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Rural areas and the rural South in particular have unique characteristics that render inappropriate many urban-oriented housing affordability approaches, delivery systems and programs. In addition, a lack of data for smaller communities makes accurate assessments of the housing stock difficult This paper explores factors that influence housing affordability. A methodology is developed that policy makers in local communities can use with volunteers to collect reliable data and to develop a local housing agenda which meets community needs. Regression analysis using data from four rural Georgia communities reveals that housing quality plays a role in housing expenditures. The paper concludes with strategies for rural community housing assessment and implementation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper attempts to explain the variance of housing prices as a function of macroeconomic fundamentals. The analysis is based on data from six advanced countries. The sample range is from 2001-2012. A panel regression procedure is applied to the data set. The findings suggest that house prices can be interpreted as a function of macroeconomic variables. These macroeconomic variables include percentage real GDP growth, the current account and first differences in the current account as a percent of GDP, first differences in the imbalance between investment and savings, and the public debt as a percent of GDP. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper introduces a memory-based version of gravitational search algorithm (MBGSA) to improve the beamforming performance by preventing loss of optimal trajectory. The conventional gravitational search algorithm (GSA) is a memory-less heuristic optimization algorithm based on Newton’s laws of gravitation. Therefore, the positions of agents only depend on the optimal solutions of previous iteration. In GSA, there is always a chance to lose optimal trajectory because of not utilizing the best solution from previous iterations of the optimization process. This drawback reduces the performance of GSA when dealing with complicated optimization problems. However, the MBGSA uses the overall best solution of the agents from previous iterations in the calculation of agents’ positions. Consequently, the agents try to improve their positions by always searching around overall best solutions. The performance of the MBGSA is evaluated by solving fourteen standard benchmark optimization problems and the results are compared with GSA and modified GSA (MGSA). It is also applied to adaptive beamforming problems to improve the weight vectors computed by Minimum Variance Distortionless Response (MVDR) algorithm as a real world optimization problem. The proposed algorithm demonstrates high performance of convergence compared to GSA and Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Industria Textila is the property of Institutul National de Cercetare-Dezvoltare pentru Textile si Pielarie and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Revista Odonto Ciencia is the property of EDIPUCRS - Editora Universitaria da PUCRS and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This paper presents selected results of research in the field of grinding cemented carbide with the use of diamond grinding wheels. In the fundamental experiments two different types of diamond grinding wheels were used. The diamond grinding wheels were varied by bonding material. In the investigation, response surface method was used to predict grinding force components during grinding of the ductile cemented carbide CTS20D workpiece material. The grinding speed, depth of cut and feed rate were considered as input process parameters. Furthermore, the ANOVA (analysis of variance) was employed for checking the developed model results. The results revealed that grinding with the use of resin bond grinding wheel provides significantly lower grinding force components during the process. Moreover, the significance of models terms was determined. It was shown that for the adapted range of process parameters, grinding speed has significant effects only on tangential force for resign bond diamond grinding wheel. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Advancement in technology has made the acquisition and storage of multimedia data easy and inexpensive to the end user. However for effective use of the information available in the multimedia, efficient and accurate retrieval methods are required. Multimedia based retrieval systems extensively used texture based approach to interpret and recognize a scene image. The texture of an image provides clue to the orientation, smoothness, symmetry, shape, regularity and coarness of the surface. The Local Binary Pattern Variance (LBPV) is a texture feature where variance in contrast acts as adaptive factor during computation of local binary pattern (LBP) histogram. The LBP combines both structural and statistical approaches to texture analysis. This paper proposes an LBP Variance based approach to visual content based video retrieval. The proposed approach uses query by example paradigm for retrieving similar clips from the video. Experiments conducted on TRECVID dataset shows the efficacy of proposed approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Online shopping is very popular and has grown exponentially due to revolution in digitization. It is a fundamental requirement of all the search engines to provide recommendation to identify user preferences. In this paper, we have proposed an algorithm to recommend images based on ANOVA Cosine Similarity where text and visual features are integrated to fill the semantic gap. Visual synonyms of each term are computed using ANOVA p -value by considering image visual features on text-based search. Expanded queries are generated for user input query and text based search is performed to get initial result set. Pair-wise image cosine similarity is computed for recommendation of images. Experiments are conducted on product images crawled from domain specific site. Experiments results shows that the ACSIR outperforms iLike method by providing more relevant products to the user input query. