Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Stretching One’s Limits: The Development of Self-Efficacy in aSenior Yoga Community

This paper provides scholarly analysis of extant literature regarding the role of self-efficacy in determining behavior change among older adults engaging in the physical activity of yoga. As adults age, they experience physical, social and mental changes that are often difficult to accept and overcome. Due to the physiological changes that occur in the aging process, many older adults experience physical and cognitive limitations, which prevent them from being able to engage in physical activity and retain a sense of independence to perform daily activities and make decisions for themselves. Implications of losing independence and the ability to make decisions deeply impact older adults’ self-efficacy beliefs. Therefore, the present literature review has examined existing scholarship that demonstrates the benefits of engaging in physical activity to regain a sense of agency and enhance self-efficacy beliefs among older adults, aiding them in overcoming the physical and cognitive limitations that may prevent them from exercising.
Micro-CI: A Critical Systems Testbed for Cyber-Security Research

A significant challenge for governments around the globe is the need to improve the level of awareness for citizens and businesses about the threats that exist in cyberspace. The arrival of new information technologies has resulted in different types of criminal activities, which previously did not exist, with the potential to cause extensive damage. Given the fact that the Internet is boundary-less, it makes it difficult to identify where attacks originate from and how to counter them. The only solution is to improve the level of support for security systems and evolve the defences against cyber-attacks. This project supports the development of critical infrastructure security research, in the fight against a growing threat from the digital domain. However, the real-world evaluation of emerging security systems for Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) systems is impractical. The research project furthers the knowledge and understanding of Information Systems; specifically acting as a facilitator for cyber-security research. In this paper, the construction of a testbed and datasets for cyber-security and critical infrastructure research are presented.
Relationship Between Parental Rejection and Personality

Background: Parental rejection plays an important role in individual's life at different stages of their development. Some types of personality are the major predictors of mental illness and individuals' maladjustment. Objective: The purpose of the present study was to explore the possible relationship between parental rejection and personality of adults in the context of Bangladesh. Methods: A total 100 adults (39 male and 61 female) participated in this study. Their age range was 18 to 60 years. They were selected from Department of Psychiatry, Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Medical University, University of Dhaka and some residential areas of Dhaka city by purposive sampling. The instruments used in this study were a Demographic questionnaire, validated Bangla version of Eysenck Personality Questionnaire (EPQ), validated Bangla version of Adult version of Parental Acceptance-Rejection Questionnaire for Father (Adult PARQ: Father) and Adult version of Parental Acceptance-Rejection Questionnaire for Mother (Adult PARQ: Mother). Results: From this study, we found that paternal rejection is positively correlated with psychoticism but negatively correlated with extraversion at the 0.05 levels of significance. The result showed that there was no significant correlation between paternal rejection and neuroticism. Results also showed that maternal rejection is positively correlated with psychoticism and neuroticism at the 0.01 level of significance but negatively correlated with extraversion (at the 0.05 levels). Conclusion: These results suggest that there is an association between parental rejections and individual's personality. Key word : Parental rejection; Personality; Psychoticism; Neuroticism; Extraversion. DOI: 10.3329/bsmmuj.v2i2. 4759 BSMMU J 2009; 2(2):61-65
COMPARISON OF EFFICACY AND ADVERSE DRUG REACTIONS OF MONOTHERAPY VERSUS COMBINATION THERAPY OF ANTIHYPERTENSIVES AMONG DIABETIC HYPERTENSIVE PATIENTS IN A TERTIARY CARE HOSPITAL

Objective: To compare the efficacy and adverse drug reactions of monotherapy and combination therapy of antihypertensive drugs in diabetic hypertensive patients. Methods: A prospective observational study of 18 months duration was conducted in the Department of Medicine of a tertiary care hospital in South India. A total of 200 patients were included in the study. Using a standard proforma, the details of patients such as demographic data and antihypertensive medications were collected and analyzed for efficacy and safety. R esults: Of 200 patients studied, 50% received monotherapy whereas the remaining 50% received combination therapy. There was male preponderance (54%) in the study population, with the mean age being 60.07±11.32 years. In monotherapy group, most commonly prescribed drug was amlodipine (38%), whereas in combination group, angiotensin receptor blocker (ARB) or calcium channel blocker (CCB) + beta blocker (18%) was commonly prescribed among 2-drug group and ARB+ thiazide+ CCB (25.6%) among 3-drug group. Monotherapy and combination therapy were analyzed to be equally efficacious in reducing systolic blood pressure and diastolic blood pressure. Based on the adverse effect profile, monotherapy comparatively produced more adverse effects than combination group. Amlodipine-induced pedal edema (56.7%) was the most common adverse effect observed, and it was predominantly managed by changing it to be a better tolerable CCB, namely cilnidipine. C onclusion: The combination therapy may be a better treatment option in selected patient population. Ke ywords: Systolic blood pressure, Diastolic blood pressure, Amlodipine, Cilnidipine, Pedal edema.
Postperovskite phase transition and its geophysical implications

