Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Research Methodology in the "Public Administration Review," 1975-1984

Public administration was in an early stage of development when Luther Gulick' called for a "science of administration. " Gulick's exhortation became a source of heated and continuing controversy that centers around positivist versus alternative views of appropriate research methodology.2 This paper examines the last ten years of Public Administration Review (PAR) methodology and suggests directions for its future development. Two general methods are used in this study: historical and statistical. Past and current assessments of research methodology in public administration are reviewed in order to set the context for this analysis. Also, published research in PAR from 1975-1984 is analyzed statistically to provide a baseline for evaluation of the state of research methodology. In the final portion of the paper we generate some recommendations for future directions within the field.
Scanning actions and environmental dynamism

While it is generally accepted that scanning supports organizational adaptation to the environment, scanning behavior may vary with the amount of environmental change. Information processing perspectives suggest that scanning activity will increase in response to increasing environmental uncertainty. Yet, social cognition perspectives suggest that scanning decreases at high and low levels of uncertainty since useful information is either unattainable or is already known. Using a combined perspective in a strategic decision‐making context, this study hypothesized that scanning would be greatest at high and low levels of uncertainty to support identification of previously unexploited niches. Results indicate that the level of environmental dynamism combined with the manager's functional position explains scanning behavior.
Neural mechanisms of empathy in humans: A relay from neural systems for imitation to limbic areas

How do we empathize with others? A mechanism according to which action representation modulates emotional activity may provide an essential functional architecture for empathy. The superior temporal and inferior frontal cortices are critical areas for action representation and are connected to the limbic system via the insula. Thus, the insula may be a critical relay from action representation to emotion. We used functional MRI while subjects were either imitating or simply observing emotional facial expressions. Imitation and observation of emotions activated a largely similar network of brain areas. Within this network, there was greater activity during imitation, compared with observation of emotions, in premotor areas including the inferior frontal cortex, as well as in the superior temporal cortex, insula, and amygdala. We understand what others feel by a mechanism of action representation that allows empathy and modulates our emotional content. The insula plays a fundamental role in this mechanism.
Evidence of Online Shopping: A Consumer Perspective

Although electronic commerce (e-retailing) has received considerable research attentions these years, little research has examined the effect of e-commerce's Web presentation on retail customer shopping experiences for Jordanian online retail shoppers. Five factors were employed to define their effect on the purchase decision through internet. Questionnaire used to collect data, and distributed to a stratified sample of 215 respondents. Data for 181 questionnaires were valid and analyzed by using descriptive and analytical statistics. We found that promotion (r = 0.344) and security (r = 0.316) are the most influential factors on consumer purchase decision through internet while eprice(r=0.028) was not related significantly with the consumer purchasing decision. The Infrastructure for internet (r = 0.175) and product and service characteristics (r = 0.264) were moderately related to the consumer’ decision process.
Interleukin‐6 expression and gene polymorphism are associated with severity of periodontal disease in a sample of Brazilian individuals

Interleukin (IL)‐6 is an inflammatory mediator involved in bone resorption. G/C polymorphism at position −174 of the IL‐6 gene has been reported to influence IL‐6 expression, with the G allele associated with higher expression levels. The aims of this study were to investigate the expression of IL‐6 as well as the incidence of IL‐6 (−174) gene polymorphism and their correlation to the severity of periodontitis in Brazilians. Peripheral blood mononuclear cells were collected from 12 non‐smoker individuals with periodontitis for evaluation of IL‐6 expression using flow cytometry. We observed a positive correlation between the mean clinical attachment loss and intensity of expression of IL‐6, in which the greater the attachment loss, the higher the expression of IL‐6 (P = 0·007, R2 = 0·52). Also, patients with severe periodontitis displayed a higher intensity of IL‐6 expression compared to moderate periodontitis (P = 0·04). To determine the occurrence of IL‐6 gene polymorphism, DNA was obtained from oral swabs of 209 Brazilian individuals with and without periodontitis. Polymerase chain reaction, restriction endonuclease digestion and electrophoresis were performed, allowing for detection of the IL‐6 (−174) polymorphism. We observed that non‐smokers with moderate periodontitis (P = 0·05) and control (P = 0·04) groups displayed a higher incidence of the G– genotype when compared to severe periodontitis. This suggests that the G– genotype may represent a protective role in severity of periodontitis. Thus, the increased expression of IL‐6 and IL‐6 (−174) polymorphism are associated with periodontal disease severity in Brazilian individuals.
Logic-based algorithms for data interpretation with application to robotics

