Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Strategy-as-Power: Ambiguity, Contradiction and the Exercise of Power in a UK Building Society

‘Strategy-as-practice’ (s-a-p) scholars have urged us to attend to the messy realities of strategy so as to increase the relevance of research for practititoners. This article, whilst recognizing the need to focus on what managers do, develops a critique of this literature. It argues that the s-a-p approach (Whittington, Jarzabkowski, Johnson, Balogun) and the earlier ‘Power School’ (Mintzberg, Pettigrew, Pfeffer) share much in common as both present power as the possession of management. This overstates the ability of managers to control others whilst understating the scope for resistance. Second, it asserts that both approaches would benefit from greater sensitivity towards the unequal context through which strategies emerge and that they serve, in part, to reproduce. Third, the article provides an empirical study of strategy in a UK Building Society. It attends to how power is exercised in ambiguous and contradictory ways that both supports and thwarts managerial endeavours. Through considering the uncertainty that results from this, the case reflects on the possibilities for resistance. The central argument is that if we explore practice only from management’s perspective, then we are in danger of not only reinforcing the status quo but also of being irrelevant to practitioners and wider constituents.
Combining Schwann Cell Bridges and Olfactory-Ensheathing Glia Grafts with Chondroitinase Promotes Locomotor Recovery after Complete Transection of the Spinal Cord

Numerous obstacles to successful regeneration of injured axons in the adult mammalian spinal cord exist. Consequently, a treatment strategy inducing axonal regeneration and significant functional recovery after spinal cord injury has to overcome these obstacles. The current study attempted to address multiple impediments to regeneration by using a combinatory strategy after complete spinal cord transection in adult rats: (1) to reduce inhibitory cues in the glial scar (chondroitinase ABC), (2) to provide a growth-supportive substrate for axonal regeneration [Schwann cells (SCs)], and (3) to enable regenerated axons to exit the bridge to re-enter the spinal cord (olfactory ensheathing glia). The combination of SC bridge, olfactory ensheathing glia, and chondroitinase ABC provided significant benefit compared with grafts only or the untreated group. Significant improvements were observed in the Basso, Beattie, and Bresnahan score and in forelimb/hindlimb coupling. This recovery was accompanied by increased numbers of both myelinated axons in the SC bridge and serotonergic fibers that grew through the bridge and into the caudal spinal cord. Although prominent descending tracts such as the corticospinal and reticulospinal tracts did not successfully regenerate through the bridge, it appeared that other populations of regenerated fibers were the driving force for the observed recovery; there was a significant correlation between numbers of myelinated fibers in the bridge and improved coupling of forelimb and hindlimb as well as open-field locomotion. Our study tests how proven experimental treatments interact in a well-established animal model, thus providing needed direction for the development of future combinatory treatment regimens.
Creative Thinking and Moral Reasoning of Academically Gifted Secondary School Adolescents

It has become almost axiomatic to say that the welfare of the world rests significantly with the realization and utilization of the potential of the gifted and talented youth to solve future social, economic, ecological, political, and human problems. In a world characterized by overwhelming rapidity of change coupled by increasing growth in complexity and unpredictability, different qualities of the intellect are required in contrast to the ability to find
The Allure of Order: High Hopes, Dashed Expectations, and the Troubled Quest to Remake American Schooling

issues associated with minimum income protection. Again, these chapters address important questions. What are the trends in labor market activation policy? Are social income protection policies moving from a national to a more localized scale? What are the characteristics of minimum income protection policies in Eastern and Central European countries? Should the European Union focus on minimum income protection? The first two questions are addressed through historically situated analyses, while the last two questions are answered utilizing data from the most recent decade. While this book is novel and timely, it would benefit from a concluding chapter that ties all of the chapters together. The last chapter asks a very big question: should the European Union be involved in minimum income protection? The authors present new data in this chapter to make a strong and convincing argument, noting that this is a complex question without a simple answer. Yet, how do the results from earlier chapters speak to this question? Ideally, the authors or the editors would have expanded on this final chapter to integrate the findings from different chapters for different subgroups in society when contemplating this important question. Regardless, Minimum Income Protection in Flux is a timely publication that addresses an important topic of public discourse. It should appeal to policymakers and public policy scholars. The book is broad and thorough, and provides a much needed understanding of how minimum income protection policies have developed over time and what the implications are for impoverishment.
Relationship on Work-Related Values of Singaporean and Japanese Managers in Singapore