The stability of (Mg,Fe)SiO3 perovskite in the deep lower mantle has long been uncertain. Recently, a phase transition from perovskite to postperovskite was discovered through a significant change in the X‐ray diffraction pattern at high‐pressure and high‐temperature conditions corresponding to the core‐mantle boundary region. This phase transition was also confirmed by first‐principles calculations. These suggest that (Mg,Fe)SiO3 postperovskite is the predominant mineral in the lowermost mantle called the D″ layer, and phase transition from perovskite to postperovskite has significant geophysical implications for its nature and dynamics. The postperovskite phase may account for the large seismic anomalies observed in the D″ region, such as the D″ discontinuity, S wave anisotropy, and anticorrelation between the anomalies in S wave and bulk sound velocities. In addition, this phase transition is a strongly exothermic reaction. It destabilizes the thermal boundary layer at the base of the mantle and should promote the formation of high‐temperature upwelling plumes.
Large area DEM generation using airborne LiDAR data and quality control

Digital Elevation Model (DEM) is a crucial component in terrain-related applications. Researches on terrain data collection and DEM generation have received great attention. Traditional methods such as field surveying and photogrammetry can yield high accuracy terrain data, but they are time consuming and labour intensive, especially for large area. Airborne Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) - also referred to as Airborne Laser Scanning (ALS), provides an alternative for high density and high accuracy three dimensional terrain point data acquisition. LiDAR data have become a major source of digital terrain information and has been used in a wide of areas, with terrain modeling being the primary focus of most LiDAR collection missions. The use of LiDAR for terrain data collection and DEM generation is the most effective way and is becoming a standard practice in spatial science community. Although LiDAR data has become more affordable for users due to the gradually dropping of the costs of LiDAR data collection, how to effectively process the raw LiDAR data and extract useful information remains a big challenge. This paper presented ways to generate a high quality DEM in a large catchment area using LiDAR data. A number of research challenges such as terrain modeling methods, interpolation algorithms, DEM resolution, and data reduction were identified and discussed in detail for quality control of a LiDAR-derived DEM.
“Smooth Space” for Avatars: A Proun in the Metaverse

During the years of Suprematism, between 1919 and 1923 in Russia, one of the movement's most significant contributors, architect, artist and designer El Lissitzky developed a series of works which he entitled "Prouns," a name the exact meaning of which El Lissitzky never fully revealed, although he later described the purpose of his creations as interchange stations from painting to architecture, i.e., from two dimensional to three dimensional visuality. The author has re-created El Lissitzky's "Proun #5A" from 1919 in the metaverse, as an architecture for avatars. The process in which the translation from analogue drawing to three dimensional digital artifact was undertaken, the challenges encountered during its re-building; framed within a literature review that examines both El Lissitzky's influence on contemporary cyber-architecture, as well as the significance of his spatial investigations and his sources of inspiration during the early decades of the twentieth century will form the contents of this text.
StudyIntonation courseware kit for EFL prosody teaching

The paper investigates EFL prosody teaching and learning obstacles in monolingual societies alongside the main limitations for efﬁcient deployment of speciﬁc prosody training tools based on audiovisual feedback. Prosody teaching and learning environment StudyIntonation containing the mobile application (MA) and the courseware development kit (CDK) is examined from teacher perspective. In StudyIntonation approach teachers are supposed to be co-authors of learning content and can contribute to new courses development. StudyIntonation approach puts together the advances of pitch visualization technology with Android mobile application development to offer a handy open-source prosody teaching, learning and research platform. It is shown, that new courses may be launched within a very short period provided native designed or spontaneous speech records are available.
Male Circumcision: An Appraisal of Current Instrumentation

