Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Patterns of Industrial Evolution, Dominant Designs, and Firms' Survival

This paper surveys recent research on the concept of a dominant product design. The point of departure for the survey is the idea that dominant designs occur which shift the terms of competition in an industry. A dominant design is defined as a specific path along a design hierarchy, which establishes primacy among competing design paths. The way in which this might occur and its implications for innovation and competition are then explored. Evidence from the literature covering a number of industries in the United States is then surveyed and compared with original evidence, first presented here, from some of the same industries in Japan. The dominant design which emerges in each industry is not necessarily the result solely of technical potentials, but also of timing, collateral assets, and other circumstances. In several cases dominant designs have not or have not yet occurred. Once a degree of standardization is accepted, major innovations in an industry seem less and less likely to occur short of a wave of new entrants and increasing competition. In contrast, entry and innovation in Japan seem to occur following appearance of the dominant design, and implies that firms can pursue widely different strategies so long as their strategy is linked to the state of evolution of their core technology. Implications for further research are discussed, and the idea that a dominant design is related to information economies for users is introduced. Thus, for a design to be dominant or a standard requires a degree of experimentation and a rich collaboration between producers and users, not simply a synthesis of parts and functions in a product.
Warning: Inflation May Be Harmful to Your Growth

While few doubt that very high inflation is bad for growth, there is less agreement about the effects of moderate inflation. Using panel regressions and allowing for a nonlinear specification, this paper finds a statistically and economically significant negative relationship between inflation and growth, which holds robustly at all but the lowest inflation rates. A "decision-tree" technique identifies inflation as one of the most important determinants of growth. Finally, short-run growth costs of disinflation are only relevant for the most severe disinflations, or when the initial inflation rate is well within the single-digit range.
MOTIVATIONAL BELIEFS AND LEARNING STRATEGY USE: THE CASE OF GRADUATE PRE-SERVICE TEACHERS

This paper presents the findings of a study to investigate graduate pre-service teachers’ motivational beliefs and learning strategy use. One hundred and sixty-four graduate pre-service teachers (60 males, 104 females) enrolled in a Diploma in Education Program participated in this study. Their responses to an adapted version of the Motivated Strategies for Learning Questionnaire (MSLQ) (Duncan & McKeachie, 2005; Pintrich, Smith, Garcia, & McKeachie, 1991) provided the data on motivational beliefs and learning strategy use. The results show that graduate pre-service teachers’ motivational beliefs for the six motivation subscales were in the ‘high’ and ‘very high’ categories, with mean values ranging from 4.81 to 5.86. Meanwhile, they reported of ‘high’ use of learning strategies, with mean values ranging from 4.88 to 5.65, for the nine learning strategy use subscales. Independent samples t-test results showed that there was no significant gender difference (p > .05) in motivational beliefs overall as well as for individual subscales. However, overall there was significant gender difference (p < .05) in the use of learning strategies. Female graduate preservice teachers reported significantly greater use of one of the learning strategy subscales, that is, management of time and study environment, than males did. There was no significant gender difference for all other learning strategies subscales. In conclusion, implications of the findings and suggestions for further research are put forward.
Pricing and Information Disclosure in Markets with Loss-Averse Consumers

We develop a theory of imperfect competition with loss-averse consumers. All consumers are fully informed about match value and price at the time they make their purchasing decision. However, a share of consumers are initially uncertain about their tastes and form a reference point consisting of an expected match value and an expected price distribution, while other consumers are perfectly informed all the time. We derive pricing implications in duopoly with asymmetric firms. In particular, we show that a market may exhibit more price variation the larger the share of uninformed, loss-averse consumers. We also derive implications for firm strategy and public policy concerning firms’ incentives to inform consumers about their match value prior to forming their reference point.
School Psychologists' Training and Knowledge of Tourette Syndrome

School Psychologists’ Training and Knowledge of Tourette Syndrome by Leticia H. Cornejo A web-based survey was conducted that included 97 practicing school psychologists in California. The results from the survey indicated that the majority (88%) of respondents were knowledgeable about Tourette Syndrome. Many respondents (28%) had never worked with a student with Tourette’s, 20% had at least one case, and 52% indicated that they had worked with more than two cases in their careers as school psychologists. The majority of respondents indicated that their school psychology program did not adequately train them to assess or counsel students with Tourette’s. The majority of participants also did not feel confident to work with students with Tourette’s. As found in the study, school psychologists are in need of training to better serve children with Tourette Syndrome. Children, whether diagnosed with Tourette Syndrome or not, may exhibit difficulties making academic progress because of tic related issues, as well as comorbid disorders such as Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD). Schools typically are where students spend many hours of their day, and where those who are knowledgeable about Tourette’s can identify and provide needed supports depending on the student’s needs. Therefore, school psychologists play a key role in facilitating proper education regarding Tourette’s to
Frequency of Resistance to Bacillus thuringiensis Toxin Cry1Ab in an Iowa Population of European Corn Borer (Lepidoptera: Crambidae)

