Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
EXAMINING QUALITY OF LIFE AMONG RURAL, REMOTE AND URBAN RESIDENTS OF VICTORIA

The research aim was to investigate the relative significance of rurality (ARIA) and ‘place’ characteristics (satisfaction with community involvement and community support, satisfaction with distance from services, and level of community involvement), as predictors of subjective well-being. Participants were 355 residents (125 males and 230 females) from various locations within Victoria representing rural, remote and urban lifestyles. Regression analyses found ARIA was not a significant predictor of quality of life or life satisfaction however some place characteristics were significant predictors of subjective well-being. Findings indicated that one’s level of satisfaction with distance from services, satisfaction with community and perceived level of support from the community significantly predicted subjective well-being, with higher levels of perceived support and satisfaction resulting in higher well-being. However, one’s reported level of community involvement did not predict well-being, suggesting that it is one’s general feeling and perception of the community that is important to well-being rather than actual community participation. Hence, the current findings indicate that place characteristics warrant consideration in future studies examining predictors of subjective well-being.
Autonomous Unmanned Flying Robot Control for Reconfigurable Airborne Wireless Sensor Networks Using Adaptive Gradient Climbing Algorithm

This paper describes efficient flight control algorithms for building a reconfigurable ad-hoc wireless sensor networks between nodes on the ground and airborne nodes mounted on autonomous vehicles to increase the operational range of an aerial robot or the communication connectivity. Two autonomous flight control algorithms based on adaptive gradient climbing approach are developed to steer the aerial vehicles to reach optimal locations for the maximum communication throughputs in the airborne sensor networks. The first autonomous vehicle control algorithm is presented for seeking the source of a scalar signal by directly using the extremum-seeking based forward surge control approach with no position information of the aerial vehicle. The second flight control algorithm is developed with the angular rate command by integrating an adaptive gradient climbing technique which uses an on-line gradient estimator to identify the derivative of a performance cost function. They incorporate the network performance into the feedback path to mitigate interference and noise. A communication propagation model is used to predict the link quality of the communication connectivity between distributed nodes. Simulation study is conducted to evaluate the effectiveness of the proposed reconfigurable airborne wireless networking control algorithms.
Effects of traditional Chinese medicine nursing combined with conventional nursing in patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease: a meta-analysis

Abstract Objective This meta-analysis aims to evaluate the effects of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) nursing combined with conventional nursing in patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). Methods Data were collected from the databases of PubMed, Embase, the Cochrane Library, Web of Science, Google Scholar, China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI), WanFang Data (WF) and VIP Database, including literature regarding the effects of TCM nursing combined with conventional nursing in patients with COPD published before January 2017. The Jadad scale was used to assess the quality of the eligible literature. The weighted mean differences and odds ratios were used to analyze St. George’s Respiratory Questionnaire (SGRQ) scores, pulmonary function, hospital stay, and clinical efficacy. Results Twenty-three randomized controlled trials comprising 3116 cases (TCM nursing combined with the conventional nursing group: 1559; conventional nursing group: 1557) met the inclusion criteria. TCM nursing combined with conventional nursing was associated with a lower SGRQ score, higher forced expiratory volume in 1 second (FEV1) value, higher FEV1/forced vital capacity (FVC) value, higher FEV1% value, higher FEV1 predicted value, shorter hospital stay, and preferable clinical efficacy. Conclusions TCM nursing combined with conventional nursing emphasized that dialectical nursing can be performed preferably in patients with COPD.
Individuation Moderates Impressions of Conflicting Categories for Slower Processors

We investigated individuation – attribute-based impressions associated with each unique individual rather than their categorical membership – as a moderator of impressions formed when slower versus faster processors encounter conflicting social category conjunctions. Descriptions of incongruent (e.g., female bricklayer), but not congruent category conjunctions (e.g., female nurse) were moderated by individuation in the application of emergent attributes (novel attributes associated exclusively with the category conjunction and not the constituents). However, this was only the case for slow processors. These findings suggest that the means by which slower processors relative to faster processors form impressions for poorly correlated category conjunctions vary systematically. Individuated impressions lead to emergent attribute application for perceivers with slower processing ability. We discuss the implications of these findings.
Invertibility of spectral x-ray data with pileup--two dimension-two spectrum case

In the Alvarez-Macovski method, the line integrals of the x-ray basis set coefficients are computed from measurements with multiple spectra. An important question is whether the transformation from measurements to line integrals is invertible. This paper presents a proof that for a system with two spectra and a photon counting detector, pileup does not affect the invertibility of the system. If the system is invertible with no pileup, it will remain invertible with pileup although the reduced Jacobian may lead to increased noise.
Thinking Aloud - a technique for uncovering multi-sensory learning in professional education

