Beneficial Effects of Role Reversal in Comparison to role-playing on negative cognitions about Other’s Judgments for Social Anxiety Disorder

Background and objectives: Negative beliefs about other’s judgments play an important role in the development and maintenance of social anxiety disorder. The present experiment examined the effects of role-playing followed by role reversal compared to role-playing twice on altering these negative cognitions. Methods: Thirty-six adult social anxiety patients were randomized into two conditions: a role-playing condition in which 18 participants role-played an anxiety-provoking social situation twice, or a role reversal condition in which 18 participants role-played an anxiety-provoking social situation followed by enacting the same situation using role reversal. Before the start of the experiment, patients were asked to report their negative cognitions about the other’s judgments. Next, they were asked to rate the believability of these negative cognitions, as well as the probability and cost estimates of negative judgments by the other person, at three time-points: before the first block of role-playing, after the first block of role-playing, and after the second block of the experiment. Results: Results demonstrated that role-playing followed by role reversal had a stronger effect on the most negative cognitions than role-playing twice. Limitations: The most important limitation of the present study is that there was no control group to assess the effects of role-playing alone. Moreover, the second block of the experiment was repetitive in role-playing, however, it was a new task in role reversal. Conclusions: The results support the hypothesis that role reversal is an effective technique that can be used to correct negative cognitions about other’s judgments in SAD

Investigating the characteristics of the density current due to changes in the flow regime

The density current is a relative movement that occurs between two fluid layers, even if they slightly vary in density. The difference in specific mass may be due to temperature, suspended matter, dissolved materials, or a combination of them. These flows are especially important in cases such as the inflow of muddy rivers into the reservoirs of dams or seas and lakes, and can have different effects, such as sedimentation in dams and river estuaries to the sea, the change of the coastal beds and continental shelf areas. Therefore, the study of this type of motion and the effect of changing the regime from the supercritical to the subcritical (the creation of a hydraulic jump) is very influential regarding flow characteristics. The study of fluid flow requires the identification of velocity profiles in the flow path. For this purpose, by applying a physical model and creating a flow with different input characteristics and imposing regime change conditions, the velocity profiles in the flow body were measured and the flow characteristics were analyzed. The results showed that the coefficients of the velocity profiles in the wall and jet areas were 0.82, 0.87 and 2.83 respectively for subcritical flows and 1.174, 1.26 and 2.9 for supercritical currents. Other results include a 14 to 19 percent reduction in speed and a 21 to 32 percent increase in flow depth due to the jump. In addition, in some cases, there were significant difference between the results of the analytical jump relationship and the experimental data

Highly efficient nonlinear regression for big data with lexicographical splitting

This paper considers the problem of online piecewise linear regression for big data applications. We introduce an algorithm, which sequentially achieves the performance of the best piecewise linear (affine) model with optimal partition of the space of the regressor vectors in an individual sequence manner. To this end, our algorithm constructs a class of 2 D sequential piecewise linear models over a set of partitions of the regressor space and efficiently combines them in the mixture-of-experts setting. We show that the algorithm is highly efficient with computational complexity of only O(mD2) , where m is the dimension of the regressor vectors. This efficient computational complexity is achieved by efficiently representing all of the 2 D models using a “lexicographical splitting graph.” We analyze the performance of our algorithm without any statistical assumptions, i.e., our results are guaranteed to hold. Furthermore, we demonstrate the effectiveness of our algorithm over the well-known data sets in the machine learning literature with computational complexity fraction of the state of the art. © 2016, Springer-Verlag London

Climate change impact on bioclimatic deficiency, using microLEIS DSS in Ahar soils, Iran

Regional impact studies of the future climate change effects are necessary because projected changes in meteorological variables differ from one region to another, and different climate systems can react in varied ways to the same changes. In this study, the effects of climate change on bioclimatic deficiency were compared in two cultivation methods (irrigated and rainfed) in a semi-arid region, Ahar (East Azarbaijan, IRAN). The agricultural land uses selected for evaluation were wheat (Triticum aestivum), alfalfa (Medicago sativa), sugar beet (Beta vulgaris), potato (Solanum tuberosum), and maize (Zea mays). In this way, Terraza model included in the land evaluation decision support system, called MicroLEIS DSS, was used. Terraza gives a quantitative prediction of a site bioclimatic deficiency. Soil morphological and analytical data were obtained from 44 sampling points based on a grid survey. Agro-climatic data, referred to temperature and precipitation, were collected from weather stations located in Ahar region, which benefits from more than 20 consecutive years of weather data. A future scenario of climate change was calculated according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) on regions of Asia under scenario A1FI (highest future emission) for 2080s. Although, increasing of precipitation being available by climate change in the future scenario, humidity index will be reduced because of high temperature. The results showed that climate change is likely to cause severe water stress in irrigated cultivation of alfalfa, sugar beet, potato, and maize, the use of irrigation methods being essential to maintain agricultural productivity. Although irrigation is indicated as very important in this regime of semi-arid agriculture, cultivation of rainfed wheat can be possible instead of the irrigated one. Also, it is revealed that climate perturbation effects on rainfed conditions are more serious than those on the irrigated conditions in the area.The authors wish to thank Tabriz University for funding this research work, a dissertation of Ph. D. program undertaken by Farzin Shahbazi. They also thank Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC), Instituto de Recursos Naturales y Agrobiología de Sevilla (IRNAS), Sevilla, Spain for their sincere cooperation during the candidate’ s sabbatical studies.Peer Reviewe

Development and analysis of the Soil Water Infiltration Global database.

