Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Optical signatures of the tunable band gap and valley-spin coupling in silicene

We investigate the optical response of the silicene and similar materials, such as germanene, in the presence of an electrically tunable band gap for variable doping. The interplay of spin orbit coupling, due to the buckled structure of these materials, and a perpendicular electric field gives rise to a rich variety of phases: a topological or quantum spin Hall insulator, a valley-spin-polarized metal and a band insulator. We show that the dynamical conductivity should reveal signatures of these different phases which would allow for their identification along with the determination of parameters such as the spin orbit energy gap. We find an interesting feature where the electric field tuning of the band gap might be used to switch on and off the Drude intraband response. Furthermore, in the presence of spin-valley coupling, the response to circularly polarized light as a function of frequency and electric field tuning of the band gap is examined. Using right- and left-handed circular polarization it is possible to select a particular combination of spin and valley index. The frequency for this effect can be varied by tuning the band gap.
Clinical Evaluation of a Behavioral Intervention for Packing

Children with feeding disorders can exhibit a form of disordered feeding called packing. Research suggests behavioral interventions improve packing, but the literature is limited to a small number of mostly clinic-based studies. In the current home-based clinical evaluation, we assessed the effects of multiple intervention components on packing in a girl with autism and food selectivity. The results suggest texture reduction, a chaser combined with nonremoval of the spoon, and a combination of instructions and differential reinforcement with high preferred food decreased packing and improved feeding. Effects on feeding generalized to a parent and novel foods.
Antipsychotic Polypharmacy in the Treatment of Patientswith Resistant Schizophrenia: A Descriptive Study

Purpose: To evaluate the frequency and use of antipsychotics polypharmacy (APP) in patients with resistant schizophrenia in Lebanon. Methods: This is a retrospective study conducted from February through May 2016. Necessary information was collected from patients’ charts. Results: 116 patients were included. The majority of the patients were on a combination of two antipsychotics. Out of the 29 patients, 4 were on Clozapine monotherapy, 18 were on Clozapine plus one antipsychotic and 7 were on Clozapine plus two antipsychotics. Out of 90 patients who developed adverse events on antipsychotics therapy, 74 patients were on a combination. Events from APP were reported cardiovascular (11) metabolic (11), anticholinergic (57), extrapyramidal symptoms (25), and blood abnormalities (9). 3 patients were detected to have a body mass index of more than 40 and receiving combination that contains either Clozapine or Risperidone and both are associated with frequent risk for side effect on weight gain, glucose level, and lipid profile. Moreover, 4 elderly patients were receiving a high dose of haloperidol, either in a combination of two or three antipsychotics. Conclusion: The results of this study warrant more efforts to be implemented to recommend the most effective APP with least side effects.
An examination of the relationship between emotional intelligence, positive affect and character strengths and virtues.

The present study had the objective of analysing the relationship between Emotional Intelligence, Positive Affect, VIA's virtues and character strengths. Additionally, it was explored if Emotional Intelligence predicted the virtue's levels of the participants, and if Positive Affect constituted a possible mediator. To that end, different measures were used: 419 undergraduate students completed the Spanish version of the Trait Meta-Mood Scale for emotional intelligence (TMMS, Fernandez-Berrocal, Extremera & Ramos, 2004). Character strenghts and virtues were assessed with the Values in Action Inventory of Strengths (VIA-IS; Peterson, Park, & Seligman, 2005), and Positive Affect (PA) was measured with the Spanish version of the Positive and Negative Affect (NA) Schedule (PANAS; Sandin et al., 1999). Our results showed a significant positive correlation between all the VIA strengths and virtues with TMMS scales Emotional Clarity and Emotion Repair. Emotional Attention showed significant correlations for all the virtues except Temperance. Further analyses demonstrated that TMMS scales predicted VIA virtues, and Positive Affect appeared as a possible mediator in the prediction of Temperance and Humanity virtues. These results support the relationship between Emotional Intelligence and strength of character, as well as the importance of Positive Affect in this relationship.
Depression for Economists

