Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Passport to Wholeness: The Effects of a Campus Mental Health Fair on Help-Seeking Attitudes

Counseling Association by Dr. Garry R. Walz and Dr. Jeanne C. Bleuer of Counseling Outfitters, LLC. Its purpose is to provide a means of capturing the ideas, information and experiences generated by the annual ACA Conference and selected ACA Division Conferences. Papers on a program or practice that has been validated through research or experience may also be submitted. This digital collection of peer-reviewed articles is authored by counselors, for counselors. VISTAS Online contains the full text of over 500 proprietary counseling articles published from 2004 to present.
Comparison of chemical characteristics of fresh and pasteurised juice of gilaburu (Viburnum opulus L.)

Organic acids, total phenolic compounds, and antioxidant activity were determined in two different juices of gilaburu fruits ( Viburnum opulus L., belonging to the Caprifoliaceae family). Organic acids, analysed by RP-HPLC-UV visible detection, were individually detected and quantified. The predominant organic acid of samples was L-malic acid. The mean concentration of total phenolic compounds of fresh gilaburu juice (FGJ) and pasteurised gilaburu juice (PGJ) was 351.26 and 330.40 mg gallic acid equivalents (GAE)/100 ml, respectively. Average EC 50 values (in the DPPH• test) were 25.06 μl mg −1 DPPH• for FGJ, and 30.87 μl mg −1 DPPH• for PGJ. Total phenolic compounds of both juices were higher than those of some commonly consumed juices and nectars.
Climate change: is Southeast Asia up to the challenge?: the roles of climate variability and climate change on smoke haze occurrences in Southeast Asia region

This paper discusses the smoke-haze episodes in the Southeast Asia region and how their occurrence can be related to climate variability and future climate change in the region. The haze episode over this region has been an almost yearly occurrence but becomes severe during the prolonged dry period associated with the El Nino phenomenon. The longest and most severe case was the episode of September to November 1997 that occurred in conjunction with the extreme 1997/98 El Nino. This event resulted in more than US$4 billion in economic losses to the region and a colossal 93% of the cost was incurred in Indonesia.
The effects of replacement of fish-meal with crab-meal on growth and feed utilization of African giant catfish Heterobranchus longifilis fingerlings

-1 ; feed conversion ratio, 1.12 ± 0.06 and protein efficiency ratio of 2.28 ± 0.12. Diets with FM performed better than CM diets. Percentage survival rate for FM and CM containing diets varied between 91.0 ± 1.63 and 100% and the condition of fish was not significantly different (P > 0.05). Apart from whole body levels of CP in FM fed fish, moisture and fat contents were unaffected by dietary treatments. Deficiency in some essential amino acids and higher dietary ash levels in CM probably impaired effective utilization of these diets compared to FM. Crab-meal diets show appreciable performance and could have potential use as a partial replacer of FM at a particular level.
Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard Compliance in Restaurants

ABSTRACT In order to improve the security of customer data, the credit card companies have come together to create a security standard called the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS), which involves mandatory requirements for merchants that accept credit card transactions. All restaurants that accept a credit card must comply with PCI DSS. The purpose of the study was to examine the PCI DSS compliance levels of quick-service, casual/family, and fine dining restaurants. A random sample of one thousand restaurant managers who are in charge of information technology at their companies and were subscribers of Hospitality Technology magazine were surveyed. One hundred ninety managers responded to the survey. The results indicate that restaurants are far from full compliance with PCI DSS. This may have significant financial and non-financial consequences for restaurant owners and operators.
Capture Probability and Survivorship of the Southern Two-Lined Salamander (Eurycea cirrigera) in Drought and Non-Drought Conditions

Droughts represent a major disturbance in lotic systems, and likely negatively influence stream-inhabiting amphibian populations. However, because of the inability to predict droughts, empirical investigations examining the response of stream amphibians to drought are uncommon. We conducted a capture–mark–recapture (CMR) study of a population of Eurycea cirrigera (Southern Two-lined Salamander) at one stream from 2005–2010; during this five-year period several drought events occurred. This stochasticity provided an opportunity to examine the effects of drought on survivorship and capture probability of E. cirrigera. We found that capture probability was influenced by season and drought conditions. We also found that salamander survival was influenced by drought; monthly survivorship decreased from 0.96±0.03 during non-drought conditions to 0.79±0.03 during drought conditions. Our results suggest that drought leads to decreased survivorship of E. cirrigera and the effects of drought on capture probability varies by season. Increased capture probability, especially during the reproductive season, may be a result of salamanders seeking refuge in the stream as opposed to seeking refuge in the adjacent terrestrial environment.
Characterization of cellular stress systems using biological mass spectrometry

