Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Identifying the Predictors of Participation in Facebook Pictivism Campaigns

In recent years, several online social campaigns have encouraged individuals to change their Facebook profile pictures for a cause, such as the Human Rights Campaign’s red and pink equal sign in support of same-sex marriage. These “pictivism” campaigns allow individuals to express themselves and participate in a low effort campaign to raise awareness about an issue among their social network. Given the prevalence and potential impact of these campaigns, it is important to understand what predicts one’s participation. This study applies elements of the Theory of Reasoned Action and Technology Acceptance Model in an online survey (N = 300) of Facebook users to investigate which individual and social factors predict participation in these campaigns. Results indicate that attitudes toward participation are predicted by network norms about participation, ease of participation, and perceived usefulness of participation. In turn, these attitudes predict intention to participate and actual participation. These results imply that participation is influenced both by factors surrounding the message of the campaign and by the norms of the network itself. This work extends Theory of Reasoned Action and Technology Acceptance Model to understanding participation in online social campaigns, with considerations for key limitations in this context.
Kernel PLS Smoothing for Nonparametric Regression Curve Fitting: an Application to Event Related Potentials

We present a novel smoothing approach to nonparametric regression curve fltting. This isbasedonkernelpartialleastsquares(PLS)regressioninreproducingkernelHilbertspace. It is our interest to apply the methodology for smoothing experimental data, such as brain event related potentials, where some level of knowledge about areas of difierent degrees of smoothness,localinhomogeneitiesorpointswherethedesiredfunctionchangesitscurvature isknownorcanbederivedbasedontheobservednoisydata. WiththisaimweproposelocallybasedkernelPLSregressionandlocally-basedsmoothingsplinesmethodologiesincorporating this knowledge. We illustrate the usefulness of kernel PLS and locally-based kernel PLS smoothingbycomparingthemethodswithsmoothingsplines,locally-basedsmoothingsplines and wavelet shrinkage techniques on two generated data sets. In terms of higher accuracy of the recovered signal of interest from its noisy observation we demonstrate comparable or better performance of the locally-based kernel PLS method in comparison to other methods on bothdatasets.
Mitochondrial Dysfunction in the Liver and Antiphospholipid Antibody Production Precede Disease Onset and Respond to Rapamycin in Lupus‐Prone Mice

Antiphospholipid antibodies (aPL) constitute a diagnostic criterion of systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE), and aPL have been functionally linked to liver disease in patients with SLE. Since the mechanistic target of rapamycin (mTOR) is a regulator of oxidative stress, a pathophysiologic process that contributes to the development of aPL, this study was undertaken in a mouse model of SLE to examine the involvement of liver mitochondria in lupus pathogenesis.
Business Process Modeling : A Maturing Discipline ?

A plethora of business process modeling techniques has been proposed over the last decades, creating a demand for theory to assist in the comparison and evaluation of these techniques. A widely established way of determining the effectiveness and efficiency of modeling techniques is by way of representational analysis. The purpose of this paper is to comparatively assess the outcomes of representational analyses of twelve popular process modeling techniques in order to provide insights into the extent to which the representational capabilities of process modeling techniques differ between each other and evolve over time, measured by the extent to which the techniques are able to facilitate complete and clear descriptions of real-world domains. Our research shows that, over time, process modeling technique have indeed increased their scope of coverage; however, this increased effectiveness of the techniques comes at the extent of increased complexity and ambiguity in the use of these techniques.
Necessity is the Mother of Invention: Input Supplies and Directed Technical Change

This study provides causal evidence that a shock to the relative supply of inputs to production can (1) affect the direction of technological progress and (2) lead to a rebound in the relative price of the input that became relatively more abundant (the strong induced-bias hypothesis). I exploit the impact of the U.S. Civil War on the British cotton textile industry, which reduced supplies of cotton from the Southern United States, forcing British producers to shift to lower-quality Indian cotton. Using detailed new data, I show that this shift induced the development of new technologies that augmented Indian cotton. As these new technologies became available, I show that the relative price of Indian/U.S. cotton rebounded to its pre-war level, despite the increased relative supply of Indian cotton. This is the first paper to establish both of these patterns empirically, lending support to the two key predictions of leading directed technical change theories.
Assessing the Impact of Management Buyouts on Economic Efficiency: Plant-Level Evidence from the United Kingdom

