Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Perception of academic examination stress: effects on serum leptin, cortisol, appetite and performance.

BACKGROUND Examination stress is a psychological stress that activate hypothalamic-pituitary adrenocortical (HPA) axis to increase circulating levels of glucocorticoids. The fat derived hormone leptin is also released in response to stress-inducing condition. To workout the role of leptin and cortisol in response to perceived levels of examination stress and their effects on academic performance. The present study was designed to monitor the relationship of self reported perceived levels of examination stress on serum levels of cortisol and leptin in female students going to appear in university examination. METHODS Fifty-six female undergraduate students participated in the study. Examination stress, appetite levels were assessed by a questionnaire and blood samples were collected one hour before appearing in the examination. Performance was evaluated from the marks obtained in that particular examination. RESULTS Serum cortisol levels increased with an increase in the intensity of perceived examination stress. Serum leptin levels increased only in the group under moderate stress while increases in mild and severe stress group were not significant. Mild to moderate stress enhanced performance but severe stress decreased it. CONCLUSIONS The present study shows an inverted U-shaped relationship between self reported different levels of perceived examination stress and academic performance.
Classes fonológicas e ortografia infantil

A proposta mais geral do presente trabalho é verificar em que medida aspectos das diferentes classes fonológicas estão relacionados a pontos de maior facilidade ou dificuldade na ortografia infantil. Para verificar os efeitos dessa relação, o desenvolvimento do trabalho foi orientado pelos seguintes objetivos: (1) descrever o desempenho ortográfico de crianças quanto ao registro de consoantes do Português Brasileiro; (2) verificar se o acento influencia a ocorrência de erros no interior das palavras; e (3) caracterizar o padrão da distribuição dos erros. Os dados foram extraídos de 866 textos de 76 crianças que, em 2001 e 2002, frequentavam a primeira e a segunda série do ensino fundamental de uma escola pública de um município do interior paulista. Todos os grafemas que remetiam às classes das consoantes oclusivas, fricativas e soantes, situados no ataque silábico simples, foram classificados em acertos e erros. Em seguida, os erros foram organizados conforme ocorressem em sílabas acentuadas, ou não. Posteriormente, foram distribuídos em categorias que os organizavam conforme correspondessem a omissões, substituições ortográficas não-fonológicas, substituições ortográficas fonológicas e híbridos. Como resultados, verificou-se que: (a) os acertos predominaram sobre os erros; (b) a quantidade de erros, bem como seus diferentes tipos, variaram em função da classe fonológica a que remetiam; e (c) os erros não sofreram influência direta do acento. Esses resultados apontam para uma alta estabilidade na aquisição da escrita – portanto, para o sucesso de práticas de letramento que favorecem a alfabetização. Apontam, também, para relações não-simétricas entre características das classes fonológicas e a ortografia das diferentes classes – não-simetria que chama a atenção para os diferentes estatutos que tanto erros quanto acertos podem adquirir na aquisição da ortografia.
Systematic Review of Respiratory Health Among Dairy Workers

ABSTRACT The dairy industry is changing on a global scale with larger, more efficient operations. The impact of this change on worker health and safety, specifically, associations between occupational lung disease and inhalation exposures, has yet to be reported in a comprehensive review of the scientific literature. Therefore, a three-tier process was used to identify information using a keyword search of online databases of scientific literature. Of the 147 citations reviewed, 52 met initial screening criteria, and 30 were included in this review. Dairy workers experience lung conditions such as asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, hypersensitivity pneumonitis, chronic bronchitis, and cancer. Recent pulmonary function studies have identified obstructive lung changes among dairy farm workers. The increased scale of dairy production with significant changes in technology and work practices has altered inhalation exposure patterns among dairy workers. The inhalation exposure in the dairy work environment may elicit differing inflammatory responses in relation to timing of initial exposure as well as to repeated exposures. Few studies have measured inhalation exposure while simultaneously assessing the impact of the exposure on lung function of dairy farm workers. Even fewer studies have been implemented to assess the impact of aerosol control technology to reduce inhalation exposure. Future research should evaluate worker exposure to aerosols through a task-based approach while utilizing novel methods to assess inhalation exposure and associated inflammatory responses. Finally, potential solutions should be developed and tested to reduce inhalation exposure to inflammatory agents and respiratory diseases in the dairy farm work environment.
Pseudopalavras favorecedoras para terapia fonológica

