Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Job satisfaction of dietitians in South Florida

OF THE THESIS JOB SATISFACTION OF DIETITIANS IN SOUTH FLORIDA by Sonia M. Batista Florida International University, 1999 Miami, Florida Professor Fatma G. Huffman, Major Professor The purpose of this study was to examine job satisfaction of dietitians in South Florida and to identify significant differences in job satisfaction between dietitians working in traditional versus non-traditional settings. A job satisfaction questionnaire was developed, validated, and mailed to dietitians in Palm Beach, Broward, Dade, and Monroe counties. Out of 600 questionnaires mailed, 203 surveys were returned and 187 were valid and analyzed statistically. Seventy three percent of subjects practiced in traditional and 17% in non-traditional settings. Eighteen percent of 187 subjects surveyed reported feeling dissatisfied with their jobs and 59% reported feeling satisfied. There was no significant difference in satisfaction due to practice settings (traditional versus non-traditional). The subjects reported satisfaction with co-workers and supervisors. The two major areas where dissatisfaction was reported were compensation and professional recognition. The results showed that the majority of dietitians in South Florida are, in general, satisfied with their jobs. Although dietitians' salaries have increased by approximately 80% since 1982, compensation was still viewed as inadequate by 48% of the subjects, given dietitians' education, skills and experience.
Design of peptide-based vector for nucleic acid delivery in vivo

Recent advances in genomics and genome editing strategies have created novel prospects for gene therapy. Advancements in genomic sequencing able us to regulate the expression of pathogenic phenotype-causing genes through the utilization of therapeutic nucleic acids. The main obstacle for gene therapy is the poor cellular uptake of such therapeutics. Therefore, the major challenge in creating effective gene-based therapies is the development of selective and safe delivery vectors. Currently, the most effective and abundantly utilized gene delivery vehicles in clinical trials are virus-derived vectors. Despite the encouraging results with the viral delivery systems, concern about the safety of these vectors remains. Therefore, increasingly more effort have been applied into the research of non-viral vehicles as a safer alternative to the viral counterparts. Cell-penetrating peptides are short cationic and/or amphipathic peptides that upon the non-covalent complexation with nucleic acids can enhance significantly nucleic acid uptake into cells. The main problems that hinder CPP wider application in gene delivery are non-specific and low transfection efficacy in vivo and poor control over the size and size distribution of the non-covalently formed nanoparticles. The aim of this research was to design more effective transfection reagents for the systemic in vivo gene delivery. We designed a novel peptide specifically for in vivo utilization by using previous knowledge about the physicochemical properties and internalization mechanism of different CPPs. We thereafter developed more efficient CPP and nucleic acid complex formulation strategy to prepare more uniformly sized particles to enhance gene delivery and decrease the risk of potential side-effects from aggregated particles. In addition, we tackled the problem of non-specificity of the peptide vector and incorporated magnetic particles into the CPP-nucleic acid complexes to enhance the efficacy and increase the targeted delivery into specific organs. In conclusion we developed an approach to produce non-conglomerating effective nanoparticles with uniform size for in vivo gene delivery.
Incoming longwave radiation to melting snow: observations, sensitivity and estimation in Northern environments

At high latitudes, longwave radiation can provide similar, or higher, amounts of energy to snow than shortwave radiation due to the low solar elevation (cosine effect and increased scattering due to long atmospheric path lengths). This effect is magnified in mountains due to shading and longwave emissions from the complex topography. This study examines longwave irradiance at the snow surface in the Wolf Creek Research Basin, Yukon Territory, Canada (60° 36′N, 134° 57′W) during the springs of 2002 and 2004. Incoming longwave radiation was estimated from standard meteorological measurements by segregating radiation sources into clear sky, clouds and surrounding terrain. A sensitivity study was conducted to detect the atmospheric and topographic conditions under which emission from adjacent terrain significantly increases the longwave irradiance. The total incoming longwave radiation is more sensitive to sky view factor than to the temperature of the emitting terrain surfaces. Brutsaert's equation correctly simulates the clear‐sky irradiance for hourly time steps using temperature and humidity. Longwave emissions from clouds, which raised longwave radiation above that from clear skies by 16% on average, were best estimated using daily atmospheric shortwave transmissivity and hourly relative humidity. An independent test of the estimation procedure for a prairie site near Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada, indicated that the calculations are robust in late winter and spring conditions. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Productivity, Price- and Wage-Markups: An Empirical Analysis of the Dutch Manufacturing Industry