We assess the total factor productivity of 35,752 manufacturing establishments before and after management buyouts (MBOs). MBO plants are less productive than comparable plants before the transfer of ownership. They experience a substantial increase in productivity after a buyout, which appears to be due to measures undertaken by new owners to reduce the labor intensity of production, via outsourcing of intermediate goods and materials. These findings, which are pervasive across industries, imply that MBOs reduce agency costs and enhance economic efficiency. Our evidence is consistent with Jovanovic and Rousseau (2002), who suggest that ownership changes shift resources to more efficient uses and to better managers.
Feedback seeking in customer service relationships

Aletta Machell Barnard All rights reserved iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Although words could not fully express my gratitude for the many people who have inspired, supported, and encouraged me over the years, I would like to acknowledge a few of those special people here. Abe Biswas, for their contributions to this project. I would also like to thank Eric Braverman for his support. I am most indebted to my chair, Gary Greguras, for taking me on from afar and for motivating, challenging, and encouraging me to make my best even better. I am most grateful to the many people, especially Firm A and Eileen, who made my data collection possible. I would like to extend a special thank you to Sally Allen, our graduate secretary, for her expertise in policies and procedures and for her friendship. My LSU experience, from that first night in New Orleans to the completion of this project, would not have been the same without the camaraderie of my I/O classmates, each of whom contributed to my education and growth in Baton Rouge in their own unique ways. Most importantly, I will never forget the support, inspiration, and friendship I received from Donna As we all go our separate ways geographically, I will keep these lessons and memories close to my heart. I would like to thank my Baton Rouge " family, " Julie and Jonathan Day, Mike Santa Maria, and Steve Hupp, for their amazing cooking, cultural adventures, road trips, sibling pranks, and special kind of friendship that could never be duplicated. I would also like to thank my mock committee and support group in New York – Yuval Alexander, Channing & Sara Stave, and Chris Celnar – for countless conversations about my methodology and analyses and for a challenging mock defense meeting. iv Earlier in my life I was lucky enough to meet two people who saw something special in me and took me under their wings. To the late Geoffrey V. Case, Esquire, and to Doctor Samuel Thios, I owe my deepest gratitude. Both provided support and guidance in my academic and professional life, but more importantly, they taught me a great deal about creating a balanced and fulfilling personal life. I am grateful to both for their friendship, advice, and examples. I would like to express my gratitude to my entire family, whose patience, encouragement, and love have made it possible for me to …
Suppression of Apoptosis by Nitric Oxide via Inhibition of Interleukin-1β–converting Enzyme (ICE)-like and Cysteine Protease Protein (CPP)-32–like Proteases

Physiological levels of shear stress alter the genetic programm of cultured endothelial cells and are associated with reduced cellular turnover rates and formation of atherosclerotic lesions in vivo. To test the hypothesis that shear stress (15 dynes/cm2) interferes with programmed cell death, apoptosis was induced in human umbilical venous cells (HUVEC) by tumor necrosis factor-α (TNF-α). Apoptosis was quantified by ELISA specific for histone-associated DNA-fragments and confirmed by demonstrating the specific pattern of internucleosomal DNA-fragmentation. TNF-α (300 U/ml) mediated increase of DNA-fragmentation was completely abrogated by shear stress (446 ± 121% versus 57 ± 11%, P <0.05). This anti-apoptotic activity of shear stress decreased after pharmacological inhibition of endogenous nitric oxide (NO)-synthase by NG-monomethyl-l-arginine and was completely reproduced by exogenous NO-donors. The activation of interleukin-1β–converting enzyme (ICE)-like and cysteine protease protein (CPP)-32-like cysteine proteases was required to mediate TNF-α–induced apoptosis of HUVEC. Endothelial-derived nitric oxide (NO) as well as exogenous NO donors inhibited TNF-α–induced cysteine protease activation. Inhibition of CPP-32 enzyme activity was due to specific S-nitrosylation of Cys 163, a functionally essential amino acid conserved among ICE/CPP-32–like proteases. Thus, we propose that shear stress-mediated NO formation interferes with cell death signal transduction and may contribute to endothelial cell integrity by inhibition of apoptosis.
The influence of knowledge recipients’ proactivity on knowledge construction in cooperative learning experiences

Cooperative learning techniques in teaching activities are becoming increasingly popular. Many studies have documented the benefits of these techniques, but fewer have analysed the factors affecting students’ achievement. One of those factors could be the student’s proactivity, since cooperative techniques require active involvement of students. Proactivity or proactive behaviour relates to pioneering behaviour, initiative taken to exploit new opportunities, and a leading attitude. This study analyses the influence of several aspects related to students’ proactivity on knowledge construction in the context of cooperative learning. The aspects included in the proactivity framework are the student’s creativity, locus of control, self-effectiveness, and motivation towards cooperative learning. These variables and their potential effect on knowledge construction in cooperative experiences are discussed. The resulting hypotheses are tested with data from students who participated in a jigsaw, and the results show the positive impact of the internal locus of control and self-efficacy, along with the fact that the student is attending the course for the first time.
The Structural Basis for the Ligand Specificity of Family 2 Carbohydrate-binding Modules*