This study attempts to assess work-related values in Singapore and how these work values may differ from those of another nationality. The aim of this study is to replicate Hofstede's model in the Singapore managerial context. A comparison is made between Singaporean Chinese managers and Japanese managers in Singapore. Hofstede's four value dimensions of Individualism, Power Distance, Uncertainty Avoidance and Masculinity are used. The mean Power Distance and Masculinity scores of Singaporean Chinese managers and Japanese managers are found to be different from the samples in Hofstede's study. These differences in work values indicate that interpretations of Hofstede's cultural constructs cannot be made without modifying or redefining the constructs in terms that are relevant to the cultural context. This finding is supported by the differences in factors that make up the Individualism and Masculinity value dimensions of Singaporean Chinese and Japanese managers. The differences in work values between are explained by cultural and national factors. The impact of these work values on work behavior is discussed with respect to implications on motivation, leadership, employment stability, and orientation toward work goals.
Energetic responses to variation in food availability in the two mountain gorilla populations (Gorilla beringei beringei).

OBJECTIVE Here, we compare food availability and relate this to differences in energy intake rates, time spent feeding, and daily travel distance of gorillas in the two populations. Comparative intraspecific studies investigating spatiotemporal variation in food availability can help us understand the complex relationships between ecology, behavior, and life history in primates and are relevant to understanding hominin evolution. Differences in several variables have been documented between the two mountain gorilla populations in the Virunga Massif and Bwindi Impenetrable National Park, but few direct comparisons that link ecological conditions to feeding behavior have been made. MATERIALS AND METHODS Using similar data collection protocols we conducted vegetation sampling and nutritional analysis on important foods to estimate food availability. Detailed observations of feeding behavior were used to compute energy intake rates and daily travel distance was estimated through GPS readings. RESULTS Food availability was overall lower and had greater temporal variability in Bwindi than in the Virungas. Energy intake rates and time spent feeding were similar in both populations, but energy intake rates were significantly higher in Bwindi during the period of high fruit consumption. Daily travel distances were significantly shorter in the Virungas. CONCLUSIONS Overall, despite the differences in food availability, we did not find large differences in the energetics of gorillas in the two populations, although further work is needed to more precisely quantify energy expenditure and energy balance. These results emphasize that even species with high food availability can exhibit behavioral and energetic responses to variable ecological conditions, which are likely to affect growth, reproduction, and survival.
Learning through Teaching

This work is the result of a study undertaken aimed at providing an insight into the way individuals learn through their work in an organization. Twenty interviews were held with 20 managers, each lasting between 8 and 10 hours, in which a total of 282 learning stories were acquired. All those interviewed gave accounts of the learning potential that was acquired when they took on the role of teachers within their organization. Observation, listening and experimentation were the most common processes in facilitating learning during the course of teaching. The great learning potential inherent in teaching would appear to be generated as the result of a particular aspect of the teaching process itself: the encounter with diversity, which on the one hand tends to increase reflexivity while on the other hand tends to break down resistance to change. In this sense, the learning process that emerges during the course of teaching is of an intrinsically social nature, made possible by the investigation of an authentically symmetrical relationship between teacher and pupils in which all the interlocutors are able to contribute to a common goal. Teaching also proved to be an important opportunity for recognizing one's own ignorance and thereby rendering oneself open to the possibility of learning. The results of this study confirm certain evolutionary trends which are to be found in the current method of planning managerial training: the utilization of internal resources, the use of a dialogic style, the search for a link between work and training, and the use of small groups. The actual narration and exchange of learning stories also provided an opportunity for promoting the learning process in those interviewed.
"Narrowing the Gap": decreasing emergency department use by children enrolled in the Medicaid program by improving access to primary care.

