Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Relational Antecedents of Information Visibility in Value Networks

Value networks are inter-organizational structures with the purpose of realizing competitive and strategic gains. Effective management of these networks relies on the ability to sense where value lies within the network, and this can be achieved through information visibility. We therefore examine the performance potential of information visibility and the essential enablers of visibility in value networks. Based on the relational perspective of the firm, a research model was developed to investigate the association between relational antecedents, information visibility and strategic performance. Data collected from 168 firms indicated that both demand-side and supply-side visibility play a significant role in strategic performance, and factors such as relational assets, knowledge routines, complementary resources and effective governance mechanisms positively influence information sharing behaviors. Our findings indicate that cooperative partnerships among network members enhance performance through increased information visibility in the network.
The Relation Between Mathematics Anxiety and Mathematics Performance Among School-Aged Students: A Meta-Analysis

The purpose of this meta-analysis was to examine the relation between mathematics anxiety (MA) and mathematics performance among school-aged students, and to identify potential moderators and underlying mechanisms of such relation, including grade level, temporal relations, difficulty of mathematical tasks, dimensions of MA measures, effects on student grades, and working memory. A meta-analysis of 131 studies with 478 effect sizes was conducted. The results indicated that a significant negative correlation exist between MA and mathematics performance, r = −. 34. Moderation analyses indicated that dimensions of MA, difficulty of mathematical tasks, and effects on student grades differentially affected the relation between MA and mathematics performance. MA assessed with both cognitive and affective dimensions showed a stronger negative correlation with mathematics performance compared to MA assessed with either an affective dimension only or mixed/unspecified dimensions. Advanced mathematical tasks that require multistep processes showed a stronger negative correlation to MA compared to foundational mathematical tasks. Mathematics measures that affected/reflected student grades (e.g., final exam, students’ course grade, GPA) had a stronger negative correlation to MA than did other measures of mathematics performance that did not affect student grades (e.g., mathematics measures administered as part of research). Theoretical and practical implications of the findings are discussed.
Young stars in the outer H i disc of NGC 6822

We present wide-field optical imaging covering the entire neutral hydrogen disc of the Local Group dwarf galaxy NGC 6822. These observations reveal the presence of numerous blue, young stars at large galactocentric radiiwell beyond R 2 5 . Blue stars are also found that are associated with NGC 6822's companion H I cloud, indicating that star formation was triggered in the companion in the last 10 8 yr. In general, blue stars are present where the H I surface densities reach values > 5 x 10 2 0 cm - 2 . However, over one-third of the blue stars detected within the H I disc are found at lower surface densities. The young stars trace the distribution of the neutral hydrogen in the inner disc, but seem to be avoiding the supergiant H I shell in NGC 6822, setting a lower limit for its age of 10 8 yr. The extended distribution of young stars implies that stars can form at large galactocentric radii in dwarf galaxies; the H I is therefore not necessarily much more extended than the stellar population. This finding has important consequences for the chemical enrichment of the interstellar medium throughout (dwarf) galaxies.
MOLECULAR CO(1–0) GAS IN THE z ∼ 2 RADIO GALAXY MRC 0152-209

We report the detection of molecular CO(1–0) gas in the high-z radio galaxy MRC 0152-209 (z = 1.92) with the Australia Telescope Compact Array Broadband Backend (ATCA/CABB). This is the third known detection of CO(1–0) in a high-z radio galaxy to date. CO(1–0) is the most robust tracer of the overall molecular gas content (including the widespread, low-density, and sub-thermally excited component), hence observations of CO(1–0) are crucial for studying galaxy evolution in the early universe. We derive L′CO = 6.6 ± 2.0 × 1010 K km s−1 pc2 for MRC 0152-209, which is comparable to that derived from CO(1–0) observations of several high-z submillimeter and star-forming BzK galaxies. The CO(1–0) traces a total molecular hydrogen mass of = 5 × 1010 (αx/0.8) M☉. MRC 0152-209 is an infrared bright radio galaxy, in which a large reservoir of cold molecular gas has not (yet) been depleted by star formation or radio source feedback. Its compact radio source is reliably detected at 40 GHz and has a steep spectral index of α = −1.3 between 1.4 and 40 GHz (4–115 GHz in the galaxy's rest frame). MRC 0152-209 is part of an ongoing systematic ATCA/CABB survey of CO(1–0) in high-z radio galaxies between 1.7 < z < 3.
Rural Investments to Accelerate Growth and Poverty Reduction in Kenya