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Portfolio optimization is one of the important issues for effective and economic investment. There is plenty of research in the literature addressing this issue. Most of these pieces of research attempt to make the Markowitz’s primary portfolio selection model more realistic or seek to solve the model for obtaining fairly optimum portfolios. In this paper, P / E criterion and Experts’ Recommendations on Market Sectors have been added to the primary Markowitz mean-variance model as two objectives. The P / E ratio is one of the important criteria for investment in the stock market, which captures the current expectations of the market activists about different companies. Experts’ Recommendations for different Market Sectors, on the other hand, captures the experts’ predictions about the future of the stock market. There are many solving methods for the portfolio optimization problem, but almost none of them investigates Invasive Weed Optimization algorithm (IWO). In this research, the proposed multi-objective portfolio selection model has been transformed into a single-objective programming model using fuzzy normalization and uniform design method. Some guidelines are given for parameter setting in the proposed IWO algorithm. The model is then applied to monthly data of top 50 companies of Tehran Stock Exchange Market in 2013. The proposed model is then solved by three methods: (1) the proposed IWO algorithm, (2) the Particle Swarm Optimization algorithm (PSO), and (3) the Reduced Gradient Method (RGM). The non-dominated solutions of these algorithms are compared with each other using Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA). According to the comparisons, it can be concluded that IWO and PSO algorithms have the same performance in most important criteria, but IWO algorithm has better solving time than PSO algorithm and better performance in dominating inefficient solutions, and PSO algorithm has better results in total violation of constraints. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A multimodal medical image fusion method based on discrete fractional wavelet (DFRWT) is presented in this paper. With a change in p order in domain (0,1], source medical images are decomposed by DFRWT in different p order. The sparsity character of the mode coefficients in subband images changes. According to the method, to enhance the correlation between subband coefficients, the non-sparsity character of the mode coefficients in low p order should be utilized. The coefficients of the all subbands are fused using the weighted regional variance rule. Finally, inverse DFRWT is applied to obtain a fused image. Subjective and objective analyses of the results and comparisons with other multiresolution domain techniques show the effectiveness of the proposed scheme in fusing multimodal medical images. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, Taguchi method of robust optimization has been adapted along with Design of Experiments methodology and ANOVA to reduce the variability in the Ride comfort of a vehicle with respect to sprung mass of vehicle. It aims to find a combination of tyre pressure, spring stiffness and damping coefficient which gives a constant and targeted comfort value with reduced variance. The analysis suggests that the tyre pressure of 35psi with the spring stiffness of 26,000 N/m and damper of damping coefficient 418 N-s/m, maximize the SN ratio and reduce the deviation in RC due to mass, hence resulting into a robust design. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Automatika: Journal for Control, Measurement, Electronics, Computing & Communications is the property of Taylor & Francis Ltd and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

On-farm food safety is treated as the final frontier in addressing source contamination problems of foodborne pathogens in fresh fruits and vegetables. It is a common assumption among food safety experts in the United States (U.S.) that small and medium scale growers pose inherently greater risk because they are viewed as least likely to implement Good Agricultural Practices (GAPs) or attend continuing education programs. Farm scale is an aspect of food safety that is apparent to many yet overlooked by large-scale farmers, produce industry advocates, and regulators who have collectively created the current food safety system of standards and metrics. In this paper, responses to a survey of fresh produce growers about on-farm food safety are examined across farm scales using factor analysis and ANOVA. The findings demonstrate that, with few exceptions, U.S. Midwestern produce growers of all scales report similar levels of knowledge for pathogens, pre-harvest and post-harvest contamination sources, and management practices to prevent contamination. These findings challenge assumptions and generalizations and redirect the food safety conversation away from “knowledge deficit” models and toward the development of food safety standards, metrics, and certification processes that remove structural barriers to implementing on-farm food safety protocols for all scales of fresh produce production. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigated the surface roughness and gloss of composite resin CAD/CAM blocks after toothbrushing. Five composite resin blocks (Block HC, Cerasmart, Gradia Block, KZR-CAD Hybrid Resin Block, and Lava Ultimate), one hybrid ceramic (Vita Enamic), one feldspar ceramic (Vitablocs Mark II), one PMMA block (Telio CAD), and one conventional composite resin (Filtek Z350 XT) were evaluated. Surface roughness (Ra) and gloss were determined for each group of materials (n=6) after silicon carbide paper (P4000) grinding, 10k, 20k, and 40k toothbrushing cycles. One-way repeated measures ANOVA indicated significant differences in the Ra and gloss of each material except for the Ra of GRA. After 40k toothbrushing cycles, the Ra of BLO and TEL showed significant increases, while CER, KZR, ULT, and Z350 showed significant decreases. GRA, ENA, and VIT maintained their Ra. All of the materials tested, except CER, demonstrated significant decreases in gloss after 40k toothbrushing cycles. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Carlsson and Fullér (Fuzzy Sets Syst 122: 315-326, ) introduced the notations of lower possibilistic and upper possibilistic mean values of a fuzzy number, and investigated its relationship to the interval-valued possibilistic mean and variance. In this paper, we introduce the new notations of lower magnitude and upper magnitude mean values of a fuzzy number. The new interval-valued magnitude mean and variance are defined, which differs from the one given by Carlsson and Fullér. The relationship between the interval-valued magnitude mean and the interval-valued possibilistic mean is investigated. Furthermore, we shall also introduce the notations of crisp magnitude possibilistic mean value, variance, and covariance of fuzzy numbers, which are consistent with the extension principle. Finally, some comparative examples are used to illustrate the advantage of the proposed interval-valued magnitude possibilistic mean and variance method to ranking fuzzy numbers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background and purpose: This paper analyzes the interest of potential users for learning in the field of currency trading or foreign exchange (forex, FX). The purpose of our article is a) to present currency trading, b) to present different options, methods and learning approaches to educating in forex, c) to present the research results discovering the interest