Major depressive disorder (MDD) is one of the most prevalent mental illnesses worldwide. Existing evidence suggests that it has both economic causes and consequences, such as unemployment. However, depression has not received significant attention in the economics literature. In this paper, we present a simple model which predicts the core symptoms of depression from economic primitives, i.e. beliefs. Specifically, we show that when exogenous shocks cause an agent to have pessimistic beliefs about the returns to her effort, this agent will exhibit depressive symptoms such undereating or overeating, insomnia or hypersomnia, and a decrease in labor supply. When these effects are strong enough, they can generate a poverty trap. We present descriptive evidence that illustrates the predicted relationships.
Interplay between mass-impurity and vacancy phonon scattering effects on the thermal conductivity of doped cadmium oxide

Understanding the impact and complex interaction of thermal carrier scattering centers in functional oxide systems is critical to their progress and application. In this work, we study the interplay among electron and phonon thermal transport, mass-impurity scattering, and phonon-vacancy interactions on the thermal conductivity of cadmium oxide. We use time domain thermoreflectance to measure the thermal conductivity of a set of CdO thin films doped with Dy up to the saturation limit. Using measurements at room temperature and 80 K, our results suggest that the enhancement in thermal conductivity at low Dy concentrations is dominated by an increase in the electron mobility due to a decrease in oxygen vacancy concentration. Furthermore, we find that at intermediate doping concentrations, the subsequent decrease in thermal conductivity can be ascribed to a large reduction in phononic thermal transport due to both point defect and cation-vacancy scattering. With these results, we gain insight into the comple.
Effects of a Mindfulness Group on Latino Adolescent Students: Examining Levels of Perceived Stress, Mindfulness, Self-Compassion, and Psychological Symptoms

This pilot study evaluated the impact of mindfulness groups on 20 Latino middle school students who participated in 8-session structured groups using the Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction for Teens curriculum. The participants’ scores on the Mindful Attention Awareness Scale; the Self-Compassion Scale; the Perceived Stress Scale; and the Depression, Anxiety, and Hostility subscales of the Symptom Check List–90–R were examined at 3 points in time. There were no significant changes during the baseline period. Following participation in the groups, the adolescents’ mindfulness and self-compassion scores significantly increased, and their perceived stress and depression significantly decreased.
Requirements of the Smart Factory System: A Survey and Perspective

With the development of Industry 4.0 and the emergence of the smart factory concept, the traditional philosophy of manufacturing systems will change. The smart factory introduces changes to the factors and elements of traditional manufacturing systems and incorporates the current requirements of smart systems so that it can compete in the future. An increasing amount of research in both academia and industry is dedicated to transitioning the concept of the smart factory from theory to practice. The purpose of the current research is to highlight the perspectives that shape the smart factory and to suggest approaches and technical support to enable the realization of those perspectives. This paper fills this gap by identifying and analyzing research on smart factories. We suggest a framework to analyze existing research and investigate the elements and features of smart factory systems.
Meridional Overturning Circulation Transport Variability at 34.5°S During 2009–2017: Baroclinic and Barotropic Flows and the Dueling Influence of the Boundaries

Six years of simultaneous moored observations near the western and eastern boundaries of the South Atlantic are combined with satellite winds to produce a daily time series of the basin‐wide meridional overturning circulation (MOC) volume transport at 34.5°S. The results demonstrate that barotropic and baroclinic signals at both boundaries cause significant transport variations, and as such must be concurrently observed. The data, spanning ~20 months during 2009–2010 and ~4 years during 2013–2017, reveal a highly energetic MOC record with a temporal standard deviation of 8.3 Sv, and strong variations at time scales ranging from a few days to years (peak‐to‐peak range = 54.6 Sv). Seasonal transport variations are found to have both semiannual (baroclinic) and annual (Ekman and barotropic) timescales. Interannual MOC variations result from both barotropic and baroclinic changes, with density profile changes at the eastern boundary having the largest impact on the year‐to‐year variations.
Should Exact Index Numbers Have Standard Errors? Theory and Application to Asian Growth