Abstract The refuge plus high-dose strategy for resistance management assumes that the frequency of resistance alleles is low. We used an F2 screen to estimate the frequency of resistance to transgenic corn that produces Bacillus thuringiensis Berliner Cry1Ab toxin (Bt corn) in an Iowa population of European corn borer, Ostrinia nubilalis (Hübner). We also proposed a modification to the statistical analysis of the F2 screen that extends its application for nonuniform prior distributions and for repeated sampling of a single population. Based on a sample of 188 isofemale lines derived from females caught at light traps during the 2nd flight of 1997, we show with 95% confidence that the frequency of resistance to Bt corn was <3.9 × 10−3 in this Iowa population. These results provide weak evidence that the refuge plus high-dose strategy may be effective for managing resistance in O. nubilalis to Bt corn. Partial resistance to Cry1Ab toxin was found commonly. The 95% CI for the frequency of partial resistance were [8.2 × 10−4, 9.4 × 10−3] for the Iowa population. Variable costs of the method were $14.90 per isofemale line, which was a reduction of 25% compared with our initial estimate.
Modeling food-web dynamics: Complexity-stability implications

Understanding the structure and dynamics of ecological networks is critical for understanding the persistence and stability of ecosystems. Determining the interplay among network structure, network dynamics, and various aspects of stability such as persistence, robustness, and resilience in complex ‘‘real-world’’ networks is one of the greatest current challenges in the natural and social sciences, and it represents an exciting and dramatically expanding area of cross-disciplinary inquiry (Strogatz 2001). Within ecology, food-web research represents a long tradition of both empirical and theoretical network analysis (e.g. Elton 1927; Lindeman 1942; MacArthur 1955; Paine 1966; May 1973). All aspects of ecological network research have increasing relevance (McCann 2000) for a world facing biodiversity and habitat loss, invasive species, climate change, and other anthropogenic factors that are resulting in the drastic reorganization of many ecosystems, and in some cases may lead to the collapse of ecosystems and the vital, underappreciated services they provide human society (Daily 1997). Most theoretical studies of trophic dynamics have focused narrowly on predator–prey or parasite–host interactions, and have thus ignored network structure. In natural ecosystems such interaction dyads are embedded in diverse, complex food webs, where many additional taxa and their direct and indirect effects can play important roles for both the stability of focal species as well as the stability of the broader community. Moving beyond the oneor two-species population dynamics modeling paradigm, other research has expanded the focus to include 3–8 species, exploring dynamics in slightly more complex systems. However, these interaction modules still present a drastic simplification of the diversity and structure of natural ecosystems. Other approaches have focused on higher diversity ecological networks, but have either left out dynamics altogether (e.g. network topology and carbon-budget studies) or ignored network structure in order to conduct analytically tractable dynamical analyses. The nature of modeling requires judicious simplifications (Yodzis and Innes 1992), but such choices can leave empirical ecologists suspicious and theoretical ecologists perplexed, both wondering how to bridge the gap between simple mathematical models and complex natural systems. At worst, theoreticians and empiricists end up ignoring or deriding each other’s work, dismissing it as irrelevant for being too abstract or too particular, never the twain shall meet. In this chapter, we focus on theoretical aspects of the broader food-web research agenda, particularly the background and various approaches used for modeling food-web dynamics in abstract systems with more than two taxa. Much of this type of modeling has oriented itself around the classic (May 1972) and enduring (McCann 2000) complexity–stability debate, especially those aspects which relate to the theoretical and associated empirical food-web research into the relationships between ecosystem complexity, often characterized as number of links and/or number
Innovation, absorptive capacity, environmental complexity, trust and cooperation within clusters.

