Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Development and Validation of a Noise in Decision Inventory for Organizational Settings

Aim/Purpose: The aim of the present paper is to present a Noise Decision (ND) scale. First, it reports the development and validation of the instrument aimed at examining organizational factors that have an influence on decision-making and the level of noise. Second, it validates this rating scale by testing its discriminant and convergent validity with other measures to assess decision-making qualities. Background: According to the literature, the concept of noise is the unwanted variability present in judgments. The notion of noise concerns the systematic influence to which individuals are exposed in their environment. The literature in the field has found that noise reduction improves the perception of work performance. Methodology: The first study involves the development of a scale (composed of 36 items) consisting of semi-structured interviews, item development, and principal component analysis. The second study involves validation and convergent validity of this scale. In the first study, there were 43 employees from three medium-sized Italian multinationals. For the second study, a sample of 867 subjects was analysed. Contribution: This paper introduces the first scale aimed at assessing noise within individuals and, in the organizational context, within employees and employers. Findings: Results show that the estimated internal reliability for each of the ND subscales and also the correlations between the subscales were relatively low, suggesting that ND correctly measures the analyzed components. Furthermore, the validation of the psychometric qualities of the ND allowed for the assertion that the influence of noise is present in the decision-making process within the context of work environments, validating the initial hypotheses. Recommendation for Researchers: This paper aims to improve theory and research on decision-making; for example, by providing a possible implementation for scales for evaluating decision-making skills. Furthermore, detecting and limiting noise with a systematic method could improve both the quality of decisions and the quality of thought processes. Future Research: Given the measurement of ND, the study can be a starting point for future research on this topic. Since there is no literature about this construct, it would be necessary to spend more time researching, so that the topic becomes clearer. System noise has been tested by some researchers with a “noise audit,” which means giving the same problem to different people and measuring the differences in their responses. Repeating this kind of audit in conjunction with the ND in a specific work environment could be helpful to detect but also measure the influence of noise.
The Changing Landscape of Intercultural Mindset in 616 Doctor of Physical Therapy Students Over the Past 7 Years and the Implications for Doctor of Physical Therapy Cultural Competence Education

Supplemental Digital Content is Available in the Text. Introduction. This prospective longitudinal study will report the results of a quantitative analysis of the change in Intercultural Development Inventory (IDI) scores and the distribution of students in 5 orientations along the Intercultural Developmental Continuum (IDC) in 8 cohorts of Doctor of Physical Therapy (DPT) students during their academic preparation. Review of Literature. The expanding interest in developing intercultural sensitivity in an increasingly more complex and diverse health care environment calls for the dissemination of research on the effectiveness of innovative curricular models that include psychometrically strong outcome measures. Research suggests that health care providers can develop intercultural sensitivity when provided with didactic knowledge, experiential learning, self-reflection, mentoring, and a systematic individualized development plan. Subjects. The participants were from a sample of convenience of 616 DPT students from the graduating classes of 2015–2022. Methods. The study is a repeated-measure design. The IDI was selected to guide targeted intervention and assessment of intercultural sensitivity at an individual level and group level and was administered in semesters 3 and 8 as part of the DPT program course requirements. Results. There was significant improvement in the IDI Perceived and Developmental Orientation (DO; P < .001) scores between semesters 3 and 8. There was a significant change (P = .0001) in the distribution of students along the 5 DOs of the IDC with 10% of students regressing 1 orientation, 51.7% of students remaining the same, 33.3% of students advancing 1 orientation, and 5% of students advancing 2 orientations along the IDC. Nearly 40% of participants had a positive shift along the IDC. Discussion and Conclusion. The results of this study suggest that intercultural sensitivity or mindset, as measured by the IDI, can be developed in DPT students who participate in a targeted intercultural development curriculum based on the Process Model of Cultural Competence by Deardorff and the Developmental Model of Intercultural Sensitivity by Bennett.
Whole genome sequencing in ROHHAD trios proved inconclusive: what’s beyond?

