Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Parent's Relative Perceived Work Flexibility Compared to Their Partner Is Associated With Emotional Exhaustion

A number of studies have found that control over work conditions and hours is positively related to mental health. Still, potential positive and negative effects of work flexibility remain to be fully explored. On the one hand, higher work flexibility might provide better opportunities for recovery. On the other hand, especially mothers may use flexibility to meet household and family demands. Here, we investigated the association between parent's work flexibility, rated relative to their partner, and emotional exhaustion in interaction with gender. Additionally, gender differences in time use were investigated. Cross-sectional analyses based on responses of employed parents to the 2012 wave of the Swedish Longitudinal Occupational Survey of Health (SLOSH) were conducted (N = 2,911). Generalized linear models with gamma distribution and a log-link function were used to investigate associations between relative work-flexibility (lower, equal, or higher as compared to partner), gender, and emotional exhaustion. After control for potential confounders, we found that having lower work flexibility than the partner was associated with higher levels of emotional exhaustion as compared to those with higher relative work flexibility. Also, being a mother was associated with higher levels of emotional exhaustion, independent of possible confounders. An interaction effect between low relative work flexibility and gender was found in relation to emotional exhaustion. Regarding time use, clear differences between mothers' and fathers' were found. However, few indications were found that relative work flexibility influenced time use. Mothers spent more time on household chores as compared to fathers, while fathers reported longer working hours. Fathers spent more time on relaxation compared with mothers. To conclude, our results indicate that lower relative work flexibility is detrimental for mental health both for mothers and fathers. However, while gender seems to have a pronounced effect on time use, relative work flexibility seems to have less influence on how time is used. Generally, mothers tend to spend more time on unpaid work while fathers spend longer hours on paid work and report more time for relaxation.
Validation of the Italian version of the Oral Health Impact Profile-14 (IOHIP-14).

OBJECTIVE The original english version of Oral Health Impact Profile (IOHIP) was translated in Italian language, and then validated among a consecutive sample of patients attending in the dental ward at the Dental Institute of the "Sapienza" University of Rome, Italy. RESEARCH DESIGN The original english version of IOHIP-14 was translated into the Italian language by a professional translator and subsequently back-translated into English by an independent person and then validated. PARTICIPANTS 852 person, 342 males (40.1%) and 510 females (59.9%) participated to this survey. RESULTS The Cronbach's alpha of the scale was 0.90. No correlation was negative and the correlation coefficients extended form 0.27 (the correlation between "pain" "irritable") to 0.69 (the correlation between "totally unable to function" and "difficult to do jobs"). The coefficients ranged from 0.42 to 0.74 with no value above the drop-out value of 0.20 recommended for included an item in a 15 points scale. A highly significant relationship between the IOHIP scores and the perceived oral health status was observed. The subjects who perceived their oral health status to be poor had a higher IOHIP score than those thought their oral health status was good or fair. Similarly there was a significant relationship between the IOHIP scores and the perceived need for dental care. CONCLUSIONS The translated Italian version of IOHIP-14 demonstrates an acceptable method to assess the impact of oral health on the quality of life, with evidence of reliability and validity, making it a promising instrument for assessing IOHIP in an adult population.
GridFormation: Towards Self-Driven Online Data Partitioning using Reinforcement Learning

In this paper we define a research agenda to develop a general framework supporting online autonomous tuning of data partitioning and layouts with a reinforcement learning formulation. We establish the core elements of our approach: agent, environment, action space and supporting components. Externally predicted workloads and the current physical design serve as input to our agent. The environment guides the search process by generating immediate rewards based on fresh cost estimates, for either the entirety or a sample of queries from the workload, and by deciding the possible actions given a state. This set of actions is configurable, enabling the representation of different partitioning problems. For use in an online setting the agent learns a fixed-length sequence of n actions that maximize the temporal reward for the predicted workload. Through an initial implementation we assert the feasibility of our approach. To conclude, we list open challenges for this work.
Quantum Dash Passively Mode-Locked Lasers for Coherent Wavelength Conversion System

We demonstrate an all-optical wavelength conversion system based on four-wave mixing in semiconductor optical amplifiers for quadrature phase shift keying (QPSK) and 16-quadrature amplitude modulation (16-QAM) signals using tunable dual-correlated pumps provided by the combination of a quantum dash passively mode-locked laser (QD-PMLL) and a programmable tunable optical filter. We investigate the effects of additional phase noise transfer to the wavelength converted idler due to non-ideal correlation between the comb lines of the QD-PMLL. Our studies of the wavelength conversion of QPSK and 16-QAM signals at 12.5 Gbaud using the proposed scheme find that the bit error rate performance was below the 7% forward error correction (FEC) limit over a range of pump spacing exceeding 300 GHz for QPSK signals, and conversion of 16-QAM signals was limited by the wavelength conversion scheme though was nonetheless below the 20% FEC limit.
Evaluation of functional communication training as a satiation procedure to reduce challenging behavior in instructional environments for children with autism

