Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Development Of A Silhouette Scale For Bariatric Surgery (Esco): Preliminary Study

Obesity keeps spreading, leading to physical and psychological comorbidities, namely body image dissatisfaction (BID). Its treatment is difficult, especially of severe obesity, for which bariatric surgery has become the only effective treatment. It would be important to have an instrument to assess BID of bariatric patients. The present study main goals are to describe the construction of a new instrument (Obesity Surgery Silhouettes Scale – ESCO) to assess BID of bariatric patients, as well as to present data from a pre-test. ESCO consists of 11 male and 11 female silhouettes, distributed in ascending order across Body Mass Index (BMI) categories. It was administered to a clinical sample made by 20 obese patients, candidates to bariatric surgery and a community sample constituted of 10 subjects. ESCO reveals of very fast administration, with mean answer time of 55.9 seconds (clinical sample). A higher BID is verified on the clinical sample (BID=5.2), in comparison with the community sample (BID=1.5). There is a statistically significant positive correlation between BMI and BID, suggesting that body image dissatisfaction increases with higher BMI. Preliminary results suggest ESCO is a capable instrument to assess BID of bariatric patients. Data from ESCO will be useful to design psychological counseling, specific to each patient. Besides that, it will allow the use of BID indicators as a bariatric surgery results’ measure.
Big Five validity: Aggregation method matters

Correlations between Big Five personality factors and other variables have been examined in three different ways: direct scoring of items within a factor, application of a composite score formula, and taking the average of single-scale correlations. Those methods were shown to yield consistently different outcomes in four sets of data from sales-people and managers. Factor correlations with job performance were greatest for direct scoring, and were reduced by half when scale correlations were averaged. The insertion of previously suggested estimates into the composite score formula yielded intermediate correlations with performance. It is necessary to interpret summary accounts of correlations with a compound construct in the light of the aggregation method employed.
Think, but Not Too Much: A Dual-Process Model of Willpower and Self-Control

Dual-process theories view decisions as the result of the interaction of two qualitatively different types of processes, automatic/impulsive and controlled/deliberative. This paper considers a model of self-control where each decision can be taken by either an automatic process or a deliberative one. In line with recent evidence from psychology, effortful self-control (willpower) is modeled as a limited resource, i.e. exercising self-control for an initial decision limits the amount of self-control available for persevering later. Automatic decisions follow a reinforcement-based process, while controlled ones are utility-maximizing. A "personal evolution" approach shows that agents might fall into self-control traps: for instance, although exercising full self-control might be efficient, decision makers might be caught in a "personal optimum" where no self-control is exercised. Reciprocally, agents might also fall prey to excessive self-control, where they waste willpower in initial decisions only to give in to temptation later.
The Effects of Fish Meal Replacement by Yeast Based Nucleotides on Growth, Body Composition and Digestive Enzyme Activity in Rainbow Trout Juveniles (Onchorchyncus mykiss)

This 60 day study investigated the effects of organically certified nucleotide yeast-derived protein source (Nu-Pro ® ) on growth, feed efficiency, fillet proximate composition and digestive enzymes in rainbow trout (Onchorhyncus mykiss). Diets were isonitrogenous and isocaloric. Three experimental diets wherein 20%, 40% and 60% of the fish meal content was replaced by Nu-Pro
Theme 1: Issues in service delivery - The devil in the details: earlyevaluation of home-based management of fever in Nebbi District, Uganda

Every day, 3,000 Africans, mostly pregnant women and children, die of malaria, which in Africa still represents the top disease in both morbidity and mortality. Heads of state of African countries made a commitment, in April 2000 at Abuja, Nigeria, to ensure that at least 60% of those suffering from malaria have prompt access to affordable and appropriate treatment within 24 hours of the onset of symptoms. Prompt access to effective anti-malarial treatment is an essential pillar for reducing the disease burden. One of the strategies to bring treatment as near the home as possible is the Home Based Management of Fever (HBMF), where trained community volunteers use pre-packaged drugs to effectively treat children with fever within 24 hours of onset of illness. This strategy is already being practised on a limited scale in some countries in Africa, and has been scaled up countrywide in Uganda. We illustrate the case of Nebbi District, where implementation started last year in June, trying to identify the strengths, the achievements and the constraints of this programme. In particular, we compare the number of reported cases of malaria in under-5 children before and after the HBMF was introduced.
CORPORATE CONTROL AND FIRM PERFORMANCE: DOES THE TYPE OF OWNERS MATTER?