of potential users for learning in the field of currency trading. Methodology: For gathering data, an online questionnaire was used. It was distributed so that the survey sample covers socio-demographic variables (gender, age, working status, relationship status, financial status of credit and educational level). Interest in learning in the field of currency trading was assessed. Descriptive statistics, t-test, paired samples test, homogeny test of variances, and ANOVA were used. Results: It was determined that people are interested in learning about currency trading, especially younger ones (< 30 years), who prefer e-learning as their learning approach. Obtaining and possessing the right information is the strongest motivation factor and fearing not having enough necessary prior knowledge is the strongest discouraging factor for learning about currency trading. Conclusion: Education of users in the field of currency trading is becoming increasingly popular with the development of e-learning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Fibres & Textiles in Eastern Europe is the property of Sciendo and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The subjectivity and variability of pain conditions, combined with missing data, are constraints on the usefulness and accuracy of computerised clinical decision support systems (CCDSS) for pain management. In this paper, a CCDSS based on data imputation combined with statistics models is presented. This system was tested using clinical data collected during a six-week randomised controlled trial involving thirty-two volunteers recruited from an ambulatory surgery department. The proposed system revealed it ability to cope with missing data and detect either stability or changes in the self-reporting of pain, and therefore, to support health care professionals on clinical decisions and practices for pain management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Monte Carlo simulations of nuclear instrumentation configurations generally need to be run in a full analog transport mode. Up to Version 9 of the Monte Carlo code TRIPOLI-4®, the transport between two consecutive neutron collisions is analog if no variance reduction technique is requested by the user, but the collision itself is sampled in a nonanalog way. This paper presents the first implementation of a full analog neutron transport mode in TRIPOLI-4. This option concerns only fixedsource simulations. Details on the modifications implemented in the code are provided: The analog sampling of neutron interactions and the particular cases of fission and scattering reactions with multiple outgoing neutrons are addressed. Preliminary verification tests are provided, and results from nonanalog and analog neutron transport in a simple configuration of a pressurized water reactor fuel assembly are compared. An example of application to the simulation of the NUCIFER detector is also provided. This experiment, located in Saclay, France, next to the OSIRIS experimental reactor, is dedicated to reactor antineutrino detection, addressing both nonproliferation considerations and fundamental physics concerns. Antineutrinos emitted by fission reactions in OSIRIS are detected through the inverse beta decay reaction, producing a positron and a neutron. An analog TRIPOLI-4 simulation allowed us to calculate the distribution of neutron capture times on gadolinium nuclei. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Stratified Ranked Set sampling (SRSS) helps in obtaining an unbiased estimator for population parameters with some significant gain in efficiency. This paper presents modified exponential estimators of finite population mean using co-efficient of Variation and Co-efficient of Kurtosis of auxiliary variable. The bias and mean square error (MSE) of the proposed estimators with large sample approximation were derived. A set of secondary data on students' enrolment in secondary schools in Ogun State were used. The population was stratified into 4 strata base on political zones which are Egba, Yewa, Ijebu and Remo with 89, 91, 69 and 53 schools respectively. The sample sizes of the 4 strata based on proportional allocation are 27, 27, 21 and 15 schools respectively. The population means for students' enrolment and number of staff are 1284.71 and 49.0 respectively. The students' enrolment in Egba, Yewa, Ijebu and Remo zones are 140718, 137835, 56618 and 52815 respectively. The proportions of staff members to number of enrolled students are 0.042, 0,025, 0.051 and 0.047 respectively. The MSEs for four proposed estimators are 6176.84, 6503.61, 6269.63, and 6632.94. The MSEs for the corresponding four existing estimators are 9754.51, 10270.80, 9748.76, and 10561.44. The proposed estimators have least MSE, hence they are more efficient. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes a novel method for trimming a low noise, differential micro-electromechanical system (MEMS) microphone with a state of the art signal to noise ratio (SNR) of 66 dB(A) and a sensitivity of -38 dBV/Pa @ 1 kHz after completing the fabrication process. The method allows compensating the electroacoustic variations caused by process tolerances and reducing specification limits of the microphone sensitivity from ±3 dB to ±0.5 dB. Trimming is done by programming the bias supply voltage of the capacitive membrane-backplate-system and the gain factor of the output pre-amplifier. Microphone sensitivity can be modified within a range of 11.2 dB. Thus the standard deviation of the sensitivity of a production batch could be reduced from 0.97 dB to 0.11 dB. Furthermore the SNR could be increased to 66.5 dB(A). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents an integrated approach combining principal component analysis (PCA) and Taguchi methods to develop a ball grid array (PGA), gold (Ait) wire bonding process with multiple quality characteristics optimization. Eight main process factors of BGA wire bonding technology are selected as the control factors for parameter design. They are the factor A (seating ultrasonic generator (USG)), factor B (TIP height), factor C (CIV), factor D (USG current), factor E (USG bond time), factor F (bond force), factor G (FS threshold), and factor H (FAB size). The quality characteristics of the process in the study, including the wire pull strength, the ball shear strength, the ball thickness difference, the ball size difference, and the percentage of the Au-AI intermetallic compound (IMC) are measured. The optimal process parameters that meet the requirements for multiple quality characteristics are A1B3C1D3E3F1G1H2. They are then used to be tested for verification. Experimental results confirm that the optimal process design indeed enhances the quality characteristics investigated. The analysis of variance (ANOVA) results also show that the most important control factors affecting the quality characteristics are factor