Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Discussing sexuality in the clinical setting: The impact of a brief training program for oncology health professionals to enhance communication about sexuality

Aim: Cancer and its treatments can profoundly affect a person's sexuality and self‐image. However, oncology health professionals (OHP) are often reluctant to discuss these issues with patients. Cancer Council Victoria developed a short workshop to increase OHP's discussion of sexuality issues with cancer patients. We examined the immediate and longer term effect of workshop participation on perceived barriers to these discussions, their confidence in initiating the discussions, and changes in the frequency of their discussing sexuality issues with patients.
Building Resilience to Climate Change in Rural Alaska: Understanding Impacts, Adaptation and the role of Tek

The arctic system is undergoing significant change, warming at twice the rate of the rest of the world due to anthropogenic climate change. Through interviews with Alaska Native communities along the Yukon River, this study documents traditional knowledge relating to the changes that are occurring in the weather and on the landscape, effects on subsistence livelihoods, and adaptation strategies. People observed significant changes, many of which are consistent with conventional scientific studies on ecosystem change in Alaska. They responded to environmental change by spreading risk across resources, space, time and households. Since many current and historical adaptation practices are embedded in the subsistence lifestyle and fall under federal and state management, this study also explored the effects of management on resilience. Respondents viewed subsistence management regimes as detrimental to livelihoods when they did not prioritize subsistence uses over recreational and commercial uses of natural resources, provide for local involvement in regulatory and management decisions, and when they constrained subsistence harvesters’ ability to pursue resources when they were available or most needed. People saw a benefit to agency management of subsistence when management actions supported local priorities, such as predator control. People viewed subsistence management even more favorably when local communities were able to voice concerns and have a role in shaping decisions. Community resilience to climate change is in part determined by the ability to accumulate knowledge and act collectively, and is enhanced by the ability to participate in the decisions that affect the flow of resources. Therefore, management actions that inhibit the exchange of information and collective action, qualities inherent to many traditional knowledge systems, may undermine the resilience of Alaska Native communities to climate change. However, integrating traditional knowledge with natural resource management and allowing communities to participate in decisions through collaborative and co-management arrangements, if done in a way that allows traditional knowledge to actually shape management outcomes, may enhance resilience.
The effects of Mediterranean Diet on Cardiovascular diseases: a systematic review

Background: Diet and lifestyle-related factors may be responsible for the different geographical distribution of cardiovascular disease incidence. The aim of our study is to conduct a systematic review of the effect of Mediterranean Diet on cardiovascular diseases (CVD), in terms of prevention of both cardiovascular mortality and cardiovascular events. Methods: We undertook a scientific literature search using MEDLINE, Embase and the Cochrane database for systematic reviews. We selected studies that evaluate the association between mortality and morbidity due to CVD and Mediterranean diet considered as primary or secondary prevention intervention, and found 16 articles concerning 13 studies (2 case-control, 3 cohort studies and 8 randomised clinical trials). Results: The analyzed studies indicate a reduction of adverse cardiovascular events by about 30% and 40%, in terms of primary and the secondary prevention, respectively. Concerning the reduction of mortality, a larger corpus of data is available, demonstrating that the Mediterranean diet significantly reduces mortality by 50% or 70% in terms of secondary prevention, and by about 30% for primary prevention. Conclusions: The Mediterranean diet has positive effects over the CVD both in primary and secondary prevention settings. The estimate of the effect is different in different settings and such variability is attributable to the heterogeneity of the enrolled population, which is obviously lower in the general population compared to those who have already had an adverse cardiovascular event.
Single Magnetic Bead Detection in a Microfluidic Chip Using Planar Hall Effect Sensor