Objectives: For individuals with challenging behavior, antecedent interventions such as modifying the motivation for the behavior have shown to be effective. In this study, we examined the effects of giving the participants the opportunity to continuously request tangible items (e.g. toys and activities) prior to instruction to determine if allowing them to satiate on the item would serve as an effective intervention to reduce challenging behavior maintained by access to the items. Method: Functional analyses identified that access to tangible items maintained the challenging behavior of four children with autism spectrum disorder. The children were then trained using Functional Communication Training (FCT) to request the items. Prior to 15 mins academic and/or functional skill instructional sessions, participants were exposed to either an FCT session and allowed to request the tangible items or did not receive an FCT session. The no FCT condition consisted of the child’s typically scheduled activities, without access to the preferred items maintaining challenging behavior for at least one hour prior to instruction. Following the FCT or no FCT conditions, we measured challenging behavior and academic engagement during 15-mins sessions of one-on-one instruction. Results: When instruction was preceded with FCT as a satiation intervention, we observed lower levels of challenging behavior and higher levels of academic engagement compared to no FCT conditions for two of four participants. Conclusion: Overall, the results of this study appear to support the use of FCT as a viable satiation procedure to reduce challenging behavior in instructional settings.
Digital Videos in Financial Accounting: A Sociocognitive Approach to Learning

Understanding the important concepts necessary to undertake the preparation of consolidated financial statements has proven challenging for many accounting undergraduate students. As a result, the development of multimedia modelling concepts such as acquisition analysis, business combination valuation entries, reacquisition entries and intragroup transactions were embedded within an e-learning environment. The principle of modelling, derived from social cognitive theory, was applied to the design of the multimedia. A study was conducted to gauge the effectiveness of the approach and consider student perceptions with regard to learning through this approach. Quantitative data were collected from accounting undergraduate students (n= 464) enrolled across three different cohorts including international campuses (n=386), an Australian campus (n=49) and a distance education cohort (n=29). Analyses were undertaken to show significant differences between these cohorts. This research paper presents findings that indicate a positive and significant association between the number of times the videos were accessed, and the assignment score (p<0.05) was evident, suggesting that students that referred to the videos relatively frequently were able to utilise the knowledge gained from the videos to assist them in completing the assignment.
Testis size increases with colony size in cliff swallows

By using a sample of over 800 male cliff swallows (Petrochelidon pyrrhonota) that died during a rare climatic event in our Nebraska study area in 1996, we investigated how testis size was related to body size, age, parasite load, a bird's past colony-size history, and spleen size. Testis volume increased with body size. After correcting for body size, testis volume was lowest for birds age 1 and 2 years but did not vary with age for males 3 years old or more. Birds occupying parasite-free (fumigated) colonies had significantly larger testes than did birds at nonfumigated sites. Testis volume increased significantly with the size of the breeding colonies a bird had used in the past. Testis volume had no relationship with spleen volume after correcting for body size. The results show within a species that larger testes are favored in more social environments, probably reflecting a response to increased rates of extrapair copulation (and thus sperm competition) among cliff swallows in large colonies. The presence of ectoparasites, by inflating levels of plasma corticosterone, may in turn reduce testis mass. These data provide no support for the hypothesis that large testes, perhaps by producing more testosterone, are immunosuppressive and thus costly for that reason. Copyright 2003.
Sexually Selected Egg Coloration in Spotless Starlings

It has been recently proposed that the blue‐green coloration in eggs of many avian species may constitute a sexually selected female signal. Blue‐green color intensity would reflect the physiological condition of females, and hence it might also affect the allocation of male parental care. In this study, we use three different experimental approaches to explore the importance of sexual selection on blue‐green egg coloration of spotless starling (Sturnus unicolor) eggs. First, experimental deterioration of female body condition (by means of wing feather removal) negatively affected the intensity of blue‐green egg coloration. Second, blue‐green color intensity of artificial model eggs had a significant positive influence on paternal feeding effort. Finally, we found a negative relationship between the effect of experimental food supply on nestling immunocompetence and the intensity of blue‐green coloration of eggs, suggesting that egg color predicts nutritional conditions that nestlings will experience during development. All these results taken together strongly support a role of sexual selection in the blue‐green coloration of spotless starling eggs.
Must smart objects look human? Study of the impact of anthropomorphism on the acceptance of companion robots

