Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Effect of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy on Functional Outcomes in Patients with Stroke

Upper extremity impairment is a common motor deϑicit after a stroke, and 30– 60% of stroke sufferers have disability and inability to use their affected upper extremity in their daily lives. Stroke survivors with cognitive dysfunctions are most likely to be dependent in activities of daily living. Further deterioration is possible as a result of limitation in activities. Psychiatric problems are also common among stroke survivors. This may delay recovery process and further impair cognitive function due to adaptations to unhealthy lifestyles or noncompliance to rehabilitation. Cognitive behavioral training (CBT) increase blood supply to 20% of different brain areas, and facilitation of internancial neurons activity. Cognitive behavioral training (CBT) act as Incentive therapy focuses on active participation, self-esteem, motivational features such as score keeping, and competition. The ultimate objective of physiotherapy is for patients to return to full independence and their former occupations.The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of cognitive behavioral training on functional outcomes in stroke patients.Forty stroke patients from both sexes participated in this study 20 patients for each group. Random distribution for patients to 2 groups; Group (A) exposed cognitive behavioral therapy for 60 min and selected physical therapy program for 30 min, every other day for 24 sessions, total duration of session (90 min). Control group (B) received the same selected physical therapy program for 60 min, every other day for 24 sessions total duration of session (60 min). Changing in affected upper extremity motor impairment were measured (Dash scale, Wolf scale and Jammar hand dynamometer). The result of our study was improvement of motor functions were signiϑicantly greater in the study group than the control group (p=0.0001).
Language Ideological Debates and Intercultural Learning in French Immersion Education

Résumé:Bien qu’au Canada, le multiculturalisme et l’éducation bilingue offrent l’occasion aux secteurs de l’éducation de promouvoir la citoyenneté interculturelle des étudiants, les débats linguistiques idéologiques (DLI) qui ont cours au Nouveau-Brunswick — seule province canadienne officiellement bilingue — risquent d’engendrer la création de structures faisant obstacle au développement interculturel des élèves anglophones en immersion française. En s’appuyant sur l’hypothèse selon laquelle les DLI peuvent être réifiés dans le matériel éducatif, les auteures soumettent à une analyse du discours les objectifs culturels du document de base des Provinces atlantiques en matière d’immersion française, faisant appel au modèle d’acquisition des langues socialement située du groupe Douglas Fir. Elles se penchent sur l’incidence des forces idéologiques (au niveau macro) sur la construction discursive de ces objectifs (au niveau méso). Des ambiguïtés idéologiques sont relevées : l’apprentissage culturel est inscrit dans les idéologies nationales de multiculturalisme et de bilinguisme relativement au capital économique sur le marché mondial, et il est distancé de son lien avec l’histoire du Nouveau-Brunswick. On donne préséance à la communication fonctionnelle des étudiants avec les francophones sur leur évolution personnelle. Les auteures suggèrent des façons d’aborder avec les étudiants du français langue seconde la discussion sur les idéologies linguistiques de manière à favoriser le développement interculturel.Abstract:While Canada’s multiculturalism and bilingual education represent an opportunity for educational sectors to foster students’ intercultural citizenship, in New Brunswick – Canada’s only officially bilingual province – provincial language ideological debates (LIDs) may create structures impeding Anglophone French immersion (FI) students’ intercultural development. On the premise that LIDs may be reified in curricular documents, we conduct discourse analysis on the cultural objectives of the Atlantic Provinces’ FI Foundation document, invoking the Douglas Fir Group’s framework of socially-situated language acquisition. The article examines the impact of ideological forces (the macro level) on the discursive construction of these objectives (the meso level). Ideological ambiguities are noted: Cultural learning is positioned within national ideologies of multiculturalism and of bilingualism for economic capital on the global market, distancing it from its relationship to New Brunswick’s history. Students’ functional communication with Francophones is privileged over their personal transformation. The article suggests ways to discuss language ideologies with French as a second language (FSL) students to foster intercultural development.
Unsupervised Learning of Persistent and Sequential Activity

Two strikingly distinct types of activity have been observed in various brain structures during delay periods of delayed response tasks: Persistent activity (PA), in which a sub-population of neurons maintains an elevated firing rate throughout an entire delay period; and Sequential activity (SA), in which sub-populations of neurons are activated sequentially in time. It has been hypothesized that both types of dynamics can be ‘learned’ by the relevant networks from the statistics of their inputs, thanks to mechanisms of synaptic plasticity. However, the necessary conditions for a synaptic plasticity rule and input statistics to learn these two types of dynamics in a stable fashion are still unclear. In particular, it is unclear whether a single learning rule is able to learn both types of activity patterns, depending on the statistics of the inputs driving the network. Here, we first characterize the complete bifurcation diagram of a firing rate model of multiple excitatory populations with an inhibitory mechanism, as a function of the parameters characterizing its connectivity. We then investigate how an unsupervised temporally asymmetric Hebbian plasticity rule shapes the dynamics of the network. Consistent with previous studies, we find that for stable learning of PA and SA, an additional stabilization mechanism, such as multiplicative homeostatic plasticity, is necessary. Using the bifurcation diagram derived for fixed connectivity, we study analytically the temporal evolution and the steady state of the learned recurrent architecture as a function of parameters characterizing the external inputs. Slow changing stimuli lead to PA, while fast changing stimuli lead to SA. Our network model shows how a network with plastic synapses can stably and flexibly learn PA and SA in an unsupervised manner.
Comparison of fresh versus frozen embryo transfer in women with polycystic ovary syndrome