Purpose – Innovation within clusters is a crucial aspect in regional development. In the last decades, in the literature the role of absorptive capacity, environment, trust and cooperation in leveraging both explorative and exploitive innovation has been highlighted. In this paper we assess the contributions of these factors on the basis of a comparative analysis between about 250 firms belonging to twelve cluster of six European countries. Design/methodology/approach – Knowledge acquisition, assimilation and transformation; environmental dynamism and competitiveness; trust in region and cooperation within cluster are defined and argued as driver of explorative and exploitative innovation. Each variable was defined by aggregating items measured through a seven-point Likert scale (reliability of each construct was verified by performing factor analysis and Cronbach alpha). Scatter plots and ANOVA test are applied to evaluate the statistically significant difference between clusters. Findings The results confirm the role of absorptive capacities and environmental dynamism as key drivers in innovation. Trust positively contributes to exploitative innovation more than explorative one. Cluster management subsidizes the lack of trust. Practical implications – The paper provides a comparative methodology to make the difference between cluster evident. Significant implications in regional policies could be defined to enhance innovation capacity of less innovative cluster.
The Effect of Explicit Instruction on Modality Use in L2 Academic Writing

The purpose of the present study is to examine the effect of instruction on pragmatic development in second language (L2) writing. Wishnoff (1999) investigated the effect of instruction on L2 pragmatic acquisition in writing with a particular focus on the functions of hedges, such as modal verbs, modal adverbs, and lexical verbs . The result shows that there are two main effects and an interactional effect. This research particularly focuses on the development of modal words which function as aggravating and mitigating the argument in academic writing. The participants for this research were undergraduate students who were taking an ESL writing course as a requirement. In the immediate-post test, students in the experimental group, who received explicit instruction on modality, use significantly outperformed the students in the control group, who received zero treatment. However, the durability of the instructional effect and the effect of different types of instruction (explicit/implicit/zero treatment) still remain to be explored in further studies.
Single cell trap on a chip using in-situ microfabrication with photo-crosslinkable resin and thermal gelation

Handling of microorganisms is of great interest in biology and biotechnology. Single cell capture technology has been demonstrated in our previous work with thermal gelation material and micro fluidic devise. This paper extends the system by local flow rate control to stabilize the trap with in-situ fabrication by photo-crosslinkable resin. Target cells are captured by gel and enclosed with the micro-structure. The cells, therefore, are protected from high-speed-channel flow or disturbances. This system succeeds in the separation and continuous culture of yeast cells, reaction and monitoring of the cultured cells stably by fluorescence staining in situ on a chip.
Differential regulation of components of the ubiquitin-proteasome pathway during lens cell differentiation.

PURPOSE To investigate the role for the ubiquitin-proteasome pathway in controlling lens cell proliferation and differentiation and the regulation of the ubiquitin conjugation machinery during the differentiation process. METHODS bFGF-induced lens cell proliferation and differentiation was monitored in rat lens epithelial explants by bromodeoxyuridine (BrdU) incorporation and expression of crystallins and other differentiation markers. Levels of typical substrates for the ubiquitin-proteasome pathway, p21(WAF) and p27(Kip), were monitored during the differentiation process, as were levels and activities of the enzymes involved in ubiquitin conjugation. RESULTS Explants treated with bFGF initially underwent enhanced proliferation as indicated by BrdU incorporation. Then they withdrew from the cell cycle as indicated by diminished BrdU incorporation and accumulation of p21(WAF) and p27(Kip). bFGF-induced cell proliferation was prohibited or delayed by proteasome inhibitors. Lens epithelial explants treated with bFGF for 7 days displayed characteristics of lens fibers, including expression of large quantities of crystallins. Whereas levels of E1 remained constant during the differentiation process, the levels of ubiquitin-conjugating enzyme (Ubc)-1 increased approximately twofold, and the thiol ester form of Ubc1 increased approximately threefold on 7 days of bFGF treatment. Levels of Ubc2 increased moderately on bFGF treatment, and most of the Ubc2 was found in the thiol ester form. Although levels of total Ubc3 and -7 remained unchanged, the proportions of Ubc3 and -7 in the thiol ester form were significantly higher in the bFGF-treated explants. Levels of Ubc4/5 and -9 also increased significantly on treatment with bFGF, and more than 90% of Ubc9 was found in the thiol ester form in the bFGF-treated explants. In contrast, levels of Cul1, the backbone of the SCF type of E3s, decreased 50% to 70% in bFGF-treated explants. CONCLUSIONS The data show that proteolysis through the ubiquitin-proteasome pathway is required for bFGF-induced lens cell proliferation and differentiation. Various components of the ubiquitin-proteasome pathway are differentially regulated during lens cell differentiation. The downregulation of Cul1 appears to contribute to the accumulation of p21(WAF) and p27(Kip), which play an important role in establishing a differentiated phenotype.
Integrated STEM defined: Contexts, challenges, and the future