Smart products will play a central role in consumer living in years to come. Close to humans because of their “intelligence,” should they also look like humans? The aim of this research is to test the impact of anatomical anthropomorphism on the acceptance of an autonomous product, the companion robot, measured by its perceived usefulness, ease of use, and use intentions. Our results show that, unlike previous marketing research on traditional product anthropomorphism, the human appearance of a companion robot does not increase its acceptance by consumers. However, we show that a partially anthropomorphic appearance improves acceptance by people with practical experience of similar technology (the smartphone), while it reduces acceptance by other people. Our results also emphasize the difficulty of extending research on the impact of anthropomorphism on consumers. They also highlight the need to integrate appearance in acceptance models, and they show how experience with products similar to the new one influences the impact of appearance. Finally, we show the role of the categorization process in the impact of appearance.
Neys Bias and Conflict : A Case for Logical Intuitions

Human reasoning has been characterized as often biased, heuristic, and illogical. In this article, I consider recent findings establishing that, despite the widespread bias and logical errors, people at least implicitly detect that their heuristic response conflicts with traditional normative considerations. I propose that this conflict sensitivity calls for the postulation of logical and probabilistic knowledge that is intuitive and that is activated automatically when people engage in a reasoning task. I sketch the basic characteristics of these intuitions and point to implications for ongoing debates in the field.
Glucocorticoid Signaling and Bone Biology

Abstract Since glucocorticoids remain an effective therapeutic option for the treatment of many inflammatory and autoimmune diseases, glucocorticoid-induced osteoporosis is the most common form of secondary osteoporosis. Fractures may occur in as many as 30–50% of patients receiving chronic glucocorticoid therapy. Under physiological conditions, glucocorticoids are required for normal bone development due to their regulation of osteoblast differentiation, possibly via the Wnt/β-catenin pathway and TSC22D3. However, serum levels of endogenous corticosterone are elevated in aged mice and glucocorticoids exert negative effects on the survival of osteoblasts and osteocytes as well as angiogenesis. Glucocorticoid treatments impair bone formation and enhance bone resorption. Excess glucocorticoids induce osteoblast and osteocyte apoptosis by increasing pro-apoptotic molecules, reactive oxygen species, and endoplasmic reticulum stress and suppressing the Wnt/β-catenin pathway. Autophagy protects osteocytes from glucocorticoid-induced apoptosis, but passed some threshold, the process of autophagy leads the cells to apoptosis. Excess glucocorticoids impair osteoblastogenesis by inducing Wnt antagonists, including Dkk1, Sost, and sFRP-1. However, the findings are controversial and the involvement of Wnt antagonists requires further study. Excess glucocorticoids reduce the phosphorylation of Akt and GSK3β, which enhances the degradation of β-catenin. Excess glucocorticoids have been shown to modulate the expression of miRNAs, including miR-29a, miR-34a-5p, and miR-199a-5p, which regulate the proliferation and differentiation of osteoblast lineage cells. Excess glucocorticoids also enhance bone resorption by reducing OPG expression, increasing Rankl expression and reactive oxygen species, and prolonging the life span of osteoclasts; however, they also suppress the bone-degrading capacity of osteoclasts by disturbing the organization of the cytoskeleton.
SITAN: Services for Fault-Tolerant Ad Hoc Networks with Unknown Participants

The evolution of mobile devices with various capabilities (e.g., smartphones and tablets), together with their ability to collaborate in impromptu ad hoc networks, opens new opportunities for the design of innovative distributed applications. The development of these applications needs to address several difficulties, such as the unreliability of the network, the imprecise set of participants, or the presence of malicious nodes. In this paper we describe a middleware, called SITAN, that offers a number of communication, group membership and coordination services specially conceived for these settings. These services are implemented by a stack of Byzantine fault-tolerant protocols, enabling applications that are built on top of them to operate correctly despite the uncertainty of the environment. The protocol stack was implemented in Android and NS-3, which allowed the experimentation in representative scenarios. Overall, the results show that the protocols are able to finish their execution within a small time window, which is acceptable for various kinds of applications.
A Convergent Solution to Matrix Bidirectional Projection Based Feature Extraction with Application to Face Recognition

Recently, many feature extraction methods, which are based on the matrix representation of image and matrix bidirectional projection technique, are proposed. However, these methods in solving the two projection matrices will suffer from non-optimized or non-convergent solution. To overcome this problem, a novel feature extraction method which exploits the Maximum Margin Criterion is proposed, where an iterative optimization algorithmis designed to compute the two projection matrices. A noteworthy property of the proposed iterative solution algorithm is that it can monotonously increase the optimization objective, i.e., the bidirectional projection margin. According to this property, we further theoretically prove that the objective value and the solution are convergent. Moreover, the proposed method can automatically determine suitable feature dimensionality to obtain competitive recognition performance. Extensive and systematic experiments on CMU PIE and Yale face databases demonstrate the high convergen.
A Novel Adaptive Mixed Reality System for Stroke Rehabilitation: Principles, Proof of Concept, and Preliminary Application in 2 Patients

