Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
New CEOs and Corporate Strategic Refocusing: How Experience as Heir Apparent Influences the Use of Power

This paper integrates corporate governance research on the consequences of executive power and the upper echelons literature on top managers' cognitive orientation to develop a framework in which the characteristics of the chief executive officer (CEO) predict corporate strategic refocusing. With data from a sample of large and diversified firms, we examine the extent to which newly appointed CEOs' strategic orientation determines whether they use their power to maintain the status quo or refocus their firms' business portfolios. We assess CEOs' power with seven widely used indicators and use experience as heir apparent to the prior CEO as a measure of new CEOs' strategic orientation. Overall, results show that CEOs' power use is influenced by heir apparent experience in predicting the level of corporate strategic refocusing. Heir apparent experience interacts with four power indicators—compensation, functional expertise, elite education, and number of outside boards on which the new CEO is seated—but the interaction between heir apparent experience and number of outside boards is contrary to what was hypothesized.
Sensor OpenFlow: Enabling Software-Defined Wireless Sensor Networks

While it has been a belief for over a decade that wireless sensor networks (WSN) are application-specific, we argue that it can lead to resource underutilization and counter-productivity. We also identify two other main problems with WSN: rigidity to policy changes and difficulty to manage. In this paper, we take a radical, yet backward and peer compatible, approach to tackle these problems inherent to WSN. We propose a Software-Defined WSN architecture and address key technical challenges for its core component, Sensor OpenFlow. This work represents the first effort that synergizes software-defined networking and WSN.
"You is a whore you no worth nothing" : Stigmatisation of Jamaican women who are involved in tourism-oriented prostitution

The purpose of this report was to explore the process of stigmatisation of Jamaican women who are involved in tourism-oriented prostitution in Ocho Rios, Jamaica. I wanted to examine how these women perceived themselves, other prostitutes and the tourists using their services as well as briefly examine professional viewpoint on these dimensions. Further I aimed to assess the stigmatisation of these women through their lived experiences of responses from local people. I found that the women were stigmatised in various ways and that there were hierarchies within the industry. The women were mainly involved in tourism oriented prostitution because of the money and their perception of tourists was, most often, a positive one since tourists usually paid more money for sexual services and behaved nicely.
Conical Stream of the Two-Sided Jets in NGC 4261 over the Range of 103–109 Schwarzschild Radii

We report the jet width profile of of the nearby ( ∼ 30 Mpc ) AGN NGC 4261 for both the approaching jet and the counter jet at radial distances ranging from ∼ 10 3 – 10 9 Schwarzschild radius ( R S ) from the central engine. Our Very Large Array (VLA) and Very Long Baseline Array (VLBA) observations reveal that the jets maintain a conical structure on both sides over the range 10 3 – 10 9 R S without any structural transition (i.e., parabolic to conical) like in the approaching jet in M87. Thus, NGC 4261 will provide a unique opportunity to examine the conical jet hypothesis in blazars, while it may require some additional consideration on the acceleration and collimation process in AGN jets.
Erythrocyte‐Associated Component of Blood Cortisol

We propose that erythrocyte-associated cortisol is one of the significant components of blood cortisol that should be taken into account in studies of the physiology and pathophysiology of cortisol transport. We suggest that the model system used for determination of the erythrocyte partitioning coefficient may have applications in studies of the uptake of cortisol by tissues.
Beginning Teacher Concerns in an Accountability-Based Testing Environment

Abstract This paper, part of a larger case study of beginning teachers and mentors, describes the concerns of four teachers throughout their stages of development in first-year teaching. They and their mentors were interviewed at three intervals in the school year to obtain perceptions of beginning teacher concerns. Beginning teachers also kept journals of their concerns in first-year teaching. Data revealed that in an accountability-based testing environment, instructional pacing was reported as a top, pervasive concern of beginning teachers. These case studies reveal that participants were reporting beginning teacher concerns, but not necessarily in the predictable areas, such as classroom discipline, student motivation, or individual student differences. The data suggest that typical problems were overshadowed by concerns and preoccupations with district instructional pacing, test pressure, and test preparation.
The Need for Psychology in Research on Computer Supported Cooperative Work

A wideband differential amplifier comprises a pair of differentially connected control devices, for example transistors, having a pair of semiconductor junction input devices coupled thereto for receiving complementary input currents. The input devices exhibit logarithmic characteristics substantially compensating for nonlinear properties of the pair of differentially connected control devices, whereby a linear rather than a nonlinear amplified current output is produced. Multipliers, cascaded amplifiers, and other useful circuit configurations are provided.
Who's Zoomin’ Who? A Feminist, Queer Content Analysis of “Interdisciplinary” Human Sexuality Textbooks

Hundreds of thousands of students in introductory human sexuality classes read textbooks whose covert ideology reinforces dominant heteronormative narratives of sexual dimorphism, male hegemony, and heteronormativity. As such, the process of scientific discovery that proposes to provide description of existing sexual practices, identities, and physiohgies instead succeeds in cultural prescription. This essay provides a feminist, queer content analysis of such textbooks to illuminate their implicit narratives and provide suggestions for writing more feminist, queer-friendly texts.
Obtaining Ready-to-Eat Blue Corn Expanded Snacks with Anthocyanins Using an Extrusion Process and Response Surface Methodology