The topic of male circumcision (MC) is of considerable current interest, largely because of widespread publicity generated by research findings attesting to its ability to prevent HIV infection during heterosexual intercourse. In addition, its long-recognized ability to protect against other sexually transmitted infections (STIs) has also been well publicized in recent times, especially now that support has been provided by large randomized controlled trials (RCTs). While MC can be performed at any age, the ease with which circumcision can be performed in infancy makes this time of life preferable to intervention later in childhood or in adulthood. As well as the issue of safety, convenience, simplicity and consequent cost reductions, circumcision in infancy provides greater net benefits over the lifetime of the individual. It provides immediate 10-fold protection against urinary tract infections and thus kidney damage in baby boys, and greater protection against penile cancer than circumcision later in life, virtually eliminating the risk of this disease with its high morbidity and mortality (Morris, 2007; Morris, 2010; Tobian et al., 2010; Morris et al., 2011). Another benefit is prevention of phimosis, a common cause of sexual problems in adolescent boys and men, and a major risk factor for penile cancer. It also lowers to risk of inflammatory skin conditions such as balanoposthitis. Circumcised men have superior hygiene (O'Farrell et al., 2005) and half the prevalence of thrush (Richters et al., 2006). As far as protection against STIs is concerned, the most notable is human papillomavirus (HPV), the pathogen not only responsible for most cervical cancers in women, but also a proportion of penile cancers in men (Morris et al., 2011). MC also reduces the incidence of ulcerative STIs, including syphilis, chancroid, Trichomonas vaginalis, and herpes simplex virus type 2 (HSV-2) (Weiss et al., 2006; Morris & Castellsague, 2010; Tobian et al., 2010). Circumcised men have lower genital ulcer disease as a result of this and the reduction in penile injury arising from tearing of the foreskin and frenulum during sexual activity (Bailey & Mehta, 2009). MC reduces sexual problems with age and diabetes (Morris, 2007; Morris, 2010; Tobian et al., 2010; Morris et al., 2011), and has no adverse effect on sexual function, sensation or acceptability (Morris, 2007; Tobian et al., 2010), if anything the reverse (Krieger et al., 2008). MC provides a public health benefit to women by lowering their risk of various STIs, including high-risk HPV types that cause cervical cancer, HSV-2,
Unwarranted Complication in Posterior Dynamic Stabilization of the Spine: Review of Literature and Description of a Case Encountered by the Author

Posterior lumbar interbody fusion (PLIF) is a very common surgical procedure on the spine practiced all over the world [1]. It is a rigid stabilization and speaking biomechanically, not a convincing procedure as it stopped motion in one or two spinal segments. Adjacent segment disease (ASD) became an important issue and surgeons were also worried about the complications arising from the implants [2-4].
Audio-Visual Temporal Saliency Modeling Validated by fMRI Data

In this work we propose an audio-visual model for predicting temporal saliency in videos, that we validate and evaluate in an alternative way by employing fMRI data. We intend to bridge the gap between the large improvements achieved during the last years in computational modeling, especially in deep learning, and the neurobiological and behavioral research regarding human vision. The proposed audio-visual model incorporates both state-of-the-art deep architectures for visual saliency, which were trained on eye-tracking data, and behavioral findings concerning audio-visual integration in multimedia stimuli. A new fMRI database has been collected for evaluation purposes, that includes various videos and subjects. This dataset may prove useful not only for saliency but for other computer vision problems as well. The evaluation of our model using the new fMRI database under a mixed-effect analysis shows that the proposed saliency model has strong correlation with both the visual and audio brain areas, that confirms its effectiveness and appropriateness in predicting audio-visual saliency for dynamic stimuli.
Image Denoising using Bacterial Foraging Optimization Technique

Digital image processing, analysis and techniques are used today in many areas such as Scientific, Bio-Medical and Military etc. All the applications stress on improvement of quality or appearance of images, which suffers from noise during transmission. Noise in the acquired image is partly signal dependent. Removal of such noise is a vital role that an image processing system has to play during transmission. Number of researchers used soft computing approach such as Filters and Neural Networks to remove noise. In this paper, a novel technique is developed to apply Bacterial Foraging Optimization technique in conjunction with the expressions developed to minimize the noise. Bacterial Foraging is an evolutionary optimization technique conceived in recent time has many advantages over Genetic Algorithm. Bacterial Foraging Optimization Technique is yet to find its application in digital image processing. The technique developed in this paper can be used as a generalized soft computing tool in image processing.
Dialogue Games in Multi-Agent Systems

Formal dialogue games have been studied in philosophy since at least the time of Aristotle. Recently they have been applied in various contexts in computer science and artificial intelligence, particularly as the basis for interaction between autonomous software agents. We review these applications and discuss the many open research questions and challenges at this exciting interface between philosophy and computer science.
What limits fire? An examination of drivers of burnt area in Southern Africa

The factors controlling the extent of fire in Africa south of the equator were investigated using moderate resolution (500 m) satellite‐derived burned area maps and spatial data on the environmental factors thought to affect burnt area. A random forest regression tree procedure was used to determine the relative importance of each factor in explaining the burned area fraction and to address hypotheses concerned with human and climatic influences on the drivers of burnt area. The model explained 68% of the variance in burnt area. Tree cover, rainfall in the previous 2 years, and rainfall seasonality were the most important predictors. Human activities – represented by grazing, roads per unit area, population density, and cultivation fraction – were also shown to affect burnt area, but only in parts of the continent with specific climatic conditions, and often in ways counter to the prevailing wisdom that more human activity leads to more fire. The analysis found no indication that ignitions were limiting total burnt area on the continent, and most of the spatial variation was due to variation in fuel load and moisture. Split conditions from the regression tree identified (i) low rainfall regions, where fire is rare; (ii) regions where fire is under human control; and (iii) higher rainfall regions where burnt area is determined by rainfall seasonality. This study provides insights into the physical, climatic, and human drivers of fire and their relative importance across southern Africa, and represents the beginnings of a predictive framework for burnt area.
Molecular dynamics in polymeric systems