In this paper we derive the standard error of a price index when both prices and tastes or technology are treated as stochastic. Changing tastes or technology are a reason for the weights in the price index to be treated as stochastic, which can interact with the stochastic prices themselves. We derive results for the constant elasticity of substitution expenditure function (with Sato-Vartia price index), and also the translog function (with Tornqvist price index), which proves to be more general and easier to implement. In our application to Asian growth, we construct standard errors on the total factor productivity (TFP) estimates of Hsieh (2002) for Singapore. We find that TFP growth is insignificantly different from zero in any year, but cumulative TFP over fifteen years is indeed positive.
Redistribution under Supermajority Rule

The median voter theorem provides a simple and unique characterization of equilibrium redistribution under majority rule. However, its analogue under super-majority rule – the core – contains infinitely many policies. We use a bargaining approach to select a unique robust policy from within the core. Our refinement is characterized by bilateral asymmetric Nash Bargaining between two players whose identities depend on the supermajority rule. The bargaining weights are determined endogenously and depend on the full income profile. We show that, under standard conditions, increasing the required super-majority will reduce the level of taxation and redistribution.
Thermal transport in organic semiconducting polymers

We report on the thermal conductivities of poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene) poly(styrenesulfonate), [6,6]-phenyl C61-butyric acid methyl ester (PCBM), poly(3-hexylthiophene-2,5-diyl) (P3HT), and P3HT:PCBM blend thin films as measured by time domain thermoreflectance. Thermal conductivities vary from 0.031±0.005 to 0.227 ± 0.014 W m−1 K−1 near room temperature and exhibit minimal temperature dependence across the range from 319 to 396 K. Thermal conductivities of blend films follow a rule of mixtures, and no percolation threshold is found. Thermal annealing of blend films has a variable effect on thermal conductivity. Finally, the thermal conductivities of P3HT films do not vary with changes in film thickness from 77 to 200 nm.
Interannual Modulations of the 50‐Day Oscillations in the Celebes Sea: Dynamics and Impact

Intense 50-day oscillations have been previously observed at the entrance of Celebes Sea, and their formation has been suggested to be a result of Rossby wave resonance where the frequency of cyclonic eddy shedding by the intruding Mindanao Current matches that of the gravest Rossby mode of the semienclosed Celebes Sea basin. Using the ocean state estimate of 1993–2016 from the Estimating the Circulation and Climate of the Ocean, Phase II, we detected strong interannual modulations in the shedding of cyclonic eddies at the Celebes Sea entrance. Active eddy sheddings occurred during 1993, 2002–2003, 2006–2010, and 2013–2015. Southward shifting of the wind-driven North Pacific tropical gyre and the concurrent strengthening of theMindanao Current southeast of the Mindanao Island in these years are found to be inducive for the generation of cyclonic eddies intruding into the Celebes Sea. Modulated by the activity of eddy sheddings, the upper ocean water mass properties in both the Celebes Sea and Makassar Strait exhibit noticeable interannual changes with less saline waters appearing in the 75to 175-m layer during the active eddy shedding years.
ournal of Statistical Mechanics: J Theory and Experiment Glassy critical points and the random ﬁeld Ising model

We consider the critical properties of points of the continuous glass transition that one can ﬁnd in liquids in the presence of constraints or in liquids in porous media. Through a one-loop analysis we show that the critical replica ﬁeld theory describing these points can be mapped in the φ 4 -random ﬁeld Ising model. We conﬁrm our analysis by studying the ﬁnite size scaling of the p-spin model deﬁned on a sparse random graph, where a fraction of the variables are frozen such that the phase transition is of a continuous kind.
Evaluating the effectiveness of select bacteria against Clostridium difficile