We present a formal method, based on possibilistic logic, to fuse uncertain sensory information. The basic concepts underlying the approach are summarized and discussed. The method has been applied to a real-world problem of noisy sensor-data fusion: the position estimation of an autonomous mobile robot navigating in an approximately and partially known office environment, using a topological map. Each place in the map is characterized by a set of logical formulae axiomatizing both abstract knowledge and uncertain information from the sensors. At each time instant during navigation, the necessity value for each place is calculated using a purely syntactical method, based on sequent calculus. Several test runs on a real robot have evidenced the adequacy of the approach in interpreting and disambiguating the information coming from independent perceptual sources, in combination with abstract knowledge.
Backhaul-aware multicell beamforming for downlink cloud radio access network

This paper considers a heterogeneous downlink cloud radio access network (C-RAN) where all the base stations (BSs) in the network are connected to a central processor (CP) via capacity-limited backhaul links. Under this model, we investigate the message-sharing transmission strategy where the CP shares each user's message with a fixed subset of BSs, which then serve the user through joint beamforming. In this setting, although the overall long-term average backhaul consumption is limited by the fixed cluster size, the instantaneous backhaul consumption at each BS may vary significantly depending on the data rates of the scheduled users at each time slot. To avoid such large fluctuations in backhaul consumption, this paper proposes a backhaul-aware multicell scheduling and beamforming strategy that explicitly accounts for backhaul consumption. Specifically, a beamforming design algorithm is proposed to maximize the network utility for a downlink C-RAN under both per-BS power constraints and per- BS backhaul constraints in each time slot. Although this problem has already been considered in our previous work, this present paper proposes a new beamforming design algorithm that not only has guaranteed convergence but also achieves better system performance. This paper also shows that the performance of the proposed algorithm can be further improved by iterating with an additional power minimization step.
British Pakistani Muslim Masculinity, (In)fertility, and the Clinical Encounter

ABSTRACT The experiences of men facing fertility disruptions are understudied. For British Pakistanis, the impact of infertility is heightened for women because of normative pressures to bear children. But what of men? I present data from in-depth interviews in North East England with infertile British Pakistani Muslims and relevant health professionals. British Pakistani men’s level of participation in clinical encounters and responses to diagnoses of male factor infertility must be understood in the context of kinship, the construction of Pakistani ethnicity in the UK, and the subordinated forms of masculinity which accompany this identity.
Vergence Neural Pathways: A Systematic Narrative Literature Review

ABSTRACT Research in the neural pathway for vergence is less understood in comparison to the other four visual eye movements. The aim of this study was to review the literature on vergence neural pathways and associated disorders. A review of previous published literature though to March 2016 was conducted. Intracranial pathologies that affect entire neural functioning were found to cause convergence insufficiencies. In contrast, pathologies with a more localised intracranial lesion cause more specific vergence disorders. There is debate as to the potential presence of a “divergence centre. ” Detailed information on the divergence pathway is lacking and warrants further research.
Genus Distribution of Graph Amalgamations: Pasting at Root-Vertices

We pursue the problem of counting the imbeddings of a graph in each of the orientable surfaces. We demonstrate how to achieve this for an iterated amalgamation of arbitrarily many copies of any graph whose genus distribution is known and further analyzed into a partitioned genus distribution. We introduce the concept of recombinant strands of face-boundary walks, and we develop the use of multiple production rules for deriving simultaneous recurrences. These two ideas are central to a broadbased approach to calculating genus distributions for graphs synthesized from smaller graphs.
Predictors for Student Success in an Online Course

This study analyzed the factors that affect student success in an online computer programming course. The study had two with two main objectives. The first was to examine relationships among selected variables (gender, age, educational level, locus of control, and learning style), motivational beliefs (intrinsic goal orientation, extrinsic goal orientation, control beliefs, task value, self-efficacy, and test anxiety), selfregulated learning components (cognitive strategy use, self-regulation), and student success in the online course. The second objective was to examine course instructors’ views about the factors that contribute to the students’ success in the online course. The study sample consisted of two course instructors and 80 voluntary participants who partook in this online course in 2005–2006. Both quantitative and qualitative methods were used to collect relevant data in this study. Four online questionnaires (Demographic Survey, Internal-External Locus of Control Scale, Learning Style Inventory, and Motivated Strategies for Learning Questionnaire) were used to gather data on quantitative variables, and semi-structured interviews were conducted to gather data on instructors’ views. The statistical results indicated that the effect of the selfregulation variables on students’ success was statistically significant, and the interview results indicated that successful students generally used self-regulated learning strategies in the online course.
Gender patterns in domestic labour among young adults in different living arrangements in Australia

