Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Addressing Psychometric Limitations of the Attentional Control Scale via Bifactor Modeling and Item Modification

Abstract The purpose of this three-part study was to identify and correct psychometric limitations of the Attentional Control Scale (ACS; Derryberry & Reed, 2002) via bifactor modeling and item modification. In Study 1 (N = 956), results from exploratory factor analyses (EFAs) and confirmatory factor analyses (CFAs) suggested that the multidimensionality of the ACS might be a function of a method effect (i.e., reverse coding). In Study 2 (N = 478), reverse-coded items were recoded in a straightforward manner and submitted to EFA. Results supported retention of 15 items and 2 factors. In Study 3 (N = 410), CFA was used to test the model identified in Study 2 and compare it to competing models (i.e., 1-factor, bifactor). The bifactor model exhibited the best fit to the data. However, results from bifactor analysis suggested that the structure of the ACS is more consistent with a unidimensional rather than multidimensional model. Additionally, the second domain-specific factor appears to be redundant with the general factor and both domain-specific factors are poorly defined and might be of little practical value. Taken together, results caution the use of the ACS subscales independent of the total score. Moreover, they support coding ACS items in a straightforward manner.
EFFECTS OF EXERCISE INTENSITY ON EXCESS POST-EXERCISE OXYGEN CONSUMPTION AND SUBSTRATE USE AFTER RESISTANCE EXERCISE

A cart having a lower frame and wheel means for moving the cart on a surface, includes a surface engaging means extending below the lower frame. When the cart engages an escalator step, the surface engaging means grips the escalator step thereby hindering movement of the cart relative to the escalator step. Normally when the cart moves on a flat surface, the surface engaging means is above the lower plane defined by the lower level of the wheel means. The surface engaging includes a saw tooth base for engaging the step. In some embodiments there is a lid for closing the shopping cart and selectively locking the basket of the shopping cart. Means is provided for selectively locking one or more wheels of the shopping cart at the same time as the lid is locked.
Can Managerial Knowledge of Executive Compensation Encourage or Deter Real EarningsManagement? An Analysis of R&D Reporting Methods

CAN MANAGERIAL KNOWLEDGE OF EXECUTIVE COMPENSATION ENCOURAGE OR DETER REAL EARNINGS MANAGEMENT? AN ANALYSIS OF R&D REPORTING METHODS By Andrea L. Gouldman, Ph.D., CPA A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Business at Virginia Commonwealth University. Virginia Commonwealth University, 2013. Chair: Carolyn S. Norman, Ph.D., CPA Professor and Chair of the Department of Accounting Virginia Commonwealth University Co-chair: Alisa G. Brink, Ph.D. Assistant Professor of Accounting Virginia Commonwealth University This study examines the effects of research and development (R&D) reporting method and managerial knowledge of supervisor compensation on R&D project continuation decisions. The current study employs an experiment with a 2x3 between-participants design, manipulating both R&D reporting method (expense vs. capitalize) and knowledge of supervisor compensation (control group with no knowledge vs. knowledge of non-restricted stock compensation vs. knowledge of restricted stock compensation). Using salient short-term incentives to motivate real earnings management, this study demonstrates that capitalization may result in managers foregoing economically efficient R&D investment opportunities. The results indicate that managerial knowledge of supervisor compensation structure has little influence on managers’ R&D project continuation choices. However, when managers capitalizing R&D expenditures had knowledge that their supervisors received non-restricted (short-term) stock compensation their perceived personal responsibility for the decision significantly decreased. Participants who
Indoor PM2.5 Characteristics and CO Concentration Related to Water-Based and Oil-Based Cooking Emissions Using a Gas Stove

ABSTRACTPollutant emissions from indoor cooking activities using clean fuels such as natural gas or LPG are strongly influenced by cooking ingredients and cooking methods. In this study, we explore the characterization of indoor fine particles (PM2.5) and CO that are produced by two distinctive cooking methods: frying and boiling. This characterization includes quantifying the presence of fine particles in a kitchen as well as in the adjoining room, analyzing size-segregated carbonaceous materials (EC and OC), and identifying variations in CO associated with the cooking method. Four monitoring devices—a UCB particle monitor, an optical particle counter, a cascade impactor, and a CO monitor—were simultaneously used to measure temporal variations in mass concentrations of fine particles (PM2.5), particle number concentrations, their size distributions, and CO concentrations in the two rooms, respectively. EC and OC analyses of the particles collected on a quartz filter by cascade impactor were conducted using the thermal optical method. Frying produced higher emissions of fine particles with a wider range of aerodynamic sizes than boiling. Particle spatial distribution was uniform across the rooms during boiling, because emissions were dominated by very fine particle size. It was observed that particle mass size distributions with cut size ≤ 0.25 µm were predominant in all cooking methods. CO concentration was lowest in tofu boiling and about one-tenth of the stove background level. This is possibly due to the absorption of CO by steam cooking.
Variant antigen repertoires in Trypanosoma congolense populations and experimental infections extracted from deep sequence data using universal protein motifs