In this study, we fabricate an integrated microfluidic chip with a planar Hall effect (PHE) sensor for single magnetic bead detection. The PHE sensor was constructed with a junction size of 10 μm × 10 μm using a trilayer structure of Ta(3 nm)/NiFe(10 nm)/Cu(1.2 nm)/IrMn(10 nm)/Ta(3 nm). The sensitivity of the PHE sensor was 19.86 μV/Oe. A diameter of 8.18 μm magnetic beads was used, of which the saturation magnetization was ~2.1 emu/g. The magnetic susceptibility χ of these magnetic beads was calculated to be~0.14. The diluted magnetic beads solution was introduced to the microfluidic channel attributing a single bead flow and simultaneously the PHE sensor voltage was measured to be 0.35 μV. The integrated microchip was able to detect a magnetic moment of 1.98 × 10 ? 10 emu.
RESPONSE OF GRASS SPECIES TO SOIL SALT CONTENT AND SOIL MOISTURE ON LANDS DEVELOPED FOR COALBED METHANE

In areas where land is disturbed to extract energy resources such as coalbed methane, improper soil management may result in soils impaired by elevated salinity. The objectives of this study were to evaluate the emergence and growth of three native grass species (Pseudorogeneria spicata, Hesperostipa comata, and Pascopyrum smithii) as a function of soil salt content and matric potential. The study consisted of nine treatments, combining three soil salinity levels (0.80, 5.0 and 11.0 dS/m) and three matric potential ranges (-0.1 to -1.0, -1.0 to -7.0, and less than -7.0 bars). Seedling emergence, plant height, aboveground biomass, and belowground biomass were significantly decreased by increasing soil salinity and decreasing soil moisture. This resulted in large reductions in growth when soil moisture was decreased within a salinity treatment. Emergence for plants grown in elevated salinity increased as much as 26.7 % when moisture was high. At low soil moisture, elevated salinity resulted in emergence losses as high as 88.3 %. Losses in aboveground biomass ranged from 23.0 to 97.9 % at moderate salinity and 27.3 to 98.5% at high salinity. Results indicate that the impacts of elevated soil salinity are highly influenced by soil moisture. Additional
Information Governance in Smart Grids – A Common Information Platform (CIP)

The commercial value added in electricity distribution networks and smart grids is increasing. Concerns about competition on a level-playing field are raised and the debate on vertical network unbundling is beginning to address the level of the distribution networks. With regard to the unbundling discussion for distribution networks, we introduce a new approach: the Common Information Platform (CIP). The CIP tries to balance better between competition and coordination. The CIP adds two new dimensions. First, it “unbundles” information and data management as the key step in the value chain, not network ownership or system operation. The other stages of the value chain can remain integrated. Correspondingly, the CIP avoids such drastic measures as network ownership unbundling. Second, it does not “separate” information and data management from the sector, but rather involves third parties in the rule-making process; the governance structure is “common” instead of “independent”.
Das Problem des Unendlichen im ausgehenden 14. Jahrhundert: Eine Studie mit Textedition zum Physikkommentar des Lorenz von Lindores

The focus of this book is on the theory of infinity in Lawrence of Lindores’ commentary on Aristotle’s “Physics”. Written shortly before 1400, Lindores’ text played an important role in disseminating the natural philosophy of John Buridan and his disciples in the 15 th century. In the first part of this book, Lindores’ concept of science is discussed and a detailed analysis of his treatment of infinity and related topics (continuity, the eternity of the world) is given. Subsequently an assessment of his ideas from the point of view of modern mathematics is attempted and some interesting similarities between medieval theories of infinity and recent developments in mathematics are outlined. The second part contains the relevant questions from Lindores’ commentary (book I, qu. 1-5, 10; book III, qu. 13-18; book VI, qu. 9-10; book VIII, qu. 3), which are presented here for the first time in a critical edition based on all seven manuscripts of the text. Die vorliegende Studie untersucht die Theorie des Unendlichen in dem kurz vor 1400 verfasten Kommentar des Lorenz von Lindores zur „Physik" des Aristoteles, der im 15. Jh. eine wichtige Rolle spielte bei der Verbreitung der Naturphilosophie Johannes Buridans und seiner Schuler. Im ersten Teil des Buches wird die Wissenschaftstheorie Lindores’ in ihren Grundzugen dargestellt, danach werden seine Ausfuhrungen zum Unendlichen und zu damit zusammenhangenden Themen (Struktur des Kontinuums, Ewigkeit der Welt) detailliert analysiert. Abschliesend wird eine Bewertung dieser Theorien aus der Sicht der modernen Mathematik versucht, wobei sich bemerkenswerte Ahnlichkeiten zwischen mittelalterlichen Theorien des Unendlichen und neueren Entwicklungen in der Mathematik zeigen. Der zweite Teil bietet erstmals eine kritische Edition aller einschlagigen Quaestionen aus Lindores’ Physikkommentar (Buch I, qu. 1-5, 10; Buch III, qu. 13-18; Buch VI, qu. 9-10; Buch VIII, qu. 3) auf der Basis aller sieben Handschriften des Textes.
Computational approaches for melodic description in indian art music corpora

