Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Multiple goals, motivation and academic learning.

BACKGROUND The type of academic goals pursued by students is one of the most important variables in motivational research in educational contexts. Although motivational theory and research have emphasised the somewhat exclusive nature of two types of goal orientation (learning goals versus performance goals), some studies (Meece, 1994; Seifert, 1995, 1996) have shown that the two kinds of goals are relatively complementary and that it is possible for students to have multiple goals simultaneously, which guarantees some flexibility to adapt more efficaciously to various contexts and learning situations. AIM The principal aim of this study is to determine the academic goals pursued by university students and to analyse the differences in several very significant variables related to motivation and academic learning. SAMPLE Participants were 609 university students (74% women and 26% men) who filled in several questionnaires about the variables under study. METHOD We used cluster analysis ('quick cluster analysis' method) to establish the different groups or clusters of individuals as a function of the three types of goals (learning goals, performance goals, and social reinforcement goals). By means of MANOVA, we determined whether the groups or clusters identified were significantly different in the variables that are relevant to motivation and academic learning. Lastly, we performed ANOVA on the variables that revealed significant effects in the previous analysis. RESULTS Using cluster analysis, three groups of students with different motivational orientations were identified: a group with predominance of performance goals (Group PG: n = 230), a group with predominance of multiple goals (Group MG: n = 238), and a group with predominance of learning goals (Group LG: n = 141). CONCLUSIONS Groups MG and LG attributed their success more to ability, they had higher perceived ability, they took task characteristics into account when planning which strategies to use in the learning process, they showed higher persistence, and used more deep learning strategies than did the students with predominance of performance goals (Group PG). On the other hand, Groups MG and PG took the evaluation criteria more into account when deciding which strategies to use in order to learn, and they attributed their failures more to luck than did Group LG. Students from Group MG attributed their success more to effort than did the other two groups and they attained higher achievement than Group PG. Group LG tended to attribute their failures more to lack of effort than did the other two groups.
Overseas R&D Activities and Home Productivity Growth: Evidence from Japanese Firm-Level Data

This paper investigates the impact of overseas subsidiaries' R&D activities on the productivity growth of parent firms using firm-level panel data for Japanese multinational enterprises. We distinguish between overseas R&D for the utilization and acquisition of foreign advanced knowledge, or innovative R&D, and overseas R&D for the adaptation of technologies and products to local conditions, or adaptive R&D. Our major finding is that overseas innovative R&D helps to raise the productivity growth of the parent firm, while overseas adaptive R&D has no such effect. In addition, we examine whether overseas innovative R&D has an indirect effect on home productivity growth by improving the rate of return on home R&D. However, we find no evidence of such an indirect effect, suggesting that overseas innovative R&D does not engender any knowledge transfers from overseas to home R&D units.
Regulation of protein activity with small‐molecule‐controlled inteins

Inteins are the protein analogs of self‐splicing RNA introns, as they post‐translationally excise themselves from a variety of protein hosts. Intein insertion abolishes, in general, the activity of its host protein, which is subsequently restored upon intein excision. These protein elements therefore have the potential to be used as general molecular “switches” for the control of arbitrary target proteins. Based on rational design, an intein‐based protein switch has been constructed whose splicing activity is conditionally triggered in vivo by the presence of thyroid hormone or synthetic analogs. This modified intein was used in Escherichia coli to demonstrate that a number of different proteins can be inactivated by intein insertion and then reactivated by the addition of thyroid hormone via ligand‐induced splicing. This conditional activation was also found to occur in a dose‐dependent manner. Rational protein engineering was then combined with genetic selection to evolve an additional intein whose activity is controlled by the presence of synthetic estrogen ligands. The ability to regulate protein function post‐translationally through the use of ligand‐controlled intein splicing will most likely find applications in metabolic engineering, drug discovery and delivery, biosensing, molecular computation, as well as many additional areas of biotechnology.
A UAPO Based Model for Predicting the Field Propagation Near a Tunnel Entrance

A propagation model is developed for predicting the field level near a tunnel entrance when considering a wireless communication system in automotive environments. The entrance has a rectangular cross section and its walls consist of a nonmagnetic lossy material, which is assumed to be nonpenetrable. The proposed approach allows one to evaluate the field at each observation point by summing the geometrical optics contributions and those due to the diffraction by the corners of the tunnel entrance. These two contributions are here determined by adopting a uniform asymptotic physical optics solution ad hoc derived. It is obtained by using a physical optics approximation of the equivalent surface currents induced by an incident field and by performing a uniform asymptotic evaluation of the resulting radiation integral. Numerical simulations are presented.
Updating corporate sustainability performance measurement systems