Abstract It is well known that the properties of polymeric materials depend strongly upon their chemical structure. Other more specific factors that may be related to the chemical structure also determine the macroscopic behaviour of such materials, namely the relative position of the different segments of the polymeric chain, the molecular architecture (molecular weight distribution, branching, copolymer organisation, cross-linking extent, etc.), the crystalline environment and the pressure/temperature conditions. All these factors have a common impact in the material: they are strongly correlated to the mobility on the molecular level. That is why a huge amount of work has been devoted to the study of translational/rotational mobility that occurs within the polymeric chains. This review is intended to provide a brief survey on such kinds of mobilities, how they can be studied and what are their main characteristics. Examples on systems studied in our groups will be provided, obtained by dielectric and mechanical spectroscopies and differential scanning calorimetry. It will be mainly focused on molecular motions that occur in the solid phase (i.e., to temperatures up to the rubbery plateau). The dynamics in blends or copolymers will be avoided here, as they would deserve a special discussion in their own context. Special attention will be paid to the glass transition and the mobility that occurs below and above it. The dynamics that are observed in peculiar systems, such as semi-crystalline or liquid crystalline polymers, will be addressed.
Comparison of Mono- to Diphosphate Ester Ratio in Inhibitor Formulations for Mitigation of Under Deposit Corrosion

Mitigation of localized under deposit corrosion (UDC) in upstream oil and gas pipelines is an important research topic for both industry and academia. In a research program to better define the various inhibitor components that provide mitigation of UDC, this initial research investigates the effect of varied ratios of mono- to dinonylphenol phosphate esters (PE) by testing a set of specifically formulated inhibitors. Inhibitors with three mono- to di-PE ratios were tested in the presence and absence of 2-mercaptoethanol (ME). Using two 1.25 in (3.18 cm) diameter API 5L X65 pipeline steel samples and 250 μm silica sand, UDC testing was conducted for 28 d in a CO2 saturated solution at 70°C and 1 bar (100 kPa) total pressure. Analysis has shown that localized corrosion (pit penetration rate) increased for ME-free nonylphenol PE as the concentrations of di-PEs and mono-PEs approached equivalency. The nonylphenol PE inhibitor with a 50:50 mono- to di-PE ratio at 100 ppm concentration failed to protect the su.
Automatic Modeling for Modular Reconfigurable Robotic Systems: Theory and Practice

A modular reconfigurable robot consists of a collection of individual link and joint components that can be assembled into a number of different robot geometries. Compared to a conventional industrial robot with fixed geometry, such a system can provide flexibility to the user to cope with a wide spectrum of tasks through proper selection and reconfiguration of a large inventory of functional components. Several prototyping systems have been demonstrated in various research institutions (Cohen et al. 1992; Fukuda & Nakagawa 1988; Schmitz, et al. 1988; Wurst 1986). Applications of modular systems have been proposed in rapid deployable robot systems for hazardous material handling (Paredis et al. 1995), in space stationed autonomous systems (Ambrose 1995), and in manufacturing systems (Chen 2000; 2001). In the control and simulation of a modular reconfigurable robot system, precise kinematic and dynamic models of the robot are necessary. However, classical kinematic and dynamic modelling techniques for robot manipulators are meant for robot with fixed geometry. These models have to be derived manually and individually stored in the robot controller prior to simulating and controlling the robot. Commercial robot simulation software usually provides end users with a library of predefined models of existing robots. The models of any new robot not in the library have to be derived exclusively from the given parameters and commands in the package. For a modular robot system built upon standard modular components, the possible robot geometries and degrees of freedom become huge. As shown by Chen (1994), the number of robot-assembly configurations grows exponentially when the module set becomes large and the module design becomes complicated. To derive all of these models and store them as library functions require not only tremendous effort but also very large amount of disk storage space. In such cases, it is impractical and almost impossible to obtain the kinematic and dynamic models of a robot based on the fixed-geometry approach. Hence, there is a need to develop an automatic model-generation technique for modular robot applications.
FORECASTING LONG TERM INTEREST RATE: AN ECONOMETRIC EXERCISE FOR INDIA

A hinged joint in vehicle bodies is provided with a first bearing section and a second bearing section. The bearing sections are held together by a bearing pin. In order to be able to produce highly stressed hinged joints in the area of vehicle bodies using simple techniques for easy manufacturing and operational safety, at least one of the joint parts of the joint connection is provided with a low-friction surface coating to reduce the friction.