Sara Silva Pereira, Aitor Casas-Sánchez, Lee R. Haines, Moses Ogugo, Kihara Absolomon, Mandy Sanders, Steve Kemp, Álvaro Acosta-Serrano, Harry Noyes, Matthew Berriman, Andrew P. Jackson 1 Department of Infection Biology, Institute of Infection and Global Health, University of Liverpool, Liverpool Science Park Ic2, Liverpool, 146 Brownlow Hill, Liverpool, L3 5RF, United Kingdom. 2 Department of Parasitology, Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, Pembroke Place, Liverpool, L3 5QA, United Kingdom. 3 Department of Vector Biology, Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, Pembroke Place, Liverpool, L3 5QA, United Kingdom. 4 International Livestock Research Institute, 30709 Naivasha Road, Nairobi, Kenya. 5 Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, Wellcome Genome Campus, Hinxton, CB10 1SA, United Kingdom. 6 Institute of Integrative Biology, University of Liverpool, Biosciences Building, Crown Street, Liverpool, L69 7ZB, United Kingdom.
Genetic variability in reaction norms between farmed and wild backcrosses of Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar).

Adaptive responses to environmental heterogeneity may vary among populations. Genetic variability in reaction norms might account for population differences in the ability to respond to environmental change and may reflect local adaptation. Reaction norms for early life history traits were compared among three population crosses of Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar). Two comprised second-generation backcrosses introgressed with either farmed or wild genes; the third comprised individuals from a second-generation, pure wild cross. Using a common-garden experimental protocol, each cross was exposed to three temperature regimes. Plasticity in embryonic development, growth, survival, and body size was measured from fertilization up to 24 weeks of exogenous feeding. Reaction norms differed markedly among crosses, irrespective of whether individuals interbred with those whose genes originated from another wild population or from a cultured population. We find that introgression involving individuals with comparative.
Evaluation of the pilot of Domestic Violence Protection Orders

In 2011/12, a 15 month pilot took place in three police force areas (Greater Manchester, West Mercia and Wiltshire) to test a new civil provision, Domestic Violence Protection Orders (DVPOs). DVPOs were designed to provide immediate protection for victim-survivors following a domestic violence incident in circumstances where, in the view of the police, there are no other enforceable restrictions that can be placed upon the perpetrator. DVPOs aim to give victim-survivors time, space and support to consider their options by placing conditions on perpetrators, including restricting/removing perpetrators from households, and preventing contact with, or molestation of, victim-survivors. The approach, introduced by the Crime and Security Act 2010, comprises an initial temporary notice (Domestic Violence Protection Notice, DVPN), authorised by a senior police officer and issued to the perpetrator by the police, followed by a DVPO that can last from 14 to 28 days, imposed at the magistrates’ court.
Fully Connected Conditional Random Fields for High-Resolution Remote Sensing Land Use/Land Cover Classification with Convolutional Neural Networks

The interpretation of land use and land cover (LULC) is an important issue in the fields of high-resolution remote sensing (RS) image processing and land resource management. Fully training a new or existing convolutional neural network (CNN) architecture for LULC classification requires a large amount of remote sensing images. Thus, fine-tuning a pre-trained CNN for LULC detection is required. To improve the classification accuracy for high resolution remote sensing images, it is necessary to use another feature descriptor and to adopt a classifier for post-processing. A fully connected conditional random fields (FC-CRF), to use the fine-tuned CNN layers, spectral features, and fully connected pairwise potentials, is proposed for image classification of high-resolution remote sensing images. First, an existing CNN model is adopted, and the parameters of CNN are fine-tuned by training datasets. Then, the probabilities of image pixels belong to each class type are calculated. Second, we consider the spectral features and digital surface model (DSM) and combined with a support vector machine (SVM) classifier, the probabilities belong to each LULC class type are determined. Combined with the probabilities achieved by the fine-tuned CNN, new feature descriptors are built. Finally, FC-CRF are introduced to produce the classification results, whereas the unary potentials are achieved by the new feature descriptors and SVM classifier, and the pairwise potentials are achieved by the three-band RS imagery and DSM. Experimental results show that the proposed classification scheme achieves good performance when the total accuracy is about 85%.
Purification of gelatinase from the bacteria contaminating gelatin production process

