Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Hope and depression among pandemic graduates

ABSTRACT This mixed method study examined hope and depression among pandemic graduates using Locus of Hope Theory. Phase one examined the relationship of internal and external locus of hope dimensions on the depressive symptoms of 101 pandemic graduates through an online survey. Analysis revealed that 66.3% of the sample had moderate to severe levels of depression. Among the four dimensions, only internal hope was significantly associated with depression. Phase two involved 12 participants screened to have high hope scores. They were asked to participate in focus group discussions regarding their sources of hope. Despite the non-significant relationship between external loci of hope and depression in phase one, responses in the qualitative phase provided evidence for external sources of hope (family, peers, and spiritual being) during the pandemic. Practical implications are discussed.
The parabolic equation model for the numerical analysis of the diffraction at an impedance wedge: skew incidence case

A numerical approach to the scattering problem of a plane electromagnetic wave at skew incidence on a wedge with two different arbitrary face impedances is presented. The diffracted field is obtained by applying the finite-difference method to solve two coupled parabolic equations. The present approach is validated by comparison with available asymptotic analytical results for the skew incidence case.
An RRT That Uses MSR-Equivalence for Solving the Self-Reconfiguration Task in Lattice Modular Robots

A modular self-reconfigurable robot can change its configuration to effectively adapt itself to perform a wide range of tasks. The Modular Self-reconfigurable Robot (MSR) is constructed from a collection of connected modules that can move relative to each other and change the system's shape. This research presents a novel sliding Triangular Lattice Modular Robot (STRIMOR). We use a Rapidly-exploring random tree (RRT*) algorithm to solve the self-reconfiguration (SR) problem. This algorithm is computationally expensive due to the configuration space dimension. In order to increase the number of modules we define ‘Topological Configuration' which better describes the configuration's unique properties. This new approach significantly reduces the tree size by representing a set of MSR-equivalence configurations as a single topological configuration. Furthermore, we examine the advantage of moving several module-groups in a single movement and choose their number by several density functions. Our improvements are presented using a set of simulated SR problems with different complexity levels. On top of that, We designed and fabricated the STRIMOR's dual-type modules and discuss how such a design simplifies the system's mechanical complexity.
A generic recurrence interval distribution for earthquake forecasting

Earthquake recurrence intervals for characteristic events from a number of plate boundaries are analyzed using a normalizing function, T/Tave , where Tave is the observed average recurrence interval for a specific fault segment, and T is an individual recurrence interval. The lognormal distribution is found to provide a better fit to the T/Tave data than the more commonly used Gaussian and Weibull distributions, and it has an appealing physical interpretation. The observation of a small and stable coefficient of variation (the ratio of the standard deviation to the mean) of normalized data covering a wide range of recurrence intervals, seismic moments, and tectonic environments indicates that the standard deviation of the recurrence intervals for each fault segment is a fixed fraction of the corresponding average recurrence interval. Given that the distribution of T/Tave data is approximately lognormal, the analysis is refined using the median recurrence interval, T, rather than Tave . An approximately optimal algorithm is derived for making stable estimates of T, its standard deviation , and the reliability of each T /T datum. By accounting for possible errors in the data, this algorithm treats both historical and geological data properly. All information is then combined to make an optimal estimate of the distribution of the T /T data. This refined distribution is finally used to estimate the probability of a recurrence in a future forecast time interval and the reliability of the forecast. It is found that the forecast interval must be short compared with T for the forecast to be statistically meaningful. In addition, the distribution of T /T data can be used to estimate an expected time and prediction time window for a future earthquake recurrence.
An Error-Components Model for Prediction of County Crop Areas Using Survey and Satellite Data

Abstract Knowledge of the area under different crops is important to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Sample surveys have been designed to estimate crop areas for large regions, such as crop-reporting districts, individual states, and the United States as a whole. Predicting crop areas for small areas such as counties has generally not been attempted, due to a lack of available data from farm surveys for these areas. The use of satellite data in association with farm-level survey observations has been the subject of considerable research in recent years. This article considers (a) data for 12 Iowa counties, obtained from the 1978 June Enumerative Survey of the U.S. Department of Agriculture and (b) data obtained from land observatory satellites (LANDSAT) during the 1978 growing season. Emphasis is given to predicting the area under corn and soybeans in these counties. A linear regression model is specified for the relationship between the reported hectares of corn and soybeans within sample segments in.
Telling the Tale: Black Women Politicians and Their Use of Experiential Rhetoric