This paper examines the interaction between productivity growth, firms’ monopolistic market power, and workers’ wage bargaining power. Our study contributes to several strands of literatures. First, we examine a monopolistic framework which accounts for wage bargaining. In addition to the other studies, along with the parameters characterizing a production function and the price-cost margins, we derive a measure of wage markup without relying on trade union participation data, and we study the correlation of the estimated parameters and markups with the firm-level productivity growth. Second, the paper contributes to literature on the structural identification of production functions in two ways. As a first step, it reviews the different estimation techniques that have been tackling the endogeneity issues concerning the simultaneity, the omitted output price, and the collinearity among input factors of production. Additionally, we propose an identification strategy that relies on the presence of imperfect competition in the flexible input market, namely, the labor market.
A comprehensive meta-analysis of the association between three IL 1B polymorphisms and rheumatoid arthritis

Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is an immune-mediated chronic inflammatory disease that causes huge destruction to human body. IL1B encodes key mediator IL-1β protein, which plays an important role in the pathogenesis of inflammatory syndromes. The aim of this study was to evaluate the association between IL1B polymorphisms and RA. A meta-analysis was performed on the association between three IL1B polymorphisms (IL1B-31: rs1143627; IL1B-511: rs16944; IL1B + 3954: rs1143634) and RA. A trend of significant association was observed between IL1B + 3954 and RA (p = 0.06, odd ratio (OR) = 1.19, 95% confidential interval (CI) = 1.00-1.42). A significant association was found in Europeans under the dominant model between IL1B-511T and RA (p = 0.03, OR = 0.89, 95% CI = 0.81-0.99). Our meta-analysis indicated that IL1B ? 511-T played a protective role against RA in Europeans, and that IL1B + 3954-T had the potential to increase the risk of RA. Future large-scale studies should be considered to confirm the association between IL1B polymorphisms and RA.
B No 5 CALIBRATION OF THE SUBDIFFUSIVE BLACK – SCHOLES MODEL ∗

In this paper we discuss subdiffusive mechanism for the description of some stock markets. We analyse the fractional Black–Scholes model in which the price of the underlying instrument evolves according to the subdiffusive geometric Brownian motion. We show how to efficiently estimate the parameters for the subdiffusive Black–Scholes formula i.e. parameter α responsible for distribution of length of constant stock prices periods and σ — volatility parameter. A simple method how to price subdiffusive European call and put options by using Monte Carlo approach is presented.
Using Fitness Value for Monitoring Kiwifruit’s Variant Seedling in Tissue Culture

Abstract Based on Genetic Algorithm, a pattern recognition approach using fitness to dynamically monitor the sub cultured seeding of kiwifruit is proposed in order to decrease the loss of variant seedlings in tissue culture. By coding, selection, mutation and cross-overing the selected primer pairs of the sub cultured seeding, we simulate the process of optimizing the kiwifruit’s genomic DNA polymorphism. The corresponding fitness values of the primer pairs are evaluated with fitness function for monitor the variation of kiwi’s DNA. The result shows that kiwi’s plantlets can better maintain their genes’ genetic stability for the first to the ninth generation. But from the tenth generation, the fitness values become variation. The results are based on experimentation, which uses optimized AFLP system for analyzing genetic diversity of 75 samples of seventh to eleventh 5 generations of kiwi.
A Lattice-based AKE on ARM Cortex-M 4