In recent years mass spectrometry has become an invaluable tool to address an array of biological questions. The versatility of this experimental approach does not only allow assignment of protein identity and identification of sequence specific modifications, but with the help of particular derivatization techniques facilitates the determination of peptide quantity. Each of these approaches were applied to the following biological projects: The 21 kDa heat stable protein purified from the encysted embryo of Artemia franciscana was characterized by time-of-flight mass spectrometry. De novo sequencing of peptides identified this protein as a group 1 Late embryogenesis abundant (LEA) protein. The amino acid sequence assignment to these peptides allowed amplification of the entire gene sequence from an embryonic cDNA library. This was deposited into the NCBI database (EF656614). The expression of group 1 LEA protein is consistent with and supports a role in desiccation tolerance. In addition, this is a first report describing identification of a group 1 LEA protein in an animal species. A MS-based quantitative analysis was performed in order to analyze relative changes in the dynamic thiol and disulfide states of the redox sensitive protein disulfide isomerase, PDI. PDI cysteine residues were derivatized with an isotope-coded affinity tag (ICAT), thus allowing a direct comparison between the reduced and auto-oxidized forms. Quantitation was based on relative ratios between light and heavy isotopically labeled cysteine containing peptides. The application of the ICAT-labeling approach to PDI related studies, allowed direct assignment of individual cysteine residues and their oxidation status, compared to the previously employed techniques, that only provided
Acceleration for HEVC Encoder by Bimodal Segmentation of Rate-Distortion Cost and Accurate Determination of Early Termination and Early Split

The processing unit with a quad-tree structure in high efficiency video coding (HEVC/H.265) consists of a coding unit (CU), a prediction unit (PU), and a transform unit (TU). The CU and PU account for the majority of the computational complexity. This paper proposes a fast inter-prediction algorithm to overcome the high-computational demand associated with the coding complexity for an HEVC/H.265 encoder. In this paper, the CU depth prediction is proposed to reduce the number of CU executions by incorporating the depths and rate-distortion costs (RD-costs) of the adjacent CUs. Bimodal RD-cost segmentation is proposed for the elementary dichotomy of RD-cost distribution. The proposed algorithm applies the one-sided Chebyshev’s inequality for the determination of accurate RD-cost thresholds by adjusting the error rates for early termination and early split. Our approach achieves 50.1% and 48.7% time savings with Bjøntegaard delta bit rate (BDBR) increases of 1.2% and 1.0% compared to the HEVC/H.265 reference software for random access and low delay configurations, respectively. The proposed method has better performance than earlier researches in terms of both coding speed and rate-distortion.
New Frontiers in Resilient Aging: Why do some people thrive while others succumb to disease and stagnation?

Abstract This chapter focuses on the role that personality plays in resilience across the lifespan. The concept of personality captures a combination of genetic, familial, social, and cultural elements, and thus is very useful in understanding differential patterns of development. In particular, this chapter highlights findings from our work with the Terman Life Cycle Study, the longest longitudinal study conducted to date, to demonstrate how core aspects of the individual may impact how he or she travels life's pathways and reacts to life's challenges. Our findings suggest that temperamental predispositions, internal stress, coping responses, social relationships, and health behaviors may all be relevant to whether an individual will thrive and stay healthy in the face of challenge or succumb to illness and disease. By identifying the mechanisms involved, we can better understand risk and intervene more effectively, with the goal of increasing resilience as people age. It is easy to observe striking individual differences in healthy aging. Consider these two cases drawn from our lifespan studies of longevity. Elmer was constantly on the go – involved in everything and friends with everyone. In the morning he raised funds for a benefit concert to support the children's hospital; in the afternoon he bowled with his buddies; in the evening he cared for his wife and enjoyed the company of his children and grandchildren.
Colouring empires in random trees

In this thesis we study the empire colouring problem as defined by Percy Heawood in 1890 for maps whose dual planar representation is a tree and have empires formed from exactly r vertices. We define the reduced graph of one such tree as being the graph formed by replacing each empire in the tree by a single vertex such that an edge is present between two vertices u and v of the reduced graph if there was an edge in the original tree joining a vertex belonging to the empire corresponding to u to a vertex belonging to the empire corresponding to v. We then give several results on a number of structural properties of these graphs assuming that the underlying tree is a random labelled tree, and compare them to those of other types of random graphs with the same number of edges. The main contribution of this thesis is a set of results on the worst-case and average-case properties of the empire colourings of trees having an upper bound s on the number of distinct colours used. We first show that if each empire contains exactly r countries, the empire colouring problem can be solved using no more than 2r colours on maps whose dual planar graph is a tree. Furthermore we give an inductive method for building instances that require these many colours. Then, motivated by the results of an empirical investigation of a number of colouring heuristics, we study the proportion of trees on a given number of vertices for which the empire colouring problem can be solved with s ≤ 2r colours. We prove that for every fixed positive integer r there exists a very precise lower bound on s beneath which almost all trees will admit no r-empire s-colouring. For larger values of s we are then able to give constant positive lower bounds on the probability that s colours are sufficient to colour a random tree.
Sex-biased parasitism in monogamous arctic foxes is driven by diet

