Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
FlowRep : extracting descriptive curve networks from free-form design shapes

This thesis presents FlowRep, an algorithm for extracting descriptive compact 3D curve networks from meshes of free-form man-made shapes. FlowRep output networks provide a concise visual description of the underlying surface, and can be used as a compact proxy for shape compression, editing and manipulation. While artists routinely and successfully create descriptive curve networks to depict complex 3D shapes in 3D space or on 2D media, the method described here is the first to achieve this goal algorithmically. FlowRep infers the desired compact curve network from complex 3D geometries by using a series of insights derived from perception, computer graphics, and design literature which point to two sets of geometric properties that such networks should satisfy. These sources suggest that visually descriptive networks are cycle-descriptive, i.e their cycles unambiguously describe the geometry of the surface patches they surround. They also indicate that such networks are designed to be projectable, or easy to envision when observed from a static general viewpoint; in other words, 2D projections of the network should be strongly indicative of its 3D geometry. Research suggests that both properties are best achieved by using networks dominated by flowlines, surface curves aligned with principal curvature directions across anisotropic regions and strategically extended across sharp-features and isotropic areas. The algorithm leverages these observations in the construction of a compact descriptive curve network. Starting with a curvature aligned quad dominant mesh I first extract sequences of mesh edges that form long, well-shaped and reliable flowlines by leveraging directional similarity between nearby meaningful flowline directions. This process overcomes topological noise, and inaccuracies and singularities in the underlying curvature field. I then use the extracted flow-
Speech-Language Pathology Assistant Supervisor Survey

ABSTRACT: Purpose: The purpose of this study was to investigate (a) duties that are commonly performed by speech-language pathology assistants (SLPAs), (b) typical supervision provided, (c) supervisors’ opinions about SLPA training and (d) the impact and perceived advantages/disadvantages of SLPAs in the field of speech-language pathology. Method: A national survey of 64 speech-language pathologists (SLPs) who supervise SLPAs was conducted. Results: Participants supervised 1 to 4 SLPAs, mainly in a school setting. SLPAs were mostly engaged in tasks in the areas of service delivery and administrative support and rarely in duties related to prevention and advocacy. The majority of participants indicated that SLPAs had a positive impact on the field, but S
Challenges With Academic Achievement For Esl Students At The Elementary Level From A Teacher’s Perspective

English language learners (ELLs) are currently one of the fastest growing populations in the United States. As growth of the ELL population has surpassed predictions over the years, there a great need to adequately train teachers to effectively serve these students. This pilot study sought to understand the challenges with academic achievement for ESL students at the elementary level from a teacher’s perspective. This case study research was conducted to answer four research questions: 1) What current challenges do teachers have with serving ELLs? How are they currently addressing these challenges? 2) What (if any) current instructional strategies are currently effective with ELLs? 3) Is the current English language framework (curriculum and professional development) providing the needed support for our ESL student population? The researcher conducted initial data collection using an electronic survey, then conducted follow-up interviews. A total of 10 elementary teachers participated in the survey and 2 took part in the follow-up interview. The results of this study revealed six major themes: 1) teachers do not understand how to implement language acquisition strategies, 2) lack of professional development for language acquisition instructional strategies for teachers, 3) ELLs have the greatest struggle in reading comprehension, 4) tactile activities and visual representations are effective instructional strategies for ELLs, 5) intervention time was effective block, 6)
A visual analysis of gender stereotypes in campaign advertising

ABSTRACT Extant scholarship offers conflicting conclusions about whether female candidates emphasize feminine or masculine stereotypes in campaigns. We suggest that female candidates use both stereotypes, and do so by varying the use of these stereotypes in the visual and the verbal content of a single message. We measure how candidates vary the use of gender stereotypes in the visual and the verbal message of a single campaign ad. We predict that female candidates will pair feminine visuals with masculine verbal messages. We argue that using visuals to communicate femininity is a subtle way for female candidates to address the “double-bind” that demands female candidates display masculine competency and feminine warmth. With a unique measure, we uncover three key findings. First, female candidates have a higher probability of airing a campaign ad that incorporates feminine visuals compared to male candidates. Second, female candidates are more likely to emphasize feminine visuals relative to masculine visuals. Third, female candidates air campaign ads with a higher degree of visual-verbal conflict pairing feminine visuals with masculine verbal messages. Our research has broad implications for how female candidates overcome gendered expectations. We also show that voters receive “mixed” stereotype messages that can, potentially, affect voter decision-making.
Latent Ability Model: A Generative Probabilistic Learning Framework for Workforce Analytics