The ‘Thinking Aloud’ technique was developed as a data generation and gathering tool in a phenomenological study looking at how students learn from experience to become midwives. In this paper I propose that the 'Thinking Aloud' technique is an appropriate tool for illuminating the under researched area of multi-sensory learning in professional education. I will explore the difficulties of collecting data about learning and then I will explain how the 'Thinking Aloud' technique addressed some of these problems. I will describe how the data was collected and then assess the ‘Thinking Aloud’ technique in terms of its value in collecting data on learning. The findings will be presented and discussed in respect of their relevance to learning and teaching in Higher Education.
Distributed Coordination Control of First- and Second-Order Multiagent Systems with External Disturbances

This paper is devoted to the coordination control problem of heterogeneous first- and second-order multiagent systems with external disturbances. First, by applying the theory of eigenvalue and the method of model transformation, the consensus state of heterogeneous multiagent systems is obtained. Then, based on the consensus state, the control output is defined, and sufficient conditions are derived to make all agents reach consensus with performance. Finally, simulation results are provided to demonstrate the effectiveness of the presented results.
Towards Realistic Hair Animation Using Discrete Elastic Rods

When animating virtual humans, hairstyle is one of a most noticeable features that contribute to the authenticity of the character. Despite being a common task for visual effects industry, adequate simulation of hair still remains a challenging problem. Difficulties arise due to complex mechanical behaviour it exhibits, especially when considering the wide range of different hair styles. Although numerous method have been proposed in the literature there still is no well accepted model for hair. The objective of this thesis is set on accurately capturing the dynamics of the curly hair by investigating a physical model of a closely related phenomena, namely discrete elastic rods and its viability towards realistic hair animation.
ALLEVIATION OF LINE OVERLOADS UNDER CONTINGENCY BY OPTMAL UTILISATION OF FACTS DEVICES USING EVOLUTIONARY COMPUTATION TECHNIQUES

This paper proposes the evolutionary computational techniques for determining the most suitable locations and settings for installing the Flexible AC Transmission (FACTS) devices, Thyristor Controlled Series Capacitors (TCSC) and Unified Power Flow Controllers (UPFC), to eliminate line overloads under single contingency in a power system. The mostly affected lines of the system during single line outage are ranked using an index called Contingency Severity Index. To find the best locations among the ranked lines to install the FACTS devices, and to determine the settings of those devices, an optimization problem is formulated and solved using two evolutionary computation techniques, real coded Genetic Algorithm (RGA) and Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO). The reactance model for TCSC and the decoupled model for UPFC are considered for this work. Simulated Binary Crossover (SBX) and Non-uniform polynomial mutation are employed to improve the performance of the Genetic Algorithm used. Simulations are performed on IEEE 6-bus, 30-bus and 118-bus test systems. The results are compared in terms of improved system security before and after placing the FACTS devices and the performance of both techniques are analyzed.
CGE Analysis of the Impact of Foreign Direct Investment and Tariff Reform on Female and Male Wages

This study analyzes the impact on male and female wages of tariff reform and the reduction of regulatory barriers faced by domestic and foreign firms operating in business services. The study applies the model to Tanzania and develops a data set that distinguishes labor and wages by gender for 52 sectors and four skill categories. The model is the first to incorporate modern trade theory to assess the gender implications of trade reform. Given that the Dixit-Stiglitz framework results in productivity gains from additional varieties of services, the analysis finds that real wages increase across all worker categories. However, the increase in wages is higher for males than for females, because business services use males more intensively than females. The most skilled (female and male) workers, who are also the most intensively used in the business services sectors, benefit more from the real increases in wages. The model illustrates that as the development process continues and developing countries become more business service oriented, these sectors demand more educated workers and their wages will increase relative to those of unskilled workers. The policy conclusion from this model is that it is crucial to invest in the education of females so their human capital increases and their skills are more marketable in business services and other more technologically modern occupations. Otherwise, the wage gap between males and females would likely widen further.
Macroinvertebrate biodiversity patterns during primary succession in manmade ponds in north-eastern Spain