vii CHAPTER 1 GENERAL INTRODUCTION . 1 CHAPTER 2 LITERATURE REVIEW . 4 Clostridium difficile Infection . 4 Current Treatment Methods for Clostridium difficile infection: Antibiotics and Fecal Microbiota Transplants . 8 Probiotics as a Treatment Method for Clostridium difficile infection . 12 References . 18 CHAPTER 3 IDENTIFYING COMMONALITIES OF BACTERIA FOUND IN FECAL MICROBIOTA TRANSPLANTS . 22 Abstract . 22 Introduction . 22 Materials and Methods . 24 Results and Discussions . 26 Conclusions . 30 References . 31 Tables and Figures . 35 CHAPTER 4 EVALUATION OF CLOSTRIDIUM DIFFICILE INHIBITION BY KEFIR AND SELECT ISOLATE FROM KEFIR, LACTOBACILLUS PARACASEI . 44 Abstract . 44 Introduction . 44 Materials and Methods . 46 Results and Discussions . 49 Conclusions . 52 References . 53 Tables and Figures . 57 CHAPTER 5 GENERAL CONCLUSIONS . 60 CHAPTER 6 FUTURE RESEARCH . 61
Relationship between Depression and Low Vitamin D Level

Introduction: Depression is a devastating disease that adversely affects all aspects of one's existence. Ample evidence suggests that vitamin D has important functions in the human brain and may play a role in depressio n. Low serum vitamin D is linked to depression, Aim of the Work : To investigate the association between serum vitamin D level and depression in a sample of female patients with depressive disorder. Subjects and Methods: This study was conducted among a random sample of 50 female depressed patients, their demographic, behavioral, and health - related factors, including age, education, marital state, history of smoking, and participation in physical activity were completed. Weight and height were measured di rectly and used to calculate body mass index (weight (kg)/height (m) 2 ) , their age was ranged from 25 - 65. They also submitted to Complete medical history, Complete medical examination, Laboratory investigations: Assessment of Fasting and postprandial blood sugar, - Vitamin D serum level ; serum 25 - hydroxyvitamin D (25OHD - Total) . Complete Psychiatric interview ; with application of Beck Depression Scale for diagnosis and assessment the severity of depression . Results 22% of the sample had mild depression, 44% had moderate depression, and 34% had severe depression, there was statistical significant correlation between severity grading of depression and older age. A direct relation between severity scoring of depression and decreased physical activity, increased body mass index, smoking and hypertension. Low vitamin D level were common in the sample as a whole, with 84% of participants having level in either the deficient range 38 % (25(OH)D< 10 ng/mL) , or the insufficient range 46% (25(OH)D < 30 ng/mL). Mean vita min D level was 15.2 which was significantly correlated with severity grading of depression . Conclusion ; Our findings suggest that screening for vitamin D levels in depressed patients — and perhaps screening for depression in people with low vitamin D leve ls — might be useful.
Mask-Guided Contrastive Attention Model for Person Re-identification

Person Re-identification (ReID) is an important yet challenging task in computer vision. Due to the diverse background clutters, variations on viewpoints and body poses, it is far from solved. How to extract discriminative and robust features invariant to background clutters is the core problem. In this paper, we first introduce the binary segmentation masks to construct synthetic RGB-Mask pairs as inputs, then we design a mask-guided contrastive attention model (MGCAM) to learn features separately from the body and background regions. Moreover, we propose a novel region-level triplet loss to restrain the features learnt from different regions, i.e., pulling the features from the full image and body region close, whereas pushing the features from backgrounds away. We may be the first one to successfully introduce the binary mask into person ReID task and the first one to propose region-level contrastive learning. We evaluate the proposed method on three public datasets, including MARS, Market-1501 and CUHK03. Extensive experimental results show that the proposed method is effective and achieves the state-of-the-art results. Mask and code will be released upon request.
Empirical Examination of Users’ Adoption of the Sharing Economy in China Using an Expanded Technology Acceptance Model