"Kenya's economy is relatively diverse, with both agricultural and industrial potential. However, the economy has performed poorly over the last decade, and poverty and inequality have risen. This paper examines the impact of alternative growth paths and rural investments on poverty using an economy-wide model. It finds that if Kenya continues along its current growth path, its economy will have to grow by more than 10 percent per year over the coming decade to meet the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) of halving poverty by 2015. Therefore, Kenya must search for alternative sources of poverty-reducing growth. The results of the model indicate that poverty is unlikely to decline significantly without an acceleration of agricultural growth. Growth in agriculture is found to benefit both urban and rural households, whereas industry-led growth benefits a smaller segment of the urban population, thus exacerbating inequality. Kenya's current Economic Recovery Strategy, however, is not optimistic about agriculture's growth potential, focusing more heavily on industry-led growth. Therefore, as Kenya prepares its new national strategy, the country should place greater emphasis on and direct resources toward accelerating agricultural growth. In assessing the impact of rural investments on growth and poverty, the paper finds that increasing agricultural spending to meet the 10 percent target set by the Maputo Declaration would lift an additional 1.5 million people above the poverty line by 2015. Specific agricultural investments have higher returns in different parts of the country, however. Irrigation favors the lowlands and the poorest segment of the population, while research and extension (R&E) favors the midlands and highlands. Investment in R&E is also found to have the highest returns in both growth and poverty reduction. However, increasing agricultural spending to 10 percent of total spending is insufficient to meet either the MDG or the 6 percent agricultural growth target of the Comprehensive African Agriculture Development Program, which Kenya has recently adopted. Achieving this target requires nonagricultural investments, such as in roads and market development. Building rural roads and reducing agricultural transaction costs significantly reduces poverty and encourages growth beyond rural areas. While it is necessary to increase spending on agriculture, the fiscal burden of an agricultural strategy can be greatly reduced by improving investment efficiency. " from Author's Abstract
Microbiome Selection Could Spur Next-Generation Plant Breeding Strategies

“No plant is an island too…” Plants, though sessile, have developed a unique strategy to counter biotic and abiotic stresses by symbiotically co-evolving with microorganisms and tapping into their genome for this purpose. Soil is the bank of microbial diversity from which a plant selectively sources its microbiome to suit its needs. Besides soil, seeds, which carry the genetic blueprint of plants during trans-generational propagation, are home to diverse microbiota that acts as the principal source of microbial inoculum in crop cultivation. Overall, a plant is ensconced both on the outside and inside with a diverse assemblage of microbiota. Together, the plant genome and the genes of the microbiota that the plant harbors in different plant tissues, i.e., the ‘plant microbiome,’ form the holobiome which is now considered as unit of selection: ‘the holobiont. ’ The ‘plant microbiome’ not only helps plants to remain fit but also offers critical genetic variability, hitherto, not employed in the breeding strategy by plant breeders, who traditionally have exploited the genetic variability of the host for developing high yielding or disease tolerant or drought resistant varieties. This fresh knowledge of the microbiome, particularly of the rhizosphere, offering genetic variability to plants, opens up new horizons for breeding that could usher in cultivation of next-generation crops depending less on inorganic inputs, resistant to insect pest and diseases and resilient to climatic perturbations. We surmise, from ever increasing evidences, that plants and their microbial symbionts need to be co-propagated as life-long partners in future strategies for plant breeding. In this perspective, we propose bottom–up approach to co-propagate the co-evolved, the plant along with the target microbiome, through – (i) reciprocal soil transplantation method, or (ii) artificial ecosystem selection method of synthetic microbiome inocula, or (iii) by exploration of microRNA transfer method – for realizing this next-generation plant breeding approach. Our aim, thus, is to bring closer the information accrued through the advanced nucleotide sequencing and bioinformatics in conjunction with conventional culture-dependent isolation method for practical application in plant breeding and overall agriculture.
Fall Detection with Wearable Sensors--Safe (Smart Fall Detection)

The high rate of falls incidence among the elderly calls for the development of reliable and robust fall detection systems. A number of such systems have been proposed, with claims of fall detection accuracy of over 90% based on accelerometers and gyroscopes. However, most such fall detection algorithms have been developed based on observational analysis of the data gathered, leading to thresholds setting for fall/non-fall situations. Whilst the fall detection accuracies reported appear to be high, there is little evidence that the threshold based methods proposed generalise well with different subjects and different data gathering strategies or experimental scenarios. Moreover, few attempts appear to have been made to validate the proposed methods in real-life scenarios or to deliver robust fall decisions in real-time. The research here uses machine learning and particularly decision trees to detect 4 types of falls (forward, backward, right and left). When applied to experimental data from 8 male subjects, the accelerometers and gyroscopes based system discriminates between activities of daily living (ADLs) and falls with a precision of 81% and recall of 92%. The performance and robustness of the method proposed has been further analysed in terms its sensitivity to subject physical profile and training set size.
Employees’ Perceptions of Corporate Social Responsibility and Job Performance: A Sequential Mediation Model