The paper extends the ownership study by examining the different types of large shareholders in relation to its impact on organizational outcome in Indonesia using a dataset consisting of 190 non-financial companies listed in Jakarta Stock Exchange in 2002. The study investigates the effect of family ownership, foreign blockholder, domestic institutional shareholders, and the board of directors on firm performance. The results confirm the different impact of different large shareholders type on firm performance. Controlling family ownership is more likely to exacerbate agency problems while the presence of foreign investor is related to superior firm performance. Domestic blockholders is insignificantly related to firm performance. However, the interaction effect between family and domestic blockholders ownership is negatively related to firm performance, offering empirical evidence to the existence of interlocking blockholders in Indonesia to deprive minority shareholders from their rights. Keyword: Corporate Governance, Large Shareholders, Board Structure, Firm Performance
TRIALS FOR THE CONTROL OF THE CITRUS MEALYBUG IN CITRUS ORCHARDS BY AUGMENTATIVE RELEASE OF TWO ENCYRTID PARASITOIDS

TRIALS FOR THE CONTROL OF THE CITRUS MEALYBUG IN CITRUS ORCHARDS BY AUGMENTATIVE RELEASE OF TWO ENCYRTID PARASITOIDS. Since the 1980s, the citrus mealybug Planococcus citri (Risso) has become a key pest in Israel, owing to intensive planting of highly susceptible varieties, the introduction of Insect Growth Regulators (which adversely affect coccinellids) and the development of resistance to chlorpyrifos. Management of the mealybug populations in citrus orchards by augmentative releases of parasitoids was investigated between 1993 and 1996 in a series of tests involving the release of 5,000-10,000 Leptomastix dactylopii (Howard) (Encyrtidae) per hectare. Results showed no significant effect on the density of the mealybug on the fruits. In general, the establishment of L. dactylopii was poor and population levels were inferior to those of the naturally occurring Anagyrus pseudococci (Girault) (Encyrtidae). In 1996-1997, augmentative early-spring releases of A. pseudococci at the rates of 10,000-50,000 individuals per hectare markedly increased the population density of A. pseudococci during April and June but had no significant effect on either the mealybug infestation or on fruit damage caused by the pest and its fruit moth associates. Key words: grapefruit, persimmon, custard apple, coffee, cacao, Citrus, Diospyros, Annona, life cycle, damage, Coccidoxenoides peregrinus, Cryptolaemus montrouzieri, Sympherobius sanctus, mass rearing, cork ring, potato sprout, potato trap, low temperatures, fruit moths.
Identity Texts and Academic Achievement: Connecting the Dots in Multilingual School Contexts

The construct of identity text conjoins notions of identity affirmation and literacy engagement as equally relevant to addressing causes of underachievement among low socioeconomic status, multilingual, and marginalized group students. Despite extensive empirical evidence supporting the impact on academic achievement of both identity affirmation and literacy engagement, these variables have been largely ignored in educational policies and instructional practices. The authors propose a framework for identifying major causes of underachievement among these three overlapping groups and for implementing evidence-based instructional responses. The framework argues that schools can respond to the devaluation of identity experienced by many students and communities by exploring instructional policies and strategies that enable students to use their emerging academic language and multilingual repertoires for powerful identity-affirming purposes. Drawing on projects involving First Nations and immigrant-background multilingual students, the authors document the profound transformations in academic, intellectual, and personal identity that multimodal identity text work is capable of engendering.
Shadow Economies of 145 Countries all over the World: What do we really know?