Introduction: Transfer of fresh embryos is a usual practice but in women at risk of ovarian hyperstimulation due to excess follicle development, elective cryopreservation of all embryos followed by transfer in subsequent cycle is preferred. Fresh cycles have supraphysiological steroid levels which may alter the endometrial receptivity and probably affect placentation adversely whereas frozen embryo transfer is performed to the uterus after a programmed physiologic cycle of hormone replacement to prepare the endometrium. Objective: To find out whether frozen embryo transfer in subsequent cycle is better than that in fresh transfer in women with polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) when human chorionic gonadotropin (hCG) is used as a trigger in antagonist cycles. Study Design, Size, Duration: It is a prospective cohort study. Infertile women <35 years with the PCOS diagnosed by Rotterdam criteria who were undergoing their first in vitroPlease check whether the suggested full form for the acronyms in vitro fertilization (IVF) and assisted reproductive techniques (ART) provided in the article is correct. fertilization cycle from 1st January 2015 to 28th February 2016 were included. Cycles complicated by ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome were excluded. Participants/Materials, Setting, Methods: Women (N = 126) with terminal estradiol levels below 2500 pg/ml were triggered with recombinant hCG, and based on the number of retrieved oocytes, they were divided into two groups: Group A <15 oocytes retrieved had fresh embryo transfer on day 3 and Group B where >15 oocytes were retrieved, but all embryos were frozen on day 3 and transferred in subsequent cycle. Primary outcomes were clinical pregnancy rates and live birth rates. Secondary outcomes were fertilization, implantation and miscarriage rates. Results: Group A had 73 fresh transfer, and Group B had 53 frozen embryo transfer. Both groups were comparable regarding age, body mass index, basal follicular stimulating hormone, antimullerian hormone and antral follicle count. Categorical data were represented as frequency and percentages, differences in these measures between the groups were compared using chi-square tests, and quantitative data were analyzed by using student t test. Clinical pregnancy rates (Group A: 38.4% versus Group B: 41.5%, P = 0.88) and live birth rate (Group A: 26.0% versus Group B: 33.9%, P = 0.25) were slightly higher in Group B though not statistically significant. The miscarriage rate in both the groups was comparable (Group A: 15.1% and Group B: 15.1%, P = 0.8).
A new stem-neopterygian fish from the Middle Triassic (Anisian) of Yunnan, China, with a reassessment of the relationships of early neopterygian clades

Neopterygii is a taxonomically diverse group of ray-finned fishes, including Teleostei, Holostei and their closely related fossil taxa. Here, a new small-sized stem-neopterygian with extraordinarily long teeth, Louwoichthys pusillus gen. et sp. nov., is described based on 14 well-preserved specimens from the Middle Triassic (Anisian) marine deposits of Yunnan, China. Louwoichthys is closely related to Luopingichthys from the same fossil beds and Ctenognathichthys from the Middle Triassic of the Monte San Giorgio area in Europe; the three genera are grouped into the family Louwoichthyidae fam. nov., which is recovered as sister to the ‘perleidiform’ Pseudobeaconiidae. Given that ‘Perleidiformes’ is notoriously paraphyletic, a new order, Louwoichthyiformes ord. nov., is introduced to group both families. The louwoichthyiform monophyly is strongly supported by a series of derived features, such as a relatively short maxilla, an anteriorly inclined preopercle, a subopercle with a prominent anteroventral extension, and two or three pairs of branchiostegal rays. Louwoichthys is one of the smallest louwoichthyiforms, having a largest standard length of 39 mm. It is deduced to be a scavenger that might use its long and sharp teeth to grasp and tear the prey from the substrate or to bite a piece from a larger prey item.
Politicians in disguise and financial experts on the board: Evidence from Spanish cajas