In spite of the increasing importance of corporate social responsibility (CSR) and employee job performance, little is still known about the links between the socially responsible actions of organizations and the job performance of their members. In order to explain how employees’ perceptions of CSR influence their job performance, this study first examines the relationships between perceived CSR, organizational identification, job satisfaction, and job performance, and then develops a sequential mediation model by fully integrating these links. The results of structural equation modeling analyses conducted for 250 employees at hotels in South Korea offered strong support for the proposed model. We found that perceived CSR was indirectly and positively associated with job performance sequentially mediated first through organizational identification and then job satisfaction. This study theoretically contributes to the CSR literature by revealing the sequential mechanism through which employees’ perceptions of CSR affect their job performance, and offers practical implications by stressing the importance of employees’ perceptions of CSR. Limitations of this study and future research directions are discussed.
Power in Close Intimate Relationships

Romantic relationships are one of the closest types of interpersonal relationships that people experience; indeed, people rank romantic relationships at the top of their relationship hierarchies (Clark & Mills, 2011). Because romantic partners are interdependent and one person’s thoughts, feelings, and actions can hold considerable sway over the other’s, the dynamics of power in close, intimate relationships are particularly important to understand. Power plays a pivotal role in the development and maintenance of close intimate relationships as it determines how partners relate to each other and how important decisions are made. Before relationships are formed, when partners feel an initial spark of attraction, one partner often takes the lead in initiating the first date or initiating a first sexual encounter. In new relationships, when norms for how partners interact and make decisions have not yet developed, one partner might have more influence over the amount of time partners will spend together, how they will spend their time, or future plans they might make as a couple. In more established relationships, one partner might have the final say in most financial decisions, whereas the other partner might have more influence over decisions related to parenting or sex. The amount of power partners have in different domains can also change as partners confront new life events such as buying their first home, having a baby, or retiring from a lifelong occupation. As these examples illustrate, power pervades all aspects of intimate interactions, from the first moments when partners are getting to know each other, when they are establishing more committed bonds, and when they navigate important relationship and life transitions. In this chapter, we provide a review of the literature on power in the context of romantic relationships, highlighting the ways in which power operates in romantic relationships and how people’s experiences and expressions of power can predict whether relationships will thrive or falter. We begin by defining power in intimate relationships by reviewing key theoretical perspectives on power. Next, we review what we know about how power shapes initial attraction before relationships develop. Moving on to established relationships, we 9
Epoetin Delta Reduces Oxidative Stress in Primary Human Renal Tubular Cells

Erythropoietin (EPO) exerts (renal) tissue protective effects. Since it is unclear whether this is a direct effect of EPO on the kidney or not, we investigated whether EPO is able to protect human renal tubular epithelial cells (hTECs) from oxidative stress and if so which pathways are involved. EPO (epoetin delta) could protect hTECs against oxidative stress by a dose-dependent inhibition of reactive oxygen species formation. This protective effect is possibly related to the membranous expression of the EPO receptor (EPOR) since our data point to the membranous EPOR expression as a prerequisite for this protective effect. Oxidative stress reduction went along with the upregulation of renoprotective genes. Whilst three of these, heme oxygenase-1 (HO-1), aquaporin-1 (AQP-1), and B-cell CLL/lymphoma 2 (Bcl-2) have already been associated with EPO-induced renoprotection, this study for the first time suggests carboxypeptidase M (CPM), dipeptidyl peptidase IV (DPPIV), and cytoglobin (Cygb) to play a role in this process.
The case for the development and use of “ecologically valid” measures of executive function in experimental and clinical neuropsychology

This article considers the scientific process whereby new and better clinical tests of executive function might be developed, and what form they might take. We argue that many of the traditional tests of executive function most commonly in use (e.g., the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test; Stroop) are adaptations of procedures that emerged almost coincidentally from conceptual and experimental frameworks far removed from those currently in favour, and that the prolongation of their use has been encouraged by a sustained period of concentration on “construct-driven” experimentation in neuropsychology. This resulted from the special theoretical demands made by the field of executive function, but was not a necessary consequence, and may not even have been a useful one. Whilst useful, these tests may not therefore be optimal for their purpose. We consider as an alternative approach a function-led development programme which in principle could yield tasks better suited to the concerns of the clinician because of the transparency afforded by increased “representativeness” and “generalisability. ” We further argue that the requirement of such a programme to represent the interaction between the individual and situational context might also provide useful constraints for purely experimental investigations. We provide an example of such a programme with reference to the Multiple Errands and Six Element tests. (JINS, 2006, 12, 194–209.)
Clinical significance of the preoperative platelet count and platelet-to-lymphocyte ratio (PLT-PLR) in patients with surgically resected non-small cell lung cancer

