Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Balancing Interoception and Exteroception: Vestibular and Spatial Contributions to the Bodily Self

2 Declarations . 4 Acknowledgements . 5 Table of contents . 7 List of Tables . 9 List of Figures . 10 List of Appendices . 12 Abbreviations . 13 Chapter 1 . 14 General introduction . 14 1.1. Background . 14 1.2. Exteroceptive and interoceptive sensory integration: the basis of the bodily-self . 19 1.3. Balancing the body: the vestibular system and body representation . 24 1.4. Dis-ownership, motor awareness and agency in right hemisphere stroke patients . 27 1.5. Awareness of one’s own bodily self: metacognition and spatial cognition . 34 1.6. Aims and outline of the thesis . 40 Chapter 2 . 42 Balancing Body Ownership: Visual Capture of Proprioception and Affectivity During Vestibular Stimulation . 42 2.
Laboratory Detection of a New Carbon Chain Radical: H2CCCCN

The cyanopropynyl radical, H2CCCCN, was detected in a supersonic molecular beam by Fourier transform microwave spectroscopy. For the normal and 15N species, 89 and 40 hyperfine components, respectively, from four successive rotational transitions (N = 2 → 1 to 5 → 4) in the lowest energy (Ka = 0) rotational ladder were measured between 8 and 22 GHz to an uncertainty of 5 kHz. With this data, the microwave constants of cyanopropynyl, including the fine and hyperfine coupling constants, are determined to very high accuracy, and the most interesting lines in the radio spectrum from an astronomical standpoint can now be calculated to a fraction of 1 km s-1 in equivalent radial velocity.
Drug-Target Interaction prediction using Multi Graph Regularized Nuclear Norm Minimization

The identification of interactions between drugs and target proteins is crucial in pharmaceutical sciences. The experimental validation of interactions in genomic drug discovery is laborious and expensive; hence, there is a need for efficient and accurate in-silico techniques which can predict potential drug-target interactions to narrow down the search space for experimental verification. In this work, we propose a new framework, namely, Multi Graph Regularized Nuclear Norm Minimization, which predicts the interactions between drugs and proteins from three inputs: known drug-target interaction network, similarities over drugs and those over targets. The proposed method focuses on finding a low-rank interaction matrix that is structured by the proximities of drugs and targets encoded by graphs. Previous works on Drug Target Interaction (DTI) prediction have shown that incorporating drug and target similarities helps in learning the data manifold better by preserving the local geometries of the original data. But, there is no clear consensus on which kind and what combination of similarities would best assist the prediction task. Hence, we propose to use various multiple drug-drug similarities and target-target similarities as multiple graph Laplacian (over drugs/targets) regularization terms to capture the proximities exhaustively. Extensive cross-validation experiments on four benchmark datasets using standard evaluation metrics (AUPR and AUC) show that the proposed algorithm improves the predictive performance and outperforms recent state-of-the-art computational methods by a large margin. Author summary This work introduces a computational approach, namely Multi-Graph Regularized Nuclear Norm Minimization (MGRNNM), to predict potential interactions between drugs and targets. The novelty of MGRNNM lies in structuring drug-target interactions by multiple proximities of drugs and targets. There have been previous works which have graph regularized Matrix factorization and Matrix completion algorithms to incorporate the standard chemical structure drug similarity and genomic sequence target protein similarity, respectively. We introduce multiple drug-graph laplacian and target-graph laplacian regularization terms to the standard matrix completion framework to predict the missing values in the interaction matrix. The graph Laplacian terms are constructed from various kinds and combinations of similarities over drugs and targets (computed from the interaction matrix itself). In addition to this, we further improve the prediction accuracy by sparsifying the drug and target similarity matrices, respectively. For performance evaluation, we conducted extensive experiments on four benchmark datasets. The experimental results demonstrated that MGRNNM clearly outperforms recent state-of-the-art methods under three different cross-validation settings, in terms of the area under the ROC curve (AUC) and the area under the precision-recall curve (AUPR).
Trend-Following and Spillover Effects