Estimations of the size and development of the shadow economy for 145 countries, including developing, transition and highly developed OECD economies over the period 1999 to 2003 are presented. The average size of the shadow economy (as a percent of ? official? GDP) in 2002/03 in 96 developing countries is 38.7%, in 25 transition countries 40.1%, in 21 OECD countries 16.3% and in 3 Communist countries 22.3%. An increased burden of taxation and social security contributions, combined with a labor market regulation are the driving forces of the shadow economy. Finally, the various estimation methods are discussed and critically evaluated.
Measuring productivity change in higher education: an application of Hicks–Moorsteen total factor productivity index to Malaysian public universities

This paper offers an in-depth analysis of efficiency and productivity changes using the Hicks–Moorsteen total factor productivity index, in the context of higher education institutions. Unlike the Malmquist method, this approach makes no assumptions about firms' returns to scale conditions. We assume that the production technology exhibits variable returns to scale, which is more plausible than the constant returns to scale assumption, because universities usually operate at suboptimal scales. Three major groupings of Malaysian public universities are used in our case study: research, comprehensive, and focused universities. The results show that technical efficiency has improved after the 2007 National Higher Education Strategic Plan within all the three university groupings.
3 Theoretical estimation of the minimal attractor embedding dimension for a discrete linearized dynamical system

The nonlinear dynamical systems (NDSs) with selforganization named as complex systems [1]-[4] are investigated with great activity in last decades. I. Prigogine and H. Haken have established [1], [2] that functioning a complex NDSs is closely connected with the presence of chaos in their behavior. Complex NDSs operate under a wide range of conditions and are, therefore, adaptable and flexible. The NDSs behavior can be described on the basis of construction of an attractor in m-dimensional Euclidean state-space Rm. It is necessary to select the state-space with the minimal dimension m0 as the value m0 is an upper limit of the degrees of freedom for a system and, hence, m0 gives the minimal number of differential equations for the NDS modelling. The determining m0 on the basis of various correlative topological methods requires large computer expenditures and significant volume of experimental data [4]. The method proposed in [5]-[7] allows to reduce the computational complexity and the amount of the required data N and thus to decrease the lacks of correlative topological methods. The basic idea of the method is the following. On the subset of chaotic attractor in Euclidean space Rm a function z[m] is constructed. It defines a measure of topological instability of the attractor when enlarging state space dimension (Rm → Rm+1 ). The value of z[m] changes monotonously when enlarging m, but if m ≥ m0, then z[m] = const and does not depend on m [5]-[7]. Thus, m0 is minimal embedding dimension of investigating NDS attractor. However, the proposed locally topological method has especially heuristic character as far as in [5] the problems of the theoretical verification (including the necessary and sufficient conditions) of the topological stabilization for parameters of a chaotic attractor were not investigated. The goal of this paper is derivation of the locally topological method for defining minimal attractor embedding dimension of a dynamical system. This paper proves theoretically on the basis of matrix decompositions [8]-[11] in state-space the heuristic fact of stabilization for characteristic parameters of NDS at-
Transient effects of self-adjustment of pressure reducing valves

Pressure control strategy through Pressure Reducing Valves (PRV) has been deeply investigated as management strategy, aimed at water leakages reduction avoiding very expensive pipe replacement programs. On the contrary, few experimental data are available in literature, with regard to PRV transient behavior in terms of its response to incoming pressure waves, as well as the time required for achieving the pressure set point. In this paper, the results of some experimental tests are presented. The PRV is installed in a single high density polyethylene pipe and transients are generated by operating the downstream end valve. Two types of tests are considered: a partial valve closure and opening simulating a water demand decrease and increase, respectively. The analysis of the experimental pressure traces points out the valuable effects of the PRV on transient characteristics with respect to the case of a partially closed in-line valve with a constant opening degree. c © 2015 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. Peer-review under responsibility of the Scientific Committee of CCWI 2015.
Proportionally Representative Participatory Budgeting with Ordinal Preferences

