ilustran el perfil neuropsicologico de los cambios asociados a la quimioterapia y el curso de los deficits durante 7-9 meses. En los pacientes jovenes, con estudios que deben retornar a puestos de trabajo de ritmo rapido y competitivos, los efectos cognitivos secundarios postratamiento son especialmente nocivos, ya que los pacientes jovenes adultos estan construyendo sus vidas profesionales y no disponen del tiempo necesario de espera para que la trayectoria habitual de recuperacion siga su curso. EnglishThis article describes a tailored occupational therapy program to rehabilitate chemotherapy-related cognitive side effects. A literature review of cognitive rehabilitation as well as pharmacological trials used to improve cognition in breast cancer patients is included. Two outpatient case studies of young women premenopausally affected with breast cancer (both BRCA-1 gene mutation carriers) are used to discuss the role of tailored occupational therapy techniques for developing compensatory strategies and for delivering cognitive remediation. Neuropsychological evaluation pre and post occupational therapy is used to document the result of tailored occupational therapy on cognitive performance. The case studies illustrate the neuropsychological profile of chemotherapy-related cognitive changes and the course of deficits over 7-9 months. For younger, educated patients who must return to competitive, fast-paced jobs, cognitive side-effects posttreatment are especially noxious as young adult patients are building their professional lives and are not necessarily provided time to wait for the usual trajectory of recovery to take its course.
Qatar Obesity Reduction Study (QORS): Report on a Pilot School-based Nutrition Education Campaign in Qatar

Objective: As schools have continuous and intensive contact during the first two decades of a child’s life, school-based interventions can instil healthy lifestyle behaviors. This study evaluated the pilot of Qatar’s first school-based nutrition education campaign. Methods: Qatar Obesity Reduction Study (QORS) was an observational study examining a pilot campaign’s impact on children’s eating habits (self-reported questionnaire), physical activity levels (accelerometry), and body composition (bioimpedance) across two time periods (beginning of school term 2 and end of term 3 of the school year). Results: Baseline data were provided by 335 elementary school students, and 83.3% were followed up (n=278). The self-reported frequency of rice consumption decreased from baseline to follow-up (P<0.001). Although not statistically significant, fruit intake (a lot) increased by almost 6% post-intervention compared to baseline and vegetable intake (a lot) increased by 3.5%. Similarly, the frequency of eating ‘a lot’ of unhealthy food items, such as biscuits and cakes/muffins, reduced, but not significantly. Only the percentage of time spent performing light activity increased post-intervention (P<0.001). The prevalence of obesity and overweight, and BMI z scores did not change significantly. Conclusion: We observed some positive changes in eating habits after a short nutrition education campaign in an elementary school in Qatar, a country with a high prevalence of childhood obesity. The findings are supportive for the extension of the campaign to other schools with further evaluation. A school-based nutrition education campaign could have a positive impact on choices of food consumed.
First Time in CBI

This study aimed at sharing experience and insights concerning how to implement Content-Based Instruction (CBI) courses for college-level English as a Foreign Language (EFL) learners, in particular with graduate school students who did not have any experience with a CBI course before. Through examining what and how the first time CBI course takers perceived of the CBI course and evaluated their learning as a case study of action research employing the framework of formative assessment (FA), the study showed that, regardless of L2 proficiency level, the graduate school learners acknowledged the experience with the CBI course through which they could be confident enough to challenge themselves to acquire necessary language and academic skills. The study suggested that comprehension-first approach, clear sense of purpose of learning, induced participation supported by the expected sequence of the lesson flow, required motivation, and encouraging atmosphere of the classroom environment fostered by personal rapport with the instructor may be vital to successful implementation of CBI courses. It also discussed the role of L1 use: In what way it can benefit those who have to deal with the grade-appropriate level L2 language input even before reaching an advanced level of proficiency in the L2.
Academic Achievement, Academic Self-Concept, and Academic Motivation of Immigrant Adolescents in the Greater Toronto Area Secondary Schools

The pattern of immigration in the last few decades coupled with the tendency for ethnic differences in educational attainment that persist over subsequent immigrant generations has led to an increasing gap in academic achievement between immigrant children, who have received little or none of their education in Canada, and nonimmigrant children, who have received all of their education in Canada. Educators tend to stress the socioeconomic and cultural factors affecting immigrant adolescents' academic achievement to the exclusion of the psychological factors that are also at play in the lives of immigrant adolescents. Therefore, this study examined the impact of psychological indicators, such as academic self-concept and academic motivation, on the academic achievement of immigrant and nonimmigrant adolescents in the Greater Toronto Area secondary schools. The immigrant adolescents in this study performed as well as their nonimmigrant counterparts in English and overall school performance. The immigrant adolescents outperformed their nonimmigrant counterparts in mathematics. The immigrant adolescents had higher levels of math and school self-concepts as well as higher intrinsic and extrinsic motivation than their nonimmigrant counterparts. Math self-concept was the only predictor of math GPA for both immigrant and nonimmigrant adolescents. However, both verbal self-concept and school self-concept were the best predictors of English GPA for both immigrant and nonimmigrant adolescents. While school self-concept was the only predictor of overall GPA for nonimmigrant adolescents, the additional factors of math self-concept and extrinsic motivation-external regulation were the best predictors for immigrant adolescents.
Eikonal Approach to N=4 SYM Regge Amplitudes in the AdS/CFT Correspondence