Gelatin contamination is of great concern from economic and public health point of view. In this study, bacterial contamination during different stages of gelatin manufacturing process was examined. One hundred and fifty four isolates were obtained from different stages of gelatin production process. Wet noodles samples acquired the highest percentage of bacterial isolates (14.93%). Majority of the bacterial isolates were classified as Gram-positive bacilli (79.8%). 51.3% of isolates showed moderate gelatinase activity. The most potent gelatinase producing isolate was identified as Bacillus cereus based on biochemical and 16S rRNA sequence analyses. Fluoroquinolones were the most effective antibiotics against bacterial isolates with the highest sensitivity rate (94.78%). Cinnamon oil exhibits the highest sensitivity rate (97.6%) and low MIC values (0.195 μl/ml). GC/MC analyses revealed that monoterpenes were the predominant components of the essential oils. The main constituent of cinnamon oil was cinnamaldehyde (63.69%). Gelatinase was purified by ion exchange and size exclusion chromatography. Zymography and SDS-PAGE analysis estimated that the purified enzyme is ~100 KDa molecular size.
Machine Learning Tools for Geomorphic Mapping of Planetary Surfaces

Terrain topography carries information that is fundamental for geomorphic modeling and, ultimately, for understanding geologic processes responsible for land-surface form. Classification of terrain is tantamount to organizing the expressions (features) of terrain topography into landforms (classes) – patches of topography having similar characteristics and commonly recognizable semantic labels. Because of the spatial character of topographic data, such classification is referred to as geomorphic mapping. The result of classification of an entire landscape scene into a set of mutually exclusive and exhaustive landform classes is referred to as a geomorphic map. Geomorphic mapping of terrestrial and planetary surfaces has been done traditionally via visual interpretation of images (Wilhelms, 1990; Tanaka, 1994). This manual method is slow, labor intensive, and suffers from subjectivity. Presently, remote sensing instruments onboard spacecrafts are providing increasingly large volumes of topographic data related to Earth as well as surfaces of other planets. This data rich environment challenges the ability of the geosciences community to turn a significant portion of all collected data into products (like, for example, geomorphic maps) that could be utilized in research. Simply put, advances in geomorphic mapping have not kept up with advances in data collection. If left to manual mapping, the percentage of planetary surfaces mapped to the level of detail permitted by an increased resolution of newly collected data will continue to drop precipitously. In order to prevent this decline in rate of data to map conversion, it is necessary to automate the mapping process. Fortunately, the surface properties that distinguish between different landforms can be described quantitatively by a set of numerical measures called terrain attributes which are derived from a digital elevation model (DEM) of the surface. This opens the opportunity for automation of the mapping process. The topic of auto-mapping landforms from topography has received some attention in the geosciences literature; however, such approaches rely frequently on hand-made rules for classification and are designed exclusively for terrestrial applications. Machine learning can play a vital role in automating the process of geomorphic mapping. A learning system can be employed to either fully automate the process of discovering meaningful landform classes using clustering techniques; or it can be used instead to predict 14
A New Prenylisoflavone from the Antifungal Extract of Leaves of Vatairea guianensis Aubl.

A new compound, 5,7,3’-trihydroxy-4’-methoxy-8-prenylisoflavone, was isolated from the leaves of Vatairea guianensis Aubl. (Fabaceae), together with two known isoflavones lupiwighteone and 5,7,4’-trihydroxy-3’-methoxy-8-prenylisoflavone. All isolated compounds were characterized based on infrared (IR), UV, 1 H and 13 C nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR), including 2D NMR analyses and high resolution mass spectrometry. The ethanolic extract from V. guianensis leaves displayed activity against Candida dubliniensis, C. albicans and C. krusei. However, the EtOAc fraction from that extract exhibited more significant activity than the ethanolic extract, showing antifungal activity for all fungi species investigated. The major compound 5,7,3’-trihydroxy4’-methoxy-8-prenylisoflavone isolated from that EtOAc fraction was also active against C. parapsilosis and C. dubliniensis.
Market Volatility and Stock Returns: The Role of Liquidity Providers