OBJECTIVE To evaluate the effectiveness of increased primary care access created by North Carolina's Medicaid managed care plan, Carolina Access (CA), in reducing unnecessary emergency department (ED) use in Guilford County. METHODS Emergency department records of pediatric visits before and after the implementation of CA were analyzed. Variables included patient age, International Classification of Diseases, Ninth Revision discharge diagnosis, insurance status, date of visit, time of visit, and ZIP code. Visits were classified as either urgent or nonurgent based on discharge diagnosis. Rates of ED use per 1000 persons were calculated using county population and Medicaid enrollment figures. RESULTS A total of 54,742 ED visits occurred between January 1, 1995, and December 31, 1997. Thirty-eight percent of these visits were by children (defined as those aged 0-18 years in this study) enrolled in the Medicaid program. After the implementation of CA, monthly ED rates per 1000 children with Medicaid insurance decreased 24% from 33.5 +/- 5.3 to 25.6 +/- 2.3 (P<.001), which translates to 158 fewer visits per month by children enrolled in the Medicaid program. Nonurgent visits among the population enrolled in the Medicaid program decreased from an average monthly rate per 1000 of 17.9 +/- 3.5 to 11.2 +/- 2.5 after the implementation of CA (P<.001), accounting for most of the decrease in total visits. (All data are given as mean +/- SD.) The rates of total and nonurgent visits among the population not enrolled in the Medicaid program increased slightly. CONCLUSIONS For children with Medicaid insurance, we found a strong temporal relation between decreased visits to the ED and increased access to primary care services, services that were made available by the implementation of North Carolina's Medicaid managed care plan, CA. Specific services that may be responsible for the decreased ED use include the expanded availability of primary care physicians and the use of telephone triage systems. No similar decrease in ED use was seen among the non-Medicaid-insured group. Arch Pediatr Adolesc Med. 2000;154:791-795
THE EFFECT OF GOLF CLUB SHAFT STIFFNESS ON GOLF PERFORMANCE VARIABLES-IMPLICATIONS FOR CLUB-FITTING

The process of matching clubs with appropriate shafts to individual players is largely one of trial and error. Bending stiffness or shaft flex, mass, damping, torsional stiffness, and bend point are widely accepted as being the five main shaft properties that affect performance in golf. Considerable debate surrounds the individual and combined dynamic influence of these factors during the golf swing. The aim of this paper was to examine the effects of 5-iron clubs with shafts of different bending stiffness on selected golf performance measures. A laboratory-based experimental approach was used in the study. Eighty-four right-handed male amateur golfers gave their informed consent and participated in this investigation. Anthropometric and physical fitness measures were obtained for each subject and used in correlational analyses with shot performance measures. Objective measurements of the stance/ set-up and swing kinematics along with clubhead presentation variables were obtained for each of the golfers during swings for each of three experimental clubs. A visual inspection of body kinematics data revealed differences in shaft stiffness had no observable effect within a given subject, although obvious and expected differences were noted between subjects. While statistically significant differences were noted among shaft types for clubhead speed, solid hit factor and ball/ clubhead impact location, the actual magnitudes of these differences were considered negligible. No significant differences were noted for any of the postural variables at address due to shaft stiffness. These scientific findings lend support to conventional wisdom that shaft bending stiffness is perhaps most relevant to feeP of the golf club. However, the present study did not take into account other important launch conditions of the ball such as launch angle and spin rate. Materials and Science in Sports Edited by F.H. (Sam) Froes IMS (The Minerals, Metals & Materials Society), 2001
Performance analysis of adaptive eigenanalysis algorithms

We present a rigorous analysis of several popular forms of short memory adaptive eigenanalysis algorithms using a stochastic averaging method. A first-order analysis shows that the algorithms do not have any equilibrium points despite published claims to the contrary. Through averaging analysis, we show that they hover around an appropriate eigenvector. A second-order analysis is also given without the Gaussian noise assumption, and our results greatly outperform an earlier approximation in the literature. The second-order analysis has been of much interest in the offline study but, in the dynamic adaptive case, is uncommon.
On the role of covariates in the synthetic control method

Abadie et al. (2010) derive bounds on the bias of the synthetic control estimator under a perfect balance assumption on both observed covariates and pre-treatment outcomes. In the absence of a perfect balance on covariates, we show that it is still possible to derive such bounds, albeit at the expense of relying on stronger assumptions about the effects of observed and unobserved covariates and of generating looser bounds. We also show that a perfect balance on pre-treatment outcomes does not generally imply an approximate balance for all covariates, even when they are all relevant. Our results have important implications for the implementation of the method.
One-Shot Session Recommendation Systems with Combinatorial Items