We start by documenting trend-following (or time series momentum) in government bond, currency and equity index (all developed countries) at the asset class level, and at the multi-asset level, using 29 liquid instruments, with lookback periods ranging from 1 to 60 months. A typical multi-asset trend-following strategy delivers strong returns for short to medium term lookback periods. I document that trends spill over to other asset classes: past trends of assets can help to build investment strategies using other related assets. This spillover effect works better when using longer lookback periods than the sweet spot for trend-following.
Zero-phonon lines and spectral hole burning in spectroscopy and photochemistry

Zero-Phonon Lines in the Spectroscopy and Photochemistry of Impurity-Doped Solid Matter. - Homogeneous Broadening of Zero-Phonon Lines in the Impurity Spectra of Crystals and Glasses. - On the Theory of Stationary and Time-Dependent Zero-Phonon Lines. - Zero-Phonon Lines in the Spectra of Small Impurity Molecules as an Indicator of Electron-Phonon Interactions in Crystals. - Zero-Phonon Lines in the Spectra of Polyatomic, Including Biogenic, Molecules. - Spectral Hole Burning (SHB): Scientific and Practical Applications. - Broadening of Zero-Phonon Lines of Impurities in Glasses. - Zero-Phonon Lines and Time-and-Space-Domain Holography of Ultrafast Events. - Zero-Phonon Lines and Anomalous Photoelectric Properties of Ruby. - Zero-Phonon Lines in Superradiance. - Transient Phenomena in Mossbauer Gamma Radiation. - Index of Contributors.
Identification of Factors Undermining the TeachingLearning Process in the Subject of Physics at Secondary Level in Pakistan

The teaching of Physics involves theoretical as well as practical skills development of students at the secondary school level. The main aim of the study was to identify the factors that undermine the teaching-learning process in the subject of physics. All secondary schools science teachers were considered as the population of the study. Two hundred (200) science teachers (100 each male and female) were selected as the sample of the study through stratified random sampling techniques. Data was collected through a self-developed questionnaire of reliability coefficient 0.84 and were analyzed using statistical tools. The unavailability of physics: teacher, laboratory, classrooms, related books were concluded undermining factors. Lake of physics teachers and unfavorable working environment were found dominant in male teachers school than female. The educational authorities with the collaboration of the community can play their role to overcome these undermining factors in the subject of
Does Quality Standards Certification Truly Matter on Operational and Business Performances of Firms? Evidence from Resort Hotels

This study aims to determine the effects of ISO 9001:2015 quality certification on the firm performance. A questionnaire survey was used to collect data from 241 resort hotels in Turkey. The EFA (Exploratory Factor Analysis) and Cronbach alpha were used in order to test the unidimensionality and reliability of the scales. The difference between the ISO 9001 non/certified resort hotels was determined by t-test in order to test the hypothesis. As one of the first study focusing on how ISO 9001:2015 quality certification influence organizational and business performances of resort hotels in an emerging economy. The results show a significant relationship between the ISO 9001 quality certification and the operational performance, but not a positive one. However, the study does not show any significant relationship between the ISO 9001 quality certification and business performance. Finally, this study provides theoretical and practical implications with limitations and suggestions for potential future studies.
Candida sp. As a Potential Reservoir and Transmission Facilitator of Helicobacter Pylori

non-Abstract Helicobacter pylori is a bacterium broadly distributed in the world, colonizing nearly 50% of the human population. Its niche is the human stomach, where it is able to generate several gastric pathologies. A numbers of studies have detected Candida sp. together with H. pylori in the stomach, condition which could increase the severity of the gastric damage. Nevertheless, the association between these two microorganisms is closer because it has been reported that H. pylori can be found active within vacuoles of yeasts belonging to genus Candida . This association is present in yeasts isolated from diverse sources including foods as well as human bodies, such as mouth and vagina of pregnant women, suggesting the presence of a novel mechanism of protection and a means of transportation which facilitates H. pylori transmission. The aim of the present work is to review the relationship between H. pylori and yeasts of the genus Candida and the role of yeasts in the persistence of H. pylori worldwide infection.
Prediction of Admission to Delivery Time by Transvaginal Ultrasonographic Assessment of the Cervix in Cases of Preterm Prelabour Rupture of Membranes