As more business workflow systems are being deployed in modern enterprises and organizations, more employee-activity log data are being collected and analyzed. In this paper, we develop a latent ability model (LAM) as a generative probabilistic learning framework for workforce analytics over employee-activity logs. The LAM development is novel in three aspects. First, we introduce the concept of latent ability variables to model hidden relations between employees and activities in terms of job performance, such as the set of skills provided by an employee and the set of skills required by an activity, and how well they matchup in employee-activity assignment. Second, we construct the latent ability model by learning latent ability parameters from the employee-activity log data using expectation-maximization and gradient descent. Finally, we leverage LAM to build inference and prediction models for employee performance prediction, employee ability comparison, and employee-activity matchup quality estimation. We evaluate the accuracy and efficiency of our approach using real log datasets collected from a workflow system deployed in the government of the city of Hangzhou, China, which consists of 5,287,621 log records over two years involving 744 activities and 1,725 employees. We show that LAM approach outperforms existing representative methods in both accuracy and efficiency.
CEO ethical leadership and corporate social responsibility: Examining the mediating role of organizational ethical culture and intellectual capital

Abstract Recent studies have increasingly suggested leadership as a major antecedent to corporate social responsibility (CSR), empirical studies, which investigated the influence of various leadership aspects such as style and ethics on CSR and unraveled the mechanism through which leadership exerts its impact on CSR were restricted. Thus, the purpose of this research was to study the relationship between CEO ethical leadership and CSR by focusing on the mediating role of ethical culture and the intellectual capital facets (human capital and social capital) of the organization. Data for current research were collected through personally administered questionnaire through survey. Based on a sample of 250 respondents, the current study instituted that CEO ethical leadership positively affected CSR. Intellectual capital facets (human and social) and organizational ethical culture were observed to have a mediating effect on CEO ethical leadership and CSR relationship. Practical implications of the results are also given in the current study. Moreover, study limitations and directions for future study have also been presented.
Differential item functioning of the career aspiration scale within Arab context

The aim of the study was to examine the psychometric properties and the differential items functioning of short version of Career Aspiration Scale (CAS) in a sample of 2700 of Omani high school students. The results of the total score of CAS showed acceptable internal consistency (Cronbach’s α=0.67). An exploratory factor analysis yielded a support for nine items version identifying single construct. Differential item functioning (DIF) analysis confirmed that there were differences on five items concerning gender. DIF analysis performed according to grade showed that the functioning of CAS items was consistent in both grades except for item four. Suggestions were provided for further psychometric investigation of the scale. Key words: Career aspiration scale, differential functioning, gender, grade
An Autoethnographic Process towards Creating Screendance through Laban Movement Analysis

ABSTRACT Screendance, as an interdisciplinary practice influenced by the histories and intersections of cinema and dance, necessitates a vocabulary aimed specifically at perceiving it as an autonomous art form. Within the Laban Movement Analysis (LMA) context, perceiving refers to recognising changes regarding specific spatial, temporal and dynamic qualities attributed to movements, gestures and expressions. This article explores the autoethnographic process that forms part of a larger qualitative, practice-based investigation into the ways in which LMA can further contribute toward the development of a screendance vocabulary. Since LMA addresses personal uniqueness and the influence of sociocultural backgrounds on the body, this article suggests a self-reflexion on the creative process followed by interrogating the functionality and expressivity of LMA as a choreographic tool towards screendance. In addition to foregrounding Sawyer's sociocultural model for creativity and the three dynamics at play that influence creative decision-making processes, this article refers to Munro's consideration of these dynamics as the culture of idiosyncrasy, the culture of practice and the culture of gatekeeping. Cultural shifts that occur between dance and filmmaking communities and the relational shift of the camera's gaze from an observer to an active partner participating in a pas de deux with the mover are underpinned.
Prosody Utilization in Continuous Speech Recognition