B (TIP height), factor C (CIV), and factor G (FS threshold), which accounts for 72.34% of total process variance. Thus, they must be strictly monitored during processing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Though calibration of an achievement test within a psychological and educational context is very often carried out by the Rasch model, data sampling is hardly designed according to statistical foundations. However, Kubinger, Rasch, and Yanagida (2009, 2011) suggested an approach for the determination of sample size according to a given Type-I- and Type-II-risk and a certain effect of model contradiction when testing the Rasch model. The approach uses a three-way analysis of variance design with mixed classification. For the while, their simulation studies deal with complete data, meaning every examinee is administered with all of the items of an item pool. The simulation study now presented in this paper deals with the practical relevant case, in particular for large-scale assessments, that item presentation happens to use several test-booklets. As a consequence, there are missing values by design. Therefore, the question to be considered is, whether this approach works in this case as well. Besides the fact, that data are not normally distributed but there is a dichotomous variable (an examinee either solves an item or fails to solve it), only a single entry for each cell exists in the given three-way analysis of variance design - if at all, due to missing values. Hence, the obligatory test-statistic's distribution may not be retained, in contrast to the case of having no missing values. The result of our simulation study, despite applying only to a very special scenario, is that this approach works, indeed: Whether test-booklets were used or every examinee is administered all of the items changes nothing in respect to the actual Type-I-risk or to the power of the test, given almost the same amount of information of examinees per item. However, as the results are limited to a special scenario, we currently recommend any interested researcher to simulate the appropriate one in advance by him-/herself. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Due to its potential applications and the density of the deployed sensors, distributed wireless sensor networks are one of the highly anticipated key contributors of the big data in the future. Consequently, massive data collected by the sensors beside the limited battery power are the main limitations imposed by such networks. In this paper, we consider a periodic sensor networks (PSNs) where sensors transmit their data to the sink on a periodic basis. We propose an efficient adaptive model of data collection dedicated to PSN, in order to increase the network lifetime and to reduce the huge amount of the collected data. The main idea behind this approach is to allow each sensor node to adapt its sampling rate to the physical changing dynamics. In this way, the oversampling can be minimized and the power efficiency of the overall network system can be further improved. The proposed method is based on the dependence of measurements variance while taking into account the residual energy that varies over time. We study three well known statistical tests based on One-Way Anova model. Then, we propose a multiple levels activity model that uses behavior functions modeled by modified Bezier curves to define application classes and allow for sampling adaptive rate. Experiments on real sensors data show that our approach can be effectively used to minimize the amount of data retrieved by the network and conserve energy of the sensors, without loss of fidelity/accuracy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Propose a new type of piercing method using magnetorheological fluid. • The optimization of the process parameters was completed with grey analysis theory. • Loading speed is the most important factor affecting the quality of piercing. • The interaction between loading speed and current intensity cannot be ignored. With the promotion of advanced manufacturing concepts such as green, high efficiency and intelligence, the shortboard and development bottleneck of traditional forming technology are increasingly prominent. The traditional forming technology is difficult to meet the actual needs of modern production. Special forming methods have emerged. The piercing process of sheet assisted by magnetic medium is an innovative attempt. However, there are many factors that affect the process, and the multi-field coupling further improves the process complexity, so it is very important to design the experimental scheme scientifically and reasonably. In this paper, through the design of orthogonal experiment, the piercing experiments are carried out under the condition of various process parameters, and then with the help of the grey correlation theory analysis, the relative rollover and the width of the relative bright zone are taken as the evaluation indexes. Through the analysis of range and analysis of variance, to find the key factors affecting the quality of piercing, determine the best combination of process parameters, and verify the accuracy of the results by confirming the test. The results show that: the best process combination scheme is A2B3C2D3. The experiments were carried out according to the recommended optimization scheme, the relative rollover reduced to 1.19%, and the proportion of the width of relative bright area reaches 64.06%. This paper provides scientific guidance for the research and quality improvement of piercing technology assisted by magnetic medium. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we propose a Symmetrical Binomial Lattice Approach that is equivalent to the well-known and widely utilized Lattice of Cox, Ross & Rubinstein when modeling Geometric Brownian Motion type of processes, but can be utilized for a wide variety of other Markov style stochastic processes, such as Mean Reversion. This is due to the highly intuitive construction in which first the expected value expression of the process is directly used and the variance is modeled in a symmetrical lattice, which is added to the first. We then demonstrate its applicability with several Real Options examples, comparing to the Cox et al model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In infrared (IR) images, near targets have a transient distribution at the boundary region, as opposed to a steady one at the inner region. Based on this fact, this paper proposes a novel IR target extraction method that uses both a weighted information entropy (WIE) and an adaptive opening filter to extract near finely shaped targets in IR images. Firstly, the boundary region of a target is detected using a local variance WIE of an original image. Next, a coarse target region is estimated via a labeling process used on the boundary region of the target. From the estimated coarse target