This study offers insight into the role of board politicization on the Spanish cajas’ performance from a dual perspective. First, we analyze the effect of a new kind of political directors who occupy board seats as representatives of stakeholders outside the public administrations while maintaining a political affiliation. We call these “hidden” political directors as politicians in disguise. Second, we analyze how political interests can prevent directors with financial expertise from applying their knowledge to improve cajas’ performance. Using a sample of hand-collected data from 45 Spanish cajas, we find that politicians in disguise destroy value in the caja and that politically motivated financial experts on the board do not benefit cajas’ performance. JEL CLASSIFICATION: G34, G21, G28
Assessment of Multi-Date Sentinel-1 Polarizations and GLCM Texture Features Capacity for Onion and Sunflower Classification in an Irrigated Valley: An Object Level Approach

The objective of this work is to evaluate the capacity of the C-band Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) time series imagery, acquired by the European satellite Sentinel-1 (S1), for the agriculture crop classification and its reliability to differentiate onion from sunflower, among others. The work then focused on classifying land cover in intensively cultivated agricultural regions. The study was developed in the Bonaerense Valley of the Colorado River (BVCR), Buenos Aires Province in Argentina, backed up by the field truth of 1634 field samples. In addition to the onion and sunflower crops, there are other crops present in the study area such as cereals, alfalfa, potatoes and maize, which are considered as the image background in the classification process. The field samples database was used for training and supporting a supervised classification with two machine learning algorithms—Random Forest (RF) and Support Vector Machine (SVM)—obtaining high levels of accuracy in each case. Different S1 SAR time-series features were used to assess the performance of S1 crop classification in terms of polarization VH+VV, Grey Level Co-occurrence Matrix (GLCM) image texture and a combination of both. The analysis of SAR data and their features was carried out at OBIA lot level (Object Based Image Analysis) showing an optimal strategy to counteract the effect of the residual and inherent speckle noise of the radar signal. In the process of differentiating onion and sunflower crops, the analysis of the VH+VV stack with the SVM algorithm delivered the best statistical classification results in terms of Overall Accuracy (OA) and Kappa Index, (Kp) when other crops (image background) were not considered (OA = 95.35%, Kp = 0.89). Certainly, the GLCM texture analysis derived from the S1 SAR images is a valuable source of information for obtaining very good classification results. When differentiating sunflower from onion considering also other crops present in the BVCR, the GLCM stack proved to be the most suitable dataset analyzed in this work (OA = 89.98%, Kp = 0.66 for SVM algorithm). This working methodology is applicable to other irrigated valleys in Argentina dedicated to intensive crops. There are also variables inherent to each lot, soil, crop and agricultural producer that differ according to the study area and that should be considered for each case in the future.
Anomalous Diffusivity in Porous Solids: Levitation Effect

Fluids confined to zeolites and other porous solids exhibit many distinct properties. One such property is the diffusivity, which exhibits anomalous dependence on the size of the guest molecule confined to the pore. This is termed the levitation effect. A diffusivity maximum as a function of the diameter of the guest is seen. The diameter for which the guest has maximum diffusivity is seen to be associated with a minimum in the activation energy. The existence of similar behavior in other porous solids, framework flexibility, and effect of temperature are discussed. Experimental verification of the existence of the anomalous maximum is then discussed. Diffusion of n -hexane and its isomers in zeolite NaY are then discussed in detail. The reduction in the end-to-end length of n -hexane while passing through the 12-ring window and the reasons for the same are discussed. Section 3 discusses possible observations of size-dependent maximum in other condensed matter systems.
Control and monitoring of Listeria monocytogenes with the use of natural antimicrobial techniques including the bacteriocin nisin

According to the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine (DAFM) the agri-food industry contributes €24 billion to the Irish economy. One of DAFM’s chief concerns is the maintenance of Ireland’s reputation for high food quality and food safety. Listeria monocytogenes is of a particular risk to this reputation especially for food businesses within the ready to eat (RTE) food sector as L. monocytogenes is extraordinarily well adapted to the harsh conditions employed for food preservation. This thesis, through the literature review discusses the risk factors associated with the bacteria, the preventative measures taken to reduce occurrence and their effectiveness, outbreaks and potential solutions to the problem of L. monocytogenes within the ready-to-eat food industry specifically the fresh-cut fruit and vegetable produce sector. Experimentally, three individual experiments were conducted with the aims of: a) to establish if the effects of inoculation density induces any experimental biases on studies of growth of L. monocytogenes b) to test the effect of nisin A and L. lactis as potential viable antilisterial agents without the negative organoleptic effects of other antimicrobials currently used on fresh-cut lettuce such as essential oils c) to partake in a national sampling program for L. monocytogenes occurrence and persistence rates in Irish food businesses. Results from these experiments it was shown that a) low initial cell densities can lead to higher growth rates when compared to higher inoculation densities potentially leading to a need to reclassify high inoculation based L. monocytogenes growth experiments. b) demonstrated that the introduction of low amounts of purified commercial nisin A can reduce L. monocytogenes counts by a significant amount without a substantial negative effect of other antilisterial compounds on the sensory quality of the lettuce. c) Provided prevalence data from dairy, meat and vegetable producing industries as part of a 3-year national L. monocytogenes sampling program and displayed that vigilance and awareness of a potential pathogen can lead to a reduction in its occurrence.
Art-secured Lending: A Risk Analysis Framework