Rapid-onset Obesity with Hypothalamic dysfunction, Hypoventilation and Autonomic Dysregulation (ROHHAD) is a rare, life-threatening, pediatric disorder of unknown etiology, whose diagnosis is made difficult by poor knowledge of clinical manifestation, and lack of any confirmatory tests. Children with ROHHAD usually present with rapid onset weight gain which may be followed, over months or years, by hypothalamic dysfunction, hypoventilation, autonomic dysfunction, including impaired bowel motility, and tumors of neural crest origin. Despite the lack of evidence of inheritance in ROHHAD, several studies have been conducted in recent years that have explored possible genetic origins, with unsuccessful results. In order to broaden the search for possible genetic risk factors, an attempt was made to analyse the non-coding variants in two trios (proband with parents), recruited in the Gaslini Children’s Hospital in Genoa (Italy). Both patients were females, with a typical history of ROHHAD. Gene variants (single nucleotide variants, short insertions/deletions, splice variants or in tandem expansion of homopolymeric tracts) or altered genomic regions (copy number variations or structural variants) shared between the two probands were searched. Currently, we have not found any potentially pathogenic changes, consistent with the ROHHAD clinical phenotype, and involving genes, regions or pathways shared between the two trios. To definitively rule out the genetic etiology, third-generation sequencing technologies (e.g., long-reads sequencing, optical mapping) should be applied, as well as other pathways, including those associated with immunological and autoimmune disorders, should be explored, making use not only of genomics but also of different -omic datasets.
Region Classification for the Interpretation of Video Sequences

This thesis concerns the continuing development of a classification system for the interpretation of images. The approach involves segmenting the image into a number of regions, then describing each region in terms of a set of features, and finally passing the feature-description on to a neural network which has been trained to label the region with an object-type. The work begins with a detailed investigation of the feature-set. A psychophysical study, aimed at revealing which visual cues a human subject might use, is presented. The neural network is then subjected to a similar analysis, the results permitting a number of comparisons to be made between the machine vision system and its biological counterpart. Drawing on the psychophysical observations, the existing feature-set undergoes a series of refinements, with the properties of texture, colour, and shape coming under scrutiny. Significant improvements in classification accuracy are found when incorporating the revised feature-set. Directing attention towards the analysis of time-varying imagery, a number of temporal constraints are developed in order to promote continuity over the sequence. It is shown how the concept of temporal coherence can be exploited to improve both computational efficiency and classification accuracy. A method, employing a mesh of active contour primitives, is developed which allows an initial segmentation to be evolved over the sequence. Mechanisms are incorporated to ease the transition between frames and to accommodate the topological discontinuities that can arise during the sequence. A set of features, based on complex spatio-temporal Gabor filters, is developed to encode both texture and motion variations in the image data. The work shows not only how the classification system can be applied to the analysis of image sequences, but also how the temporal dimension can actually be exploited to improve overall performance.
Developing Computational Thinking in the Classroom: A Framework

Computational thinking sits at the heart of the new statutory programme of study for Computing: “A high quality computing education equips pupils to use computational thinking and creativity to understand and change the world” (Department for Education, 2013, p. 188). This document aims to support teachers to teach computational thinking. It describes a framework that helps explain what computational thinking is, describes pedagogic approaches for teaching it and gives ways to assess it. Pupil progression with the previous ICT curriculum was often demonstrated through ‘how’ (for example, a software usage skill) or ‘what’ the pupil produced (for example, a poster). This was partly due to the needs of the business world for office skills. Such use of precious curriculum time however has several weaknesses. Firstly, the country’s economy depends on technological innovation not just on use of technology. Secondly, the pace of technology and organisational change is fast in that the ICT skills learnt are out of date before a pupil leaves school. Thirdly, technology invades all aspects of our life and the typically taught office practice is only a small part of technology use today.
Classification and Re-Classification: Oregon’s Willamette Valley AVA and its New Sub-AVAs

The creation of new, sub-AVAs within Oregon’s Willamette Valley AVA may indicate a desire on the part of well-established wineries to “split” or separate their social grouping from those with lesser qualifications. Once their social cluster has been differentiated, we theorize that these wineries would be able to capitalize on their newly developed distinctiveness and collect a larger regional reputation premium. Based on 2,221 Wine Spectator rated pinot noir wines between 1984 and 2008, regression analyses demonstrate that indeed regional reputation premiums have significantly increased with the creation of sub-AVAs; and that the price-quality ratio gap between sub-AVAs and the rest of Willamette has widened. (JEL Classification: C20, Q12, Q13, L66)
Context-Adaptive-Based Image Captioning by Bi-CARU