O desvio fonologico e uma desordem da fala que acomete muitas criancas durante o processo de aquisicao. A terapia fonologica visa adequar o sistema fonologico que esta alterado. Existem diversos modelos e estrategias que podem ser utilizadas em terapia. O objetivo geral deste trabalho foi analisar os ambientes favorecedores dos fonemas do PB e a partir destes criar e validar uma lista de PSP, bem como verificar o progresso terapeutico de criancas submetidas a uma nova abordagem terapeutica utilizando PR e PSP. O estudo foi realizado em tres etapas: a analise dos ambientes linguisticos dos fonemas, a criacao e validacao das pseudopalavras e a realizacao da terapia fonologica. A amostra da primeira etapa foi composta por 58 criancas com desvio fonologico e idades entre 4:00 e 8:00 anos. O corpus foi composto por 21446 palavras transcritas na Avaliacao Fonologica da Crianca (AFC). As palavras foram coletadas e analisadas em relacao as variaveis linguisticas numero de silabas, tonicidade, posicao na palavra e na silaba, contexto precedente e seguinte. Os dados foram analisados pelo programa estatistico Varbwin para cada fonema do portugues. A partir dos resultados calculou-se o peso de cada variante e por meio da medida de Quartis estabeleceram-se os valores dos intervalos de favorecimento de cada fonema. A partir dos resultados obtidos nesta etapa foi calculado o valor de favorecimento de palavras reais e foi criada uma lista de pseudopalavras. Na segunda etapa da pesquisa, a lista de pseudopalavras foi avaliada por dois grupos de juizes, ambos compostos por 5 integrantes. O primeiro grupo realizou uma selecao das melhores pseudopalavras, e o segundo grupo classificou-as em categorias. Os resultados obtidos com o julgamento do segundo grupo de juizes foram analisados por meio da Razao de Validade de Conteudo. Assim, obteve-se uma lista de pseudopalavras validadas. Na terceira etapa da pesquisa foi aplicada uma nova abordagem terapeutica em 3 sujeitos com desvio fonologico. Nesta abordagem alguns sujeitos foram tratados com as pseudopalavras e palavras reais, e outros apenas com palavras reais. As palavras-alvo utilizadas na terapia foram obtidas e tiveram seu valor de favorecimento calculado por intermedio dos dados obtidos na primeira e segunda etapas desta pesquisa. Os resultados do estudo permitiram verificar que cada fonema apresenta ambientes linguisticos proprios. As pseudopalavras sao um recurso que pode ser utilizado em terapia. Concluiu-se que a nova abordagem terapeutica com pseudopalavras e ambientes favorecedores e adequada para o tratamento do desvio fonologico.
Contamination of soils with eggs of Toxocara in a subtropical city in Argentina

Abstract Abstract A total of 475 soil samples were collected from five public park playgrounds, 17 kindergarten sandpits and 124 housing estates in Resistencia, a medium-sized subtropical-region city in Argentina, and processed by the centrifugal flotation method. Eggs of Toxocara spp. were present in five (3.4%) of the 146 habitats surveyed and in six (1.3%) of the 475 samples examined. Twenty per cent of public parks, 5.9% of kindergarten sandpits and 2.4% of housing estates were contaminated with Toxocara eggs. Depending on the number of samples examined from the three types of habitat, contamination by Toxocara was 0.7% in public park playgrounds, 1.2% in kindergarten sandpits and 1.6% in the housing estates. High prevalences of Ancylostomidae eggs were also found especially in public park playgrounds with a value of 100%, compared with 19.4% found in housing estates and 11.8% in kindergarten samples. These results suggest that in Resistencia, human infections with Toxocara are likely to occur within the limits of housing estates more so than in public parks or open spaces.
The Role of Product Involvement in Digital and Physical Reading - a Comparative Study of Customer Reviews of eBooks vs. Printed Books