Background The aim of this study was to assess the prognostic significance of the preoperative platelet count (PLT) and platelet-to-lymphocyte ratio (PLR) in patients with surgically resected non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC). Patients and Methods We retrospectively reviewed 202 patients treated for NSCLC between January 2002 and December 2007. Preoperative PLT and PLR scores were calculated using data obtained at the time of admission. Patients were assigned a PLT-PLR score of 0, 1, or 2 based upon the presence of thrombocytosis, an elevated PLR, or both. Results Patients with a PLT-PLR score of 2 had a significantly lower median overall survival (OS) [12.715 mo; 95% confidence interval (CI) 1.215-24.215] when compared with patients with PLT-PLR scores of 1 (52.238 mo; 95% CI 17.062-87.414, p = 0.002) or 0 (not reached, p < 0.001). Relapse-free survival (RFS) was also significantly decreased in patients with a PLT-PLR score of 2 (10.107 mo; 95% CI 3.388-16.826) relative to patients with a PLT-PLR score of 1 (27.214 mo; 95% CI 0-56.253, p = 0.002) or 0 (58.893 mo; 95% CI 32.938-84.848, p < 0.001). In multivariate analysis, a PLT-PLR score of 2 was an independent prognostic factor for poor OS (hazard ratio (HR) 3.473; 95% CI 1.765-6.835, p < 0.001) and RFS (HR 2.286; 95% CI 1.243-4.206, p = 0.008) compared with a PLT-PLR score of 0. Conclusions Preoperative PLT-PLR scores can be useful for predicting disease prognosis in patients with surgically resected NSCLC. Further large prospective studies will be necessary to validate our findings.
AvroraZ: extending Avrora with an IEEE 802.15.4 compliant radio chip model

This paper presents AvroraZ, an extension of the Avrora emulator -- The AVR Simulation and Analysis Framework -- which allows the emulation of the Atmel AVR microcontroller based sensor node platforms with IEEE 802.15. 4 compliant radio chips thus allowing emulation of sensor nodes such as Crossbow's MicaZ. AvroraZ is based on design, implementation and verification of several extensions to Avrora: the address recognition algorithm, an indoor radio model, the clear channel assessment (CCA) and link quality indicator (LQI) of the IEEE 802.15. 4 standard. We have AvroraZ and demonstrated its correctness in emulating MicaZ code.
Explaining Gender Convergence in Housework Time: Evidence from a Cohort-Sequence Design

Abstract:This study connects two lines of research—trend studies on social change in housework time and life-course studies on individual-and couple-level change in housework time. This novel approach allowed us to link the macro-level trend of gender convergence in housework time to the micro-level mechanisms underlying it. Using long-running panel data (SOEP), we implemented a cohort-sequence design that followed two birth cohorts (1960 and 1975) of West German men and women from age 25 until age 40. Regression and decomposition methods yielded four central findings. First, the gender gap in housework time narrowed by 40 percent from the 1960 cohort to the 1975 cohort. Second, women's cohort declines in housework time unfolded with age, as the steep life-course increase found in the 1960 cohort leveled off in the 1975 cohort. Men's increases in housework time were constant across the age range studied. Third, an extensive set of time-varying indicators for absolute and relative resources, union formation, fertility, and household conditions accounted for 77 percent of cohort changes in women's housework time but only for 12 percent of changes in men's housework time. In total, the covariates considered in our models explained 55 percent of gender convergence from the 1960 cohort to the 1975 cohort. Fourth, individual age trajectories underlying this trend remained mostly unexplained, notably women's shift from a steep rise to a flat line. We conclude that life-course factors driving change in housework time may still hold potential for further gender convergence.
SUV: A Novel Single-Update Version-Management Scheme for Hardware Transactional Memory Systems

In order to maintain the transactional semantics, Transactional Memory (TM) must guarantee isolated read and write operations in each transaction, meaning that it must spend a non-negligible and potentially significant amount of time on keeping track of the transactional modifications in its undo or redo log and switching to the proper version at the end of each transaction. Existing TMs failed to minimize the overheads incurred by these operations that are poised to impose more significant TM overheads in current and future many-core CMPs. A direct consequence of this is that extra and different data movements are needed to manage these modifications depending on commit or abort. To address this problem, we propose a novel Single-Update Version-management (SUV) scheme to redirect each transactional store operation to another memory address, track the mapping information between the original and redirected addresses, and switch to the proper version of data upon the transaction's commit or abort. There is only one data update (movement) in our SUV regardless of commit or abort, thus significantly reducing the TM overheads while allowing it to exploit more thread parallelism. We use SUV to replace version-management schemes in some existing hardware TMs to assess SUV's performance advantages. Our extensive execution-driven experiments show that SUV-TM consistently outperforms the state-of-the-art HTM schemes Log TM-SE, FasTM and DynTM under the STAMP benchmark suite. Moreover, we use CACTI to estimate the hardware overheads of SUV and find it is feasible in hardware implementation.