region, a fine target shape is extracted by means of an opening filter having an adaptive structure element. The size of the structure element is decided in accordance with the width information of the target boundary and mean WIE values of windows of varying size. Our experimental results show that the proposed method obtains a better extraction performance than existing algorithms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although harmony search (HS) algorithm has shown many advantages in solving global optimization problems, its parameters need to be set by users according to experience and problem characteristics. This causes great difficulties for novice users. In order to overcome this difficulty, a self-adaptive multi-objective harmony search (SAMOHS) algorithm based on harmony memory variance is proposed in this paper. In the SAMOHS algorithm, a modified self-adaptive bandwidth is employed, moreover, the self-adaptive parameter setting based on variation of harmony memory variance is proposed for harmony memory considering rate (HMCR) and pitch adjusting rate (PAR). To solve multi-objective optimization problems (MOPs), the proposed SAMOHS uses non-dominated sorting and truncating procedure to update harmony memory (HM). To demonstrate the effectiveness of the SAMOHS, it is tested with many benchmark problems and applied to solve a practical engineering optimization problem. The experimental results show that the SAMOHS is competitive in convergence performance and diversity performance, compared with other multi-objective evolutionary algorithms (MOEAs). In the experiment, the impact of harmony memory size (HMS) on the performance of SAMOHS is also analyzed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The major drawback of microarray data is the ‘curse of dimensionality problem’, this hinders the useful information of dataset and leads to computational instability. Therefore, selecting relevant genes is an imperative in microarray data analysis. Most of the existing schemes employ a two-phase processes: feature selection/extraction followed by classification. In this paper, a statistical test, ANOVA based on MapReduce is proposed to select the relevant features. After feature selection, MapReduce based K-Nearest Neighbor (K-NN) classifier is also proposed to classify the microarray data. These algorithms are successfully implemented on Hadoop framework and comparative analysis is done using various datasets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Point of sale cause-related marketing has raised over $2 billion for charities over the past 30 years, yet the subject remains largely unexplored in academic literature. The subject of brand/cause fit, however, is prolific throughout extant research, with many studies showing that high congruence between a company and a charity is necessary to achieve philanthropic success. This paper challenges current marketing thinking both conceptually and empirically. Employing tests of no-effect hypotheses following the guidelines set out by Cortina and Folger (1998), it is established that, in the point of sale cause-related marketing context, the traditional effects of brand/cause fits do not apply. Across three studies involving experimental designs and over 500 respondents, the results of one-way ANOVA analyses consistently demonstrate that a low brand/cause fit can be just as effective as a high/brand cause fit. These findings contribute to a profound understanding of social efforts such as cause-related marketing may not be as simple or easily understood as was once thought. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports the first study on the mechanical behavior of lithium metasilicate glass–ceramic using nanoindentation and in situ scanning probe imaging techniques. Indentation contact hardness, H c , and Young’s modulus, E , were measured at 10 mN peak load and 0.1–2 mN/s loading rates to understand the loading rate effect on its properties. Indentation imprints were analysed with the in situ scanning probe imaging to understand indentation mechanisms. The average contact hardness increased by 112% with the loading rate (ANOVA, p <0.05) while the Young’s modulus showed the loading rate independence (ANOVA, p >0.05). A strain rate sensitivity model was applied to determine the intrinsic contact hardness. Extensive discontinuities and largest maximum, contact and final depths were also observed at the lowest loading rate. These phenomena corresponded to inhomogeneous shear-band flow and densification leading to the material strain softening. The in situ scanning probe images of indentation imprints showed plastic deformation at all loading rates and shear band-induced pileups at the lowest loading rate. With the increase in loading rate, the induced pile-ups decreased. The continuum model predicted the largest densified shear zone at the lowest loading rate. Finally, these results provide scientific insights into the abrasive machining responses of lithium metasilicate glass–ceramic during dental CAD/CAM processes using sharp diamond abrasives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: Although cerebrovascular accident is a leading cause of mortality in the Philippines, there has never been a national survey of stroke client descriptors and rehabilitation practices. This paper reports on data from the audit of stroke care for inpatients in hospitals serviced by physiatrists. Method: Audit was done of the medical records of stroke clients admitted to hospitals with rehabilitation units. Performance indicators for timely referral to rehabilitation were applied. Results: A total of 1683 records were audited. The majority of clients had cerebral infarct followed by cerebral haemorrhage. The median length of stay was 7 days; stay was lengthier for haemorrhagic strokes. Only 54.1% of the clients were referred to rehabilitation, with a median delay of 3 days between admission and referral to rehabilitation. 25.4% of the clients had early referral to rehabilitation. 39.2% of the 1397 clients were referred to rehabilitation earlier than 2 days before discharge. Conclusion: This Filipino study provides valuable information on stroke types and prevalence, demographics and rehabilitation practices. Despite the prevalence of post-stroke rehabilitation, it has been underutilised in the management of stroke. