Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
PSYCHOLOGIST SELF-DISCLOSURE WITH COURT-MANDATED AND SELF-REFERRED CLIENTS

Therapist self-disclosure is a topic that continues to generate professional discourse in research literature. However, no literature has considered how therapists use selfdisclosure with clients who are court-mandated into therapy. The goals of this research were to: 1) identify differences in psychologists’ responses on the Self-Disclosure Questionnaire – Revised (SDQ – R) between self-referred and court-mandated clients; 2) determine whether psychologists using self-disclosure with court-mandated clients endorse similar justifications for using self-disclosure as documented in the literature; 3) understand how psychologists’ years of experience influence self-disclosure with courtmandated clients; and 4) observe whether psychologists who had graduate training/experience with self-disclosure respond differently on the SDQ – R compared with psychologists who had little or no graduate training on self-disclosure. This study found: 1) psychologists were less likely to use self-disclosure with court-mandated clients compared with self-referred clients; 2) psychologists are more likely to use selfdisclosure with court-mandated clients diagnosed with acute, non-chronic mental health diagnoses compared with psychotic or personality disorders; 3) psychologists use similar justifications for self-disclosing with both self-referred and court-mandated clients; 4) self-disclosure does not increase the longer a psychologist has been in practice; and 5) although over half the participants reported receiving information about self-disclosure during graduate training, most psychologists do not generally use self-disclosure.
Effect of a nitrification inhibitor ( DMPP ) on nitrate leaching and maize yield during two growing seasons

The aim of this experiment was to evaluate the effects of adding DMPP (3,4-dimethylpyrazole phosphate) to urea on nitrate leaching and maize (Zea mays L.) yield over two growing seasons. Two nitrogen (N) levels (optimum and excessive) were applied to an irrigated maize crop under Mediterranean conditions. There were five treatments: optimal N (as urea) and the same dose plus DMPP; optimal N (as urea plus 40 kg N ha) and the same N dose plus DMPP; and a control with no added N fertilizer. The maize was irrigated with an overhead mobile-line sprinkler system. EnviroSCAN probes were used to determine drainage and evapotranspiration and ceramic cups to obtain soil solution samples at a soil depth of 1.4 m. The use of DMPP with urea reduced nitrate leaching. No phytotoxic effects were observed due to the DMPP. There were no differences in grain yield between treatments with and without DMPP at the same rate of N. When DMPP was applied, sodium was displaced from the soil exchange complex due to increased NH4 concentration, which also increased the electrical conductivity of soil in the drainage zone. Additional key words: aquifer pollution, control nitrate leaching, irrigation, urea.
Advantages and disadvantages of interference-competitive ability and resource-use efficiency when invading established communities

Invaders into established communities must overcome low resource availability. To establish, invaders must either appropriate resources from existing individuals through interference competition or efficiently use the small amount of resource that remains. Although both strategies may be important, they are rarely considered together and, in particular, resource-use efficiency is often ignored in systems dominated by interference competition. To identify the traits that confer invasion success, we experimentally invaded resource patches in established communities with multiple species from two functional groups that differ in interference competitive ability and resource-use efficiency. In contrast to previous assessments, we show that resource-use efficiency can facilitate invasion in systems dominated by interference competition. Furthermore, large resource requirements can be a liability when establishing because interference competition is inherently costly and so cannot fully compensate for limitations in the primary resource. However, we also show that there is a tradeoff in performance among functional groups between small and large resource gaps. Our results suggest we modify the way we view and manage species invasion in systems dominated by interference competition.
Effects of two intake levels of Leucaena leucocephala on rumen function of sheep

Ruminant production systems based on grass pastures often produce only poor animal performance as expressed by growth or reproductive rates. The nutrient imbalance affecting rumen function is due to low energy and protein intake. The incorporation of leguminous forages such as Leucaena leucocephala, in the diet of ruminants, can stimulate rumen function by providing protein-rich forage (Barros-Rodriguez et al. 2012). This increases the availability of compounds such as ammonia, amino acids and peptides as well as branched short-chain fatty acids, which are produced as a result of degradation of proteins. These substances promote fiber breakdown by acting as ruminal growth activators for rumen bacteria, especially cellulolytic bacteria (Hoover and Stokes 1991). This study aimed to evaluate the effects of 2 intake levels of L. leucocephala (leucaena) on rumen function of sheep fed Pennisetum purpureum.
Feature Selection for Sentiment Analysis of Swedish News Article Titles