Abstract Stereotypical assumptions about minority candidates serving those who identify most closely with their own identity have led to heightened scrutiny of women and Black candidates’ language. Using race-gendered language on the campaign trail can undermine a candidate’s viability, as skepticism of racial and gendered language is rooted in the belief that minority candidates may be “too narrow” in their concerns. Against this backdrop, this article explores the campaign rhetoric of three mayors: Keisha Lance Bottoms of Atlanta, Lori Lightfoot of Chicago, and Muriel Bowser of Washington, DC. Analyzing 62 mayoral debates using NVivo, I find that Black women candidates leverage their lived experiences, rooted in their racial and gendered identity, more than their race and gendered counterparts when advocating for their policy preferences. This work produces key insights into identity and campaign rhetoric utilized by Black women politicians.
Trapped field characteristic of HTS bulk in AC external magnetic field

Although immutable trapped field is required in superconducting bulk applications as a quasipermanent magnet, the trapped field is influenced and changed by time-varying external magnetic field in a realistic operational environment of electrical devices. This means that shielding current distribution within bulk is changed by the time-varying magnetic field and the transient magnetic flux movement results in temperature rise and finally reduction of the trapped field. In this paper, we experimentally investigated the transition of trapped field while applying external AC magnetic field with various amplitude and frequency to a disk-shaped YBCO bulk. And we also numerically investigate the relationship between characteristic of trapped-field attenuation and shielding current distribution within the bulk using a newly developed simulation program. This program is based on the finite element method (FEM) considering the voltage-current (E-J) characteristics. It is found that the shielding current distribution is dependent on frequency of AC external field and trapped field attenuation is closely related to the shielding current.
Effects of Mindfulness-Based Therapy on Clinical Symptoms and DNA Methylation in Patients with Polycystic Ovary Syndrome and High Metabolic Risk

Polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) is an endocrine and metabolic disorder affecting women of reproductive age. Research has shown that epigenetic alterations such as DNA methylation may play a role in the development and progression of abnormal ovarian function and metabolic disorders in PCOS. Studies have identified specific genes (related with insulin signaling and steroid hormone metabolism) that are methylated in women with PCOS. DNA methylation appears to respond to various interventions aimed at altering health and lifestyle factors. We tested the efficacy of a mindfulness-based stress reduction program (MBSR) in PCOS patients. We examined its effects on anthropometric measurements, mental health and wellbeing, and alterations in DNA methylation in peripheral blood. MBSR was associated with a reduction in body mass index, waist circumference and blood glucose level, an improvement in subjectively perceived general health, emotional role limitation, and levels of pain, as well as mindfulness-like traits. MBSR reduced the expression of anxious symptomatology and subjectively perceived stress. Methylation changes were observed in four genes: COMT, FST, FKBP51, and MAOA. We conclude that MBSR may be a useful supplementary therapy to mitigate the deleterious effects of PCOS on mental health.
Neural Processing of Sexist Comments: Associations between Perceptions of Sexism and Prefrontal Activity

Sexism is a widespread form of gender discrimination which includes remarks based on gender stereotypes. However, little is known about the neural basis underlying the experience of sexist-related comments and how perceptions of sexism are related to these neural processes. The present study investigated whether perceptions of sexism influence neural processing of receiving sexist-related comments. Participants (N = 67) read experimental vignettes describing scenarios of comments involving gender stereotypes while near-infrared spectroscopy recordings were made to measure the hemodynamic changes in the prefrontal cortex. Results found a significant correlation between participants’ perceptions of sexism and brain activation in a brain cluster including the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and inferior frontal gyrus. There was a significant gender difference where female participants showed a stronger negative correlation compared to male participants. Future research can expand on these initial findings by looking at subcortical structures involved in emotional processing and gender stereotype application as well as examining cultural differences in perceptions of gender stereotypes and sexism.
Superconductivity in palladium-based Heusler compounds

This work reports on four more Heusler superconductors: ${\text{Pd}}_{2}\text{ZrAl}$, ${\text{Pd}}_{2}\text{HfAl}$, ${\text{Pd}}_{2}\text{ZrIn}$, and ${\text{Pd}}_{2}\text{HfIn}$. These compounds exhibit superconducting transition temperatures ranging from 2.4--3.8 K as determined by resistivity measurements. According to their behavior in an external magnetic field, all compounds are type II bulk superconductors. The occurrence of superconductivity was predicted for these compounds using electronic structure calculations. The electronic structures exhibit van Hove singularities (saddle points) at the $L$ point. These lead to a maximum in the corresponding density of states and superconductivity according to the van Hove scenario. The superconducting properties of electron-doped and hole-doped substituted compounds ${\text{Pd}}_{2}{B}_{1\ensuremath{-}x}{B}_{x}^{\ensuremath{'}}\text{Al}$, whereby $B=\text{Zr}$ and Hf, and ${B}^{\ensuremath{'}}=\text{Y}$, Nb, and Mo, were investigated to obtain information about the dependence of the transition temperature on the density of states at the Fermi energy following the van Hove scenario. The calculated electronic structure reveals that the substituted compounds do not follow a rigid-band model. In addition, the random distribution of the substituted atoms strongly increases impurity-type electron scattering. The substituent concentrations used in this work lead to strongly enhanced impurity-type scattering and eventually to suppression of the superconducting state.
Asymptotic geometry of high-density smooth-grained Boolean models in bounded domains