Automatically describing contents of recorded music is crucial for interacting with large volumes of audio recordings, and for developing novel tools to facilitate music pedagogy. Melody is a fundamental facet in most music traditions and, therefore, is an indispensable component in such description. In this thesis, we develop computational approaches for analyzing high-level melodic aspects of music performances in Indian art music (IAM), with which we can describe and interlink large amounts of audio recordings. With its complex melodic framework and well-grounded theory, the description of IAM melody beyond pitch contours offers a very interesting and challenging research topic. We analyze melodies within their tonal context, identify melodic patterns, compare them both within and across music pieces, and finally, characterize the specific melodic context of IAM, the rāgas. All these analyses are done using data-driven methodologies on sizable curated music corpora. Our work paves the way for addressing several interesting research problems in the field of music information research, as well as developing novel applications in the context of music discovery and music pedagogy. The thesis starts by compiling and structuring largest to date music corpora of the two IAM traditions, Hindustani and Carnatic music, comprising quality audio recordings and the associated metadata. From them we extract the predominant pitch and normalize by the tonic context. An important element to describe melodies is the identification of the meaningful temporal units, for which we propose to detect occurrences of nyās svaras in Hindustani music, a landmark that demarcates musically salient melodic patterns. Utilizing these melodic features, we extract musically relevant recurring melodic patterns. These patterns are the building blocks of melodic structures in both improvisation and composition. Thus, they are fundamental to the description of audio collections in IAM. We propose an unsupervised approach that employs time-series analysis tools to discover melodic patterns in sizable music collections. We first carry out an in-depth supervised analysis of melodic similarity, which is a critical component in pattern discovery. We then improve upon the best possible competing approach by exploiting peculiar melodic characteristics in IAM. To identify musically meaningful patterns, we exploit the relationships between the discovered patterns by performing a network analysis. Extensive listening tests by professional musicians reveal that the discovered melodic patterns are musically interesting and significant. Finally, we utilize our results for recognizing rāgas in recorded performances of IAM. We propose two novel approaches that jointly capture the tonal and the temporal aspects of melody. Our first approach uses melodic patterns, the most prominent cues
Low-Storage Runge-Kutta Method for Simulating Time-Dependent Quantum Dynamics

A wide range of quantum systems are time-invariant and the corresponding dynamics is dictated by linear differential equations with constant coefficients. Although simple in mathematical concept, the integration of these equations is usually complicated in practice for complex systems, where both the computational time and the memory storage become limiting factors. For this reason, low-storage Runge-Kutta methods become increasingly popular for the time integration. This work suggests a series of s-stage sth-order explicit Runge-Kutta methods specific for autonomous linear equations, which only requires two times of the memory storage for the state vector. We also introduce a 13-stage eighth-order scheme for autonomous linear equations, which has optimized stability region and is reduced to a fifth-order method for general equations. These methods exhibit significant performance improvements over the previous general-purpose low-stage schemes. As an example, we apply the integrator to simulate the non-Markovian exciton dynamics in a 15-site linear chain consisting of perylene-bisimide derivatives.A wide range of quantum systems are time-invariant and the corresponding dynamics is dictated by linear differential equations with constant coefficients. Although simple in mathematical concept, the integration of these equations is usually complicated in practice for complex systems, where both the computational time and the memory storage become limiting factors. For this reason, low-storage Runge-Kutta methods become increasingly popular for the time integration. This work suggests a series of s-stage sth-order explicit Runge-Kutta methods specific for autonomous linear equations, which only requires two times of the memory storage for the state vector. We also introduce a 13-stage eighth-order scheme for autonomous linear equations, which has optimized stability region and is reduced to a fifth-order method for general equations. These methods exhibit significant performance improvements over the previous general-purpose low-stage schemes. As an example, we apply the integrator to simulate the non-Ma.
FORMULATION AND DEVELOPMENT OF FAST DISINTIGRATING TABLETS USING RANITIDINE HCL AS A MODEL DRUG