Background: Preterm Premature Rupture of Membranes (PPROM) heralds about 30% of cases with spontaneous preterm births. Latency in PPROM is delineated as the time interval between PROM and delivery. It might be beneficial to predict this latency period as it may help to make a decision concerning in-utero transfer of fetus to better neonatal centers with advanced facilities and to administer corticosteroids in favor of fetal lung maturity. Objective: The aim of the current study was to assess the usefulness of measuring the cervical parameters by transvaginal sonography mainly cervical length and posterior cervical angle, in predicting the interval from admission to delivery in women with (PPROM). Subjects and methods: This study was conducted at Kafr El- Shiekh General Hospital and Al-Azhar University Hospitals and included 100 pregnant women with a singleton pregnancy of gestational age between 28-34 weeks and PPROM presenting within 24 hours and not in labour. Results: showed non-significant differences between the mean of PCA among different groups (P>0.05). Nevertheless, the results indicated that amniotic fluid index (AFI) increased significantly in patients with latency period >7days group (P<0.001). Furthermore, the mean Cervical length (CL) was observed to increase in PPROM patients’ group with high latency period. The latency period had significant positive correlation with AFI and cervical length (p<0.05). Also, it had significant negative correlation with birth weight, gestational age at hospitalization, CRP, and TLC, and neonatal sepsis (p<0.05). Conclusion: It could be concluded that assessment of Cervical length via transvaginal sonography is a valuable tool in the evaluating the interval between rupture of membranes and delivery in women with PPROM.
Preferred Learning Mode of Education and Dental Students: A Cross Sectional Study

Conclusion: The dental students of the present study had shown varied learning preferences. The VARK questionnaire is a relatively easy and straightforward method to disclose the education method preferences for any student or a category of students. Dental education providers should adapt their education conveyance procedure to estimate the new teaching preferences for the students. Dental students should be motivated to modify a multimodal method of learning to improve their academic skills.
Supercritical fluids : extraction and pollution prevention

MACROMOLECULES AND THERMODYNAMICS 1. Miscibility and Phase Separation of Polymers in Near- and Supercritical Fluids 2. Estimation of Solid Solubilities in Supercritical Carbon Dioxide from Solute Solvatochromic Parameters 3. Phase Equilibria of Vegetable Oils with Near-Critical Fluids 4. Supercritical Fluid Extraction of Recycled Fibers: Removal of Dioxins, Stickies, and Inactivation of Microbes NATURAL MATERIALS 5. Meeting the Natural Products Challenge with Supercritical Fluids 6. Extraction of Sage and Coriander Seed Using Near-Critical Carbon Dioxide 7. Supercritical Recovery of Eicosapentaenoic Acid and Docosahexaenoic Acid from Fish Oil 8. Supercritical Carbon Dioxide Extraction of Volatile Compounds from Rosemary 9. Effect of Functional Groups on the Solubilities of Coumarin Derivatives in Supercritical Carbon Dioxide 10. Supercritical Fluid Extraction with Reflux for Citrus Oil Processing EXTRACTION AND CHROMATOGRAPHY 11. The Future Impact of Supercritical Fluid Chromatography Packed Columns, Modified Fluids, and Detectors 12. Analysis of Natural Products: A Review of Chromatographic Techniques 13. The Influence of Entrainers on the Extraction of Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons from Contaminated Soils 14. Estimation of Physicochemical Properties Using Supercritical Fluid Chromatography ENVIRONMENTAL APPLICATIONS 15. Supercritical Fluids in Environmental Remediation and Pollution Prevention 16. Mass Transfer and Chemical Reaction During Catalytic Supercritical Water Oxidation of Pyridine 17. Degradation in Supercritical Water Oxidation Systems 18. Supercritical Carbon Dioxide Extraction of Solventfrom Micromachined Structures 19. Supercritical Fluid Extraction of Grinding and Metal Cutting Waste Contaminated with Oils 20. Supercritical Fluid Extraction for Remediation of Contaminated Soil
Analysis and Evaluation of Eye Behavior for Marine Operation Training - A Pilot Study

