The effect of Bonyan-Method Experiential Marathon Structured Groups (BEMSG) on ego functions

The present research has studied Bonyan-Method Experiential Marathon Structured Groups' efficacy on the nonclinical populations' ego functions. This study was a quasi-experimental trial with a control group. The trial group participated in the marathon group on three consecutive days (36 hours) and weekly sessions for three weeks. Then the ego function evaluation questionnaire was simultaneously given to both groups. All ego functions in the trial group showed significant growth compared to the control group. Among these, the most remarkable statistical effect size was related to "Adaptive Regression in Service of the Ego" and "Stimulus barrier." The relationship between improving ego functions and mental health can be anticipated, and steps can be taken to promote the community’s mental health by using these groups.

Using the Technology Acceptance Model to Understand Attitudes about a Virtual Learning Environment for EFL Writing

This quantitative case study used Venkatesh and Davis’ (2000) technology acceptance model (TAM) to understand EFL student attitudes towards using a virtual learning environment (VLE). The study surveyed 97 undergraduate students enrolled in a required English writing course. The study employed factor reduction to group the variables into the TAM. A standard multiple regression was then performed to determine the effect the variables had on the model. It was found that the perceived ease of use (EoU), output quality (OQ), and results demonstrability (RD) had a positive statistical effect on the perceived usefulness (PU). The subjective norm (SN), EoU, and PU also had a positive statistical effect on the students' intention to use (IU) the VLE for writing. The final standardized regression found a positive statistical effect from IU towards the students' usage behavior (UB). The overall results showed that the more positive a student's EoU, OQ, RD, SN, PU, and IU, the more likely a student will use and accept the VLE for writing. This usage should also help students improve their language level as well as build 4th industrial revolution skills. Teachers should consider the use of VLEs to teach or supplement EFL writing in the future.

The Transition to Equilibrium in a System with Gravitationally Interacting Particles. I. Temperature Relaxation

The distribution function of systems in equilibrium must have the canonical form of the Gibbs distribution. To substantiate this behavior of systems, attempts have been made for more than 100 years to involve their mechanical behavior. In other words, it seems that a huge number of particles of the medium as a result of interaction with each other according to dynamic laws, is able to explain the statistical behavior of systems during their transition to equilibrium. Modeling of gravitationally interacting particles is carried out and it is shown that in this case, the distribution function does not evolve to the canonical form. Earlier, the same results were obtained for classical Coulomb plasma. On the other hand, such a statistical effect as relaxation is well described by the dynamic behavior of the system, and the simulation data are in agreement with the known theoretical results obtained in various statistical approaches.

Factors influencing Euryarchaeal gut methanogens distribution in dairy cattle in smallholding farms

Guts of ruminants contain symbiotic domains (Eubacteria, Archaea and Eukarya) that aid in the breakdown of consumed carbohydrates from plants to simple molecules that can be absorbed into the ruminant’s bloodstream. Methanogenesis occurs during the gut fermentation and methane gas is released in the final step of biomass degradation from the fermentation chambers. The Archaea that play a major role critical for methane emissions are methanogens and are found freely in the ruminants’ gut. Methane production from ruminants has attracted global attention due to their input on the Green House Gases effect, contribution to global warming and negative effects on farmers’ productivity. The objective of this study was to determine the factors contributing to the methanogens’ gut distribution in dairy cows from smallholder farms using next generation sequencing techniques. A total of 48 samples from smallholding dairy farms were used during this study and were collected from Kenya (Kiambu county) and Tanzania (Lushoto and Rungwe). The collected data samples from the experimental animals were from both the rumen fluid (6) and fecal (42). Samples were analyzed using metagenomic approaches and statistical analysis was undertaken using IBM SPSS statistics software version 28.0.0.0. Results showed that the gut site along the gastrointestinal tract and the feeding regime significantly contributed to the distribution and presence of various methanogenic species (P<0.1). The herd and the genotype had no statistical effect. A total of 12 families were identified. The family Methanobacteriaceae was identified with the leading number (8) of the methanogenic species. A third of the identified families showed presence for at least two methanogenic species with Methanobrevibacter ruminantium being abundant. For proper curbing mechanisms, efforts to reduce methane release should be channeled to the whole gastrointestinal tract and advanced studies carried out on any potential interspecies presence facilitation and/or elimination.

Audiological Patterns in Patients with Autoimmune Hearing Loss

<b><i>Introduction:</i></b> The aim of this study was to illustrate clinical and audiological patterns of hearing impairment in patients with autoimmune hearing loss (AIHL). <b><i>Methods:</i></b> Fifty-three patients with AIHL were retrospectively recruited, and a tapering schema of steroid treatment was administered in all these patients. The diagnosis of AIHL was essentially based on clinical symptoms, such as recurrent, sudden (sensorineural hearing loss [SSHL]), fluctuating, or quickly progressing (&#x3c;12 months) SSHL (uni-/bilateral), in association with the coexistence of autoimmune diseases, high antinuclear antibodies (ANA) and the presence of human leukocyte antigen (HLA) B27, B35, B51, C04, and C07. Logistic regression analysis was applied to correlate the clinical data and laboratory features of AIHL with final outcomes. <b><i>Results:</i></b> The onset of AIHL was mainly progressive (49%), followed by SSHL (39.6%) or fluctuating (11.3%). The pure-tone audiogram showed more commonly a downsloping pattern (42.6% of ears), but also an upsloping, flat, cookie-bite, or inverse cookie-bite shape. Bilateral progressive AIHL was more frequently simultaneous (23 patients) than heterochronous (4 patients). Nineteen patients (35.8%) showed a favorable response to steroid therapy. The presence of recurrent, bilateral SSHL versus recurrent, unilateral SSHL had statistically negative effect on hearing recovery (OR = 0.042, <i>p</i> &#x3c; 0.05). The heterochronous bilateral SSHL may have better prognosis than simultaneous bilateral SSHL (OR = 10.000, <i>p</i> = 0.099). The gender, age, concomitant autoimmune disease, high ANA, HLA alleles, tinnitus, and vestibular symptoms had no statistical effect on a favorable outcome of AIHL. <b><i>Conclusions:</i></b> A bilateral, simultaneous, and progressive hearing loss combined with downsloping audiogram occurred more often in patients with AIHL. Bilateral simultaneous SSHL with recurrences represents the worse prognostic form of AIHL.