The present study was aimed towards the formulation and development of fast disintegrating tablets by direct compression technology using Ranitidine HCl as a model drug. Fast disintegrating tablet of Ranitidine HCl was formulated using three Superdisintegrates in different concentrations i.e. 10 mg, 20 mg and 30 mg, and one disintegrates having concentration i.e. 10 mg, 20 mg and 30 mg like Croscarmellose sodium, Crospovidone, Sodium Starch Glycolate. All the batches were prepared by direct compression method using the Cadmach Single punch tablet compression machine using 14X32 mm flat punch. Disintegration time and drug release were taken as the basis to optimize the immediate release tablet. Prepared tablets were evaluated for thickness, hardness, friability, uniformity of weight, disintegration time and dissolution study. Tablets containing 10 mg Croscarmellose sodium and 10 mg Crospovidone showed the faster disintegration time (22-25 Secs) and % drug release (100.8 % in 15mins) as compared to other superdisintegrating agents.
Genetic determination of partial migration in the European robin

Partially migratory behavior, the occurrence of resident and migratory individ- uals in a population, has been reported in free-living birds. I examined this behavior in the European Robin (Erithacus rubecula) under controlled experimental conditions. In an offspring group from a partially migratory field population, 36 (78) individuals exhibited migratory restlessness (migrants), whereas 10 did not (residents). There were more migrants (89't) in an offspring group from exclusively migratory parents and fewer migrants (53%) from an offspring group from mostly resident parents than there were in the field population. A heritability value of 0.52 was found under the experimental conditions. A connection be- tween the genetic determination of migratory behavior and unpredictable winter weather in the breeding area is discussed. Received 5 November 1981, accepted 20 December 1982. THE occurrence of different and genetically distinctive morphs within a population (poly- morphism) has been recorded in a variety of avian species (Huxley 1955). Most such cases involve morphological characters such as color pattern (Mock 1980). Polymorphisms in behav- ior or physiology have been documented less frequently, perhaps due, in part, to difficulties in quantifying these characters. One of the few examples of polymorphic behavior to have been described is partial migration (Lack 1943, 1944), in which a fraction of an avian population is migratory, whereas another fraction is seden- tary. The frequency of the migratory morph in- creases at higher latitudes (Lack 1943, Berthold 1978), with the result that most individuals in a northern-breeding population are migrants and most in a southern-breeding population are residents. It has been proposed that polymorphism in the migratory behavior of insects has an adap- tive significance in an unstable environment, because it reduces wide fluctuations in popu- lation density (Den Boer 1968). The effect upon an entire population of a fraction of the pop- ulation experiencing extreme conditions in one place is reduced to some degree by the fact that the other fraction is experiencing less extreme conditions in another place. The same might be true of some avian species. One fraction of the population would winter in the breeding area, chancing unfavorable winter conditions that could not be predicted from the environ- mental conditions current at the time of migra- tion. The other fraction would migrate to nor- mally mild wintering areas. Cox (1968), however, suggested that "Evolution of partial migration may thus result from high overall competition or high intraspecific competition alone. "
Unraveling excitonic dynamics of solution-processed quantum well stacks