Lattice-based cryptography is one of the most promising alternatives to currently deployed public key algorithms. Plenty of novel key exchange schemes based on lattices have been proposed. The majority of these proposals however focuses on unauthenticated key exchange schemes which need to be combined with a digital signature scheme for authentication. In this work we analyze the cost of the authentication overhead. We instantiate the generic construction by del Pino et al. [8] with the digital signature scheme BLISS-B and the key exchange scheme JarJar-Simple and implement the authenticated key exchange on a ARM Cortex-M4F to show its practical performance on a constrained device. Our implementation takes a total of 62ms on average for one execution of the protocol. Those speeds are achieved by improving previous work on BLISS by a factor of 100 in terms of cycle counts for an entire run of the signature scheme and the use of optimized arithmetic functions for integer reductions, polynomial multiplications and polynomial inversions. Our lightweight implementation only needs 32 KB of Flash memory and 17 KB of RAM.
Causal Perceptions in Turkish Parents of Children with Cancer

RESULTS The most common causal attributions were a function of the Risk Factors Subscale (M=2.94) pertaining to diet and eating disorders. The answers to the open-ended questions indicated that the most significant issue in their children’s disease was faith-based, the will of God, and the “evil eye” (43.9%). The mean scores on the subscale did not vary by parental, marital, educational status, region of residence, or time of diagnosis; there was only a significant difference based on income level and age.
Rules of attraction: enticing pelagic fish to mid-water remote underwater video systems (RUVS)

Mid-water baited remote underwater video systems (BRUVS) are becoming an increasingly popular tool for examining pelagic fish assemblages in a non-destructive, fisheries independent manner. As the technique is relatively novel, critical methodological questions such as the most appropriate attractant for pelagic fish to mid-water RUVS remain unresolved. In this study, we compared the relative effectiveness of 4 attractant treatments (sight: metallic reflectors, sound: bait fish recordings, scent: pilchards and their combination) on the time of first arrival, total abundance of pelagic fish and the relative abundance of 3 pelagic fish species: Trachurus novaezelandiae, Sarda australis and Seriola lalandi. Recordings were made using mid-water RUVS in the Jervis Bay Marine Park, Australia. RUVS using a combination of all attractants recorded the highest abundances and shortest time of first arrival of pelagic fish. This result was primarily driven by Trachurus novaezelandiae. Although not significant, the abundance of Sarda australis was also greatest on the RUVS with all attractants. In contrast, the type of attractant had no effect on the abundance of Seriola lalandi. Bait, the standard attractant used in BRUVS surveys, was a poor performer for pelagic fish in all instances. We suggest that future studies using this sampling method employ multiple attractants. Disciplines Medicine and Health Sciences | Social and Behavioral Sciences Publication Details Rees, M. J., Knott, N. A. , Fenech, G. V. & Davis, A. R. (2015). Rules of attraction: enticing pelagic fish to midwater remote underwater video systems (RUVS). Marine Ecology: Progress Series, 529 213-218. This journal article is available at Research Online: http://ro.uow. edu.au/smhpapers/3002
Using SAS Enterprise Miner to predict breast cancer at early stage

Breast cancer is the leading cause of cancer-related deaths among women worldwide, and its early detection can reduce mortality rate. Using a data set containing information about breast screening, we constructed a model that can provide early indication of a patient's tendency to develop breast cancer. This data set has information about breast screening from patients who were believed to be at risk of developing breast cancer. The most important aspect of this analysis is that we excluded all patients with symptoms commonly associated with breast cancer, while keeping patients with symptoms that are less likely or unknown to be associated with breast cancer as input predictors. The hope was that a model could be developed that would identify women at high risk of developing breast cancer. This group could then be subjected to more intense screening with a view to earlier detection of the cancer and thus improved outcomes. The target variable is a binary variable with two values, 1 (indicating a type of cancer is present) and 0 (indicating a type of cancer is not present). SAS® Enterprise Miner™ 12.1 was used to perform data validation and data cleansing, to identify potentially related predictors, and to build models that can be used to predict at an early stage the likelihood of patients developing breast cancer. We compared two models: the first model was built with an interactive node and a cluster node and the second was built without an interactive node and a cluster node. Classification performance was compared using a receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve and average squares error. Interestingly, we found significantly improved model performance by using only variables that have a lesser or unknown association with breast cancer. The result shows that the logistic model with an interactive node and a cluster node has better performance with a lower average squared error (0.059614) than the model without an interactive node and a cluster node.
A new type compositive hybrid power system-E.T.Driver and its application in HEV