The high-energy behavior of N = 4 SYM elastic amplitudes at strong coupling is studied by means of the AdS/CFT correspondence. We consider the eikonal method proposed by Janik and one of the authors, where the relevant minimal surface is a “generalized helicoid” in hyperbolic space (“Euclidean AdS5”), from which the physical amplitude is obtained after an appropriate analytic continuation. We then compare our results with those obtained, using a minimal surface in AdS5 momentum space, by Alday and Maldacena for gluon-gluon scattering, and by Barnes and Vaman for quark-quark scattering (“Alday-Maldacena approach”). Exploiting a conformal transformation, we show that the eikonal amplitudes are dominated by the Euclidean version of the cusp contribution found in the Alday-Maldacena approach. The amplitudes in the two approaches are of Regge type at high-energy and with the same logarithmic Regge trajectory independently of the kind of colliding particles, in agreement with the expected universality of Regge trajectories.
Market entry decisions of US small and medium‐sized software firms

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate market entry decisions of the US software SMEs by analyzing the impact of the most obvious factors (cultural distance, geographical distance, country risk, and three market size variables) in traditional internationalization theories to target country selection. By investigating the influence of these commonly cited macro‐level factors, this study proposes the best indicator for market entry decisions of the US small and medium‐sized software firms.Design/methodology/approach – This study uses a quantitative research approach applied to a sample of 100 US small and medium‐sized software firms.Findings – Empirical findings in this study indicate that vertical (software) market size in a target country is the best single indicator for market entry decision and in themselves explain 63 percent of market entries. Thus, the findings in this study suggest that the vertical market size gives a better explanation for market entry decisions of software SMEs tha.
Students' views about pedagogical competence of lecturers

The purpose of this study is to examine the students’ views about faculty members’ pedagogical proficiencies and to determine if these views differ in terms of selected variables. The sample of the study is composed of 792 third and fourth year university students and the population of the study involves students at Faculties of Education, Engineering, Theology, and Economics and Administrative Sciences of a university located in Turkey’s Black Sea Region. The research data were collected by Pedagogical Competences Scale. Results revealed that students think most of the lecturers are sufficient in Democratic Attitude; however, few of them found to be sufficient in Course Process, and Measurement and Evaluation. While there were differences in Democratic Attitude and Measurement Assessment and Evaluation between male and female students, in other proficiencies no significant differences were observed in terms of students’ gender. The views of the students differed in all four factors in terms of faculties and grades. However, their views in none of the four dimensions differed significantly according to the attendance variable.
WP-AD 2011-20 Multi-product Firms and Business Cycle Dynamics

Recent empirical evidence provided by Bernard et al. (2010) and Broda and Weinstein (2010) shows that a significant share of product creation and destruction in U.S. industries occurs within existing firms and accounts for a relevant share of aggregate output. In the present paper, and consistently with this evidence, we relax the standard assumption of mono-product firms that is typically made in dynamic general equilibrium models. Building on the work of Jaimovich and Floetotto (2008), we develop an RBC model with multi-product firms and endogenous markups to assess the implications of the intra-firm extensive margin on business cycle fluctuations. In this environment, the procyclicality of product creation emerges as a consequence of strategic interactions among firms. Because of the proliferation effect induced by changes in product scope, our model embodies a quantitatively important magnification mechanism of technology shocks.
Teaching Hybrid Courses across Disciplines: Effectively Combining Traditional Learning and e-Learning Pedagogies

This paper examines the role and effectiveness of hybrid course offerings within the higher education context. Providing a review of the growing body of academic literature on the effectiveness and learning outcomes of the hybrid model, this paper also provides a look at two distinct hybrid courses; one lower-division college algebra course and one upper-division human resource management course. The strengths and weaknesses of these hybrid courses are assessed and discussed alongside a brief proposal for continued academic research examining hybrid course best practices.
Title: The test – retest reliability of four functional mobility tests in apparently healthy 1 adults