UNRAVELING EXCITONIC DYNAMICS OF SOLUTION-PROCESSED QUANTUM WELL STACKS Onur Erdem M.S. in Electrical and Electronics Engineering Advisor: Assoc. Prof. Dr. Hilmi Volkan Demir July, 2015 Colloidal semiconductor quantum wells, also commonly known as nanoplatelets (NPLs), are a new class of atomically flat nanocrystals that are quasi twodimensional in lateral size with vertical thickness control in atomic precision. These NPLs exhibit highly favorable properties including spectrally narrow photoluminescence (PL) emission, giant oscillator strength transition and negligible inhomogeneous broadening in their emission linewidth at room temperature. Also, as a unique property, NPLs may self-assemble themselves in extremely long chains, making one-dimensional stacks. The resulting excitonic properties of these NPLs are modified to a great extent in such stacked formation. In this thesis, we systematically study the excitonic dynamics of these solution-processed NPLs in stacks and uncover the modification in their excitonic processes as a result of stacking. We have showed that, with increased degree of controlled stacking in NPL dispersions, the PL intensity of the NPL ensemble can be reduced and their PL lifetime is decreased. We also investigated temperature-dependent time-resolved and steady-state emission properties of the nonstacked and completely stacked NPL films, and found that there are major differences between their temperature-dependent excitonic dynamics. While the PL intensity of the nonstacked NPLs increases with decreasing temperature, this behaviour is very limited in stacked NPLs. To account for these observations, we consider Förster resonance energy transfer (FRET) between neighboring NPLs in a stack accompanied with charge trapping sites. We hypothesize that fast FRET within a NPL stack leads increased charge trapping, thereby quenching the PL intensity and reducing the PL lifetime. For a better understanding of the modification in the excitonic properties of NPL stacks, we developed two different models, both of which consider homo-FRET between the NPLs along with occasional charge trapping. The first model is based on the rate equations of the exciton population decay in stacks. The rate equations constructed for each different stack
Third-generation RNA-sequencing analysis: graph alignment and transcript assembly with long reads

The information contained in the genome of an organism, its DNA, is expressed through transcription of its genes to RNA, in quantities determined by many internal and external factors. As such, studying the gene expression can give valuable information for e.g. clinical diagnostics. A common analysis workflow of RNA-sequencing (RNA-seq) data consists of mapping the sequencing reads to a reference genome, followed by the transcript assembly and quantification based on these alignments. The advent of second-generation sequencing revolutionized the field by reducing the sequencing costs by 50,000-fold. Now another revolution is imminent with the third-generation sequencing platforms producing an order of magnitude higher read lengths. However, higher error rate, higher cost and lower throughput compared to the second-generation sequencing bring their own challenges. To compensate for the low throughput and high cost, hybrid approaches using both short second-generation and long thirdgeneration reads have gathered recent interest. The first part of this thesis focuses on the analysis of short-read RNA-seq data. As short-read mapping is an already well-researched field, we focus on giving a literature review of the topic. For transcript assembly we propose a novel (at the time of the publication) approach of using minimum-cost flows to solve the problem of covering a graph created from the read alignments
TOWARDS STANDARDIZED EVALUATION OF IMAGE QUALITY FOR AIRBORNE CAMERA SYSTEMS

Abstract. Digital airborne camera systems and their high geometric resolution demand for new algorithms and procedures of image data analysis and interpretation. Parameters describing image quality are necessary for various fields of application (e.g. sensor and mission design, sensor comparison, algorithm development, in-orbit-behaviour of instruments). The effective sensor resolution is one important parameter which comprehensively estimates the optical quality of a given imaging sensor-lens combination. Although determination of resolving power is a well-studied field of research, there are still some scientific questions to be answered when it comes to a standardized (eventually absolute) determination. This is also research object of a committee of the “German Institute for Standardization” and the given contribution outlines the current state of investigation concerning effective resolving power for airborne camera systems. Therefore an approach using signal processing techniques to calculate the effective image resolution will be described. The open scientific issues will be introduced, explained and answered to some extend.