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to present an approach for guiding the evolution of a corporate sustainability performance measurement system (SPMS). Design/methodology/approach – A review of published literature highlights the need for further research on the evolution of corporate SPMSs. Building on existing research, the paper presents a three‐phase approach for structuring the evolution of a corporate SPMS: planning for an assessment of an SPMS; conducting an assessment; and following up on the results of the assessment. Key issues that must be addressed in each phase are highlighted and discussed.Findings – The approach presented in the paper will help guide decision‐makers through the process of reviewing and updating their corporate SPMS. The guidelines will provide needed insight into the challenges and opportunities associated with the evolution of a corporate SPMS.Research limitations/implications – The approach presented in the paper is a conceptual model. Opportunities for further resear.
Paramedic response time: does it affect patient survival?

OBJECTIVES One marker of quality emergency medical services care is measured by meeting an 8-minute response time guideline. This guideline was based on results of paramedic response times for nontraumatic cardiac arrest patients and has not been studied in unselected patients. The objective of this study was to evaluate the effect of paramedic response time on survival to hospital discharge in unselected patients in a large urban setting while controlling for a number of potentially important confounders, including level of illness severity. METHODS This was a retrospective cohort study performed in an urban 911-based ambulance service system. Patients transported by paramedics to a single urban county teaching hospital from January 1, 1998, to December 31, 1998, were included. Data collected included patient demographics; paramedic response, scene, and transport times; the nature of the medical complaint; and whether the patient survived to hospital discharge. Multivariable logistic regression models were developed using response time as the primary independent variable and survival to hospital discharge as the dependent variable. Covariates included scene time, transport time, age, gender, and level of illness severity. RESULTS Of 34,111 calls involving emergency response, 11,078 patients (32%) were transported to the study institution and 10,382 (94%) had response time data available. Of these, 9,559 patients (92%) had data available to categorize them into groups based on their level of illness severity and were thus included in the study. A survival benefit was identified for response times <or=4 minutes (odds ratio [OR], 0.70; 95% confidence interval [CI] = 0.52 to 0.95). No survival benefit was identified when response time was modeled as a continuous variable (OR, 1.01; 95% CI = 0.98 to 1.04) or when dichotomized at 8 minutes (OR, 1.06; 95% CI = 0.80 to 1.42). CONCLUSIONS A paramedic response time within 8 minutes was not associated with improved survival to hospital discharge after controlling for several important confounders, including level of illness severity. However, a survival benefit was identified when the response time was within 4 minutes for patients with intermediate or high risk of mortality. Adherence to the 8-minute response time guideline in most patients who access out-of-hospital emergency services is not supported by these results.
Gender‐Specific Human Capital, Openness and Growth: Exploring the Linkages for South Asia

Using data covering 1970–2008 for South Asia, this study investigates the influence of human capital disaggregated by gender, on economic growth. We use an extended version of the Solow growth model with per capita gross domestic product (GDP) a function of the key variables, viz. physical capital accumulation, human capital accumulation, trade openness and capital flows, fiscal policy and financial development. The key contribution of this study is to show that openness when interacted with the human capital stock disaggregated by gender, has differential impacts on economic growth. While the positive impact of male secondary schooling captures the direct skill effect relative to primary schooling, the marginal influence of female primary/secondary schooling fails to show a positive impact on growth at higher levels of openness. An implication stemming from this study is that educational opportunities for females at the secondary level should be increased for South Asia.
Modern pension fund diversification

The risk and return characteristics of a highly diversified investment portfolio are examined in an effort to best assess its potential by means that incorporate both conventional risk estimation and performance evaluation. Estimation of performance variability and downside risk often assumes a constant, stable, average covariance matrix of asset returns and only provides an indirect gauge of capacity for the downside compensation interplay between assets. Performance measurement allows for final conclusions to be drawn, but does not capture the structural characteristics leading to results, nor does it make a distinction between chance occurrence and structural bias. The Mahalanobis distance is employed in order to quantify both aspects simultaneously and document a contemporary shift in advanced pension trust management. The asset liability structures of pension trusts allow for unusually long time horizons and managing agencies typically possess the resources necessary to select and maintain opaquely priced investments in a controlled fashion. A particular pension fund history, involving a period of transition from a conventional, strictly US-based mix of stocks, bonds, real estate and cash, to a more diversified set of eight additional asset classes, allows for discussion of first results and assessment of the trend toward diversification.
Using State Child Labor Laws to Identify the Effect of School‐Year Work on High School Achievement