Participatory budgeting (PB) is a democratic paradigm whereby voters decide on a set of projects to fund with a limited budget. We consider PB in a setting where voters report ordinal preferences over projects and have (possibly) asymmetric weights. We propose proportional representation axioms and clarify how they fit into other preference aggregation settings, such as multi-winner voting and approval-based multi-winner voting. As a result of our study, we also discover a new solution concept for approval-based multi-winner voting, which we call Inclusion PSC (IPSC). IPSC is stronger than proportional justified representation (PJR), incomparable to extended justified representation (EJR), and yet compatible with EJR. The well-studied Proportional Approval Voting (PAV) rule produces a committee that satisfies both EJR and IPSC; however, both these axioms can also be satisfied by an algorithm that runs in polynomial-time.
Use of a phase-resolving model for wave breaking prediction

The multi-dimensional equations of shear shallow water flows represent a 2D hyperbolic nonconservative system of equations which is reminiscent of generic Reynolds averaged equations for barotropic turbulent fluids. The model has three families of characteristics corresponding to the propagation of surface waves, shear waves and average flow. I present a new splitting technique to define the weak solutions to this non-conservative system of equations. The full system is split into several subsystems for which the notion of the weak solution is almost classical. Each split subsystem contains only one family of waves (either surface or shear waves) and contact characteristics. The accuracy of such an approach is tested on the exact 2D solutions describing the flow where the velocity is linear with respect to the space variables, and on the solutions describing 1D roll waves. The capacity of the model to describe multi-D experimentally observed phenomena was shown: ‘fingering’ of plane one-dimensional wave fronts, and the formation of singularities in radially convergent flows. I will also discuss the perspectives of such a `splitting approach' for the description of 3D compressible
imultaneous typing of nine avian respiratory pathogens using a ovel

A new, rapid, and high-throughput GenomeLab Gene Expression Profiler (GeXP) analyzer-based multiplex PCR method was developed for simultaneous detection and differentiation of nine avian respiratory pathogens. The respiratory pathogens included in this study were avian influenza subtypes H5, H7, and H9, infectious bronchitis virus (IBV), Newcastle disease virus (NDV), infectious laryngotracheitis virus (ILTV), Mycoplasma gallisepticum (MG), Mycoplasma synoviae (MS) and Haemophilus paragallinarum (HPG). Ten pairs of primers were designed using conserved and specific sequence genes of AIV subtypes and respiratory pathogens from GenBank. Single and mixed pathogen cDNA/DNA templates were used to evaluate the specificity of the GeXP-multiplex assay. The corresponding specific DNA products were amplified for each pathogen. The specific DNA product amplification peaks of nine respiratory pathogens were observed on the GeXP analyzer. Non-respiratory avian pathogens, including chicken infectious anemia virus, fowl adenovirus, avian reovirus and infectious bursal disease virus, did not produce DNA products. The detection limit for the GeXP-multiplex assay was determined to be 100 copies/ l using various pre-mixed plasmids/ssRNAs containing known target genes of the respiratory pathogens. Further, GeXP-multiplex PCR assay was 100% specific when 24 clinical samples with respiratory infections were tested in comparison with conventional PCR method. The GeXP-multiplex PCR assay provides a novel tool for simultaneous detection and differentiation of nine avian respiratory pathogens.
The HRX-BL Lac sample - Evolution of BL Lac objects ?

The unification of X-ray and radio selected BL Lacs has been an outstanding problem in the blazar research in the past years. Recent investigations have shown that the gap between the two classes can be filled with intermediate objects and that apparently all dierences can be explained by mutual shifts of the peak frequencies of the synchrotron and inverse Compton component of the emission. We study the consequences of this scheme using a new sample of X-ray selected BL Lac objects comprising 104 objects with z < 0:9 and a mean redshift ¯ = 0:34. 77 BL Lacs, of which the redshift could be determined for 64 (83%) objects, form a complete sample. The new data could not confirm our earlier result, drawn from a subsample, that the negative evolution vanishes below a synchrotron peak frequency logpeak= 16:5. The complete sample shows negative evolution at the 2 level (hVe=Vai = 0:42 0:04). We conclude that the observed properties of the HRX BL Lac sample show typical behaviour for X-ray selected BL Lacs. They support an evolutionary model, in which flat-spectrum radio quasars (FSRQ) with high energetic jets evolve towards low frequency peaked (mostly radio-selected) BL Lac objects and later on to high frequency peaked (mostly X-ray selected) BL Lacs.
Volcanism in the American Southwest Abstracts