The aim of this work was to evaluate the primary succession of manmade ponds by studying the temporal patterns of the pond biodiversity metrics. We surveyed the macroinvertebrate community, the water and the sediment of 19 manmade ponds of different ages (from 1 to 22 years) located at reclaimed opencast coal mines in north-eastern Spain. This study showed an increase of biodiversity with pond age: the oldest ponds showed higher complexity and more rare taxa than the youngest ponds, while the taxonomic richness did not change. These results highlighted the need for using a wide range of biodiversity metrics. Moreover, our results suggest that post-mining landscapes could be limiting environments for the evolving macroinvertebrate community because pond age explained less of the biodiversity variance than the environmental characteristics. The changes found in water and sediment during this time were not reflected in changes in biodiversity, and the levels of biodiversity in our study area were lower than those of restored or manmade ponds of similar ages.
A Shared Model Based Dense Real-Time Semantic SLAM Method Towards Repetitive Scene

Dense Simultaneous localization and mapping has attracted people's attention in recent years. However, it always consists a large map which led to an increase in storage space and generates incomplete map. In this paper, we designed a semantic SLAM system which reduce map storage space while improving integrity. The key idea is to segment objects from the background to individual models using deep neural network and reconstruct the models of same class with a common map storage space. We built a complete dense semantic system and propose a method to match two same objects in large distance.
When the Tide is High: Estimating the Welfare Impact of Coastal Erosion Management

A choice experiment was undertaken at Buffalo beach, Whitianga, in order to investigate beach visitors’ preferences for various coastal erosion management options. Constructing rock seawalls is a common response to coastal erosion but seawalls can negatively affect visual amenity, biodiversity and recreational values. The choice experiment results from this study show that the average visitor would be willing to pay $20 per year to remove an existing rock wall at either end of Buffalo beach. Visitors place high value on useable sandy beaches and reserve areas behind the beach. A latent class analysis reveals there are distinct sub-groups with varying preferences for beach characteristics. This paper presents a model with separate classes for residents and visitors and the compensating variation estimates to calculate the overall welfare effect for three coastal management scenarios.
Exploring and Designing Wireless City Applications by Way of Archetype User Research within a Living Lab

In the paper we demonstrate the process and the outcome of ‘archetype user research’ for exploring and designing wireless broadband applications in a city environment. This type of research is based on ethnographic research of a number of persons that are each purposefully selected as being an ‘archetype’ user of a number of broadly defined application ideas. The archetypical character here refers to potentially interesting socio-economic background features and city-related practices. This leads to the identification of dimensions that define the practice of a city visit. In the project being discussed in the paper (ROMAS) these qualitative data are integrated with a quantitative scanning of potential application ideas among different stakeholders. In this way two approaches of ICT user research, diffusion and domestication, are combined. The outcome of this bottom-up investigation is then coupled back to the applications ideas, leading to design suggestions based on what potential users say, do and experience in everyday life situations in the city. This fits in the current evolution to increasingly involving the user in service innovation, especially in the ‘fuzzy front end’ of the new product development process.
MEANING OF BOUNDARIES TO RURAL PRECEPTORS

Preceptorship is widely used as a cost-effective clinical non-traditional teaching method. However, insufficient research has been done in this area, particularly as to how a successful student-preceptor relationship is formed. The rural setting poses additional challenges as the nursing instructor is not physically present to monitor the course of the student-preceptor relationship or to resolve arising boundary issues. This is part one of a grounded theory project whereby eleven rural preceptors were asked ‗what kinds of professional boundaries do you create in the rural preceptorship experience‘ and ‗how they created and maintained professional boundaries while precepting nursing students‘. The research project consisted of two parts: each examining the perspectives of preceptors and students. However, this study will focus on the perceptions of preceptors and is the first to examine perceptions of preceptors in the area of teaching and boundaries in rural settings. The resulting core variable was: trusting the student to be safe and the psychosocial process was the relationship they developed with the student.
Optimizing feature extraction for the camera mouse using genetic algorithms

In this paper, we propose an optimized online facial feature extraction method for a camera mouse using neural networks and genetic algorithms. The method consists of skin color region segmentation and facial features extraction using a neural network whose search is guided by a genetic algorithm. Skin color detection is carried out using a hybrid method based on a YIQ color space threshold and neural network skin color detection methods. The facial features tracked are the eyes and the mouth. A neural network is first trained to detect the eyes and mouth of fixed size and rotation. The genetic algorithm is used to overcome size and orientation invariance by automatic selection of the neural network test samples. Once a feature is detected, it is tracked in the following frames by inheriting the genetic algorithms parameters from the earlier frame. This work was carried out at 7.5 frames per second. Experiments were performed to verify the effectiveness of this method. From the results, an average system accuracy of 95.8% was achieved.
Observations of anomalous microwave emission from HII regions