The interactions of proteins with polysaccharides play a key role in the microbial hydrolysis of cellulose and xylan, the most abundant organic molecules in the biosphere, and are thus pivotal to the recycling of photosynthetically fixed carbon. Enzymes that attack these recalcitrant polymers have a modular structure comprising catalytic modules and non-catalytic carbohydrate-binding modules (CBMs). The largest prokaryotic CBM family, CBM2, contains members that bind cellulose (CBM2a) and xylan (CBM2b), respectively. A possible explanation for the different ligand specificity of CBM2b is that one of the surface tryptophans involved in the protein-carbohydrate interaction is rotated by 90° compared with its position in CBM2a (thus matching the structure of the binding site to the helical secondary structure of xylan), which may be promoted by a single amino acid difference between the two families. Here we show that by mutation of this single residue (Arg-262→Gly), a CBM2b xylan-binding module completely loses its affinity for xylan and becomes a cellulose-binding module. The structural effect of the mutation has been revealed using NMR spectroscopy, which confirms that Trp-259 rotates 90° to lie flat against the protein surface. Except for this one residue, the mutation only results in minor changes to the structure. The mutated protein interacts with cellulose using the same residues that the wild-type CBM2b uses to interact with xylan, suggesting that the recognition is of the secondary structure of the polysaccharide rather than any specific recognition of the absence or presence of functional groups.
PAC-Bayes & Margins

We show two related things: (1) Given a classifier which consists of a weighted sum of features with a large margin, we can construct a stochastic classifier with negligibly larger training error rate. The stochastic classifier has a future error rate bound that depends on the margin distribution and is independent of the size of the base hypothesis class. (2) A new true error bound for classifiers with a margin which is simpler, functionally tighter, and more data-dependent than all previous bounds.
Money Does Matter! Evidence from Increasing Real Income and Life Satisfaction in East Germany Following Reunification

In this paper we investigate how life satisfaction (or happiness) is affected by a substantial increase in real income. Our context is East Germany in the decade following reunification, and we implement a new fixed-effect estimator for ordinal life satisfaction and develop a decomposition approach that accounts for new entrants and panel attrition. Using data from the German Socio-Economic Panel we find that average life satisfaction in East Germany increased by around 20% between 1991 and 2001, leading to a clear convergence with West Germany. Importantly, increased real household incomes in East Germany accounted for around 35-40% of this increase, which corresponds to the economists' view that money surely matters.
Impact of mobility on call block, call drops and optimal cell size in small cell networks

We consider small cell networks and study the impact of user mobility. Assuming Poisson call arrivals at random positions with random velocities, we discuss the characterization of handovers at the boundaries. We derive explicit expressions for call block and call drop probabilities using tools from spatial queuing theory. We also derive expressions for the average virtual server held up time. These expressions are used to derive optimal cell sizes for various profile of velocities in small cell networks via some numerical examples. We further discuss the performance of the optimal system.
Beyond IQ: the Role of grit, mindset and emotional intelligence in academic achievement

The aim of this study was to examine the relationship between non-cognitive constructs grit, emotional intelligence and mindset, and academic achievement. A mixed method design was employed comprising quantitative and qualitative data. Participation was voluntary and obtained from a convenience sample. The design was correlational with responses collected via an online survey. Measures included the 12-item Grit Scale, Schutte Emotional Intelligence Scale and the Theories of Intelligence Scale. The survey also contained qualitative questions to gain deeper participant insight. Statistical tests did not show significant support for the main hypothesis, however additional analysis and qualitative data evidenced support for the previous research. Findings included significant relationship with non-Irish participants, acknowledgement of grit, emotional intelligence and mindset as contributing factors to achievement, and gender differences in emotional intelligence. The main conclusion drawn is that IQ is not the sole determinant of success and additional research is required to further evidence.
Women in senior management: is the glass ceiling still intact?