This doctoral thesis covers the theme of prosody utilization in automatic recognition of continuous speech. Even though automatic speech recognition (ASR) systems have imoproved immensely over the last several decades, they still lack making use of one of the most important aspect of information using speech, which is a prosody. There have already been proofs from other languages about the favourableness of prosody usage in ASR and doctoral thesis tries to investigate the potential of Czech regarding prosody usage. The research activities can be divided into three main areas: a) pitch detection algorithms (PDA) as needed prerequisite for prosodic feature extraction, b) Czech lexical stress system as potential clue from acoustic signal for word boundary detection (and its usage in ASR) and c) classification of sentence/phrase modality in Czech based purely on an acoustic signal. Firstly, the field of pitch detection algorithms, a framework for their evaluation and comparison is presented. Several new evaluation criteria are proposed as an extension to existing ones together with metrics evaluation over four speech pitch reference databases. Besides pure comparison, few modifications of existing PDA methods are presented. Namely a transition probability function in PDA post-processing is investigated in terms of candidate distance measure and new temporal-forgetting principle for speech is brought in as extension of method by time domain. Czech as a fixed-stress language with lexical stress on the first syllable is known to have a weak lexical stress acoustic correlation. Nevertheless, methods of how stressed syllables or stress-group boundaries can be detected from speech signal were investigated. A system with sophisticated feature extraction followed by statistical machine learning methods to model those phenomenon in Czech is presented. Detected stress-group boundaries can be (in most of cases) mapped to word boundaries which can be used for prosodic evaluation of ASR hypothesis. A metric for such prosodic score, which can be directly used in prosodic N-best evaluation or ASR error detection, is proposed. Also, ASR lattice rescoring algorithm for Czech is presented. Czech phrase modality detection from acoustic signal is covered and together with existing phrase boundary detector can such system serve as an punctuation module for Czech dictation ASR system or in Czech dialogue system to support its natural language processing (NLP) part.
Ambiverts Potentially Have Better Orienting Response than Extraverts in Visual Oddball Paradigm of Event Related Potential

Background: Differences in personality may indicate dissimilarity in the process of cognition. Objectives: To investigate and compare the neural substrate of P300 component evoked between ambiverts and extraverts in visual oddball paradigm of Event Related Potential study. Methods: Forty undergraduate medical students from Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM) were recruited and screened for personality by using USM Personality Inventory (USMaP-i). In the Event Related Potential (ERP) session, participants (N=19 ambiverts and 20 extraverts) completed a visual oddball paradigm in counterbalanced order. Results: Mann Whitney Test showed that, compared to ambiverts, the extraverts showed diminished P300 amplitude at the Fz electrode, but not at other electrodes. Conclusion: Ambiverts might have better orienting response than extraverts.
The Adaptation of the Death Anxiety and Religious Belief Measures into Estonia A Pilot Study on the Supernatural Belief Scale and the Existential Death Anxiety Scale

This master’s thesis demonstrates an adaptation process of a survey research method that evaluates the relationship between death anxiety and religiosity into the Estonian setting. Three main objectives were set: (a) introduction of the theoretical reasoning, (b) preparation and execution of the pilot study, (c) exploration of the entire process to determine requirements for the main study. Theoretical and methodological basis are drawn from Jong and Halberstadt (2016) who’s central objective bases on the following questions: “are people afraid of death? Does death anxiety motivate religious belief? Does religious belief mitigate death anxiety? ” (p. 47). In this paper two measures of survey questionnaire from the named authors were adapted (6 + 12 items) and an online pilot survey (n = 194) was executed. The intention of the pilot study was to test the reliability of the measures adapted. Satisfactory result was received—the adapted survey measures were found to be highly reliable. Cronbach’s alpha for the Existential Death Anxiety Scale was . 939, and for the Supernatural Belief Scale . 927. This shows that the main study is feasible.
Strategies of austerity used in needs assessments for personal assistance – changing Swedish social policy for persons with disabilities

ABSTRACT The austerity measures in social welfare implemented by street-level bureaucrats in their practice are changing the direction of social policy. This article examines the strategies used by public officials in implementing austerity measures in needs assessment for personal assistance in Sweden. The article is based on a document study with N = 100 records of needs assessment for personal assistance for persons with serious functional disabilities. Findings show that the public officials at the Swedish Social Insurance Agency either limit or extend their discretion as a strategy, as well as use weak warrants as strong warrants in recommending decisions. Other strategies involve the organisational logic, fragmentation of the content in the needs assessment and division of work among the public officials. Implementing the cost-cutting goals causes severe consequences for persons with disabilities who bear the brunt by being excluded from participation in society. The social policy values of fifty years, emphasising the right to equal participation in society, are traded for economic austerity goals.
An exploratory study of friendship characteristics and their relations with hedonic and eudaimonic well-being

Friendships are an important source of happiness, well-being, physical health, and longevity. Researchers have often linked unidimensional friendship quality to life satisfaction and positive affect, which are hedonic forms of well-being. Aristotle presented an expanded view of friendship with three general characteristics: Utility, Pleasure, and Virtue. Following his theory, we expected Pleasure and Utility characteristics to be primarily related to hedonic well-being (HWB). In contrast, we expected Virtue characteristics to be more strongly related to eudaimonic well-being (EWB), which includes meaning, personal growth, and positive relationships in this study. This exploratory study assessed Aristotle’s theory about friendship and well-being with 375 participants. Two exploratory structural equation models were tested. There was an indirect relationship between Utility characteristics and HWB through Help Received. A friend’s Virtue characteristics had an indirect relationship with EWB through the reliability of the friendship. These findings indicate that friendship characteristics related to utility and virtue friendships appear to have differential implications for understanding the role of friends in happiness and flourishing.
Resource optimization techniques in scheduling : applications to production and maintenance systems