This article uses variation in the labor supply of twelfth‐grade students created by interstate variations in child labor laws to estimate the effect of school‐year work on twelfth‐grade math achievement. The instrumental variable estimates in this article indicate that an exogenous decrease in school‐year hours worked of 10 hours per week would result in a 0.2 standard deviation increase in math scores. Comparisons to ordinary least squares estimates suggest that failure to account for the endogeneity of the labor supply decisions of high school students will result in underestimates of the negative impact of school‐year work on academic achievement.
The state of urban health in India; comparing the poorest quartile to the rest of the urban population in selected states and cities

India has the world’s second largest urban population (after China). This paper shows the large disparities within this urban population in health-related indicators. It shows the disparities for child and maternal health, provision for health care and housing conditions between the poorest quartile and the rest of the urban population for India and for several of its most populous states. In the poorest quartile of India’s urban population, only 40 per cent of 12 to 23 month-old children were completely immunized in 2004—2005, 54 per cent of under-five year-olds were stunted, 82 per cent did not have access to piped water at home and 53 per cent were not using a sanitary flush or pit toilet. The paper also shows the large disparities in eight cities between the poorest population (the population in the city that is within the poorest quartile for India’s urban areas), the population living in settlements classified as “slums” and the non-slum population. It also highlights the poor performance in some health-related indicators for the population that is not part of the poorest quartile in several states — for instance in under-five mortality rates, in the proportion of stunted children and in the proportion of households with no piped water supply to their home.
Farm Tourism in Slovenia: Mosaic Structure and Future Prospects

Over the last decade, diversification in farm tourism has been an important development opportunity for farms in Slovenia, especially smaller ones. Farm tourism is registered as a supplementary activity on the farm. A qualitative analysis (98 households) showed a mosaic structure of the farm tourism business. The results obtained confirmed that farm tourism is a two-way system: some farms are entering and some are leaving the business. Our survey focused on identifying the reasons behind both directions. Financial and economic reasons are most important for farmers starting up farm tourism. The survey indicated several reasons for leaving farm tourism. A more intensive orientation of farm tourism can lead to specialization and high-quality service provision, but there are also indications that it can divert farms away from farm tourism and towards the abandonment of farming. These decisions were correlated with the profile of the farm tourism households (based on demographic and economic criteria and an assessment of future prospects). Keywords: farm tourism, farm income diversification, rural tourism, rural areas, Slovenia
The Impact of Tick Size Reduction on Liquidity and Order Strategy: Evidence from the Jakarta Stock Exchange (JSX)

On January 3, 2005, the Jakarta Stock Exchange (JSX) implemented a new tick size of Rp10 in addition to the extant Rp5, Rp25, and Rp50 tick sizes. This new tick size affects shares within Rp500-Rp2000 price range, for these shares were previously traded with Rp25 tick size. The main purpose of adding this new tick size is to boost liquidity, especially for shares within the aforementioned range. Using daily data, t-tests, and cross-sectional multiple regressions, this study finds the new policy significantly reduces relative bid-ask spread, but also lessens bid and ask depth. From the aspects of width and immediacy cost, stock liquidity is enhanced; but from the viewpoint of bid and ask depth, stock liquidity is diminished. To resolve the two contradictory results, we use the ratio of average depth to relative spread (DRS). The new tick size does not trim down DRS significantly, or it does not diminish total liquidity. Furthermore, with smaller relative spread, our findings confirm traders' tendency to change their strategy from using limit orders to market orders, and to split their orders into smaller quantities.
Stemming the Tide: What Have EU Countries Done to Support Low-Wage Workers in an Era of Downward Wage Pressures?

Governments across the EU have been striving to get more people into work while at the same time acknowledging that more needs to be done to 'make work pay'. Yet this drive comes at a time when structural economic shifts are putting pressure on wages, especially of less skilled workers. This article focuses on trends in minimum wages, income taxes, and work-related benefits within a selection of 16 EU countries, for the period 2001-2012, with three US states included as reference cases. We find evidence for eroding relative minimum wages in various EU countries, yet combined with catch-up growth in the new Member States. We also find that governments counteracted eroding minimum wages through direct income support measures, especially for lone parents. Most prevalent among these were substantial declines in income tax liabilities. More generally we see a trend unfolding towards a fiscalization of income support policies.
The Very Uncertain Prospect of 'Global' Convergence in Corporate Governance

