As mindfulness is often synonymous with equanimity, the intensity of competitive mixed martial arts serves as an ideal domain in exploring the underlying cognitive process of mindfulness in enhancing performance. Within the past two decades, interest has peaked in the positive outcomes that mindfulness produces in alleviating negative symptoms in health and clinical settings. Little research exists however in exploring the cognitive processes involved in producing the potential benefits of performance enhancement. The aim of the study was to gain a better understanding of the underlying cognitive processes involved in the workings of mindfulness; exploring whether increased levels of mindfulness would be positively correlated with increased martial arts ability. Using correlational analysis and standard multivariate regression, the participating fighters’ (n=46) levels of mindfulness were analysed in relation to their mixed martial artist’s ability. Results from correlational analysis showed that overall mindfulness was positively correlated with mixed martial arts ability, as a result confirming the study’s primary hypothesis. Results from standard multivariate regression further identified a fighter’s age as being a significant predictor for mixed martial arts ability. / Mini dissertation (MA)--University of Pretoria 2016. / Psychology / MA / Unrestricted

Forskning har visat att arbetstillfredsställelse inom vårdyrken kan vara en källa till tillfredsställelse, en indikator på god psykosociala arbetsmiljön, och till och med öka anställdas välbefinnande. Detta i och med vetskapen kring de positiva effekterna av mänskliga möten. Syftet med examensarbetet var att beskriva den självupplevda psykosociala arbetsmiljön hos arbetsterapeuter inom kommunal hälso- och sjukvård i södra Sverige. Examensarbetet genomfördes i form av en kvantitativ tvärsnittsstudie, där 51 respondenter deltog genom att svara på enkäten WEMS (Work Experience Measurement Scale). Resultatet visade att arbetsterapeuterna hade relativt god upplevelse av sitt arbete och sin arbetsplats. Antalet år på nuvarande arbetsplatsen, antalet yrkesverksamma år och arbetsprocent var demografiska data som inte påverkade arbetsterapeuternas arbetsupplevelser. Slutsatsen visade att respondenterna överlag var relativt nöjda med sitt arbete och sin arbetssituation. Förbättringar kan dock göras inom alla områden, framförallt inom tidsupplevelse. / Research has shown that job satisfaction in healthcare professions can be a source of satisfaction, an indicator of a good psychosocial work environment, and even increase employees’ well-being. This can be found in the cognizance about the positive effects that human encounters come with. The thesis aimed to describe the self-perceived psychosocial work environment of occupational therapists in municipal health care in southern Sweden. The thesis was conducted in the form of a quantitative cross-sectional study, in which 51 respondents participated by answering the WEMS (Work Experience Measurement Scale) survey. The result showed that occupational therapists had a relatively good experience of their work and their workplace. The number of years at the workplace, the number of working years, and work percentage were demographic data that did not affect the occupational therapists’ work experience. In conclusion, the respondents were generally satisfied with their work and work situation. However, improvements can be made in all areas, especially within the time dimension.

L'amélioration d'image est une sorte de technique pour améliorer la qualité visuelle d'image, qui joue un rôle très important dans les domaines du traitement d'image et de la vision d'ordinateur. En particulier, nous considérons la correction de couleur et l'amélioration de contraste pour améliorer la qualité d'image.Dans la première partie de cette thèse, nous nous concentrons sur la correction des couleurs pour les images naturelles. Tout d'abord, nous donnons un examen simple de la correction des couleurs. Deuxièmement, nous proposons une méthode efficace de correction des couleurs pour la couture d'images via la spécification d'histogramme et la cartographie globale. Troisièmement, nous présentons une approche de cohérence des couleurs pour les collections d'images, basée sur la spécification de la gamme conservation histogramme.Dans la deuxième partie, nous prêtons attention à l'amélioration du contraste pour les images et les vidéos naturelles. Tout d'abord, nous donnons un simple examen de l'amélioration du contraste. Deuxièmement, nous proposons une méthode de préservation du contraste global de naturalité, qui peut éviter une survalorisation. Troisièmement, nous présentons une méthode de fusion à base de variation pour l'amélioration de l'image d'illumination non uniforme, qui peut éviter la sur-amplification ou la sous-amélioration. Enfin, nous étendons le cadre basé sur la fusion pour améliorer les vidéos avec une stratégie temporellement cohérente, qui n'entraîne pas de scintillement des artefacts. / Image enhancement is a kind of technique to improve the image visual quality, which plays a very important role in the domains of image processing and computer vision. Specifically, we consider color correction and contrast enhancement to improve the image quality.In the first part of this thesis, we focus on color correction for natural images. Firstly, we give a simple review of color correction. Secondly, we propose an efficient color correction method for image stitching via histogram specification and global mapping. Thirdly, we present a color consistency approach for image collections, based on range preserving histogram specification.In the second part, we pay attention to contrast enhancement for natural images and videos. Firstly, we give a simple review of contrast enhancement. Secondly, we propose a naturalness preservation global contrast enhancement method, which can avoid over-enhancement. Thirdly, we present a variational-based fusion method for non-uniform illumination image enhancement, which can avoid overenhancement or under-enhancement. Finally, we extend the fusion-based framework to enhance videos with a temporally consistent strategy, which does not result in flickering artifacts.