The aim of this study was to elaborate the possibilities of sentiment analyzing Swedish news article titles using machine learning approaches and find how the text is best represented in such conditions. Sentiment analysis has traditionally been conducted by part-of-speech tagging and counting word polarities, which performs well for large domains and in absence of large sets of training data. For narrower domains and previously labeled data, supervised learning can be used. The work of this thesis tested the performance of a convolutional neural network and a support vector machine on different sets of data. The data sets were constructed to represent various language features. These included for example a simple unigram bag-of-words model storing word counts, a bigram bag-of-words model to include the ordering of words and an integer vector summary of the title. The study concluded that each of the tested feature sets gave information about the sentiment to various extents. The neural network approach with all feature sets combined performed better than the two annotators of the study. Despite the limited size of the data set, overfitting did not seem to be a problem when using the features together.
Topological conformational changes of human papillomavirus (HPV) DNA bound to an insoluble aluminum salt—A study by low temperature PCR

A low temperature (LoTemp? ) polymerase chain reaction (PCR), conducted at cycling temperatures not to exceed 85℃and catalyzed by a novel highly processive HiFi? DNA polymerase with proofreading function, was used to study the topological conformational changes of the human papillomavirus (HPV) L1 gene DNA fragments bound to the insoluble amorphous aluminum hydroxyphosphate sulfate (AAHS) adjuvant in the quadrivalent HPV vaccine, Gardasil? L1 gene DNA fragments of HPV-11, HPV-18 and HPV-16 were detected in the AAHS particles by nested PCR, but all were lacking a region that was amplifiable by an MY09 degenerate primer. In addition, a pair of degenerate consensus GP6/MY11 primers was able to amplify a target segment of the HPV-11 L1 gene DNA and the HPV-18 L1 gene DNA bound to the AAHS particles as expected for any HPV DNA in the B-conformation. However, there was no co-amplification of the HPV-16 L1 gene DNA known to coexist in the same samples. The lack of co-amplification was verified by direct DNA sequencing of the PCR amplicons. The companion HPV-16 L1 gene DNA in the same sample required repeated PCRs with a pair of modified non-degenerate GP6/ MY11 primers for detection. This melting profile of the HPV-16 L1 gene DNA was similar to that of the HPV-16 L1 gene DNA recently discovered in the postmortem blood of a young woman who suffered a sudden unexpected death 6 months after Gardasil? vaccination. The findings suggest that the topological conformational changes in the HPV L1 gene DNA residues bound to the AAHS adjuvant may be genotype-related. The special non-B-conformation may prevent the HPV-16 L1 gene DNA from being degraded in the body of the vaccine recipients after in- tramuscular injection.
Measurement Methodologies for Reducing Errors in the Assessment of EMF by Exposimeter

Objective: As well known, using a single body worn sensor exposimeter introduces systematic errors on the measurement of the incident free space electric field strength. This is because the body creates around it high, intermediate and low level field zones, which depend on the direction of arrival of the incident field. The goal of this work is to propose an efficient method for the reduction of these errors. Methods: After classifying the perturbations induced by the body on the measured electric and magnetic fields thanks to realistic numerical simulations, we then propose a two-sensor setup in conjunction with simple semi-empirical correction formulas, in order to compensate these perturbations. Results: At 942 MHz, when the two sensors are placed in any opposite sides of the body at chest height, the worst case, maximum and average errors respectively decrease to 12% and 3% compared to 83% and 22% for measurement techniques using a single sensor, or 32% and 11% when using the average value of the measurements. Conclusion: The error related to the measurement in the presence of the body was significantly reduced by the proposed method making use of two opposite sensors, E-field and H-field at the chest. Significance: The conformity of exposure to EMF in terms of reference values according to the ICNIRP is given in the abscence of the human body. The interest of this work lies in the reduction of the errors made when measuring the field in the presence of the body.
Visual Heart Rate Estimation with Convolutional Neural Network