Image captions are abstract expressions of content representations using text sentences, helping readers to better understand and analyse information between different media. With the advantage of encoder-decoder neural networks, captions can provide a rational structure for tasks such as image coding and caption prediction. This work introduces a Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) to Bidirectional Content-Adaptive Recurrent Unit (Bi-CARU) (CNN-to-Bi-CARU) model that performs bidirectional structure to consider contextual features and captures major feature from image. The encoded feature coded form image is respectively passed into the forward and backward layer of CARU to refine the word prediction, providing contextual text output for captioning. An attention layer is also introduced to collect the feature produced by the context-adaptive gate in CARU, aiming to compute the weighting information for relationship extraction and determination. In experiments, the proposed CNN-to-Bi-CARU model outperforms other advanced models in the field, achieving better extraction of contextual information and detailed representation of image captions. The model obtains a score of 41.28 on BLEU@4, 31.23 on METEOR, 61.07 on ROUGE-L, and 133.20 on CIDEr-D, making it competitive in the image captioning of MSCOCO dataset.
Noble Gases and Cosmic Ray Exposure of Sutter’s Mill CM Chondrite

Introduction: Sutter’s Mill is a carbonaceous chondrite regolith breccia that fell in northern California on April 22, 2012 [1]. Among the noteworthy characteristics are exceptionally high entry velocity from a low-inclined, eccentric orbit and exceptionally short cosmic ray exposure (CRE) age. From this and the similar orbital characteristics of the recent (2009) fall Maribo it has been suggested that – although an asteroidal source seems more likely both may belong to an ~0.1 Ma-old meteoroid stream originating from comet Encke [1]. We have analyzed a small fragment (~ 10 mg) of specimen Sutter Mill’s SM51. Experimental: Noble gases were released by pyrolysis in three temperature steps, and further cleaned, separated and analyzed on a MAP 215 noble gas mass spectrometer using standard procedures [2]. Data have been corrected for extraction blank and interferences. Standardization was relative to intermittently analyzed amounts of calibration gas. Results: Results are summarized in Tables 1 (He, Ne) as well as Table 2 (Ar, Kr, Xe).
USING MULTISPECTRAL VIDEO IMAGERY FOR DETECTING SOIL SURFACE CONDITIONS

Multispectral video imagery was evaluated in two experiments for its ability to discriminate among a variety of soil surface conditions. Experiments were conducted with pans having five soil surface treatments--(1) wet smooth, (2) disked wet, (3) disked dry, (4) crusted dry, and (5) smooth dry surfaces--and field plots with three soil surface treatments--(1) crusted dry, (2) disked dry, and (3) wet surfaces. Seven multispectral images were acquired of each experiment by equipping four black-and-white video cameras (two of them visible - 0.40 to 0.70 mu m, one visible/near-infrared (NIR) - 0.40 to 1.1 mu m, and one visible/infrared - 0.40 to 2.4 mu m sensitive) with visible, NIR, and mid-infrared (MIR) filters. The seven filters used were green (0.516 to 0.524 mu m), yellow-green (0.543 to 0.552 mu m), orange (0.586 to 0.595 mu m), red (0.644 to 0.656 mu m), deep dark red (0.712 to 0.725 mu m), NIR (0.815 to 0.827 mu m), and MIR (1.45 to 2.0 mu m). Digital video data were obtained from the plots within each image. Spectroradiometric reflectance measurements were made on the plots at approximately the same waveband intervals that were used to obtain video images. Digital data from all seven video bands were highly correlated (p=0.01) with reflectance data from corresponding bands for both experiments. For the pan experiment, the best correlations (all r's = 0.91) between digital video and reflectance data were obtained for the green, red, and orange wavebands. For the field experiment, the best correlation (r=0.98) between digital video and reflectance data was obtained for the MIR waveband. Surface-soil water content was significantly correlated to digital video data from most wavebands in both experiments, but the best correlations were obtained between water content and MIR digital video data in both experiments. These findings indicate that multispectral video imagery can be used successfully to differentiate among various soil surface conditions.
DANS: Deep Attention Network for Single Image Super-Resolution

The current advancements in image super-resolution have explored different attention mechanisms to achieve better quantitative and perceptual results. The critical challenge recently is to utilize the potential of attention mechanisms to reconstruct high-resolution images from their low-resolution counterparts. This research proposes a novel method that combines inception blocks, non-local sparse attention, and a U-Net network architecture. The network incorporates the non-local sparse attention on the backbone of symmetric encoder-decoder U-Net structure, which helps to identify long-range dependencies and exploits contextual information while preserving global context. By incorporating skip connections, the network can leverage features at different scales, enhancing the reconstruction of high-frequency information. Additionally, we introduce inception blocks allowing the model to capture information at various levels of abstraction to enhance multi-scale representation learning further. Experimental findings show that our suggested approach produces superior quantitative measurements, such as peak signal-to-noise ratio (PSNR), structural similarity index (SSIM), visual information fidelity (VIF), and visually appealing high-resolution image reconstructions.
Studier av metoder för plantering av gran och tall på åkermark i södra och mellersta Sverige