I give a summary of the observations of Anomalous Microwave Emission (AME) from HII regions. AME has been detected in, or in the vicinity of, HII regions. Given the difficulties in measuring accurate SEDs over a wide range of frequencies and in complex environments, many of these detections require more data to confirm them as emitting significant AME. The contribution from optically thick free-free emission from UCHII regions may be also be significant in some cases. The AME emissivity, defined as the ratio of the AME brightness to the 100 μm brightness, is comparable to the value observed in high-latitude diffuse cirrus in some regions, but is significantly lower in others. However, this value is dependent on the dust temperature. More data, both at high frequencies (>~5 GHz) and high resolution (~1′ or better) is required to disentangle the emission processes in such complex regions.
Keyframes Extraction Method for Motion Capture Data

In this paper, we propose a keyframes extraction method of motion capture data for reducing data quantity. To choose keyframes from motion capture data, we apply a reflnement technique for handwritten curves to the data. As a result of comparing original data with reduced data, it is conflrmed that the path of each data is nearly equal. Features of our method are: (1) data reduction that utilizes characteristics of the measured motion is possible, and (2) the user can control the ratio of reduction. It became possible that the data quantity is kept to about 50%, while features of the original motion are retained.
Banks’ efficiency and productivity analysis using the Hicks-Moorsteen approach: a case study of Iran

This study is the first to use the Hicks-Moorsteen TFP index developed by O’Donnell (2008,2009, 2010c) to analyse efficiency and productivity changes in the banking system. The advantage of this approach over the popular Malmquist productivity index is that it is free from any assumptions concerning firm optimising behaviour, the structure of markets, or returns to scale. The effects of Iranian government regulations launched in 2005 on the Iranian banking industry are investigated through an analysis of performance over the period 2003-2008 assuming variable returns to scale. The results obtained show that although the Iranian banking industry has been inefficient over the entire period of the study, the industry’s technical efficiency level - which had improved over the period 2003-2006 - deteriorated considerably after the regulatory changes were introduced. The industry experienced its highest negative efficiency growth in 2006 which was 43% and became more mix inefficient after 2005, with a considerably negative productivity change after 2007. Overall, changes of production possibility set and scale efficiency changes exerted dominant effects on productivity changes.
Relationally Reflexive Practice

In this article we explain how the development of new organization theory faces several mutually reinforcing problems, which collectively suppress generative debate and the creation of new and alternative theories. We argue that to overcome these problems, researchers should adopt relationally reflexive practices. This does not lead to an alternative method but instead informs how methods are applied. Specifically, we advocate a stance toward the application of qualitative methods that legitimizes insights from the situated life-with-others of the researcher. We argue that this stance can improve our abilities for generative theorizing in the field of management and organization studies.
THE FORMATION OF A SYSTEM OF OPEN GOVERNMENT IN RUSSIA: EXPERIENCE AND PROSPECTS

This paper analyzes the development of forms and methods of interaction between government agencies and the experts community, public organizations, and citizens under the influence of a whole host of factors, including a transition to networked forms of administration; the production and exchange of big data; the dynamic development of information and communication technologies; and the development of the need for various interest groups, members of the mass media, and citizens to comment and influence government decisionmaking. The goal of the paper is to demonstrate that open government and increasing citizen activity is a two-way street. The paper uses the results of the monitoring by experts in 2014 of the implementation of principles and mechanisms of openness in federal executive agencies.One of the papers tasks is to show that government bodies today face the extremely difficult challenge of not merely informing citizens about decisions that are made but also maintaining the smooth operation of mechanisms that are able, given the current level of social development, to ensure that the interests and expectations of as many stakeholders as possible are taken into account. The paper also analyzes issues related to streamlining the current mechanisms of openness.The authors regard these technologies and mechanisms of openness and public participation in government administration as interconnected elements of a new, nascent model of public administration.
Corporate Social Performance as a Bottom Line for Consumers

This study replicates Paul, Zalka, Downes, Perry, and Friday’s scale to measure U.S. consumer sensitivity to corporate social performance (CSP) in another sample—namely, that of Dutch consumers. In addition, theories on the effects of sociodemographic variables on environmental concern have been applied to investigate the influence of individual consumer characteristics on the sensitivity to CSP. It was found that the Consumer Sensitivity Scale to CSP is a reliable one, and it also seems applicable to West European countries. For Dutch consumers, CSP serves more as a hygiene factor—it should be at a minimum acceptable level (a bottom line)—than as a motivator to buy a product. Having a left-wing political orientation, a higher level of education, being female, and being older are consumer characteristics that all have a positive influence on sensitivity to CSP. Surprisingly, household income did not influence this.