Optimizing the use of resources plays an important role in today’s modern manufacturing and service organizations. Scheduling, involving setup times and costs, leads to better allocation of resources over time to perform a collection of required tasks. This compilation dissertation examines how the learning effect of workers and a combination of setup activities can be used to optimize resource utilization in manufacturing systems and maintenance services. The learning effect is a technique that can model improvement in worker’s ability as a result of repeating similar tasks. By considering the learning effect, setup times will be reduced, and a schedule can be determined to place jobs that share similar tools and fixtures next to each other. The purpose is to schedule a set of jobs in a hybrid flow shop environment while minimizing two criteria that represent the manufacturers’ and consumers’ concerns: namely maximum completion time (makespan) and total tardiness. Combining setup activities can also reduce setup times and costs. In the maintenance of systems consisting of multiple components, costs can be saved when several components are jointly maintained. By using this technique, a schedule can be determined to minimize the total cost of maintenance and renewal projects for various components and their relevant setup activities. Mathematical programming models that incorporate these aspects of the problem are developed in this research and the performance of the proposed models are tested on a set of problem instances. The results of this work show that the proposed techniques perform well in reducing setup times and costs and eliminate the need for setups through scheduling. This work proposes several exact, heuristic, and meta-heuristic methods to solve the developed models and compare their efficiency. This study contributes to the theoretical discussion of multi-criteria production and maintenance scheduling. For practitioners, this dissertation work provides optimization techniques and tools through scheduling that can help keep costs down and allow companies to operate according to time and budget constraints.
The Dissonance between Teachers‘ and Students‘ Views on Speaking Anxiety in Foreign Languages for Specific Purposes

Th e study identifi es the perceptions of the reasons for speaking anxiety in foreign languages for specifi c purposes (FLSP) by Slovenian students and their teachers. A survey was carried out with 335 students and 24 teachers of FLSP from Slovenian higher education institutions. Th e results show discrepancies between students’ and teachers’ perspectives regarding the reasons for FLSP speaking anxiety. Th e students emphasized a lack of the knowledge of the carrier content in FLSP, whereas the teachers stated as reasons oral tests, failure to speak fl uently and a worry about being looked down on for making mistakes in real and carrier contents.
Polarization dependence of propagation features modeling for optical micro/nano fiber in circularly bent shape

Many optical properties can be obtained from those propagation modes of optical micro/nano fiber, such as single-mode or hybrid-mode operation, power density distribution, strong confinement, large evanescent field and transmission loss. Here, the TE and TM polarization fundamental modes of straight and circularly bent optical micro/nano fibers are simulated respectively using the beam propagation method in 3D model of the commercial Rsoft software. The curves of launch power versus propagation distance at different bending radii and optical wavelengths are then obtained, which indicates the 90° loss and even the longer propagation distance loss are so small that can be ignored when the bending radius is large enough to some extent. And also the transmission loss reduced with the decrease of optical wavelength is revealed. These modeling results might give a valuable insight for understanding the evaluation and application of optical micro/nano fiber, especially in the integrated optical fiber sensing area.
The Neural Basis of Empathy and Empathic Behavior in the Context of Chronic Trauma

Background: Accumulating evidence in social neuroscience suggests that mature human empathy relies on the integration of two types of processes: a lower-order process mainly tapping into automatic and sensory mechanisms and a higher-order process involving affect and cognition and modulated by top-down control. Studies have also indicated that neural measures of empathy often correlate with behavioral measures of empathy. Yet, little is known on the effects of chronic trauma on the neural and behavioral indices of empathy and the associations among them. Methods: Mothers exposed to chronic war-related trauma and nonexposed controls (N = 88, N = 41 war-exposed) underwent magnetoencephalography (MEG) while watching stimuli depicting vicarious emotional distress. Maternal empathic behavior was assessed during mother–child interaction involving a joint task. Results: Empathy-evoking vignettes elicited response in alpha rhythms in a network involving both sensorimotor and viceromotor (anterior insula) regions, suggesting integration of the sensory and affective components of empathy. Whereas exposure to chronic stress did not affect the level of neural activations in this network, it reduced maternal empathic behavior. Furthermore, trauma exposure impaired the coherence of brain and behavior; only among controls, but not among trauma-exposed mothers, the neural basis of empathy was predicted by maternal empathic behavior. Conclusions: Chronic stress takes a toll on the mother’s empathic ability and indirectly impacts the neural basis of empathy by disrupting the coherence of brain and behavior.