Hybrid power system is one of the kernel technologies of hybrid electric vehicles (HEV). The performance of HEV is greatly determined by the capability of hybrid power system. The hybrid power system has already developed from discrete structure into integrative structure in past ten years. The research of compositive hybrid power system is a very important and a new research field now and in the future. The Electrical Transmission Driver (E.T.Driver) is a compositive hybrid power system. The basic principle, constitution and the characteristics of E.T. Driver, which is based on Automatic Mechanical Transmission (AMT), have been introduced. The effect of E.T. Driver on gear shift quality, driving smoothness and riding comfort for HEV has been studied during gear shift course. A simulation model to analyze the gear shift application and gear shift strategy of E.T. Driver during gear shift course in HEV has been established by using the simulation software of ITI Company in Germany. The results of simulation and experiment show the proposed control strategies and special structure of E.T. Driver greatly improve the gear shift quality and driving smoothness during the gear shift course.
Robust Path Detection for the LTE Downlink based on Compressed Sensing

We will present an overview and simulation results of channel estimation exploiting sparsity for the concrete parameters of the LTE system. Recent progress in compressed sensing has shown that O(s log(p)) randomly placed pilots are sufficient to recover a s–sparse impulse response of lengthp by solving a convex relaxation of the combinatorial sparsity problem. The pilot configuration in LTE is already standardized and a support for random pilot placement is not included. But we show that also in this fixed and deterministic setting substantial gains have to be expected from non–conventional channel estimation that make explicit use of the sparse nature of mobile communication channels.
Abusive Supervision and Work-Family Conflict: The Mediating Role of Emotional Exhaustion

Building on the theoretical foundation of conservation of resources theory, we investigated the mediating role of the emotional exhaustion in the relationship between abusive supervision and work-family conflict. Using a sample of 339 employees from south of China, we examined the direct and indirect relationship between abusive supervision and work-family conflict. The result shows that abusive supervision influences work-family conflict and the relationship is partially mediated through emotional exhaustion. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.
Foundations of Safe Autonomous Cyber-Physical Systems

• Safe Autonomous Vehicles: What is a driver’s test for a driverless vehicle? Autonomous vehicles have driven millions of miles, but even simple maneuvers like a lane change have not been verified for safety. The vehicles’ complex decision logic and machine learning components exceed the capabilities of current verification tools. Moreover, they operate in a highly uncertain environment, making it impossible to model it realistically. I develop scalable verification algorithms for the whole vehicle with its perception, planning and control stack.
Effects of androgen on expression of OMgp of the HIBD neonatal rat brain

To investigate the protective effects of testosterone propionate (TP) on hypoxic-ischemic brain damage (HIBD) neonatal rat brain by observing oligodendrocyte myelin glycoprotein (OMgp) expression in the cortex and hippocampus after HIBD. Materials and methods: Rats were randomly divided into 3 groups: TP pretreatment, HIBD control, and a sham treatment group. Rats 7 days old from the TP group and HIBD control group were subjected to HIBD, and OMgp expression in the hippocampus and cerebral cortex of the different doses and groups was observed after hypoxic-ischemic induction at 24 h, 48 h, 72 h, 7 days, and 14 days. Results: The OMgp expression in the brain tissue of the HIBD control group was significantly higher than that of the sham group at the same point in time (P < 0.01). After intervention with TP, OMgp expression in the hippocampus and cortex (30 mg/kg and 120 mg/kg) was significantly reduced compared with the HIBD control group (P < 0.01). Conclusion: OMgp expression in neonatal rat brain tissues was increased after HIBD; OMgp overexpression was inhibited after intervention with TP. Therefore, androgen may play an important role in removing inhibition of OMgp on axon growth, and thus promote axonal regeneration, playing a protective role in the brain.
Oxidized low density lipoprotein ( oxLDL ) promotes mitochondrial dysfunction and induces apoptosis in retinal pigmented epithelium cells