This study shows that market volatility affects stock returns both directly and indirectly through its impact on liquidity provision. The negative relation between market volatility and stock returns arises not only from greater risk premiums but also greater illiquidity premiums that are associated with higher market volatility. Consistent with our expectation, we also find that stock returns are more sensitive to volatility shocks in the high-frequency trading era, and after the regulatory changes in the U.S. markets that increased competition between public traders and market makers, reduced the tick size, and decreased the role of market makers.
Chart for Thermoelectric Systems Operation Based on a Ternary Diagram for Bithermal Systems

Thermoelectric system’s operation needs careful attention to ensure optimal power conversion depending on the application aims. As a ternary diagram of bithermal systems allows a synthetic graphical analysis of the performance attainable by any work-heat conversion system, thermoelectric systems operation is plotted as a parametric curve function of the operating conditions (electric current and reservoirs’ temperature), based on the standard model of Ioffe. The threshold of each operating mode (heat engine, heat pump, thermal dissipation, and forced thermal transfer), along with the optimal efficiencies and powers of the heat pump and heat engine modes, are characterized graphically and analytically as a function of the material properties and the operating conditions. The sensibility of the performance aims (maximum efficiency vs. maximum power) with the operating conditions is, thus, highlighted. In addition, the specific contributions of each phenomenon involved in the semiconductor (reversible Seebeck effect, irreversible heat leakage by conduction and irreversible thermal dissipation by Joule effect) are discussed in terms of entropy generation. Finally, the impact of the exo-irreversibilities on the performance is analyzed by taking the external thermal resistances into account.
Relationship between Service Quality and Customer Satisfaction in Hypermarkets of Saudi Arabia

The objective of this study is to determine the perception of retail service quality and its relationship with satisfaction for customers of hypermarkets in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA). Data was collected through self-administered questionnaires using convenience sampling technique. Out of 220 responses, 185 were finally chosen and analyzed for descriptive statistics as well as significant relationship between hypermarket service quality and customer satisfaction. The respondents reported high levels of perceived quality and significant relationship was found between retail service quality dimensions and customer satisfaction. Out of all the dimensions of service quality, physical aspects had the maximum effect on customer satisfaction, which was attributed to the cultural traits and lifestyle of Saudi society. Retail service providers need to recognize the importance of service quality dimensions in order of their significance, and implement appropriate strategy for competitive advantage over domestic and international players vying for share of an expanding consumer base.
Speech audiometry in Cantonese and other non-native English speakers : the use of digits and Cantonese words as stimuli

The purpose of the present study was to investigate validity and accuracy issues with the use of English speech audiometry on non-native English speakers. Two widely used tests of speech audiometry, Speech Recognition Threshold (SRT) and Word Recognition Score (WRS) were measured on 45 participants with English as a non-native language. The effects of test stimuli (English words versus English digits versus Cantonese words) and the correlations between language background factors (length of residence, age of exposure, years of instruction, birthplace, first language, preferred language, home language, daily language use, English TV and internet use) and the performance of SRT and WRS were analyzed. English digit pairs were found to be a more accurate measure of hearing threshold for English speech than English words, but Cantonese words elicited the lowest audiometric thresholds from the Cantonese-speaking participants. Age and birthplace were found to significantly correlate with the extent to which speech audiometric performance will be affected by the language of test stimuli. An analysis of the differences in English and Cantonese speech acoustic spectra was provided, and the implication that hearing levels measured using English speech-based stimuli might not reflect real life impairment for non-native English speakers was discussed. Clinical implications include being cautious in applying test results to real life impairment for non-native English-speaking clients, so as to avoid over-estimating the need for amplification and misdiagnosis of the nature of hearing loss. When administering speech audiometry on non-native English speakers, familiarization to test materials before SRT testing, the use of digit pairs as SRT stimuli, and the use of subjective questionnaires to assess listening need and impairment are recommended.
52.1: Analysis of Self‐Heating and Negative Capacitance in Organic Semiconductors Devices

A numerical model for charge transport in organic semiconductor devices that accounts for self-heating is presented. In admittance spectroscopy this model reproduces the negative capacitance in bipolar, and more importantly, in single carrier devices. We show that self-heating is crucial not only in large-area OLEDs, but also in small-area devices.