In recent years, content recommendation systems in large websites (or \emph{content providers}) capture an increased focus. While the type of content varies, e.g.\ movies, articles, music, advertisements, etc., the high level problem remains the same. Based on knowledge obtained so far on the user, recommend the most desired content. In this paper we present a method to handle the well known user-cold-start problem in recommendation systems. In this scenario, a recommendation system encounters a new user and the objective is to present items as relevant as possible with the hope of keeping the user's session as long as possible. We formulate an optimization problem aimed to maximize the length of this initial session, as this is believed to be the key to have the user come back and perhaps register to the system. In particular, our model captures the fact that a single round with low quality recommendation is likely to terminate the session. In such a case, we do not proceed to the next round as the user leaves the system, possibly never to seen again. We denote this phenomenon a \emph{One-Shot Session}. Our optimization problem is formulated as an MDP where the action space is of a combinatorial nature as we recommend in each round, multiple items. This huge action space presents a computational challenge making the straightforward solution intractable. We analyze the structure of the MDP to prove monotone and submodular like properties that allow a computationally efficient solution via a method denoted by \emph{Greedy Value Iteration} (G-VI).
Power relations and community involvement in landscape‐based cultural heritage management practice: an Australian case study

Collaborative conservation between Aboriginal people and archaeologists in Australia presents new and innovative opportunities for community control in cultural heritage management practice. Community approaches to heritage emphasise cultural landscapes and Indigenous relationships to land and sea. In this paper we illustrate the value of a community‐led cultural heritage management project in a case study from North Stradbroke Island, southeast Queensland, Australia. We document the process whereby Aboriginal traditional owners worked collaboratively with archaeologists to design and implement a method for a cultural heritage assessment that met not only legislative requirements relating to archaeological sites but also Indigenous needs regarding culturally significant landscapes. Our results demonstrate that places of Aboriginal community heritage value exist even where no sites of archaeological significance occur. In our case study we demonstrate that effective heritage management can be undertaken in accordance with appropriate Aboriginal law and community control.
Nonlinear homogenisation of trabecular bone: Effect of solid phase constitutive model

Micro-finite element models have been extensively employed to evaluate the elastic properties of trabecular bone and, to a limited extent, its yield behaviour. The macroscopic stiffness tensor and yield surface are of special interest since they are essential in the prediction of bone strength and stability of implants at the whole bone level. While macroscopic elastic properties are now well understood, yield and post-yield properties are not. The aim of this study is to shed some light on what the effect of the solid phase yield criterion is on the macroscopic yield of trabecular bone for samples with different microstructure. Three samples with very different density were subjected to a large set of apparent load cases (which is important since physiological loading is complex and can have multiple components in stress or strain space) with two different solid phase yield criteria: Drucker–Prager and eccentric–ellipsoid. The study found that these two criteria led to small differences in the macroscopic yield strains for most load cases except for those that were compression-dominated; in these load cases, the yield strains for the Drucker–Prager criterion were significantly higher. Higher density samples resulted in higher differences between the two criteria. This work provides a comprehensive assessment of the effect of two different solid phase yield criteria on the macroscopic yield strains of trabecular bone, for a wide range of load cases, and for samples with different morphology.
Effect of transplantable plasma-cell tumors on antibody response in mice.

The response to primary antigenic stimulation was measured in C3H mice bearing two types of plasma-cell tumours, the 5563 tumour producing γ-type myeloma proteins and the 5674 tumour producing β-type myeloma proteins. Haemocyanin and pneumococcus type III polysaccharide, which produce 6.5S antibodies, and sheep erythrocytes, which produce 18S haemolysins, were used. Levels of serum antibody to all antigens were low in mice with the plasma-cell tumours, compared with those in normal mice, or mice with a mammary carcinoma. The larger the tumour, the lower were the antibody levels. Antibody levels were lower generally with the 5563 tumours than with the 5647 plasma-cell tumours of similar weight. Although rapid catabolism of normal gamma globulins contributes to the low level of serum antibody in mice with the 5563 γ-type tumour, diminished responsiveness of the antigen-susceptible cells appears to be the principal factor in the impaired antibody response in mice with the 5647 β-type plasma-cell tumour.
Jemaah Islamiyah: Of Kin and Kind

Convicted terrorists from Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) have attested to using the Internet in one way or another during their operations, from sending messages to one another to looking for extremist fatwas online to justify their actions. That said, however, one would be hard pressed to prove the primacy of the Internet in their transition to violence. More often than not, more traditional elements – blood relations and marriage ties – remain the key to individual religious radicalization and political violence in Southeast Asia. This paper revisits these kinship linkages as well as quasi-kinship ones that include teacher–disciple bonds and the wider fraternity of ikhwan-ship (brotherhood) with particular regard to JI. Keeping counter-terrorism efforts in context is important or else governments could run the risk of carelessly allocating vital resources to less immediate concerns.