This paper presents a new analysis approach for evaluating situation awareness in marine operation training. Taking advantage of eye tracking technology, the situation awareness reflected by visual attention can be visualized and analyzed. A scanpath similarity comparison method that allows group-wise comparisons is proposed. The term ‘Expert zone’ is introduced to evaluate the performance of novice operator based on expert operators’ eye movement. It is used to evaluate performance of novice operators in groups in certain segment of marine operation. A pilot study of crane lifting experiment was carried out. Two target stages of operation for the load descending until total immersion to the seabed were selected and analyzed for both novice and expert operators. The group-wise evaluation method is proven to be able to access the performance of the operator. Besides that, from data analysis of fixation-related source and scanpath, the similarities and dissimilarities of eye behavior between novice and expert is concluded with the scanpath mode in target segment.
Agonist Versus Antagonist in Intracytoplasmic Sperm Injection Cycles: Which Is the Best?

Objectives: The comparison of gonadotropin-releasing hormone (GnRH) agonist against GnRH antagonists regarding the pregnancy rate and effect of various predictors on pregnancy outcomes. Materials and Methods: This prospective comparative study involved 189 women who underwent intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI) cycles and were divided into agonist (107 patients) and antagonist arm (82 patients) groups. The chemical and clinical pregnancy rate was the main outcome and the other outcomes included the number and quality of oocyte measurement and pregnancy outcomes. Results: Based on the results, the agonist protocol showed a higher rate of pregnancy (32.7%, 95% CI: 23.9-42.4%) compared to the antagonist protocol (22.0%, 95% confidence interval (CI): 13.6-32.5%) with the odds ratio (OR) of (95% CI) = 1.73 (0.89-3.35). The results further revealed that the count of retrieved oocytes, count of M2 oocytes, count of fertilized oocytes, count of embryos, and the fertilization percent out of total retrieved oocytes were higher in the agonist arm compared to the antagonist arm. In the multivariate analysis after adjusting for the confounders, the agonist protocol had higher odds of a successful pregnancy compared to the antagonist protocol by 57% (partial OR = 1.57, P value = 0.23). Conclusions: In general, the agonist protocol offers a favourable outcome in comparison to the antagonist arm, and there seems to be an intrinsic benefit for the agonist protocol, which is not explained by the higher number of transferred embryos.
Changes in Quality of Pork and Beef during Storage and Electronic Nose Analysis

To elucidate changes in qualifies of pork and beef during storage and identify decay point, beef (loin, tenderloin, plate) and pork (belly, loin, thigh) were stored at , and their pH, volatile basic nitrogen (VBN), thiobarbituric acid reacted substance (TBARS), electronic nose analysis, and sensory evaluation were performed. Belly of pork had higher values in pH, VBN and TBARS, compared to loin and thigh of pork. Electronic nose analysis clearly indicated a difference in principal component score between day 0 and day 12 of storage. Sensory evaluation showed that pork began to away at day 4 of storage and not edible after 6 days. Loin and tenderloin of beef had higher values in pH and VBN, compared to plate of beef. Regarding TBARS, all beef samples had the similar values at the beginning of storage, but loin of beef had a drastic increase after 8 days of storage, differently from tenderloin and plate of beef. Plate of beef had lower values in overall. Electronic nose analysis of beef showed the similar results with those of pork.
Platelet Estimation by Manual and Automated Methods

Background: Accurate platelet estimation is essential for the management of the patients with thrombocytopenia. Automated analyzer by its quick and reliable platelet estimation has overtaken the manual methods. But sometimes they do produce erroneous results which are to be cross checked by manual methods. Hence this study was undertaken to compare the traditional manual method and alternate method based on Platelet/RBC ratio for estimating platelets in peripheral smear and to find the most accurate method for detecting Thrombocytopenia. Methods: 100 samples of EDTA anticoagulated blood is analysed by automated analyzer, then thin peripheral smear is prepared. Manual counts are performed by 1: Traditional Method- average platelet count / 10 Oil immersion field (OIF) x 15,000, 2: Alternate method -platelet/1000 red blood cells (RBC) multiplied by RBC count. Manual methods were compared with the automated analyzer using students t test. The Sensitivity, Specificity, Positive Predictive Value (PPV), Negative Predictive Value (NPV) and Likelihood ratio (LR) for positive tests were also calculated for the manual and alternate methods in detecting thrombocytopenia. Result: The students t test shows no difference in the platelet counts estimated by traditional method and alternate method. Further the results of sensitivity, specificity, PPV, NPV and LR for positive tests show the traditional and Alternate method can give fairly accurate results. Conclusion: The manual method of platelet estimation is found to be the most accurate and can used to quality check the automated analyzer or can be used in underprivileged laboratories, for aiding in proper management of the patient.
Computed tomographic features of gastric and esophageal content in dogs undergoing CT myelography and factors influencing the presence of esophageal fluid