We propose a novel two-step convolutional neural network to estimate a heart rate from a sequence of facial images. The network is trained end-to-end by alternating optimization and validated on three publicly available datasets yielding state-of-the-art results against three baseline methods. The network performs better by a 40% margin to the state-of-the-art method on a newly collected dataset. A challenging dataset of 204 fitness-themed videos is introduced. The dataset is designed to test the robustness of heart rate estimation methods to illumination changes and subject’s motion. 17 subjects perform 4 activities (talking, rowing, exercising on a stationary bike and an elliptical trainer) in 3 lighting setups. Each activity is captured by two RGB web-cameras, one is placed on a tripod, the other is attached to the fitness machine which vibrates significantly. Subject’s age ranges from 20 to 53 years, the mean heart rate is ≈ 110, the standard deviation ≈ 25.
BIOACTIVE COMPOUNDS IN LATVIAN WILD EDIBLE MUSHROOM BOLETUS EDULIS

Considering the interest for mushrooms and the demand to search for natural antioxidants and other sou rces of bioactive-compounds, the aim of this study was to i nvestigate the content of bioactive compounds of tw o widely used wild edible mushrooms Boletus edulis f. beticola and Boletus edulis f. pinicola collected at Jelgava and Riga regions in Latvia. Ash amount was determined to characterize the mineral content; protein was det ermined by Lowry method (325‐526 mg g -1 of dried mushrooms). Using HPLC the phenolic compounds like gallic acid, caffeic acid, catechin, epicatechin and rutin were detected and quantified. β-carotene and lycopene were determined. DPPH assay was used to evaluate free radical-scavenging activity. In water extracts titrat able acidity (0.22‐0.26 mmol of NaOH per g of dry mushroom matter) and formol number (0.74‐1.40 mmol NaOH per g of dry mushroom matter) were determined. The total content of phenols (TP) as determined by Folin-Ciocalt eu assay was higher in the water extracts (11.2‐12.5 m g of gallic acid equivalents GAE per 1 g of dry mus hroom matter) than in methanol extracts (7.3‐8.0 mg of GAE per 1 g of dry mushroom matter). The total conten t of flavonoids (TF) was higher in the water extracts (0 .33‐0.37 mg of QE per 1 g of dry mushroom matter) than in methanol extracts (0.13 mg of quercetin equivalents QE per 1 g of dry mushroom matter).
Recent discovery of Paranthura japonica Richardson, 1909 (Crustacea: Isopoda: Paranthuridae) in European marine waters (Arcachon Bay, Bay of Biscay)

The Asiatic isopod Paranthura japonica Richardson, 1909 was collected in 2007 in Arcachon Bay (SW France), where the species occurs in a variety of habitats, both in the intertidal and at shallow depths. This species, native to the Sea of Japan, may have been accidentally introduced in Arcachon Bay with oyster transfers or as fouling on ship hulls.
Assessment of Herpes Simplex Virus Type 1 and 2 by IHC in Association with CD14 Antigen in Placental Tissues from Women with Miscarriage

Among many viral causes of miscarriage, maternal infections caused by herpes simplex virus type -1 (HSV-1) and Herpes simplex virus type-2 (HSV-2) infections are important causes. CD14 was implicated in immune mechanisms, and might be involved in pregnancy loss. The aim of this study was to detect the possible occurrence of two HSV-1 and HSV-2 infections as well as the immunological factor cd14 in placental tissues from patients with spontaneous abortion using immunohistochemistry techniques. Immunohistochemistry technique assay was used to detect placental infection with HSV-1& HSV-2 as well as CD14 in 40 women with spontaneous miscarriage and in 40 healthy deliveries in Baghdad/Iraq. The IHC- expressions of HSV-1, HSV-2, and CD14 proteins were detected in 4(10%), 15(37.5%), 15(37.5%) in placental tissues from miscarriage women, respectively. The association between CD14 with HSV-1 and HSV-2 among the placental tissues from miscarriage patients was constituting (5%), (20%) with HSV-1 & HSV-2, respectively. The considerable proportion of HSV-1, HSV-2, and infections found in the placental tissues from miscarriage women could drag the attention of obstetricians to implicate these viruses as possible targets in the etiology of spontaneous abortion case and there is possible association of CD14 with HSV-1 and HSV-2 in women with abortion.
Transport spectroscopy of a spin-orbit-coupled spin to a quantum dot