The purpose of the paper is to study the asymptotic geometry of a smooth-grained Boolean model (X [t]) t≥0 restricted to a bounded domain as the intensity parameter t goes to ∞. Our approach is based on investigating the asymptotic properties as t → ∞ of the random sets X [t;β], β≥0, defined as the Gibbsian modifications of X [t] with the Hamiltonian given by βtμ(·), where μ is a certain normalized measure on the setting space. We show that our model exhibits a phase transition at a certain critical value of the inverse temperature β and we prove that at higher temperatures the behaviour of X [t;β] is qualitatively very similar to that of X [t] but it becomes essentially different in the low-temperature region. From these facts we derive information about the asymptotic properties of the original process X [t]. The results obtained include large- and moderate-deviation principles. We conclude the paper with an example application of our methods to analyse the asymptotic moderate-deviation properties of convex hulls of large uniform samples on a multidimensional ball. To translate the above problem to the Boolean model setting considered we use an appropriate representation of convex sets in terms of their support functions.
Multi-User Downlink NOMA Systems Aided by Ambient Backscattering: Achievable Rate Regions and Energy-Efficiency Maximization

In this paper, we investigate the energy efficiency of a multi-user downlink non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) system aided by an ambient backscatter device that modulates its own information by reflecting the incident signal coming from the NOMA transmitter. Because of the multiplicative operation at the ambient backscatter device when reflecting the transmitter’s signal, the achievable sum rate of the system is not known. Hence, we first derive the information-theoretic achievable rate region for a discrete memoryless channel and, subsequently, for Gaussian channels. We then propose a joint optimization framework for maximizing the system energy efficiency as the tradeoff and ratio between the overall sum rate and the power consumption, under user minimum rate constraints. For this, we propose a modification that simplifies the resulting non-convex optimization problems, which enables us to obtain the optimal reflection coefficient and power allocation policy analytically (up to a one line search). Numerical results demonstrate the negligible impact of the introduced modification on the optimality of our solution. Remarkably, our results show that the ambient backscatter-aided NOMA significantly outperforms OMA: the relative gain increases with the number of receivers, reaching up to $14\times $ improvement over OMA. At last, we show the pertinence of our solution also under imperfect channel state information.
Accretion Disk Corona Line Emission from X0614+091

The low-mass X-ray binary X0614+091 was observed on 3 days in 1979 with the Einstein Observatory solid state spectrometer and the monitor proportional counter. During the observation with the highest measured flux, corresponding to an X-ray luminosity of 8 x 10(exp 36) erg/s (in the 0.5-20 keV band for an assumed distance of 5 kpc), significant low-energy emission was detected, centered at 0.77 keV, possibly due to line emission for O VII-O VIII and Fe XVII-Fe XIX. The other observations, which were at fluxes lower by a factor of 2, are consistent with the presence of the emission feature. The equivalent width of the feature, 37 +/- 6 eV, is of the same order as equivalent widths previously reported for more luminous low-mass X-ray binaries using grating spectrometer data. The soft X-ray lines could be emitted by gas expected to arise in an accretion disk corona excited by the central source. But to explain the observed feature, most of the corona needs to contribute, or other sources of emission are required.
Type 1 diabetes in low and middle-income countries - Tanzania a streak of hope

Introduction In several of the Low and Middle Income countries , many patients with Type 1 diabetes (T1D) are most probably not diagnosed at all which may contribute to their low incidence. As an example of a country with low income and poor resources, we have chosen to study T1D in children/young people in Tanzania. Methods Analyses of casebooks and statistics at several Tanzanian hospitals treating young patients with insulin dependent diabetes, usually Type 1 diabetes, and collection of information from different organisations such a Tanzanian Diabetes Association, Life for a Child, Changing Diabetes in Children and World Diabetes Foundation. Results The incidence in several areas is low. However, a lot of data are often missing at studied clinics and therefore the incidence might be higher, and with increased awareness in recent years the number of patients has increased many-folds. Most patients present with typical symptoms and signs of T1D, and a high proportion with plausible ketoacidosis , although this proportion has decreased from about 90% to about 40% in recent decades. Many patients have poor blood glucose control, and complications often develop already after short diabetes duration. In recent years resources have increased, awareness has increased and diabetes clinics started where staff has got training. Conclusions There are problems with diabetes care in Tanzania but several facts give hope for the future.
The case of the disappearing librarians: analyzing documentation of librarians' contributions to systematic reviews