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aluminium alloy (Al/3.25Cu/8.5Si) composites reinforced with fly ash particles of three different size ranges (53–75 μm, 75–103 μm and 103–125 μm) in 3, 6 and 9 wt-% were fabricated using liquid metallurgy technique. Pin on disc abrasive wear tests were carried against the disc surface fixed with SiC emery paper (120 grades). A mathematical model was developed to predict the abrasive wear and coefficient of friction of the composites. Analysis of variance technique was used to check the validity of the developed model. Composites reinforced with coarse fly ash particles exhibited better abrasive wear resistance than those reinforced with fine fly ash particles. Abrasive wear in composites with fine fly ash particles is a combination of adhesive wear and abrasive wear. Larger fly ash particles present in composites gets fractured into fine particles and entrapped between the composite pin and the disc, thereby decreasing the wear rate. Worn surfaces of the pins were then analysed using scanning electron microscopy to study the wear mechanisms of the composites. The abrasive wear was optimised using desirability based multiobjective optimisation technique. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports on the perception of Korean EFL learners toward feedback types on their written errors. The survey was administered using an adopted questionnaire from previous studies (Ishii 2011; Leki, 1991). This further allows a comparison of Korean EFL learners' attitudes with the responses to an identical questionnaire by Japanese EFL learners and ESL students in North America. The collected data were analyzed based on the response frequencies and a one-way ANOVA test was performed. The results indicated that Korean EFL learners react in favor of direct feedback to their written work, and yet they show little tolerance for simply marking the error without explanation or no feedback. In addition, these preferences are found to be different from Japanese EFL learners and ESL students. Possible explanations for the results were given with reference to the theoretical constructs of SLA. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a solution procedure to investigate the periodic response of a Duffing oscillator under combined harmonic and random excitations. The solution procedure consists of an implicit harmonic balance method and a Gaussian closure method. The implicit harmonic balance method, previously developed for the case of harmonic excitation, is extended to the present case of combined harmonic and random excitations with the help of the Gaussian closure method. The amplitudes of the periodic response and the steady variances can be automatically found by the proposed solution procedure. First, the response process is separated into the mean part and the random process part. Then the Gaussian closure method is adopted to reformulate the original equation into two coupled differential equations. One is a deterministic equation about the mean part and the other is a stochastic equivalent linear equation. In terms of these two coupled equations, the implicit harmonic balance method is used to obtain a set of nonlinear algebraic equations relating to amplitudes, frequency, and variance. The resulting equations are not explicitly determined and they can be implicitly solved by nonlinear equation routines available in most mathematical libraries. Three illustrative examples are further investigated to show the effectiveness of the proposed solution procedure. Furthermore, the proposed solution procedure is particularly convenient for programming and it can be extended to obtain the periodic solutions of the response of multi degrees-of-freedom systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, both maximum likelihood and Bayesian estimators for a partially accelerated step-stress life test model are considered using type II censored data from Pareto distribution of the second kind. The posterior means and posterior variances are obtained under the squared error (SE) loss function using Lindley's approximation procedure. The maximum likelihood estimators and analogous Bayes estimators are compared in terms of their mean-square errors based on simulated samples from Pareto distribution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives: There is now a body of research into the attributions that carers make of the challenging behavior of people with intellectual disabilities; however the attributions that people with intellectual disabilities make have not been studied. This paper describes the attributions that people with intellectual disabilities make of challenging behavior and compares them to those of their carers. Methods: Twenty-three day-service staff and 34 adults with intellectual disabilities completed measures of attribution, optimism, emotion and need for help and gave open-ended responses to questions about the causes of and potential interventions for challenging behaviors. Results: The overall pattern of attribution, emotion, optimism and intention to help is similar for people with intellectual disabilities and staff. However, compared to staff, people with intellectual disabilities were less optimistic and less happy about challenging behavior. Conclusions: This area of research will help identify the impacts of challenging behavior on the well being of people with intellectual disabilities and may help structure support for people who live alongside those who challenge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives To evaluate the effects of various chemical surface modifications on adhesion between zirconia and resin adhesive. Material and methods Pre-sintered zirconia discs were sectioned from commercial cylindrical blocks and polished with abrasive papers under running tap water. All the discs were randomly divided into five study groups according to the methods of surface treatment, including: the control group (fully sintered, without any modification), group S (fully sintered and sandblasted with silica coated alumina particles), group HN (fully sintered and etched with a blend of mineral acid solution at 100 °C for 25 min), group HF (fully sintered and etched with 48% hydrofluoric acid solution at 100 °C for 25 min), and group Si (coated with silica particles and then fully sintered). The mean value of surface roughness was evaluated before further treatment. Resin stubs (3.6 mm in diameter and 3 mm in height) were adhered and light cured on each zirconia disc after the application of a silane coupling agent. In each group, all the samples were further divided into three subgroups with each n =12, one for the measurement of initial adhesion strength (shear bond) value and the other two were tested after thermal cycling for 10,000 and 20,000 cycles, respectively. The results were analyzed with two-way ANOVA and Turkey HSD ( p <0.05). XRD technique was utilized in the examination of zirconia surface crystallinity. The morphological appearance of zirconia surface after surface treatment was observed with SEM. Results The control group showed the lowest initial shear bond strength (SBS) value (16.8±2.4 MPa) and did not survive the aging treatments. All the investigated surface treatments improved resin zirconia bond strength significantly, the group S displaying the highest initial value of 25.1±2.7 MPa. However, the highest resistance to the aging effects of thermal cycling was found in group Si. It was