Most research on gender divisions of housework focuses on couple and family households. This article extends this literature to examine gender differences in domestic labour across living arrangements, with particular focus on young adults. Using time-diary data from the nationally representative Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) Time Use Survey (2006) it examines the amount and composition of domestic work performed by 20–34-year-olds (n = 889) living with parents, in a share household, alone, or in a couple, differentiating between routine and non-routine housework tasks, and between housework done for oneself only or for the household. It finds gender differences are strongest in couple households, but pertain across living arrangements, including share houses. Also, women’s domestic labour varies more by household characteristics than men’s. However, there is some evidence of non-conformity to gender stereotypes, with young men living in couple relationships contributing more time on activities for the household than young men in other households.
An update of comprehensive evidence-based guidelines for interventional techniques in chronic spinal pain. Part I: introduction and general considerations.

In 2011, the Institute of Medicine (IOM) re-engineered its definition of clinical guidelines as follows: "clinical practice guidelines are statements that include recommendations intended to optimize patient care that are informed by a systematic review of evidence and an assessment of the benefit and harms of alternative care options. " This new definition departs from a 2-decade old definition from a 1990 IOM report that defined guidelines as "systematically developed statements to assist practitioner and patient decisions about appropriate health care for specific clinical circumstances. " The revised definition clearly distinguishes between the term "clinical practice guideline" and other forms of clinical guidance derived from widely disparate development processes, such as consensus statements, expert advice, and appropriate use criteria. The IOM committee acknowledged that for many clinical domains, high quality evidence was lacking or even nonexistent. Even though the guidelines are important decision-making tools, along with expert clinical judgment and patient preference, their value and impact remains variable due to numerous factors. Some of the many factors that impede the development of clinical practice guidelines include bias due to a variety of conflicts of interest, inappropriate and poor methodological quality, poor writing and ambiguous presentation, projecting a view that these are not applicable to individual patients or too restrictive with elimination of clinician autonomy, and overzealous and inappropriate recommendations, either positive, negative, or non-committal. Consequently, a knowledgeable, multidisciplinary panel of experts must develop guidelines based on a systematic review of the existing evidence, as recently recommended by the IOM. Chronic pain is a complex and multifactorial phenomenon associated with significant economic, social, and health outcomes. Interventional pain management is an emerging specialty facing a disproportionate number of challenges compared to established medical specialties, including the inappropriate utilization of ineffective and unsafe techniques. In 2000, the American Society of Interventional Pain Physicians (ASIPP) created treatment guidelines to help practitioners. There have been 5 subsequent updates. These guidelines address the issues of systematic evaluation and ongoing care of chronic or persistent pain, and provide information about the scientific basis of recommended procedures. These guidelines are expected to increase patient compliance; dispel misconceptions among providers and patients, manage patient expectations reasonably; and form the basis of a therapeutic partnership between the patient, the provider, and payers.
Parallel construction of trees with optimal weighted path length

This paper deals with the problem of parallel construction of trees with optimal weighted path length. We study both the unordered case, known as the Htiflman coding problem and the ordered case known as the optimal alphabetic binary tree problem. The methods used in both cases are different. We reduce the Huffman coding problem to the Concave Least Weight Subsequence and give a parallel algorithm that solves the latter problem in O(filog n) time with n processors on a CREW PRAM. This leads to the first sub linear time o(n2)-total work parallel algorithm for the Huffman coding problem. The alphabetic binary tree problem is a special case of the Optimum Binary Search tie problem and can be solved in O(log2 n) time with n4 processors using the dynamic programming technique. We show that an optimal height restricted alphabetic tree can be constructed in O(L log n) time on a CREW PRAM using only linearly many processors, where L is an upper bound on the height of the tree. t and Instytut Informatyki, Uniwersytet War=wski. Permission to copy without fee all or part of this material is granted provided that the copies arc not made or distributed for direct commercial advan~ge, the ACM copyright notice and the title of the publication and its date appear, and notice is given that copying is by permission of the Association for Computing Machinery. To copy otherwise, or to republish, requires a f= and/or specific permission. This implies that an alphabetic tree whose cost differs by at most I/nk from the cost of the optimal tree can be constructed in O(k log2 n) time using linear number of processors. To achieve this result we use a parallel version of the package merge technique.
Interventions to Support Social Interaction in Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders: A Systematic Review of Single Case Studies