Electron spins in quantum dots can interact with impurity spins located in an adjacent region. This interaction may be controllable using external electric fields and it can involve an appreciable spin-orbit interaction (SOI) part affecting the expected operation of the dot spins. In this work we propose a method to quantify the interaction between a dot spin and a nearby spin by calculating the electrical current through the dot. We demonstrate some interesting regimes where the SOI can be detected, and find regimes of negative differential conductance which are sensitive to the strength of the SOI. The present study could be useful for spin-orbit qubits formed in quantum dot devices.
Get real! Resolving the debate about equivalent social stimuli

Gaze and arrow studies of spatial orienting have shown that eyes and arrows produce nearly identical effects on shifts of spatial attention. This has led some researchers to suggest that the human attention system considers eyes and arrows as equivalent social stimuli. However, this view does not fit with the general intuition that eyes are unique social stimuli nor does it agree with a large body of work indicating that humans possess a neural system that is preferentially biased to process information regarding human gaze. To shed light on this discrepancy we entertained the idea that the model cueing task may fail to measure some of the ways that eyes are special. Thus rather than measuring the orienting of attention to a location cued by eyes and arrows, we measured the selection of eyes and arrows embedded in complex real-world scenes. The results were unequivocal: People prefer to look at other people and their eyes; they rarely attend to arrows. This outcome was not predicted by visual saliency but it was predicted by the idea that eyes are social stimuli that are prioritized by the attention system. These data, and the paradigm from which they were derived, shed new light on past cueing studies of social attention, and they suggest a new direction for future investigations of social attention.
THE GENDERED KNOWLEDGE OF HIV/AIDS AMONG URBAN UNIVERSITY STUDENTS IN SOUTHERN ETHIOPIA

The HIV/AIDS epidemic continues to claim millions of lives worldwide. Africa alone represents the majority of HIV/AIDS cases, where the young aged 16-30, are at greatest risk. The research suggests a gender dichotomy in HIV/AIDS knowledge levels between male and female students in Ethiopia. The purpose of this research is to explore the gendered knowledge of HIV/AIDS among a group of Ethiopian male and female post-secondary students. An observational study was conducted among 126 female and 101 male college and university students. The HIV Knowledge Questionnaire was used to measure participants’ knowledge. The statistical t-test demonstrated no difference between male and female HIV knowledge scores (t=0.6, df =225, p=0.4). The study findings demonstrate the call to address the knowledge gap in HIV sexual transmission among a vulnerable population. Future research is needed such that HIV/AIDS awareness campaigns can be specifically tailored to the student population within the Ethiopian context.
The Effect of Benson Relaxation Technique on Depression in Patients Undergoing Hemodialysis

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE: Depression is the most common mental disorder in patients undergoing hemodialysis. This disorder has adverse effects on the course of disease and treatment process and is recognized as an independent risk factor for death in hemodialysis patients. The purpose of this study was to determine the relaxing effects of Benson relaxation technique on depression in patients undergoing hemodialysis. METHODS: This clinical trial was performed on 65 hemodialysis patients. Subjects were randomly divided into two groups: control group (n=32) and intervention group using Benson relaxation technique (n=33). The intervention group performed Benson relaxation exercises twice a day for 20 minutes over one month. Beck Depression Inventory was completed one month before and one month after the intervention. The control group received usual treatments (IRCT: 2014011115393N2) FINDINGS: Overall, 51 patients were male in the present study. The mean age of participants was 48.57±9.18 years in the intervention group and 49.93±8.17 years in the control group. Before the intervention, there was no significant difference between the groups in terms of the studied variables. The mean score of depression in the intervention group decreased from 32.46±9.86 before the intervention to 23.30±9.23 after the intervention; the difference was statistically significant (p<0.001). Also, the mean score of depression in the control group changed from 30.58±9.24 before the intervention to 30.83±9.63 after the intervention. CONCLUSION: The results of this study showed that Benson relaxation technique is effective in reducing depression in hemodialysis patients. Therefore, by applying this technique, we can take a major step towards improving and preventing patients’ psychological problems
Are the Dynamic Linkages between the Macroeconomy and Asset Prices Time-Varying?