further shown in the XRD examination that only the grit-blasting caused the crystalline transformation from tetragonal phase to monoclinic phase (T→M). On the other hand, such a phase transformation could not be detected in all the other four groups. Significance Resin zirconia adhesion could be effectively improved by both HF etching and silica coating on zirconia surface, without leading to a T→M crystalline phase transformation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The three principles of experimental design-- randomization, replication, and blocking--have been followed routinely in field experiments. This paper addresses issues of blocking in conducting cultivar performance trials. Most agronomists design (block) their trials by considering the slope of the field at most. However, the direction of field variation might not always follow the slope of the field. Blocking in the direction of field operations is advocated. The objective of this study was to compare precision between three years of horizontal blocking with three years of vertical blocking in North Carolina Official Cotton Variety Trials. No significant difference in precision was found between the two blocking arrangements. However, the standard analysis of variance of a randomized complete block design revealed that vertical blocking produced a larger standard error than when the tests were blocked horizontally. Although vertical blocking results in increased spatial distance, the use of a spatial analysis package should mitigate this problem. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary Despite many studies of family presence during resuscitation, no validated tool exploring the attitudes and beliefs of healthcare staff towards family presence has been published. The aim of this paper is to describe the development of a tool to accurately measure the attitudes and beliefs of emergency department staff towards family presence in the deteriorating adult patient, present the results of validity and reliability testing, and present the final validated tool. Twenty-nine items were developed, informed by themes from the literature and unvalidated published tools related to family presence during resuscitation. The tool was piloted on a sample of 68 emergency nursing and medical staff. Content validity and face validity were established using feedback from participants. Reliability was established by unidimensionality, exploratory factor analysis and internal consistency. Sixteen items were deleted from the original tool due to low item-to-total correlations and low communalities. Exploratory factor analysis of the remaining items revealed four factors with acceptable correlation coefficients and appropriate explanation of variance. Cronbach's alpha for each factor was >0.7 indicating a high degree of internal consistency. The four factors were labelled and arranged in a logical order to form the final tool, the Emergency Department Family Presence Survey. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to evaluate the methodological quality of nursing studies using structural equation modeling in Korea. Methods: Databases of KISS, DBPIA, and National Assembly Library up to March 2014 were searched using the MeSH terms 'nursing', 'structure', 'model'. A total of 152 studies were screened. After removal of duplicates and non-relevant titles, 61 papers were read in full. Results: Of the sixty-one articles retrieved, 14 studies were published between 1992 and 2000, 27, between 2001 and 2010, and 20, between 2011 and March 2014. The methodological quality of the review examined varied considerably. Conclusion: The findings of this study suggest that more rigorous research is necessary to address theoretical identification, two indicator rule, distribution of sample, treatment of missing values, mediator effect, discriminant validity, convergent validity, post hoc model modification, equivalent models issues, and alternative models issues should be undergone. Further research with robust consistent methodological study designs from model identification to model respecif ication is needed to improve the validity of the research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sentimental analysis is the method of finding sentiment such as positive or negative from a text data. In this paper we are using some feature selection techniques such as Mutual information, Chi-Square, Information gain and TF-idf to select features from high dimensionality of feature set. These methods are evaluated over the dataset which contains 2000 review data about MOVIES. The classification is performed using support vector machine provided by weka 9 tool. We also investigate that which is best feature to extract sentiments from the reviews. We are considering unigram, bigram, POS tags of words and function words as our feature set. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Multi-criteria optimization of processes parameters could be used to simultaneously achieve several conflicting goals such as increasing product quality and reducing production time. In this paper, Grey Relational Analysis (GRA) and Taguchi method have been employed to optimize Electrical Discharge Machining (EDM) process parameters for A1SI 2312 (40CrMnMoS86) hot worked steel alloy. The experimental data are gathered based on Taguchi design matrix. The tests are conducted under varying peak current (I), voltage (V), pulse on time (Ton): pulse off time (T0ff) and duty factor (η). The process output characteristics include Surface Roughness (SR). Tool Wear Rate (TWR) and Material Removal Rate (MRR). The objective is to find a combination of process parameters to minimize TWR and SR and maximize MRR. The three performance characteristics are combined into a single objective using grey relational analysis. The GRA was followed by the signal to noise ratio to specify the optimal levels of process parameters. The significance of the process parameters on the overall quality characteristics of the EDM process was also evaluated quantitatively using the Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) method. Optimal results were verified through additional experiments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Statement of the Problem: Monomer viscosity and solvent evaporation can be affected by the adhesive system temperature. Higher temperature can elevate the vapor pressure in solution and penetration of adhesive in smear layer. Bonding mechanism may be influenced by the adhesive temperature. Purpose: This study aimed to evaluate the effect of pre-heating on shear bond strength of etch-and-rinse and self-etching adhesives to ground bovine dentin surfaces, at temperatures of 4°C, 25°C and 40°C. Materials and Method: In this experimental study, 60 maxillary bovine incisors were randomly divided into 6 groups (n=10). The central part of labial dentin surfaces was exposed with a diamond bur and