Male-biased parasite loads are common in vertebrates, particularly in species with intense sexual selection, yet few studies have examined sex-biased parasite loads in monogamous species with low sexual selection and no differential investment in ornaments or other sexually selected traits. The circumpolar arctic fox (Vulpes lagopus) is a socially monogamous predator with low sexual selection; both parents invest heavily in their young. To determine if parasite loads (abundance and intensity) in arctic foxes vary with sex, age, or diet, we identified and enumerated parasites in arctic fox carcasses collected in winter from local trappers at Churchill, Manitoba, Canada. We measured stable isotope ratios in muscle samples as a proxy for diet. Males had more cestodes, which are only transmitted through prey, but numbers of nematodes, which are acquired by direct transmission, did not differ between sexes. &dgr;15N values were lower in males, suggesting greater reliance on small mammals. Age did not affect diet or the number of cestodes, but the species of cestodes differed by age; for example, Echinococcus multilocularis was present only in subadults (< 1 year old). Nematodes were more abundant in subadults, likely because pups spend more time at dens in high densities, increasing exposure. Intraspecific differences in arctic fox parasites are best explained by variation in diet and foraging patterns, rather than hormone-mediated reduction in immunity. These results suggest that in monogamous species, males may not suffer compromised immunity as seen in species with strong sexual selection.
Image Simulation Framework for Digital Mammography Systems.

A wide range of technology is available in commercial digital mammography; these vary greatly in physical performance measures such as Modulation Transfer Function (MTF) and Noise Power Spectrum (NPS). However, the relationship between a digital mamography system’s physical performance and its impact on the clinician’s ability to detect and characterise cancer from its images is unclear. Use of clinical trials to compare digital mammography technology would be expensive and time-consuming. Simulation of images acquired on such digital mammography systems provides a powerful way to compare and optimise technology. The aim of this work has been to develop and validate an image simulation framework to generate images as if acquired from specific digital mammography systems. Signal and noise transfer properties of various systems were characterised using detector response, MTF and NPS measurements. Straight-edge and flat-field images were synthesized to validate the image simulation framework with experimentally acquired images. Excellent agreement was seen between synthetically generated and corresponding experimentally acquired images. Theory was developed to investigate the resampling effects upon measured MTF using the image simulation framework. The image simulation framework was further extended to generate CDMAM phantom images. The CDMAM phantom provides a method to quantify the detectability of details imaged on a mammography system based on an observer’s ability to detect discs of varying contrast and diameter. Simulation of the CDMAM phantom image based on MTF and NPS alone was seen to be insufficient to create physically accurate CDMAM phantom images. Non-uniformity effects such as heel-effect, local pixel variance, geometric magnification and scatter effects were modelled to improve the image simulation framework. Reducing the radiation dose to the patient whilst preserving sufficient information in the resultant mammogram to diagnose cancer is a very important issue. Lower exposure levels can be used in digital mammography systems compared with screen-film. However, there is ambiguity as to the optimal exposure level as well as the effects upon the characterisation and detection of cancer lesions from such images. A multiple noise source model was developed taking into account the major sources of noise: electronic, quantum and structural, thus increasing the exposure range at which the system noise can be accurately simulated. Comparison of ‘dose reduced’ experimentally acquired flat-field, CDMAM phantom and mastectomy images with corresponding lower dose experimentally acquired images showed excellent results. This marks the first study to have simulated such images for direct comparison in dose-reduction.
A Greenhouse Method for Screening Grapevine Seedlings for Resistance to Anthracnose

Screening for resistance to Elsinoe ampelina (de Bary) Shear, causal agent of grape anthracnose, in grapevine seedlings is commonly conducted by natural infection over 3 to 4 years in the vineyard. The objective of this research was to develop a greenhouse screening method for selecting grapevine seedlings with resistance to anthracnose. Spores of E. ampelina were obtained from 3- to 4-week-old cultures on potato dextrose agar. Inoculum concentrations ranging from 1.3 × 10 3 to 1.3 × 10 7 E. ampelina conidia per mL were evaluated and 10 6 conidia/mL was optimum. The time of incubation of seedlings in a moist chamber after inoculation varied from 24 to 120 hours with 24 to 72 hours resulting in good symptom development. Temperatures in the moist chamber from 16 to 32 °C were evaluated and the most consistent results were obtained at 20 to 28 °C. The most effective method for selecting anthracnose-resistant grape seedlings in the two-to-three true-leaf stage was misting the seedlings with a suspension containing 10 6 conidia/mL in water and placing the inoculated seedlings in a moist chamber at 24 °C for 48 hours, followed by 8 days on a greenhouse bench. Resistant seedlings from the greenhouse screening (those with <10 foliar lesions) were transplanted into the vineyard and found to be resistant to anthracnose infection under rainy, humid conditions. This greenhouse procedure for selecting grapevine cultivars and breeding lines with resistance to anthracnose is accurate, economical, and labor-saving.
Diel diving behavior of breeding gentoo penguins on King George Island in Antarctica