Latest Pliocene to Quaternary, mildly alkaline, primarily mafic volcanic activity extends in a swath from the Lake Tahoe region in the eastern Sierra Nevada across the western Great Basin to the Battle Mountain area, Nevada. This region overlies a zone of high heat flow and lithospheric thinning, termed the Humboldt Lineament, and is a zone of potential volcanic hazard. The Lake Tahoe region is a major locus of four-season tourism in the central Sierra Nevada (Smith et al., 2004). In 2003 and 2004, a series of deep (~30 km) earthquakes occurred beneath the north shore of Lake Tahoe, where the progression of earthquake depths and the focal mechanisms are consistent with a magmatic dyke intrusive event. Youthful, explosive cinder cones are common in the Tahoe area. The area around Fallon, NV. , the site of a major naval air station and a population of over 6,000 people, hosts two tuff cone and maar complexes that are less than 25,000 years old (Fultz et al., 1984). These volcanoes record explosive phases of volcanic activity that would have an impact on the nearby population. The goal of our petrological and geochemical work is to determine the sources of volcanic activity, what processes dominate the magmatic evolution of the lavas, and how these processes impact the style of eruptive activity along the Tahoe to Battle Mountain swath of volcanic activity. From west to east, the volcanic centers exhibit a dramatic gradient in chemical and isotopic composition. Centers situated in or adjacent to the Sierra Nevada have incompatible element and isotopic compositions consistent with an old, subduction-modified lithospheric mantle source (Sr/Sr > 0.7045; δO > +6.5%o). Mafic volcanic centers east of the Sierra Nevada, in the Carson Sink and in the Buffalo Valley region, have an intraplate incompatible element and isotopic signature (Sr/Sr < 0.7045; δO < +6.5%o) consistent with an asthenospheric mantle source. Earlier 20–3 Ma arc volcanism in the Sierra Nevada also tapped the old lithospheric mantle source along with the mantle wedge, indicating that the lithospheric mantle source existed well prior to the onset of Tertiary arc volcanism. Thus the lithospheric mantle beneath the Sierra Nevada has remained a geochemically consistent, fertile, fusible source for at least the past 20 Ma. Lithospheric mantle was also an important source for Miocene mafic through intermediate volcanic rocks erupted in the Fish Creek, Clan Alpine, Stillwater, Desatoya, Lahontan, and other ranges west and south of Battle Mountain, as a result of rollback of the Farallon plate beneath North America. Old lithospheric mantle likely still exists beneath the Great Basin east of the Sierra Nevada, but lithospheric thinning and/or exhaustion of fusible components inhibits its melting such that during the Quaternary melting could only occur in the asthenosphere. Young, explosive volcanic activity is associated with magmas derived from both types of mantle source.
Socioeconomic status and problem attributions: The mediating role of sense of control

Abstract The social cognitive perspective on socioeconomic status (SES) or social class assumes that SES is associated with people’s perception of social events. The study extends this assumption to SES differences in problem attributions. We hypothesized that compared to lower-class individuals, upper-class individuals will be inclined to attribute the cause of problem situations as being internal, changeable, and controllable and as something for which they are personally responsible for the solution. We further hypothesized that this relationship would be mediated by the individual’s sense of control. Self-report data and responses to vignettes were collected from a sample of Chinese university students. The results and mediation analysis support the hypotheses. The results provide further evidence for social cognitive consequences of SES and point to the important role of sense of control.