We are in the process of transition from the digital revolution, or the information age, to the age of synthesis (Cai, 2011; Hall, 1995). We argue that teaching and learning in the age of synthesis targets new domains of expertise: evaluating and applying seemingly disparate information, accommodating the accelerated emergence of new knowledge and sophisticated technologies, preparing for transdisciplinary careers, and merging traditional disciplines to better meet the needs of citizens in the 21st century. For example, developing careers such as biomedical nanotechnology engineers require science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) professionals who work collaboratively using information from computing, biology, medicine, chemistry, and engineering to synthesize new approaches and solutions resulting in novel and innovative products and procedures for addressing complex health-related issues (Yamaguchi, 2012). The age of synthesis is becoming the new norm to address the grand challenges we are facing in energy, transportation, clean water, and climate change. Expectations are growing for all learners to be able to synthesize vast amount of available information by filtering and applying ideas to develop new understanding and solutions. Teaching students integrated STEM is critical in preparing them for the age of synthesis. Part of the preparation is engaging students in integrated STEM learning opportunities that require them to apply and synthesize from multiple STEM disciplines. Since integrated STEM is needed to address grand challenges, there is warrant for defining the construct, particularly in contrast to nonintegrated STEM. The future of integrated STEM in society led to the focus on this special issue as we explore the teaching and learning of this emerging area of STEM education. Our introduction starts with defining integrated STEM which provided the guidelines for the reports of our special issue. We then discuss the justification and importance of context for teaching integrated STEM. As integrated STEM may be considered an educational innovation, we present two substantial challenges to the implementation. We close with some considerations for the future as we consider the possible wide spread implementation of integrated STEM curriculum and instruction. Throughout we link to the integrated STEM research articles published in the edition. Defining integrated STEM
Plasma Antioxidant Capacity Changes Following a Meal as a Measure of the Ability of a Food to Alter In Vivo Antioxidant Status

Objective: Determine 1) if consumption of a meal of different fruits or berries increases plasma hydrophilic (H-) or lipophilic (L-) antioxidant capacity (AOC) measured as Oxygen Radical Absorbance Capacity (ORACFL); 2) if including macronutrients in the meal alters postprandial changes in AOC; and 3) if preliminary recommendations can be developed for antioxidant intake. Methods: Changes in plasma AOC following consumption of a single meal of berries/fruits (blueberry, dried plum, dried plum juice, grape, cherry, kiwifruit and strawberry) were studied in 5 clinical trials with 6–10 subjects per experiment. In two studies with blueberry or grape, additional macronutrients (carbohydrate, fat, protein) were included in the control and treatment meals. Blood samples collected before and after the meal were analyzed for AOC. Results: Consumption of dried plums or dried plum juice did not alter either the H- or L-AOC area under the curve (AUC). Consumption of blueberry in 2 studies and of mixed grape powder [12.5 (Study #1), 39.9 (Study #4) and 8.6 (Study #5) mmole Trolox Equivalents (TE) AOC, respectively] increased hydrophilic AOC AUC. L-AOC increased following a meal of blueberry containing 12.5 mmole TE AOC (Study #1). Consumption of 280 g of cherries (4.5 mmol TE AOC) increased plasma L-AOC but not H-AOC. The AOC in the control groups in which additional macronutrients (Studies #4 and #5) were added decreased from the postprandial baseline AOC measurement. Conclusion: We have demonstrated that consumption of certain berries and fruits such as blueberries, mixed grape and kiwifruit, was associated with increased plasma AOC in the postprandial state and consumption of an energy source of macronutrients containing no antioxidants was associated with a decline in plasma AOC. However, without further long term clinical studies, one cannot necessarily translate increased plasma AOC into a potential decreased risk of chronic degenerative disease. Preliminary estimates of antioxidant needs based upon energy intake were developed. Consumption of high antioxidant foods with each meal is recommended in order to prevent periods of postprandial oxidative stress.
The use of NARX neural networks to predict chaotic time series

The prediction of chaotic time series with neural networks is a traditional practical problem of dynamic systems. This paper is not intended for proposing a new model or a new methodology, but to study carefully and thoroughly several aspects of a model on which there are no enough communicated experimental data, as well as to derive conclusions that would be of interest. The recurrent neural networks (RNN) models are not only important for the forecasting of time series but also generally for the control of the dynamical system. A RNN with a sufficiently large number of neurons is a nonlinear autoregressive and moving average (NARMA) model, with "moving average" referring to the inputs. The prediction can be assimilated to identification of dynamic process. An architectural approach of RNN with embedded memory, "Nonlinear Autoregressive model process with eXogenous input" (NARX), showing promising qualities for dynamic system applications, is analyzed in this paper. The performances of the NARX model are verified for several types of chaotic or fractal time series applied as input for neural network, in relation with the number of neurons, the training algorithms and the dimensions of his embedded memory. In addition, this work has attempted to identify a way to use the classic statistical methodologies (R/S Rescaled Range analysis and Hurst exponent) to obtain new methods of improving the process efficiency of the prediction chaotic time series with NARX.