Elites in the United States legal academy have been uniform in their prediction of "global" convergence on a single model of governance for large publicly held corporations. That model is, of course, the U.S. model. The evidence, though, is only of some trans Atlantic convergence with an outlier here or there. Moreover, the existing scholarship is culturally and economically insensitive. U.S. style corporate governance, with its requirements for truly independent directors who will confront and remove badly performing CEOs, and which has as an element lawsuits brought by activist shareholders, is simply inappropriate for many cultural settings. Post Confucian and feudal value systems in countries such as Indonesia, the People's Republic of China, India, and others represent insurmountable barriers to importation of U.S. style corporate governance. Many other societies reject all or most U.S. or Westernizing influences. Convergence advocates "one size fits all" approach is culturally insensitive in the extreme. The dominant forms of capitalism in the world are family capitalism and other forms of "embedded capitalism" in which the economy is perceived to be part of and subservient to the society rather than the other way around. Value and governance systems emerging from the laissez faire eras in the United States and England during the 1980s, which appeared only once before in history (in mid Victorian England), simply are not reflective of reality in most other societies in the world, including even many European societies in which family and embedded capitalism predominate and are resistant to change. Elite U.S. scholars have made these errors because their scholarship is insular and chauvinistic. They also have an incorrect view of what globalization truly is or what it means, substituting homogenization for globalization in the same manner many U.S. multinationals do. Last of all, the growth in size and number of large multinational corporations in the 90s relegates the issue of 'global' convergence to secondary importance. U.S. style corporate governance is another solution to the Berle and Means separation of ownership from control conundrum U.S. scholars have wrestled with for 60 years. Regulatory arbitrage, environmental degradation, plantation production, economic imperialism, and other socio-economic problems posed by the accelerating growth of multinationals, not the separation of ownership from control, are the problems with which corporate law has to come to grips in the twenty first century.
Components of Executive Function in Typically Developing and Head-Injured Children

To identify the key components of executive functions (EFs) in children following traumatic brain injury (TBI), data from a series of EF tests administered to 286 pediatric TBI patients at least 3 years postinjury were subjected to an exploratory factor analysis. A 5-factor model included discourse, EFs (e.g., problem solving, planning), processing speed (e.g., coding), declarative memory, and motor speed. Confirmatory factor analysis based on data obtained from 265 pediatric TBI patients at 3 months postinjury disclosed that the 5-factor model provided a good fit to the data. A second exploratory analysis of the 3-month postinjury data disclosed a 4-factor model in which processing speed and motor speed measures loaded on a common factor. Severity of TBI and age at test had significant effects on all factors in both the 5- and 4-factor models. Adaptive functioning, as measured by the Vineland Adaptive Behavioral Scale-Revised, was moderately related to factor scores at 3 years or longer postinjury, but weakly related to factor scores obtained at 3 months postinjury. The factor scores could be used in clinical trials to facilitate data reduction and appear to have validity as indicators of TBI outcome.
Workplace Social and Organizational Environments and Healthy-Weight Behaviors

Background The workplace is an important setting for health promotion including nutrition and physical activity behaviors to prevent obesity. This paper explores the relationship between workplace social environment and cultural factors and diet and physical activity (PA) behaviors and obesity among employees. Methods Between 2012 and 2013, telephone interviews were conducted with participants residing in four Missouri metropolitan areas. Questions included demographic characteristics, workplace socio/organizational factors related to activity and diet, and individual diet and PA behaviors, and obesity. Multivariate logistic regression was used to examine associations between the workplace socio/organizational environment and nutrition, PA, and obesity. Results There were differences in reported health behaviors and socio/organizational environment by gender, race, age, income, and worksite size. For example, agreement with the statement the ‘company values my health’ was highest among Whites, older employees, and higher income workers. As worksite size increased, the frequency of reporting seeing co-workers doing several types of healthy behaviors (eat fruits and vegetables, doing PA, and doing PA on breaks at work) increased. In adjusted analyses, employees agreeing the company values my health were more likely to engage in higher PA levels (aOR=1.54, 95% CI: 1.09-2.16) and less likely to be obese (aOR=0.73, 95% CI: 0.54-0.98). Seeing co-workers eating fruits and vegetables was associated with increased reporting of eating at least one vegetable per day (aOR=1.43, 95% CI: 1.06-1.91) and seeing co-workers being active was associated with higher PA levels (aOR 1.56, 95% CI: 1.19-2.05). Conclusions This research suggests that social/organizational characteristics of the workplace environment, particularly feeling the company values the workers’ health and to seeing co-workers engaging in healthy behaviors, may be related to nutrition and PA behaviors and obesity. These findings point to the potential for intervention targets including environment and policy changes.