eBooks offer the reader a wide range of advantages compared to printed books. They are cheaper, lighter and, based on new e-ink technology, quite as good readable as printed books. Nevertheless, in important book markets such as Europe eBook acceptance is still relatively low. One reason for this reluctance is seen in the lack of haptic attributes by reading an eBook. But even if a person decides to read an eBook, she seems to read it in a different way than she would read a printed book. Flipping through pages, feeling the reading progress or touching the spine is not possible. The aim of this study is to show that the intangibility of eBooks leads to a lower involvement with the book. We used Amazon.com customer reviews as an indicator for the individual involvement of the review’s author. We could show that reviews of eBooks were shorter, more extreme in their star rating and rated as less helpful than reviews of printed books. Taken together, our results indicate that product involvement significantly differs between readers of digital and printed books. Practical implications are derived from our findings to reduce this gap in the future and limitations for further research are
Transport de particules induit par les Dents-de-Scie dans les palsmas de tokamak

Le transport radial des particules dans les tokamaks constitue une des questions les plus cruciales pour la communaute de la fusion par con finement magnetique. En eff et, d'une part la puissance de fusion est proportionnelle au carre de la pression, d'autre part l'accumulation d'impuretes lourdes dans le coeur du plasma conduit a d'importantes pertes par rayonnement qui peuvent fi nir par causer un e ffondrement radiatif du plasma. Les dent de scie et la redistribution periodique de la temperature et de la densite de coeur qui lui est associee peuvent a ffecter signifi cativement le transport radial des electrons et des impuretes. Dans cette these, nous presentons des simulations numeriques de dents de scie utilisant un code tridimensionnel non lineaire de magnetohydrodynamique appele XTOR-2F, a n d'etudier le transport de particules pendant les dents de scie. Nous montrons que le code est capable de reproduire les structures fines de densite observees apres le crash de la dent de scie avec le diagnostic de refl ectometrie a balayage rapide sur les tokamaks Tore Supra et JET. La presence de ces structures implique la possibilite que le crash de dent de scie ne soit pas aussi effi cace que prevu pour evacuer les impuretes du coeur du plasma. Cependant, en appliquant le code aux impuretes, nous montrons que finalement le taux de redistribution est quantitativement similaire a ce qui est prevu par le modele de Kadomtsev, un resultat inattendu a priori. Nous concluons que la dent de scie est e fficace pour evacuer les impuretes du coeur du plasma.
NUTRIOSE dietary fiber supplementation improves insulin resistance and determinants of metabolic syndrome in overweight men: a double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled study.

UNLABELLED The influence of dietary fiber on determinants of metabolic syndrome is controversial. The objective of this study was to determine the effects of NUTRIOSE supplementation on insulin resistance and the determinants of metabolic syndrome in overweight men. In this double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled study, we supplemented the diets of overweight Chinese men with 250 mL of fruit juice that contained NUTRIOSE (Test group: n = 60, age = 30.4 ± 4.3 years, body mass index (BMI) = 24.5 ± 0.2 kg·m-2) or a maltodextrin placebo ( CONTROL GROUP n = 60, age = 31.6 ± 4.1 years, BMI = 24.5 ± 0.3 kg·m-2) at a dosage of 17 g twice daily for 12 weeks. Daily caloric intake, body composition, blood chemistry, and blood pressure were evaluated every 4 weeks during the trial. Test subjects consumed fewer calories per day and had greater reductions in body weight, BMI, body fat percentage, and waist circumference than Control subjects. All markers of glucose metabolism improved in the Test group, with increases in adiponectin and reductions in glucose, insulin, homeostasis model assessment-estimated insulin resistance, glycosylated hemoglobin, and glycated albumin (all p < 0.01). Similarly, all lipid measures improved with increases in high-density lipoprotein cholesterol and reductions in total cholesterol, low-density lipoprotein cholesterol, very low-density lipoprotein cholesterol, and triglycerides (all p < 0.01). No changes were observed in systolic blood pressure between groups. Most components of glucose metabolism and the lipid profile were significantly better in the Test than in the Control subjects. No adverse events or gastrointestinal complaints were reported in either group. Supplementation with NUTRIOSE for 12 weeks is well tolerated, lowers insulin resistance, and improves determinants of metabolic syndrome in overweight men.
Attitudes of Palestinian Physicians Toward Wife Abuse