BACKGROUND: Simple field tests are often used to assess functional mobility in 21 clinical settings. Despite having many benefits, these tests are susceptible to 22 measurement error and individual variation. 23 OBJECTIVES: To examine the test-retest and absolute reliability of timed up and go 24 test (TUG), five times sit-to-stand (FTSTS), stair climb test (SCT) and 6 minute walk 25 (6MWT). 26 METHODS: Over two sessions, thirty-five subjects (30-74 years), repeated the five 27 tests approximately four weeks apart. Test-retest reliability (intraclass correlations 28 [ICC]) and absolute reliability (95% limit of agreements [95% LOA]; standard error of 29 measurement [SEM] and minimum detectable change [MDC]) were calculated. 30 RESULTS: All five tests had high test-retest reliability (ICC > 0.95) although 31 significant between session changes were present for the TUG and FTSTS (p < 0.05). 32 FTSTS displayed the greatest measurement error whilst 95% LOA was the most 33 conservative measure of absolute reliability. CONCLUSIONS: The results of this study indicate that the TUG, FTSTS, SCT and 35 6MWT are reliable when performed four weeks apart. Furthermore, the inclusion of 36 SEM, MDC and 95% LOA provides reference values to aid in identifying changes over 37 time above those of measurement error and individual variation.
Changes in the hydrophysical properties of peat soils under anthropogenic evolution

Thechanges in the water characteristics of peat soils under anthropogenic evolution was investigated. It was stated that the transformation of organic formations as a result of drainage and agricultural utilization leads to changes in their physical pro- perties, i.e., it causes the increase of bulk density and ash content and the decrease of total porosity as well as the quantity of macro- and micropores. Water retention of drained peat soils which have reached a more advanced stage of decomposition is lower and the loss of water with the increase of the water potential is smaller. Anthropogenic evolution does not cause significant changes of effective useful retention (EUR) in the investigated organic soils. Saturated hydraulic conductivity is higher for deeper peat layers which have a small degree of decomposition than for upper layers where the decomposition reaches a higher level. Anthropogenic evolution of peat soils leads to the considerable increase of unsa- turated hydraulic conductivity at low soil water potentials or in the whole range of soil water potentials, only in the 25% of cases of the investigated organic soils is this relationship reversed. K e y w o r d s: peat soils, anthropogenic evolution, water retention, hydraulic conductivity
Positive Selection of BH 14680 in Bartonella

Bacteria in the genus of Bartonella have been used as an attractive model to study the pathogenicity and host adaptation since Bartonella species facultatively colonize a wide range of animal hosts. Bartonella henselae, a representative species of the genus, is a zoonotic intracellular pathogen that naturally infects cats but incidentally infects humans. Variable gene content in the B. henselae population is important in the establishment of the long-term infection in genetically different natural host. In this study, the complete genomes of B. henselae IC11 and B. henselae UGA10 were determined by 454 sequencing. I have used comparative genomics of three B. henselae strains (Houston1, IC11 and UGA10) to screen highly variable genes in the purpose of finding new pathogenicity-related genes. BH14680 was chosen as a research target since its nucleotide identity is significantly lower (~97.1%) than the median level among three B. henselae strains. BH14680 was mainly found in three families of Alphaproteobacteria, including Rhizobiales, Rhodobacterales and Rhodospirillales. The phylogenetic tree of BH14680 indicated that the gene was vertically inherited in Alphaproteobacteria species. TMHMM predicted that the first domain of BH14680 was outside of the bacteria membrane, whereas the second domain contained four transmembrane helices. Alignment analysis of the amino acid sequence showed notable segmental difference in sequence conservation. The domain coding extracellular component diverged much more than the transmembrane domain. In Bartonella, positive selection was detected in the extracellular domain, whereas negative selection was detect in the conserved transmembrane domain. The BH14680 locus of 55 strains of B. henselae, Bartonella quintana and Bartonella grahamii was sequenced to investigate the selective pressure at the strain level. Positive selection was detected in the strains of B. henselae and B. grahamii, and recombination was detected only in B. henselae strains. BH14680 provides a good opportunity to study how different selection modified the protein under the persistent pressure of host-pathogen interactions. I suggest that the extracellular domain have evolved under positive selection to match a divergent set of host cell surface proteins, or escape from the host immune response, and that the transmembrane domain has evolved under negative selection for the functional requirement of anchoring the protein on the surface of the bacteria membrane. The study of BH14680 can be used as an excellent example to show the effects of directional driving forces (positive selection) in the evolutionary process.
CEO overconfidence , and share buyback completion rates

An open market share buyback is not a firm commitment, and there is limited evidence on whether firms repurchase the intended shares. Unlike US studies, we use data from unique UK regulatory and disclosure environment that allows to accurately measure the share buyback completion rates. We show that information disclosure and CEO overconfidence are significant determinants of the share buyback completion rate. In addition, we find that large and widely held firms that conduct subsequent buyback programs and have a past buyback completion reputation exhibit higher completion rates. Finally, we assess whether other CEO characteristics affect buyback completion rates and find that firms with senior CEOs who hold external directorships and have a longer tenure as CEO are more likely to complete the buyback programs. In sum, our results suggest there is a clear relationship between information disclosure, CEO overconfidence, and buyback completion rates. JEL classification: G14; G30; G32; G35; M40.