With the popularity of sharing-based applications such as bicycle and car sharing, the sharing economy has attracted considerable global attention. The factors that affect users’ adoption of the sharing economy must be identified to facilitate the promotion of low-carbon lifestyles and help enterprises attract more active users. By employing the technology acceptance model (TAM) and herd behavior, this study implemented an expanded TAM and identified several factors affecting behavioral intention (BI) toward the sharing economy. A questionnaire was used to obtain the data, which were analyzed through structural equation modeling. The results revealed that perceived usefulness (PU) and perceived ease of use (PEOU) are the main factors affecting BI. Moreover, trust (TRU) was identified as a mediator of subjective norm (SN) and PEOU. Imitating others (IMI) affects BI, and SN affects TRU, PU, and PEOU. Gender moderates SN and IMI. This paper indicates that to improve users’ BI, enterprises should enhance PU, PEOU, and TRU; cooperate with organizations to enhance SN; and guide potential users to imitate others.
Formation and Subduction of North Pacific Tropical Water and Their Interannual Variability

AbstractFormation and subduction of the North Pacific Tropical Water (NPTW), its interannual variability, and its associated mechanisms were investigated by using gridded Argo-profiling float data and various surface flux data in 2003–11. The NPTW has two formation sites in the center of the North Pacific subtropical gyre, corresponding to two regional sea surface salinity maxima. Mixed layer salinity variations in these two NPTW formation sites were found to be significantly different. While seasonal variation was prominent in the eastern formation site, interannual variation was dominant in the western site. The mixed layer salinity variation in the eastern site was controlled mainly by evaporation, precipitation, and entrainment of fresher water below the mixed layer and was closely related to the seasonal variation of the mixed layer depth. In the western site, the effect of entrainment is small due to a small vertical difference in salinity across the mixed layer base, and excess evaporation over pre.
Effect of Mesoscale Eddies on Subtropical Mode Water Variability from the Kuroshio Extension System Study (KESS)

Abstract Forty-eight profiling floats have been deployed in the Kuroshio Extension (KE) region since May 2004 as part of the Kuroshio Extension System Study (KESS) project. By combining the float temperature–salinity measurements with satellite altimetry data, this study investigates the role played by mesoscale eddies in controlling the property changes in North Pacific Subtropical Mode Water (STMW). Following a 3-yr period of low eddy activity in 2002–04, the KE showed a transition to a high eddy kinetic energy state in 2005. This transition is the result of delayed oceanic response to the 2002 shift in the basin-scale surface wind forcing in connection with the Pacific decadal oscillation. The high eddy kinetic energy state of the KE is characterized by successive shedding of strong cold-core rings into the recirculation gyre, resulting from the interaction of the KE jet with the Shatsky Rise or the preexisting cutoff rings. By transporting northern-origin, high-potential-vorticity (PV) KE water into t.
TaggedAR: An RFID-Based Approach for Recognition of Multiple Tagged Objects in Augmented Reality Systems

With computer vision-based technologies, current Augmented reality (AR) systems can effectively recognize multiple objects with different visual characteristics. However, only limited degrees of distinctions can be offered among different objects with similar natural features, and inherent information about these objects cannot be effectively extracted. In this paper, we propose TaggedAR, i.e., an RFID-based approach to assist the recognition of multiple tagged objects in AR systems, by deploying additional RFID antennas to the COTS depth camera. By sufficiently exploring the correlations between the depth of field and the received RF-signal, we propose a rotate scanning-based scheme to distinguish multiple tagged objects in the stationary situation, and propose a continuous scanning-based scheme to distinguish multiple tagged human subjects in the mobile situation. By pairing the tags with the objects according to the correlations between the depth of field and RF-signals, we can accurately identify and distinguish multiple tagged objects to realize the vision of “tell me what I see” from the AR system. We have implemented a prototype system to evaluate the actual performance with case studies in a real-world environment. The experiment results show that our solution achieves an average match ratio of 91 percent in distinguishing up to dozens of tagged objects with a high deployment density.