Many marine birds dive to catch prey in water. The gentoo penguin (Pygoscelis papua), a specialized diving seabird that preys on krill and fish, is distributed from the sub-Antarctic islands to Antarctic regions. Here, we observed the diving behavior of breeding gentoo penguins on King George Island, South Shetland Islands, Antarctica. Using a time–depth recorder, we collected diving depths every second from seven gentoo breeders for 5–21 days during the chick-rearing period and analyzed their diving characteristics. Most dives occurred in shallow water, although the dive efficiency (=bottom duration time/[dive duration + post-dive surface time]) was highest at depths of 30–35 m and decreased as the penguins dove deeper. Gentoo penguins did not dive more frequently during the day than at night, but during nighttime, most dives occurred in shallow water (<20 m) and the dive efficiency was also higher at this time. As penguins repeated their foraging trips, the number of dives, depth of dives, and trip duration did not change significantly. Our results suggest that the diel dive patterns of gentoo penguins might be related to the vertical migration of krill (upward to the surface at night). In addition, we observed that gentoo penguins could perform active diving behavior even at night, possibly aided by civil twilight during the chick-rearing period in Antarctic regions.
In vitro antifungal activity of methanol extracts of some Indian medicinal plants against pathogenic yeast and moulds

The methanol extract of 9 Indian medicinal plants belonging to 9 different families were evaluated for in vitro antifungal activity against some yeasts including Candida albicans (1) ATCC2091, C. albicans (2) ATCC18804, Candida glabrata NCIM3448, Candida tropicalis ATCC4563, Cryptococcus luteolus ATCC32044, Cryptococcus neoformans ATCC34664, Trichosporon beigelli NCIM3404, and some moulds such as Aspergillus candidus NCIM883, Aspergillus flavus NCIM538, Aspergillus niger ATCC6275 and Mucor heimalis NCIM873. The in vitro antifungal activity was evaluated at three different concentrations by agar disc diffusion method and the activity obtained was not concentration dependent. A. flavus was the most susceptible fungal strain while C. glabrata was the most resistant one. Saussurea lappa showed the best antifungal activity. The results were compared with the standard antifungals
Impact of Judicial Efficiency on Leverage and Debt-Maturity Structure

This dissertation studies the impact of judicial efficiency on leverage and debt-maturity structure of 370 firms that are listed on the Karachi Stock Exchange, over the period 2001-2006.In a set of regressions where dependent variable is leverage ratio, baseline results show that leverage ratio increases with size of firm, ratio of fixed-assets-to-totalassets, and decreases with profitability, volatility of net income, dividends payments and growth opportunities. The largest economic effect on leverage ratio is that of the size of firm. These results demonstrate that the trade-off theory and the information asymmetry theory best explains observed capital structure. The results also indicate that leverage ratio decreases when judicial efficiency decreases; however, this relationship is not statistically significant. This is due to the composition effect. Allowing judicial efficiency to interact with the included explanatory variables, the results show that worsening judicial efficiency increases leverage ratios of large firms and decreases leverage ratios of small firms which is an indication of the fact that creditors shift credit away from small firms to large firms in the presence of inefficient judicial system. Results also indicate that the effect of inefficient courts is greater on leverage ratios of firms that have fewer tangible assets as percentage of total assets than on leverage ratios of firms that have more tangible assets. And finally there is some evidence that firms with more volatile net incomes are affected more than firms with less volatile net incomes when judicial efficiency decreases. In debt-maturity regressions, the baseline results indicate that debt-maturity increases with size, tangible assets, and decreases with the firm‘s growth opportunities and inefficiency of judiciary; however, volatility of net income and firm‘s quality do not show any statistically significant relationship with debt-maturity ratio. Allowing for the possibility that judicial inefficiency does not impact all firms alike, the measure of judicial efficiency is interacted with dummy variables that are based on the quartiles of the included explanatory variables. Results of these regressions show that worsening judicial efficiency has far greater negative impact on the debt-maturity ratio of small firms than on the debt-maturity ratio of large firms. Similarly, results show that the effect of inefficient courts is greater on firms that have fewer tangible assets as percentage of total assets than on firms that have more tangible assets. Other firm-specific features like growth opportunities, volatility of net income, and firm‘s quality do not change the impact of judicial inefficiency on the firms‘ debt-maturity ratios.