Oxidized low density lipoprotein (oxLDL) may contribute to the capillary injury in diabetic retinopathy. In particular, sustained high oxLDL is closely associated with the dysfunction and death of retinal pigment epithelium (RPE) cells, as may play a vital role in the pathogenesis of age-related macular degeneration (AMD). In the current study, we determined the promotion by oxLDL to the apoptosis in retinal pigmented epithelium ARPE-19 cells, and investigated whether the oxLDL-induced apoptosis depended on the activation of toll-like receptor-4 (TLR-4) signaling pathway. ARPE-19 cells were cultivated with and without oxLDL. Cell apoptosis was evaluated by flow cytometry. Immunofluorescence, western blot analysis and quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR) were conducted to assess TLR-4 expression on both protein and mRNA expressions. The RNAi technology was also utilized to examine the dependence of TLR-4 in the oxLDL-induced apoptosis in ARPE-19 cells. Results demonstrated that the incubation of ARPE-19 cells with ox-LDL (more than 50 μg/mL) for 24 hours increased the apoptosis of ARPE-19 cells and promoted the cleaved levels of caspase-3 and 9, which are the active forms of both caspases. The lyzed level of Poly (ADP-ribose) polymerase (PARP), which is mainly lyzed by active caspase 3, was also significantly upregulated by the oxLDL. Moreover, it was demonstrated that TLR-4 expression was also significantly upregulated by the oxLDL treatment with more than 50 μg/mL. However, the RNAi-mediated knockdown of TLR-4 markedly reduced the oxLDL-induced apoptosis in ARPE-19 cells. In conclusion, our findings indicate that the apoptosis was induced by oxLDL in cultured retinal pigmented epithelium ARPE-19 cells at least in part by modulating the TLR-4 signaling pathway. TLR-4 might be a valuable target for the AMD prevention.
Comorbid Anxiety in Schizophrenia and Schizoaffective Disorder

There is some evidence that antipsychotic medication (Quetiapine) is somewhat ef‐ ficient in reducing anxiety in schizophrenic patients. This study compared the efficacy of Olanzapine and Quetiapine versus Risperi‐ done, Aripiprazole, and Haloperidolum in reducing the anxiety symptoms in pa‐ tients diagnosed with schizophrenia and schizoaffective disorder hospitalized in the Psychiatry Department of Arad between 2013–2014. Considering the treatment, 63 subjects were divided in two groups: T1 (treated with Olanzapine and Quetiapine) and T2 (treated with Haloperidolum, Risperidone, and Aripiprazol). Anxiety is frequent in the course of schizophrenia and schizoaffective disorder with significant differences among the two groups. After treatment, the level of anxiety reduced with significant improvement of total score of PANSS; the effect is higher in group T2 compared to T1. Before treatment, anxiety is positively correlated with scores of PANSSN (r=.285; p=0.010), PANSST (r=.260; p=0.040), and HAM-D (r=.455; p<0.0001). YMRS is negatively correlated with negative items of PANSSN scale (r=-. 321; p=0.010). IQ (intelligence quotient) was decreased posttreatment for both treat‐ ments, but T1 had had a higher effect on it. Some antipsychotics have been reported to be successful in reducing the anxiety level in psychotic patients: in group T2 the treatment has a higher effect on anxiety and lower size effect on intelligence.
Teaching and Learning About Complex Systems in K–12 Science Education: A Review of Empirical Studies 1995–2015

The study of complex systems has been highlighted in recent science education policy in the United States and has been the subject of important real-world scientific investigation. Because of this, research on complex systems in K–12 science education has shown a marked increase over the past two decades. In this systematic review, we analyzed 75 empirical studies to determine whether the research (a) collectively represents the goals of educational policy and real-world science, (b) has considered a variety of settings and populations, and (c) has demonstrated systematic investigation of interventions with a view to scale. Results revealed needs in five areas of research: a need to diversify the knowledge domains within which research is conducted, more research on learning about system states, agreement on the essential features of complex systems content, greater focus on contextual factors that support learning including teacher learning, and a need for more comparative research.