Objective: The study aimed to analyze the documented role of a librarian in published systematic reviews and meta-analyses whose registered protocols mentioned librarian involvement. The intention was to identify how, or if, librarians' involvement was formally documented, how their contributions were described, and if there were any potential connections between this documentation and basic metrics of search reproducibility and quality. Methods: Reviews whose PROSPERO protocols were registered in 2017 and 2018 and that also specifically mentioned a librarian were analyzed for documentation of the librarian's involvement. Language describing the librarian and their involvement was gathered and coded, and additional information about the review, including search strategy details, was also collected. Results: A total of 209 reviews were found and analyzed. Of these, 28% had a librarian co-author, 41% named a librarian in the acknowledgements section, and 78% mentioned the contribution of a librarian within the body of the review. However, mentions of a librarian within the review were often generic (“a librarian”) and in 31% of all reviews analyzed no librarian was specified by name. In 9% of the reviews, there was no reference to a librarian found at all. Language about librarians' contributions usually only referenced their work with search strategy development. Reviews with librarian coauthors typically described the librarian's work in active voice centering the librarian, unlike reviews without librarian coauthors. Most reviews had reproducible search strategies that utilized subject headings and keywords, but some had flawed or missing strategies. Conclusion: Even among this set of reviews, where librarian involvement was specified at the protocol level, librarians' contributions were often described with minimal, or even no, language in the final published review. Much room for improvement appears to remain in terms of how librarians' work is documented.
Weakening and strengthening in romance revisited: 1760

This paper investigates the extent to which segmental substitutions traditionally attributed to articulatory weakening and strengthening through changes in constriction degree are, in fact, caused by aerodynamic, perceptual or other articulatory mechanisms. For that purpose the articulatory, acoustic and distributional characteristics of consonants participating in the implementation of several sound change processes in Romance (lenition, occlusivization, fricativization, voicing/devoicing, affrication/deaffrication, vocalization, rhotacism, nasalization, lateralization, aspiration, glottalization, elision and place substitutions) are carefully reviewed. Data show that, while appropriate for segmental replacements involving articulatory reduction, the notion ‘weakening’ cannot always account for consonant changes involving backing, vocalization, aspiration and elision. Other factors besides articulatory reduction may also play a role in the implementation of consonant changes traditionally attributed to weakening, i.e., gestural decomposition, acoustic equivalence, and the perceptual categorization of the vowel transitions or of intermediate phonetic realizations between those of the input and output consonants. On the other hand, articulatory strengthening appears to be a plausible strategy for segmental substitutions occurring in strong positions but not so for sound changes involving devoicing.
Metabolomic Study of Flavonoids in Camellia drupifera under Aluminum Stress by UPLC-MS/MS

Aluminum (Al) affects the yield of forest trees in acidic soils. The oil tea plant (Camellia drupifera Lour.) has high Al tolerance, with abundant phenolic compounds in its leaves, especially flavonoid compounds. The role of these flavonoids in the Al resistance of oil tea plants is unclear. In this metabolomic study of C. drupifera under Al stress, ultra-pressure liquid chromatography coupled with tandem mass spectrometry (UPLC-MS/MS) was utilized to identify metabolites, while principal component analysis, cluster analysis, and orthogonal partial least squares discriminant analysis were applied to analyze the data on the flavonoid metabolites. The leaf morphology of C. drupifera revealed significant damage by excess aluminum ions under each treatment compared with the control group. Under Al stress at 2 mmol/L (GZ2) and 4 mmol/L (GZ4), the total flavonoid content in C. drupifera leaves reached 24.37 and 35.64 mg/g, respectively, which are significantly higher than the levels measured in the control group (CK) (p < 0.01). In addition, we identified 25 upregulated and 5 downregulated metabolites in the GZ2 vs. CK comparison and 31 upregulated and 7 downregulated flavonoid metabolites in GZ4 vs. CK. The results demonstrate that different levels of Al stress had a significant influence on the metabolite profile of C. drupifera. It was found that the abundance of the 24 differential flavonoid metabolites was gradually elevated with increasing concentrations of Al stress, including catechin, epicatechin, naringenin-7-glucoside, astilbin, taxifolin, miquelianin, quercitrin, and quercimeritrin. Moreover, the most significant increase in antioxidant activity (about 30%) was observed in C. drupifera precultured in leaf extracts containing 7.5 and 15 μg/mL of active flavonoids. The qRT-PCR results showed that the expression levels of key genes involved in the synthesis of flavonoids were consistent with the accumulation trends of flavonoids under different concentrations of Al. Therefore, our results demonstrate the key role of flavonoid compounds in the oil tea plant C. drupifera in response to Al stress, which suggests that flavonoid metabolites in C. drupifera, as well as other aluminum-tolerant plants, may help with detoxifying aluminum.