In recent years, art-secured lending has grown in both size and popularity. Yet, this business still lacks a well-accepted approach to assess the risks involved. To that end, in this study, we identify the three types of risks involved in an art-secured lending operation and present a framework to assess their combined effects via a Monte Carlo simulation. In addition, we derive some useful closed-form expressions that are suitable when the collateral consists of only one painting. To help decision makers and risk managers, we introduce a number of risk-related metrics that provide a detailed characterization of the lending operation risk proﬁle. We conclude that with the customary loan-to-value ratios currently prevalent in the art-based lending business (around 50%), the lender’s exposure is quite bounded. Moreover, the advantages of having a diversiﬁed collateral, from a risk perspective, are relevant. Finally, we ﬁnd that the uncertainty related to the value of a painting is much more important than the uncertainty related to either the credit risk proﬁle of a borrower or the artist’s returns during the period that a loan remains outstanding. <br>
ESTABLISHMENT OF CARINATA MEAL AS A PROTEIN SUPPLEMENT FOR BEEF CATTLE.

Two trials were conducted to evaluate carinata (CRM) versus canola meal (CM) as a protein source when fed alone or in combination with wheat-dried distillers grains with solubles (WDDGS) on the performance of feedlot cattle. Trial one was a 97-d backgounding (BK) trial that used 360 weaned steers (321.8 ± 24.3 kg; mean ± SD) assigned to one of 12 pens. Treatments compared CRM to CM at two inclusion levels (7.5 and 15% DM basis). Trial two was a finishing trial with 250 yearling steers (418.7 ± 26.7 kg) assigned to 25 pens with five treatments: CRM (5% DM); CM (5.9% DM); WDDGS (6.2% DM); and CRM (2.8% DM) + WDDGS (2.7% DM); or CM (3% DM) + WDDGS (3% DM). Trials were conducted as a completely randomized design with a 2x2 factorial (Trial 1) or 2x2+1 treatment arrangement (Trial 2). In trial one, there were no differences (P > 0.05) between treatments for final shrunk BW (427.8 ± 29.8 kg) or ADG (1.10 0.02 kg). Similarly, DMI and G:F were not affected (P > 0.05) by treatment. In trial 2, no treatments differences (P > 0.05) were detected for ADG, DMI, or G:F. Cattle fed CM had heavier hot carcass weights (P = 0.02) and a greater dressing percentage (DP) (P = 0.008) than those fed CRM diets. The inclusion of WDDGS decreased DP (P = 0.003) and increased carcass fat deposition (P ≤ 0.04). The results indicate that there was no benefit to including WDDGS and that CRM is equal to CM as a protein supplement for performance of feedlot cattle. However, HCW and DP were greater in cattle fed CM relative to those fed CRM.
Calibrating Questionnaires with Weekly Diaries: An Application in Religious Behavior, Netherlands 1975 to 2005

This article presents an innovative approach to improve the power of questionnaires by combining them with weekly diaries. The aim is to show how one can calibrate information collected from questionnaires, which provide a distribution that is in general biased, with diary data, which are more accurate but cannot provide a distribution across a range of frequencies. These problems become even more pronounced when the object of analysis is a specific issue, such as religious practice, the focus of this study. The suggested user-friendly model uses the more accurate diary data to adjust the distribution produced by the standard questions and enables researchers to obviate the problems of the two data collection methods. To present a practical application, the Time Budget Survey, conducted at five-year intervals between 1975 and 2005 in the Netherlands, is used.
Square‐rooting approaches to accurate mixed‐type continuous‐discrete extended and fifth‐degree cubature Kalman filters

: The fifth-degree cubature Kalman filter (5D-CKF) has been recently developed for both the discrete-and continuous-time non-linear stochastic systems. In the published works, it has been mentioned that numerically stable square-root 5D-CKF implementations are not feasible to derive, although they are easily obtained for the third-degree CKF. The key problem of the underlying mathematical derivation is negative weight coefficients appeared in the fifth-degree cubature rule, which prevents the required square-root factorisation of the filters’ equations. The authors resolve this essential problem existed for the 5D-CKF methodology by utilising hyperbolic transformations instead of the usual ones traditionally used for square-rooting in the engineering literature. The authors’ solution is given within both the Cholesky and singular value decomposition (SVD) and is based on matrix calculus with the hyperbolic QR and SVD transformations involved. The theoretical results are illustrated in a case of the continuous-discrete mixed-type estimator ACD-EKF-5DCKF and can be applied to any other 5D-CKF strategy. Numerical experiments are also provided.