Background Gastroesophageal reflux (GER) has been reported to be a common finding in dogs under general anesthesia. Objectives The aim of this retrospective study was to assess the esophageal and gastric contents in a population of dogs undergoing computed tomographic myelography (myelo-CT) examination and to evaluate the factors influencing the presence of esophageal fluid (gastric content, duration of anesthesia, body position, and intrinsic factors). Methods Esophageal and gastric contents of 83 non-brachycephalic dogs were retrospectively assessed based on plain and myelo-CT scans. Age, weight, breed, sex, and the time between the 2 computed tomography [CT] scans were included. Results Esophageal fluid was present in 19% (16/83) of the animals, and 14% (12/83) and 46% (37/83), respectively, had fluid or food material in their stomachs. The frequency of observing esophageal fluid on myelo-CT scans was significantly increased compared with plain CT scans (p = 0.006). The presence of gastric fluid was significantly associated with an increased frequency of observing esophageal fluid compared to other gastric contents (p = 0.049; odds ratio, 3.1). The presence of esophageal fluid was not correlated with alimentary gastric contents (p = 0.17). Increased body weight and duration of anesthesia were significantly associated with an increased frequency of observing esophageal fluid (p = 0.022, p = 0.021). Conclusions Unlike alimentary gastric contents, fluid gastric contents were correlated with the presence of esophageal fluid upon myelo-CT. The observation of fluid in the esophagus may be consistent with GER. This study provides data additional to pH monitoring studies of GER and may support previous studies recommending shorter pre-anesthetic fasting periods in dogs.
Impact of Plant Growth Regulators and Nutrient Consortium on Growth, Superoxide Dismutase, Na+/K+ ratio and Yield of Blackgram under Salinity Stress

An experiment was conducted to study the effect of plant growth regulators like jasmonic acid (50 μM), brassinolide (0.5 ppm), salicylic acid (100 ppm), ascorbic acid (100 ppm), gibberellic acid (10 ppm), benzyl amino purine (5 ppm) and nutrient consortium (K2SO4 0.5% + FeSO4 0.5%) + Borax 0.3%) and 1% TNAU pulse wonder on blackgram (Vigna mungo L.) variety TNAU Blackgram CO 6 under salinity condition. The salinity was imposed by 125 mM NaCl concentration in pot culture. Plant growth regulators and nutrient consortium were used as foliar spray at 20 and 40 days after sowing except jasmonic acid, which used as seed soaking. Under salinity stress, root volume, leaf area, specific leaf weight, net assimilation rate and yield were significantly reduced compared to normal condition. Among the treatments, brassinolide showed its supremacy on higher leaf area (149.13 cm2 plant-1), specific leaf weight (0.41 mg cm-2) and super oxide dismutase activity (325 Units mg-1 protein) followed by salicylic acid and TNAU pulse wonder. However highest root volume of 3.5 cc was recorded by TNAU pulse wonder. Salicylic acid registered highest net assimilation rate of 0.398 mg cm-2 d-1 followed by brassinolide (0.396 mg cm-2 d-1). The minimum Na+/K+ ratio (0.325) was observed in brassinolide followed by salicylic acid (0.355) which is on par with nutrient mixture (0.357) and TNAU pulse wonder (0.362). Among the plant growth regulators and nutrients, brassinolide recorded the maximum grain yield of 8.85 g plant-1 followed the salicylic acid (8.72 g) which is on par with TNAU Pulse Wonder (8.60 g).