In this thesis we investigate the use of GANs for texture enhancement. To achievethis, we have studied if synthetic satellite images generated by GANs will improvethe texture in satellite-based 3D maps. We investigate two GANs; SRGAN and pix2pix. SRGAN increases the pixelresolution of the satellite images by generating upsampled images from low resolutionimages. As for pip2pix, the GAN performs image-to-image translation bytranslating a source image to a target image, without changing the pixel resolution. We trained the GANs in two different approaches, named SAT-to-AER andSAT-to-AER-3D, where SAT, AER and AER-3D are different datasets provided bythe company Vricon. In the first approach, aerial images were used as groundtruth and in the second approach, rendered images from an aerial-based 3D mapwere used as ground truth. The procedure of enhancing the texture in a satellite-based 3D map was dividedin two steps; the generation of synthetic satellite images and the re-texturingof the 3D map. Synthetic satellite images generated by two SRGAN models andone pix2pix model were used for the re-texturing. The best results were presentedusing SRGAN in the SAT-to-AER approach, in where the re-textured 3Dmap had enhanced structures and an increased perceived quality. SRGAN alsopresented a good result in the SAT-to-AER-3D approach, where the re-textured3D map had changed color distribution and the road markers were easier to distinguishfrom the ground. The images generated by the pix2pix model presentedthe worst result. As for the SAT-to-AER approach, even though the syntheticsatellite images generated by pix2pix were somewhat enhanced and containedless noise, they had no significant impact in the re-texturing. In the SAT-to-AER-3D approach, none of the investigated models based on the pix2pix frameworkpresented any successful results. We concluded that GANs can be used as a texture enhancer using both aerialimages and images rendered from an aerial-based 3D map as ground truth. Theuse of GANs as a texture enhancer have great potential and have several interestingareas for future works.

In this research I investigate the problem of education quality at the faculties of Social Sciences at four Georgian Public Universities. The findings of research are derived through interviewing of professors and document analysis of Georgian legislation concerning higher education and European-level frameworks supporting the enhancement of education quality. I deal with the problem of quality using the mixture of theories. I divided researched topics in three parts: Ideological, Institutional and personal-level. The majority of theoretical claims were disproved in the local context of Georgia. Education quality and knowledge production are multi-faceted problems at Georgian Public Universities, Faculties of Social Sciences and it mainly is related to the scarce state resources allocated to HEIs in general in Georgia.

Infectious pathogens are a prominent threat to human health in the world. There is a ubiquitous need for safe and reliable pathogen inactivation in the entire health care sector and pharmaceutical industry. Unfortunately, existing chemical treatment methods for virus inactivation have shortcomings as they introduce toxic chemicals or alter the structure of the products, which often pose significant side effects. Furthermore, considering the alarming growth of antibiotic resistances and hospital associated microbial infections, there is an urgent need for alternative pathogen inactivation strategies. Femtosecond (fs) pulsed laser irradiation technique is a promising solution free of added toxic chemicals and does not require the invention of new antibiotics for inactivation of virus contaminations in biological samples. Conventional pulsed laser techniques require relatively long irradiation times to achieve a significant viral inactivation. This thesis is focused on developing a novel photonic inactivation approach that is selective to pathogens, doesn’t compromise the protein-based pharmaceuticals, and is obtained without specific targeting to the pathogens. In our study, we report comparative studies using femtosecond laser pulses generated using Chirped Pulse Amplification (CPA) centered at either 800 nm or frequency-doubled 400 nm wavelengths, on the model bacteriophage φX174. We show that photonic inactivation is wavelength dependent and a Log Reduction Value (LRV) of > 6 in a 2 ml bacteriophage sample volume is achieved with less than 1 min of 400 nm laser exposure. Traditional methods for assaying viral inactivation require cell culture studies that can take up to 48–72 hours. We describe a solid-state nanopore technique that can monitor the effect of this optical viral therapy in under 10 minutes. By developing a statistical model based on the probability distribution function obtained from nanopore data, we monitor the survival fraction of viruses with low sample volume, high precision and fast assay time. Lastly, the purely photonic virus inactivation requires UV fs laser irradiation, which can risk photodamage to biologics. In our research, we introduce a novel inactivation approach that takes advantage of the strong light-matter interactions provided by noble metal nanoparticle (NP) structures that sustain plasmons. We report a plasmonically enhanced virus inactivation of Murine Leukemia Virus (MLV) via 10 s laser exposure with 800 nm fs pulses through gold nanorods, with LRV>3.7. We demonstrate that this NP-enhanced, physical inactivation approach is effective against a diverse group of pathogens, including both enveloped and non-enveloped viruses, and a variety of bacteria and mycoplasma. Importantly, the fs-pulse induced inactivation was selective to the pathogens and did not induce any measurable damage to co-incubated antibodies, or to large mammalian cells. Based on the observations, a model of selective pathogen inactivation based on plasmon enhanced cavitation is proposed.