This paper examines the barriers that hinder women’s progress to senior and board-level positions in organisations. It is based on qualitative data from interviews with individual senior women collected in five countries: Germany, Greece, Sweden, the UK and the USA. After considering the literature on issues such as gender stereotyping, perceptions of female management style, personal style, tokenism, networking, and childcare, the paper examines whether the situation has changed and whether there are any differences between countries. While barriers remain, particularly in areas such as tokenism, difficulties in networking, perceptions of senior women, and overall confidence of women in senior positions, improvements were identified in areas such as organisational culture, women’s ability to gain the right type of experience and issues around combining work and childcare. Some national differences emerged, although, overall, the experiences of the women in the countries studied were similar in terms of the barriers they had encountered and how they had tried to overcome them.
The Effect of Sport Tourism Management on Support for Tourism Development

This study aims to examine the impact of sport tourism (by using the variables of social impacts, environmental impacts, and economic impacts) on support for tourism development. A total of 480 questionnaire containing 19 items was used to collect information from the local residents in Aqaba city. Multiple regression analysis was conducted to test the research hypotheses. Results of the current study revealed that there are significant impacts of two independent variables (i.e. environmental impacts, and economic impacts) on support for tourism development; whereas the vriable of social impacts has not significant impact on it. Results of T-test showed that there is no significant difference in the impact of resident attitudes towards sustainable tourism development in favor of gender. On the other hand, results of ANOVA test found that while there is no significant difference in the impact of resident attitudes towards sustainable tourism development that can be attributed to age and educational level; a significant difference in favor of personal income was found.
The Expanding Role of Electrospray Ionization Mass Spectrometry for Probing Reactive Intermediates in Solution

Within the past decade, electrospray ionization mass spectrometry (ESI-MS) has rapidly occupied a prominent position for liquid-phase mechanistic studies due to its intrinsic advantages allowing for efficient “fishing” (rapid, sensitive, specific and simultaneous detection/identification) of multiple intermediates and products directly from a “real-world” solution. In this review we attempt to offer a comprehensive overview of the ESI-MS-based methodologies and strategies developed up to date to study reactive species in reaction solutions. A full description of general issues involved with probing reacting species from complex (bio)chemical reaction systems is briefly covered, including the potential sources of reactive intermediate (metabolite) generation, analytical aspects and challenges, basic rudiments of ESI-MS and the state-of-the-art technology. The main purpose of the present review is to highlight the utility of ESI-MS and its expanding role in probing reactive intermediates from various reactions in solution, with special focus on current progress in ESI-MS-based approaches for improving throughput, testing reality and real-time detection by using newly developed MS instruments and emerging ionization sources (such as ambient ESI techniques). In addition, the limitations of modern ESI-MS in detecting intermediates in organic reactions is also discussed.
CONDITIONS FOR MELTING AND METASOMATISM IN THE EARTH'S MANTLE

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Tumoral and peri-tumoral vascularization in NeuroOncology: the approach of MRI

The most frequent primary brain tumors in adults are gliomas. Since it's established that angiogenesis is strongly linked with the growth mechanism of glioma, several drugs with anti-angiogenic effects have been developed and tested as a supplementary therapy in addition to radio-and chemotherapy. New approaches using MRI have been developed to estimate non-invasively the tumoral neoangiogenesis in vivo and to study its impact on the vascularization of peritumoral tissue. The first part of this thesis was performed to evaluate the prognostic value of measuring cerebral blood volume (CBV) by perfusion MRI for the survival of patients with oligodendroglioma or mixed oligoastrocytoma. The results showed that the relative CBV measured by MRI first pass perfusion appearing as a prognostic factor for the survival of these patients. The second part of this thesis aims to estimate the basal peri-tumor perfusion by first pass technique and peri-tumor vasoreactivity by the technique of fMRI during inhalation of carbogen to assess pathophysiological mechanisms of BOLD signal changes in the vicinity of primary brain tumors. The results indicated that the alteration of basal infusion could not explain the deficit in motor activation in the primary motor cortex. The BOLD response to carbogen was the best factor to explain the asymmetry of motor activation.
Socially based trajectories of alcohol use among indigenous Māori in Aotearoa/New Zealand

Abstract To build on current understandings of alcohol use, this study explored socially based trajectories of everyday alcohol use across the lives of indigenous Māori in Aotearoa (New Zealand), as described by older Māori. A Māori-centred research approach was employed using face-to-face interviews with 13 older Māori people to explore their personal experiences of alcohol use over their lifetime. Thematic analysis was used to identify key life events and social factors which influenced participants’ alcohol use within three chronologically ordered life stages: childhood, adulthood and older age. Participants’ perceptions of alcohol use by others during childhood, their first alcohol use experience, meeting their partner and having children and the impact of ageing were all related to changes in alcohol use. These results build on public health conceptualisations of alcohol use among Māori by offering insight into the social influences of alcohol use. These findings can be used to inform future research to show the role of everyday alcohol use in regard to health and well-being.