Social Transparency in Rural Areas in Norway: Promoting or Restraining the Desire to Stay?

“Everyone knows everyone” is a recurring characteristic in descriptions of rural communities, one that has been interpreted as both a benefit and a drawback in research on such localities. In response to that discrepancy, this paper investigates the overall statistical effect of social transparency on residents’ desire to continue living in their rural communities. As revealed by analyses of survey data representing a national sample of Norway’s rural population in 2016, social transparency did significantly increase respondents’ desire to maintain residency in their rural communities. In providing and explaining such results, the paper contributes to current understandings of social conditions that influence rural (non-)migration and rural resilience.

Influence of frugality, materialism and employee demographics on workplace deviant behaviors

This paper explores the impact of frugality and materialism on workplace deviant behaviors in business organizations. The investigation sample was drawn from selected business organizations (Stanbic IBTC Bank, Globacom Limited, International Alpha Limited, and Nextzon Business Services Firm) across the Ibadan and Lagos cities of Nigeria. This study espouses a quantitative research approach, and the study’s questionnaires were randomly dispersed. Out of 400 questionnaires, 323 questionnaires were useful for investigation, and the data obtained were analyzed using SPSS version 26. The research results show that the frugal are less likely to engage in workplace deviant behaviors, while materialists are more inclined to exhibit workplace deviant behaviors in business organizations. This paper further indicates that demographics (gender, marital status, and educational qualification) have a statistical effect on workplace deviant behavior. It was confirmed that frugality, materialism, and employee demographics significantly influenced workplace deviant behaviors in business organizations. Therefore, business organizations’ leadership and management should encourage frugality, thereby directly reducing employee workplace deviant behaviors. Besides, the main focus should be on reducing materialistic tendencies through periodic training and seminars on debt prevention, particularly among vulnerable employees who discourage workplace deviant behaviors. AcknowlendgmentThe authors acknowledge the Department of Industrial Psychology and People Management, College of Business and Economics, University of Johannesburg, under Professor Wilfred Ukpere, for funding this study and publishing it.

BOARD COMPOSITION AND SERVICE DELIVERY AMONG COUNTY OWNED WATER ORGANIZATIONS IN WESTERN KENYA

Purpose: Corporate governance principles enable organizations to achieve their objectives through better decision making among board composition. County owned water organizations in Western Kenya may have good board composition among directors but the extent to which they perform, influence service delivery. The purpose was to find out whether board composition has statistical significant effect on service delivery. Methodology: The study was guided by Resource Dependency theory which focuses on the role of directors in organizations and employed a descriptive design specifically, inferential statictics. Study area included Amatsi, Nzoia and Kakamega water and sanitation companies and data was obtained from directors, managers, employees and customers. Yamane formula was used to determine sample size for respondents and sampling was done by stratified, simple random technique. Data was collected using questionnaires and interview guides. Reliability, validity, normality and multicolinearity, were tested. Data analysis was done using inferential statistics of Pearson’s Correlation Coefficient to find out the association between board composition and service delivery, Simple Linear Regression was used to find out the statistical effect of board composition on service delivery. Results: The findings indicated that there exists a negative relationship between board composition and service delivery and therefore board composition has no statistical significant effect on service delivery among county owned water organizations in Western Kenya. Unique contribution to theory, practice and policy: The study recommends that organizations need to put more emphasis on the board composition and also build capacity of board members in order to ensure that boards become more effective in order to have positive influence on service delivery. It is hoped that the findings will benefit stakeholders in water organizations in Kenya such as county and national government, customers, donors and researchers.

Brain-inspired Weighted Normalization for CNN Image Classification

We studied a local normalization paradigm, namely weighted normalization, that better reflects the current understanding of the brain. Specifically, the normalization weight is trainable, and has a more realistic surround pool selection. Weighted normalization outperformed other normalizations in image classification tasks on Cifar10, Imagenet and a customized textured MNIST dataset. The superior performance is more prominent when the CNN is shallow. The good performance of weighted normalization may be related to its statistical effect of gaussianizing the responses.

A study based on TAM model about debugging tools

Debugging is the task of locating and fixing defects in a program.Despite the increase of its importance in last decades, debuggingis responsible for a large part of costs in a software project by organizations.Among the techniques proposed to minimize thesedifficulties, Spectrum-Based Fault Localization (SFL) is a promisingdebugging technique due to it is relative low execution cost.Recently, visualization tools have been proposed to represent thesuspicious values of program elements with SFL techniques in differentmetaphors. Some tools use textual representation and others avisual representation. In this paper, we compare two SFL debuggingtools. Jaguar presents the most suspicious elements of a programin a list sorted by suspicious values. CodeForest represents the programin a three dimensional cacti forest. In this article are presentedthe results of an evaluation with 119 students to assess the usabilityperception of these tools to the fault localization by TechnologyAcceptance Model (TAM). This model aims to help organizationsduring the evaluation of new technologies. The results of studyshow that Jaguar has greater usability than CodeForest; however,the statistical effect size observed is low between them.