No description available.

Past studies have shown that ontogenetic treatment of quinpirole (QNP) produces a number of behavioral effects that can be alleviated by administration of antipsychotics such as haloperidol, providing a useful behavioral screen for disorders such as schizophrenia. In this study, 16 female Sprague-dawley rats were used, with 8 rats injected with QNP(1 mg/kg) and 8 rats injected with saline once daily from postnatal days (PD) 1-11. All rats were behaviorally tested as adults on several tasks: The reference and working memory versions of the Morris water task (MWT), the radial arm maze (RAM), the Whishaw reaching task, and locomotor activity. Results showed that on the MWT, QNP-treated rats demonstrated significant enhancement on acquisition latency of both versions, but a deficit on the probe trial of the reference memory version. The acquisition enhancement was due to hyperlocomotion observed in QNP-treated rats, because these animals demonstrated increased locomotion in an activity chamber compared to controls. On the RAM, QNP-treated rats demonstrated a deficit in reference memory but not working memory, congruent with MWT findings. Interestingly, QNP-treated rats demonstrated a significant enhancement in reaching accuracy on the Whishaw reaching task, which may due to an overactive dopaminergic system. Future studies will analyze underlying mechanisms.

Planting native species after a major disturbance is a critical tool land managers use to stabilize soils, restore ecosystem processes, and prevent weed invasion. However, within the sagebrush steppe and other arid and semi-arid environments the percentage of sown seeds that produce an adult plant is remarkably low. Applying fertilizers at the time of planting may improve native plant establishment by increasing the ability of the seedlings to cope with environmental stresses. However, traditional fertilizer applications are often economically infeasible and may be counterproductive by encouraging weed invasion. Seed coating technology allows for the efficient application of fertilizers within the microsite of the seeded species. The objective of our research was to determine the optimal rate of fertilizer to apply to the seed to improve seedling emergence and plant growth. We applied a phosphorus (P) rich fertilizer (0.13 g P g-1) to bluebunch wheatgrass (Pseudoroegneria spicata (Pursh) Á. Löve) seeds in a rotary coater at rates ranging from 0 to 50 g of fertilizer 100 g-1 seed. Three separate studies were conducted to test germination, biomass, relative growth rate, and tissue nutrient uptake. Study one showed decreasing root and shoot biomass and increasing time to 50% germination as fertilizer rates increased. Study two showed no difference in relative growth rate between the controls and fertilizer treatments. Study three showed no difference in root and shoot biomass or nutrient concentration between treatments except in the lowest fertilizer treatment (10 g fertilizer 100 g-1 seed), which was significantly lower in root and shoot biomass than all other treatments but had higher P tissue concentrations than all other treatments. Collectively these results showed no evidence that a P fertilizer coating could aid in bluebunch wheatgrass seedling establishment. Because bluebunch wheatgrass and similar late-seral plants have evolved with low nutrient requirements they may not be physiologically capable of handling increased nutrient supply, which may explain the results of our studies. Continued studies and fieldwork need to be performed to evaluate the potential of fertilizer seed coatings in restoration efforts.

With many natural landscapes undergoing restoration efforts, there is a growing need for the optimization of direct seeding practices. Seeds planted on wildlands are often consumed by rodents leading to reduced plant establishment. Coating seeds in rodent aversive products may prevent seed predation. We tested ten seed-coating formulations containing products expected to deter rodents, namely: ghost and cayenne pepper powders; essential oils from bergamot, neem, and pine; methyl-nonyl-ketone, anthraquinone, activated carbon, beta-cyclodextrin and a blank coating containing no rodent deterrents to serve as a control treatment. Each treatment was applied to Pseudoroegneria spicata (bluebunch wheatgrass) seeds. These seeds germinated similarly to uncoated control seeds unless the coating contained methyl-nonyl-ketone which reduced germination. Seeds were offered to Ord's kangaroo rats (Dipodomys ordii) that strongly avoided the treatments in favor of uncoated control seeds. Notably, the blank coating, lacking active ingredients, still elicited 99% avoidance. However, these results indicated behavior when alternative food sources are readily available, a scenario rare in nature. To address this, a second feeding experiment was conducted to observe D. ordii's behavior under calorie-restricted conditions. D. ordii were subjected to a fast period and then offered only one treatment. Under these conditions, many subjects chose to consume coated seeds, but to a lesser degree than subjects offered control seeds. Seeds coated in ghost pepper, neem oil, and activated carbon reduced consumption by 47-50%. Given these lab results, we would expect these seed-coatings to increase the establishment of native seeds following the direct seeding of wildlands by deterring rodent seed-predation.