standardized smear layer was created by using silicon carbide paper (600 grit) under water-coolant while the specimens were mounted in acrylic resin. Two adhesive systems, an etch-and-rinse (Adper single bond) and a self-etch (Clearfil SE Bond) were stored at temperatures of 4°C, 25°C and 40°C for 30 minutes and were then applied on the prepared labial surface according to the manufacturer's instructions. The composite resin (Z350) was packed in Teflon mold (5 mm in diameter) on this surface and was cured. The shear bond strength (MPa) was evaluated by universal testing machine (Zwick/Roell Z020, Germany) at cross head speed of 1mm/min. The results were statistically analyzed by using ANOVA and Tukey tests (p< 0.05). Results: No significant difference was found between the shear bond strength of Clearfil SE Bond adhesive in different temperature and single Bond adhesive system at 25 ̊C and 40 ̊C. However, there were significant differences between 4 ̊C of Adper single bond in comparison with 25°C and 40°C (p= 0.0001). Conclusion: Pre-heating did not affect the shear bond strength of SE Bond, but could promote the shear bond strength of Adper Single Bond. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a research paper which focuses on older people with mild cognitive impairment and Alzheimer's disease. Explored is the association between the functional and cognitive decline of the studied patients. Mentioned is the use of advanced activities of daily living tool to facilitate the study.

This paper deals with direction-of-arrival (DOA) estimation of minimum variance distortionless response (MVDR) approach based on Taylor series expansion (TSE) technique for space-time code-division multiple access (CDMA) systems. It has been shown that the TSE of the presumed steering vector is a simple approach without any need for direction search. Unfortunately, the Taylor approach is more likely to converge to a local maximum, causing errors in DOA estimation. In conjunction with a genetic algorithm for selecting initial search angle, an efficient approach is presented to achieve the advantages of TSE DOA estimation with fast convergence and less computational load over iterative searching MVDR estimator. Simulation results are provided for illustrating the effectiveness of the proposed approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since an investor could earn abnormal profit, understanding the efficiency of stock markets, particularly the emerging ones, is gaining importance with their integration with the developed markets. In this paper I attempt to test the weak form of the efficient market hypothesis for Central and Eastern European (CEE) stock markets: Romania, Hungary, Croatia, Czech Republic and Poland. In this respect, it were used specific tests (unit root, joint variance ratio test, non-parametric runs test) which are performed using daily data for stock market indexes for the period September 1997-September 2014. According to joint variance tests and Johansen cointegration test, one can argue the CEE stock markets do not exhibit weak form efficiency, both as individual and regional stock market. Non-parametric Runs test suggest that for two out of five countries (Romania, Czech Republic) the successive returns are not independent, i.e. an opportunity to earn excess return using historical prices. Runs test was employed in-depth for specific sub-samples and lead to the conclusion that efficiency is a characteristic that varies over time and across markets, consistent with adaptive market hypothesis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper assesses German students’ adjustment strategies after a six months expeditionary learning programme on high seas with intercultural encounters in Cuba and Costa Rica. A postal survey ( N = 128, global response quote r g = .44) has been conducted with students having returned from four separate learning expeditions from 2008 to 2012. The students reports were coded in five categories, i.e. (1) reintegration narratives (RN), (2) perception of schooling (PoS), (3) self-perception (SP), (4) perceived programme effects (PPE), and (5) social context (SC), which were also quantified on a 5-point Likert-scale. By means of principal components analyses (PCA) and polynominal interpolation (PI), we searched into underlying distribution patterns in the categories. No significant differences were found with respect to gender in the four groups in a one-way ANOVA. However, significant differences with respect to (4) self-perception (SP) and perceived programme effects (PPE) can be referred to group 3. This accords well with the findings of the PCA and PI, which corroborate a U-curve with its apex after eight months at home. It can be shown that all four cohorts show symptoms of expedition reverse culture shock, which indicates that pedagogical intervention also after the cruise may be undertaken. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background : Evidence supports the role of feedback in reinforcing motivation for behavior change. Feedback that provides reinforcement has the potential to increase dietary self-monitoring and enhance attainment of recommended dietary intake. Objective: The aim of this study was to examine the impact of daily feedback (DFB) messages, delivered remotely, on changes in dietary intake. Methods: This was a secondary analysis of the Self- Monitoring And Recording using Technology (SMART) Trial, a single-center, 24-month randomized clinical trial of behavioral treatment for weight loss. Participants included 210 obese adults (mean body mass index, 34.0 kg/m2) who were randomized to either a paper diary (PD), personal digital assistant (PDA), or PDA plus daily tailored feedback messages (PDA + FB). To determine the role of daily tailored feedback in dietary intake, we compared the self-monitoring with DFB group (DFB group; n = 70) with the self-monitoring without DFB group (no-DFB group, n = 140). All participants received a standard behavioral intervention for weight loss. Self-reported changes in dietary intake were compared between the DFB and no-DFB groups and were measured at baseline and at 6, 12, 18, and 24 months. Linear mixed modeling was used to examine percentage changes in dietary intake from baseline. Results: Compared with the no-DFB group, the DFB group achieved a larger reduction in energy ( -22.8% vs -14.0% ; P = .02) and saturated fat ( -11.3% vs -0 .5% ; P = .03) intake and a trend toward a greater decrease in total fat intake ( -10.4% vs - 4.7% ; P = .09). There were significant improvements over time in carbohydrate intake and total fat intake for both groups (P values < .05). Conclusion: Daily tailored feedback messages designed to target energy and fat intake and delivered remotely in real time using mobile devices may play an important role in the reduction of energy and fat intake. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]