Social interaction is a core deficit in individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Therefore, parents and teachers need effective interventions to support students with ASD. This synthesis provides a quantitative analysis of single-subject studies that examine interventions to support social interactions in children with ASD. Results suggest that pivotal response treatment (PRT), Social StoriesTM, peer-mediated strategies, and video modelling are promising interventions to support social interaction. Limitations, implications for practice, and suggestions for future research are discussed. ISSN 1918-5227 Pages 107125 Follow this and additional works at: http://ir.lib. uwo.ca/eei This Article (Subscription-only) is brought to you by Scholarship@Western. It has been accepted for inclusion in Exceptionality Education International by an authorized administrator of Scholarship@Western. For more information, please contact jspecht@uwo.ca. Recommended Citation Ozuna, J., Mavridis, A. , & Hott, B. L. (2015) Interventions to Support Social Interaction in Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders: A Systematic Review of Single Case Studies. Exceptionality Education International, 25, 107-125. Retrieved from http://ir.lib. uwo.ca/ eei/vol25/iss2/6 Exceptionality Education International 2015, Vol. 25, No. 2, pp. 107–125 ISSN 1918-5227 107 Interventions to Support Social Interaction in Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders: A Systematic Review of Single Case Studies Jennifer Ozuna Alexis Mavridis Brittany L. Hott Texas A&M University-Commerce
AAV8‐mediated expression of glucocerebrosidase ameliorates the storage pathology in the visceral organs of a mouse model of Gaucher disease

Gaucher disease is the most common of the lysosomal storage disorders. The primary manifestation is the accumulation of glucosylceramide (GL‐1) in the macrophages of liver and spleen (Gaucher cells), due to a deficiency in the lysosomal hydrolase glucocerebrosidase (GC). A Gaucher mouse model (D409V/null) exhibiting reduced GC activity and accumulation of GL‐1 was used to evaluate adeno‐associated viral (AAV)‐mediated gene therapy.
Pushing the limits of RFID: Empowering RFID-based Electronic Article Surveillance with Data Analytics Techniques

False-positive classification is a central issue for RFID environments with limited process control, such as in-store settings. In the case of electronic article surveillance, false positives not only lead to incorrect inventory data but also trigger false alarms, which impair customer satisfaction. A typical counter measure is to reduce antenna power, which in turn leads to greatly diminished detection rates. In contrast, the present study investigates the applicability of data analytics to achieve high detection rates while retaining low false positives. In contrast to prior research, our test setting acknowledges the lack of process control in retail environments. We consider various walking paths and speeds as well as RFID tags concealed by shopping bags. To distinguish theft from non-theft events, we derive predictors, which are not just aggregations of the signal strength. Rather, individual reads are put into temporal relation to one another and are augmented with antenna information.
The Relationships Among the Demand for Reinsurance, Liquidity, and Leverage in the U.S. Property-Liability Insurance Industry

Using pooled time-series and cross-sectional data from 1994 to 2006, we examine the interrelations among the demand for reinsurance, liquidity, and leverage in the U.S. property-liability insurance industry. Three structural equations are simultaneously estimated on the basis of a two-stage least squares paradigm. The empirical results indicate that insurers’ liquidity and reinsurance demand are substitutes for each other, and the same relationship is found for liquidity and leverage. On the other hand, our empirical findings support the fact that reinsurance demand and leverage are complementary.
Statistical modeling of metal-gate Work-Function Variability in emerging device technologies and implications for circuit design

For the first time, a new source of random threshold voltage (Vth) fluctuation in emerging metal-gate transistors is identified, analytically modeled and investigated for its device and circuit-level implications. The new source of variability, christened work-function variation (WFV), is caused by the dependency of metal work-function on the orientation of its grains. A statistical framework is developed, which enables estimation of the key parameters of work-function distribution by identifying the physical dimensions of the devices and properties of materials used in the fabrication. This paper offers three major contributions for process, device and circuit designers. First, the proposed model can be employed to identify suitable materials and fabrication processes that can reduce the impact of Vth fluctuation due to WFV. For instance, four types of metal nitride gate materials (TiN and TaN for NMOS and WN and MoN for PMOS devices) are studied and it is shown that TiN and WN result in lower Vth fluctuation. Second, device engineers can benefit from the result of this work by evaluating the WFV level of various types of classical or non-classical metal-gate CMOS transistors. As an example, it is shown that FinFET transistors are less affected by WFV compared to FD-SOI and bulk-Si devices due to their larger gate area. Third, circuit designers can utilize this model to investigate the impact of such a variation on the key performance and reliability parameters of the circuits. For instance, an SRAM cell is analyzed in the presence of Vth fluctuations due to WFV and it is shown that such variations can result in considerable performance and reliability degradation.