We estimate a number of multivariate regime switching VAR models on a long monthly US data set for eight variables that include excess stock and bond returns, the real T-bill yield, predictors used in the finance literature (default spread and the dividend yield), and three macroeconomic variables (inflation, industrial production growth, and a measure of real money growth). Heteroskedasticity may be accounted for by making the covariance matrix a function of the regime. We find evidence of four regimes and of time-varying covariances. We show that the best in-sample fit is provided by a four state model in which the VAR(1) component fails to be regime-dependent. We interpret this as evidence that the dynamic linkages between financial markets and the macroeconomy have been stable over time. The four-state model can be helpful in forecasting applications and provides one-step ahead predicted Sharpe ratios.
Detecting opinion spams and fake news using text classification

In recent years, deceptive content such as fake news and fake reviews, also known as opinion spams, have increasingly become a dangerous prospect for online users. Fake reviews have affected consumers and stores alike. Furthermore, the problem of fake news has gained attention in 2016, especially in the aftermath of the last U.S. presidential elections. Fake reviews and fake news are a closely related phenomenon as both consist of writing and spreading false information or beliefs. The opinion spam problem was formulated for the first time a few years ago, but it has quickly become a growing research area due to the abundance of user‐generated content. It is now easy for anyone to either write fake reviews or write fake news on the web. The biggest challenge is the lack of an efficient way to tell the difference between a real review and a fake one; even humans are often unable to tell the difference. In this paper, we introduce a new n‐gram model to detect automatically fake contents with a particular focus on fake reviews and fake news. We study and compare 2 different features extraction techniques and 6 machine learning classification techniques. Experimental evaluation using existing public datasets and a newly introduced fake news dataset indicate very encouraging and improved performances compared to the state‐of‐the‐art methods.
RapidChain: Scaling Blockchain via Full Sharding

A major approach to overcoming the performance and scalability limitations of current blockchain protocols is to use sharding which is to split the overheads of processing transactions among multiple, smaller groups of nodes. These groups work in parallel to maximize performance while requiring significantly smaller communication, computation, and storage per node, allowing the system to scale to large networks. However, existing sharding-based blockchain protocols still require a linear amount of communication (in the number of participants) per transaction, and hence, attain only partially the potential benefits of sharding. We show that this introduces a major bottleneck to the throughput and latency of these protocols. Aside from the limited scalability, these protocols achieve weak security guarantees due to either a small fault resiliency (e.g., 1/8 and 1/4) or high failure probability, or they rely on strong assumptions (e.g., trusted setup) that limit their applicability to mainstream payment systems. We propose RapidChain, the first sharding-based public blockchain protocol that is resilient to Byzantine faults from up to a 1/3 fraction of its participants, and achieves complete sharding of the communication, computation, and storage overhead of processing transactions without assuming any trusted setup. RapidChain employs an optimal intra-committee consensus algorithm that can achieve very high throughputs via block pipelining, a novel gossiping protocol for large blocks, and a provably-secure reconfiguration mechanism to ensure robustness. Using an efficient cross-shard transaction verification technique, our protocol avoids gossiping transactions to the entire network. Our empirical evaluations suggest that RapidChain can process (and confirm) more than 7,300 tx/sec with an expected confirmation latency of roughly 8.7 seconds in a network of 4,000 nodes with an overwhelming time-to-failure of more than 4,500 years.