Abstract This article presents the principles of an adaptive mixed reality rehabilitation (AMRR) system, as well as the training process and results from 2 stroke survivors who received AMRR therapy, to illustrate how the system can be used in the clinic. The AMRR system integrates traditional rehabilitation practices with state-of-the-art computational and motion capture technologies to create an engaging environment to train reaching movements. The system provides real-time, intuitive, and integrated audio and visual feedback (based on detailed kinematic data) representative of goal accomplishment, activity performance, and body function during a reaching task. The AMRR system also provides a quantitative kinematic evaluation that measures the deviation of the stroke survivor’s movement from an idealized, unimpaired movement. The therapist, using the quantitative measure and knowledge and observations, can adapt the feedback and physical environment of the AMRR system throughout therapy to address each participant’s individual impairments and progress. Individualized training plans, kinematic improvements measured over the entire therapy period, and the changes in relevant clinical scales and kinematic movement attributes before and after the month-long therapy are presented for 2 participants. The substantial improvements made by both participants after AMRR therapy demonstrate that this system has the potential to considerably enhance the recovery of stroke survivors with varying impairments for both kinematic improvements and functional ability.
Graph Indexing for SPARQL Query Optimization with Extended Characteristic Sets

SPARQL query execution in state of the art RDF engines depends on, and is often limited by the underlying storage and indexing schemes. Typically, these systems exhaustively store permutations of the standard three-column triples table. However, even though RDF can give birth to datasets with loosely defined schemas, it is common for an emerging structure to appear in the data. In this paper, we introduce a novel indexing scheme for RDF data, that takes advantage of the inherent structure of triples. To this end, we define the Extended Characteristic Set (ECS), a schema abstraction that classifies triples based on the properties of their subjects and objects, and we discuss methods and algorithms for the identification and extraction of ECSs. We show how these can be used to assist query processing, and we implement axonDB, an RDF storage and querying engine based on ECS indexing. We perform an experimental evaluation on real world and synthetic datasets and observe that axonDB outperforms the competition by a few orders of magnitude.
A NEW XENACANTHID SHARK (CHONDRICHTHYES) FROM THE TERESINA FORMATION, PERMIAN OF THE PARANÁ BASIN, SOUTHERN BRAZIL

The Kazanian/Tartarian Teresina Formation of the Parana Basin is so far the most productive stratigraphic unit in Brazil as far as Palaeozoic sharks are concern, although no articulate materials have yet been found. Teeth, fin spines and dermal scales are locally abundant, especially in hummocky deposits (tempestites). Biogeochemical evidence points to the fresh water origin of this fauna. New chondrichthyan teeth materials, coming from a single locality of this formation in the Municipality of Sao Gabriel in the State of Rio Grande do Sul are described and ascribed to a new xenacanthid shark, namely Wurdigneria obliterata gen. et sp nov. This new species bears tricuspid teeth where the central cusp is less than one third of the width and less than half of the height of the lateral cusps. Lateral cusps are lanceolate in cross section, round proximally, up straight in relation to the base and devoid of any serrations. The lateral cusps may bear a pair of vertical non-branching cristae. The base is round or sub-triangular in basal view and made up of osteodentine. The coronal button is inflated, usually round, or rarely, slightly flat at the pop. There are at least three large basal and lingual foramina. The basal tubercle is either larger, smaller or the same size as the length of the base of the lateral cusps. Histologically, the lateral cusps of Wurdigneria obliterata gen. et sp. nov. are made up of orthodentine externally and osteodentine obliterating the pulp canals. Enameloid tissue is absent. Judging from comparative dental anatomy, this was a predatory shark that could reach up to around 100 mm in length.
Useful metrics for managing failure mode corrective action

A reliability growth program differs from a conventional reliability program in that there is a more objectively developed growth standard against which assessment techniques are compared. A comparison between the assessment and the planned value provides a good estimate of whether or not the program is progressing as scheduled and will attain the desired goal. If the program does not progress as planned, then new strategies should be considered. For example, a reexamination of problem areas may result in changing the management strategy so that more problem failure modes surfaced during the testing actually receive a corrective action instead of a repair. The management strategy may be driven by budget and schedule but it is defined by the actual actions of management in correcting reliability problems. The proper approach to what modes to fix and when, is often difficult for management to determined, even with ideal data. It becomes more difficult if certain failure patterns and trends are not measured and understood. In this paper we discuss management strategy concepts and provide a simple pie chart metric approach to aid management and engineering in interpreting the meaning of certain important trends and averages during reliability growth development testing