The article presents results from a larger survey, which examined the attitudes and perceptions of Palestinian physicians (N = 396) toward wife abuse. The instrument was a self-administered questionnaire, with open-ended questions in which participants expressed their definitions of wife abuse, their perceptions of the causes of wife abuse, and their perceptions of appropriate interventions with wife abuse. The relevance of the sociocultural contexts of Palestinian society in particular and Arab societies in general to the participants’ responses is highlighted in the article. The limitations of the study as well as implications for theory development, future research, and professional training are discussed.
Analyzing the use of UTAUT model in explaining an online behaviour : Internet banking adoption

Technology acceptance research is a constantly developing field. The disciplines that contributed to its development are either beliefs focused or system focused. The unified theory of acceptance and use of technology (UTAUT) combined both. The current research model proposes an extension to the UTAUT that accounts for online usage behaviour. The proposed research model is tested in two countries (UK and Jordan) to investigate the viability of the unified model of technology acceptance in different boundaries as a model of individuals’ discretionary usage of Internet banking. The study also questions the roles of other determinants and moderators in this context. Results found support for the effect of the proposed extension, website quality perceptions, on usage behaviour in both countries’ models; the total effect of this extension exhibited website quality perceptions the most influential determinant of usage behaviour in both models and performance expectancy construct was second in effect. Social influence had no impact on the usage behaviour in both models, which is consistent with previous research that advocates a declining role of social influence under discretionary usage and increased experience conditions. Furthermore, the moderating role of performance expectancy previously established in TAM’s research was supported in the UTAUT model in both countries’ models. Moreover, both models reported a non-moderating effect of gender, which, is also in line with recent research findings that suggest declining gender differences under voluntary usage conditions and advanced experience. Education and income were moderators only for the UK model. Although the research findings demonstrated that both countries’ models were “configurally” similar with respect to model specifications, the models’ explanatory power for usage behaviour was dissimilar: the UK’s model explanatory power exceeded that of Jordan’s model presenting an opportunity for future research. The current research contributes to knowledge in the field of technology acceptance research. It demonstrated that website quality perceptions, as a multidimensional concept, play an important role in the online usage context. It also demonstrated that the unified model of technology acceptance established in the western culture can be transferred to a non-western culture although with varying degrees of explanation power.
Positive Youth Development Programs Targeting Students with Greater Psychosocial Needs: A Replication

The Tier 2 Program of the Project P.A. T.H. S. (Positive Adolescent Training through Holistic Social Programmes) targets adolescents with greater psychosocial needs, and the related programs were designed and implemented by school social workers. After completion of the Tier 2 Program (Secondary 1 Level), 9,931 participants in 212 schools responded to the Subjective Outcome Evaluation Form (Form C) in order to assess their views of the program, workers, and perceived effectiveness of the program. Based on the consolidated reports submitted by the agencies to the funding body, the research team aggregated the consolidated data to form a “reconstructed” overall profile on the perceptions of the program participants. Four major types of program were identified, including programs based on the adventure-based counseling approach (n = 58), programs concentrating on volunteer training and services (n = 31), programs offering both adventure-based counseling and volunteer training activities (n = 91), and other programs with different foci (n = 32). Results showed that high proportions of the respondents had positive perceptions of the programs and the workers, and over four-fifths of the respondents regarded the program as helpful to them. The present study provides support for the effectiveness of the Tier 2 Program of the Project P.A. T.H. S. in Hong Kong for the Full Implementation Phase.
Psychotropic drugs and CYP2D6 in late-life psychiatric and neurological disorders. What do we know?