Acting Professor EINAR HUSS and Professor ERIC STEFANSSO of the Department of Reforestation at the Royal College of Forestry in Stockholm, Sweden, commissioned me in 1959-1960 to study methods of converting abandoned farm land into forest. The background to this study was the continuous depopulation of the Swedish countryside which has involved an increased number of closures of smallholdings and farms on inferior land. Surveys have shown that between 0.5 and one million hectares of land used for agricultura1 production may go out of use. At present each year sees the conversion of approx. 20,000 hectares of arable land into forest in Sweden. One can calculate that if approx. 0.5 million hectares of arable land is turned into productive forest land the value of the yield of Swedish forestry will increase by approx. ten per cent provided that such planting yield the expected result.
Value addition in wood apple ( Limonia acidissima L . )

The present investigation “Study on Scope of Value Addition in Wood Apple ( Limonia acidissima L . )” was undertaken to develop and asses the quality of fruit bars utilizing wood apple, pomegranate and dragon fruit in varying proportions. Physico-chemical properties of the developed fruit bars were studied during six months of storage at refrigerated condition with eleven treatments replicated thrice and data analysis was done following Completely Randomized Design. The moisture content of the blended fruit bars changed from18.00 per cent and 20.50 per cent to 15.08 to 16.38 per cent. The total sugar content was highest (22.84%) in the fruit bars blended with 60% wood apple and 40% pomegranate which showed an increasing trend and after six months was 24.51%. Total soluble solids ( 0 Brix) of the fruit bars showed an increasing trend throughout the storage period whereas ascorbic acid content of the fruit bars showed a decreasing trend during the period of study. The wood apple blended fruit bars were qualitatively and organoleptically accepted and fit for consumption up to 6month of storage at refrigerated condition.
Determination of the most appropriate regression method to estimate metabolic energy values by in vitro gas production technique

Estimation of metabolic energy values of feeds using in vitro gas production values is an essential issue in practice. It is determined that estimation of metabolic energy values with lonely use of in vitro gas production was not achieved in previous studies. In this study, to determine the most fitted regression model for estimating metabolic energy with use of gas production in certain incubation periods and parameters of gas production equation, models were set taking into account distributions of data and models were compared with the criteria of determination coefficient and mean square error. It is indicated that in vitro gas production values have long tailed, skewed, distributions such as Burr, Dagum and Generalized Pareto distribution. As a result, five different models with high coefficient of determination were set to estimate metabolic energy from in vitro gas production using normalized data. The model which estimates the metabolic energy with use of only gas production at 24 hours was determined as the best model from these five. Models were simplified to provide convenience to users when they use models to estimate metabolic energy.
Relation between Emotional Intelligence and Coping Strategies with Occupational Stress among Nurses

Background: Emotional intelligence is a social skill that controls stress and influences nurse’s ability to cope with the demands and environmental pressures. It can enhance professional skills in health care providers. Aim: Assess the relation between emotional intelligence and coping strategies with occupational stress among nurses. Design: A descriptive correlational research design was used in this study. Setting: The study was conducted in all Critical Care Units at Benha University Hospital. Subjects : Convenient sample consisting of (224) nurses with at least one year of experience at time of study. Tools of data collection: Two tools were used: I) Emotional Intelligence Questionnaire. II) The Coping and Adaptation Processing Scale. Results: Majority (92.9%) of studied nurses had high level of emotional intelligence and more than half (58%) of nurses had high level of coping strategies with occupational stress. Conclusion: There was statistically significant positive correlation between total level of emotional intelligence and total of coping strategies level with occupational stress. Recommendation: Conducting in service training and education programs as needed for nurses periodically to increase their emotional intelligence abilities and urgently use coping strategies to manage occupational stress.
Process of thermal spalling behavior in rocks--an exploratory study

Thermal spalling or spallation of rocks is defined as progressive failure caused by thermal stresses induced by a sudden application of heat from a high-temperature heat source. A theoretical explanation of the failure process is attempted on the basis of simplified engineering (phenomenological) assumptions and temperature-dependent properties. The implications of the theoretical analysis are then compared with the results of experimental measurements of thermal gradients produced during spalling and of related rock characteristics. The process of failure by thermal spalling in predominantly quartz- containing rock (Sioux Quartzite) takes place at temperatures considerably below the high-low inversion of quartz. In good spalling rocks, a thin heat layer with high thermal gradient forms during spalling. Spalling behavior in a rock appears to depend on the thermal expansion and shear-strain characteristics of the rock. Inelastic behavior of the rock inhibits failure by thermal spalling. (32 refs.)