In this paper, we present and analyze a novel global database of soil infiltration measurements, the Soil Water Infiltration Global (SWIG) database. In total, 5023 infiltration curves were collected across all continents in the SWIG database. These data were either provided and quality checked by the scientists who performed the experiments or they were digitized from published articles. Data from 54 different countries were included in the database with major contributions from Iran, China, and the USA. In addition to its extensive geographical coverage, the collected infiltration curves cover research from 1976 to late 2017. Basic information on measurement location and method, soil properties, and land use was gathered along with the infiltration data, making the database valuable for the development of pedotransfer functions (PTFs) for estimating soil hydraulic properties, for the evaluation of infiltration measurement methods, and for developing and validating infiltration models. Soil textural information (clay, silt, and sand content) is available for 3842 out of 5023 infiltration measurements (~76%) covering nearly all soil USDA textural classes except for the sandy clay and silt classes. Information on land use is available for 76% of the experimental sites with agricultural land use as the dominant type (~40%). We are convinced that the SWIG database will allow for a better parameterization of the infiltration process in land surface models and for testing infiltration models. All collected data and related soil characteristics are provided online in *.xlsx and *.csv formats for reference, and we add a disclaimer that the database is for public domain use only and can be copied freely by referencing it. Supplementary data are available at https://doi.org/10.1594/PANGAEA.885492 (Rahmati et al., 2018). Data quality assessment is strongly advised prior to any use of this database. Finally, we would like to encourage scientists to extend and update the SWIG database by uploading new data to it

Land capability evaluation and climate change impacts in semiarid and mediterranean areas using MICROLEIS DSS

Comunicación científica presentada en la Sesión 5, B06. Efectos bióticos del cambio del clima B12. Afecciones sobre la salud humana.-- Congresos celebrados del 17-19 de abril 2008, en Huelva, España.Regional impact studies of the effects of future climate change are necessary because projected changes in meteorological variables vary regionally, and different climate systems can react in various ways to the same changes. In this study the effects of climate change on land capability are compared in two different climatological regions: Semi-arid, located in the south part of Ahar province (North western, Iran), and Mediterranean, located in the Eastern of Seville (South-western, Spain). In both areas, soils are depth, generally with a profile A-B-C, and farming is the main land use.Peer reviewe

Resistance of canola cultivars affect life table parameters of Nysius cymoides (Spinola) (Hemiptera: Lygaeidae)

A life table can be used as an important and appropriate tool to evaluate the susceptibility or resistance level of different host plant cultivars to insect pests. In the current study, we determined the suitability or inferiority of five different canola cultivars (Hayula420, Hayula401, Hayula50, Hayula60, RGS) to Nysius cymoides, under laboratory conditions. Data were analysed based on the age-stage, two-sex life table theory. Nysius cymoides which fed on Hayula420 had the longest nymphal period, while those which fed on Hayula50 had the shortest nymphal period. Developmental times (sum of incubation and nymphal periods) was longest for those which fe d on Hayula420 and the shortest for those which fed on Hayula50. The adult pre-oviposition period (APOP), total pre-oviposition period (TPOP), mean fecundity, and adult longevity of adults reared on different canola cultivars showed significant differences. The highest and lowest net reproductive rates (R0) were obtained for those which fed on Hayula420 (11.40 offspring per individual) and Hayula401 (5.47 offspring per individual), respectively. The highest value (0.0395 d–1) for the intrinsic rate of increase (r) was obtained for those which fed on Hayula 60 cultivar and the lowest value (0.0261 d–1) for those which fed on Hayula401 cultivar. The shortest and longest mean generation times (T) were obtained for those which fed on RGS and H401 cultivars, respectively. The lowest and highest values of life expectancy (exj) were obtained for those which fed on RGS and Hayula420 cultivars, respectively. The results showed that Hayula401 and RGS were not susceptible cultivars to N. cymoides. These cultivars showed higher resistance to N. cymoides, while Hayula60, Hayula420, and Hayula50 were found to be suitable cultivars but with lower resistance to N. cymoides, respectively

Alcor and Aljarafe models application for exploring the agro-ecological limits of sustainability in Ahar area (Iran)

Comunicación oral y póster presentados en la citada conferencia, sesión 3, celebrada del 21-24, septiembre, 2009, en Bratislava, Slovakia.Peer reviewe