ABSTRACT Introduction: Late-life psychiatric and neurological disorders (LLPND) are interesting models to understand the potential role of pharmacogenetics in drug management, since several pharmacological approaches for treating LLPND have proven to be ineffective or deleterious, thus resulting in therapeutic failures (TF) and adverse drug reactions (ADR). Common variants in the genes encoding the cytochrome P450 (CYP) enzyme system, the ‘engine room’ of drug metabolism, together with well-known age-related increased polypharmacy also contributed to the prevalence of TF and ADR observed in these patients, also rising number and time of hospital readmissions and rate of institutionalizations. Areas covered: The genetics of CYP and how it may be used for the management of the outcomes of the most frequent drugs (antidepressants, antipsychotics, anticholinesterase inhibitors, and anxiolytics) used in LLPND. Expert opinion: Tailored CYP-based pharmacological treatments of LLPND will reduce TFs and ADRs, improving patient’s life, reducing number and dosage of administered drugs, and the number and duration of hospital readmissions, saving costs for clinical management of LLPND. Pharmacokinetic interactions are less predictable than pharmacodynamic ones and several requests are made to regulatory organisms for the pharmacological management of frail older patients affected by LLPND.
Individual Earnings, International Outsourcing and Technological Change: Evidence from Italy

The aim of this paper is to evaluate empirically the relative effects of international outsourcing of materials and services and of ICT capital deepening on wage inequality between blue and white collars in the Italian manufacturing industry during the period 1985–1999. We merge an administrative data set on workers’ wages and individual characteristics with data on imported inputs from Italian input–output tables and other sector-level variables. Our results confirm that both material and service outsourcing widen the skilled/unskilled wage gap while ICT capital deepening positively affects real wages regardless of the worker's status. However, important differences emerge when the overall sample is split between traditional and innovative sectors.
DELAY IN A TANDEM QUEUEING MODEL WITH MOBILE QUEUES: AN ANALYTICAL APPROXIMATION

In this paper, we analyze the end-to-end delay performance of a tandem queueing system with mobile queues. Due to state-space explosion, there is no hope for a numerical exact analysis for the joint-queue-length distribution. For this reason, we present an analytical approximation that is based on queue-length analysis. Through extensive numerical validation, we find that the queue-length approximation exhibits excellent performance for light traffic load.
Water Feature Extraction and Change Detection Using Multitemporal Landsat Imagery

Lake Urmia is the 20th largest lake and the second largest hyper saline lake (before September 2010) in the world. It is also the largest inland body of salt water in the Middle East. Nevertheless, the lake has been in a critical situation in recent years due to decreasing surface water and increasing salinity. This study modeled the spatiotemporal changes of Lake Urmia in the period 2000–2013 using the multi-temporal Landsat 5-TM, 7-ETM+ and 8-OLI images. In doing so, the applicability of different satellite-derived indexes including Normalized Difference Water Index (NDWI), Modified NDWI (MNDWI), Normalized Difference Moisture Index (NDMI), Water Ratio Index (WRI), Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), and Automated Water Extraction Index (AWEI) were investigated for the extraction of surface water from Landsat data. Overall, the NDWI was found superior to other indexes and hence it was used to model the spatiotemporal changes of the lake. In addition, a new approach based on Principal Components of multi-temporal NDWI (NDWI-PCs) was proposed and evaluated for surface water change detection. The results indicate an intense decreasing trend in Lake Urmia surface area in the period 2000–2013, especially between 2010 and 2013 when the lake lost about one third of its surface area compared to the year 2000. The results illustrate the effectiveness of the NDWI-PCs approach for surface water change detection, especially in detecting the changes between two and three different times, simultaneously.