Extrusion is an alternative technology for the production of nixtamalized products. The aim of this study was to obtain an expanded nixtamalized snack with whole blue corn and using the extrusion process, to preserve the highest possible total anthocyanin content, intense blue/purple coloration (color b) and the highest expansion index. A central composite experimental design was used. The extrusion process factors were: feed moisture (FM, 15%–23%), calcium hydroxide concentration (CHC, 0%–0.25%) and final extruder temperature (T, 110–150 °C). The chemical and physical properties evaluated in the extrudates were moisture content (MC, %), total anthocyanins (TA, mg·kg−1), pH, color (L, a, b) and expansion index (EI). ANOVA and surface response methodology were applied to evaluate the effects of the extrusion factors. FM and T significantly affected the response variables. An optimization step was performed by overlaying three contour plots to predict the best combination region. The extrudates were obtained under the following optimum factors: FM (%) = 16.94, CHC (%) = 0.095 and T (°C) = 141.89. The predicted extrusion processing factors were highly accurate, yielding an expanded nixtamalized snack with 158.87 mg·kg−1 TA (estimated: 160 mg·kg−1), an EI of 3.19 (estimated: 2.66), and color parameter b of −0.44 (estimated: 0.10).
New methodology for drain current local variability characterization using Y function method

Y function is well known to overcome the influence of source/drain series resistance (Rsd) in MOSFETs. In this work we present a new methodology for drain current local variability characterization using Y function method. Thus, we show that the study of Y function statistical variability permits the extraction of threshold voltage (VTH) and current gain factor (β) local variability without the influence of Rsd values. We also demonstrate a simple drain current local variability model taking into account the influence of Rsd and its variability in strong inversion regime. This new VTH and β extraction method, and drain current variability model were applied with success to advanced FDSOI and Bulk devices with different dimensions.
The discovery of 2,5-dialkylcyclohexan-1,3-diones as a new class of natural products

Orchids employing sexual deceit attract males of their pollinator species through specific volatile signals that mimic female-released sex pheromones. One of these signals proved to be 2-ethyl-5-propylcyclohexan-1,3-dione (chiloglottone1), a new natural product that was shown to be most important in the relations between orchids of the genus Chiloglottis, native to Australia, and corresponding pollinator species. Systematic investigations on the mass spectrometric fragmentation pattern of 2,5-dialkylcyclohexan-1,3-diones identified key ions providing information about the structures of the substituents at positions 2 and 5. Results enabled us to identify 2-ethyl-5-pentylcyclohexan-1,3-dione (chiloglottone2) and 2-butyl-5-methylcyclohexan-1,3-dione (chiloglottone3) as new natural products that play a decisive role in the pollination syndrome of some Chiloglottis species. During field bioassays, pure synthetic samples of chiloglottone1–3 or mixtures thereof proved to be attractive to the corresponding orchid pollinators. Because of their likely biogenesis from ubiquitous fatty acid precursors, 2,5-dialkylcyclohexan-1,3-diones may represent a hitherto overlooked, widespread class of natural products.
Ensuring political responsiveness: politicization mechanisms in ministerial bureaucracies

Although politicization is a perennial research topic in public administration to investigate relationships between ministers and civil servants, the concept still lacks clarification. This article contributes to this literature by systematically identifying different conceptualizations of politicization and suggests a typology including three politicization mechanisms to strengthen the political responsiveness of the ministerial bureaucracy: formal, functional and administrative politicization. The typology is empirically validated through a comparative case analysis of politicization mechanisms in Germany, Belgium, the UK and Denmark. The empirical analysis further refines the general idea of Western democracies becoming ‘simply’ more politicized, by illustrating how some politicization mechanisms do not continue to increase, but stabilize – at least for the time being. Points for practitioners The claim of increasing politicization of the interaction between ministers and civil servants is often made in research and government practice. As the completely neutral bureaucracy is a myth rather than empirical reality, all democracies have to balance demands for both neutral expertise and political responsiveness. The latter often involves the introduction of politicization mechanisms. Politicization comes in a variety of forms, and the article develops a typology covering formal, functional and administrative politicization. Further it empirically demonstrates how politicization mechanisms not only increase, but how they develop and interact, altering balances of neutrality and responsiveness in potentially conflicting ways.
Changes and challenges in 20 years of research into the development of executive functions

This review of 20 years of developmental research on Executive Functions (EF) offers a broad-brushstroke picture that touches on multiple issues including: (i) findings from typical and atypical groups, from infancy to adolescence; (ii) advances in assessment tools and in statistical analysis; (iii) the interplay between EF and other cognitive systems (e.g. those involved in children's developing understanding of mind, and in their processing of reward signals); (iv) integration of cognitive and neuroscience perspectives on EF; and (v) environmental factors that have either a positive influence (e.g. training/intervention programmes; parental scaffolding) or a negative influence (e.g. maltreatment, neglect, traumatic brain injury) on EF. Of the several themes to emerge from this review, two are particularly important; these concern the need to adopt developmental perspectives and the potential importance for intervention work of research on social influences on EF. Specifically, the review highlights both developmental continuities (e.g. in the correlates of EF) and contrasts (e.g. in the nature of EF and its neural substrates) and calls for research that compares developmental trajectories for EF in different groups (e.g. children with autism versus ADHD). In addition, findings from both family-based research and randomized controlled trials of school-based interventions highlight the importance of environmental influences on EF and so support the development of interventions to promote EF and hence improve children's academic and social outcomes. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Modulatory effects on human sensorimotor cortex by whole-hand afferent electrical stimulation

Objective: To investigate the effect of electrical stimulation of the nerve afferents of the hand on cortical activity elicited by whole-hand subthreshold stimulation for sensation in healthy human subjects. Methods: Ten healthy volunteers were studied using BOLD-fMRI with 1) a test motor-task with finger-to-thumb tapping of the left hand, 2) a whole-hand afferent electrical stimulation of the left hand below the sensory level for sensation for 30 minutes, 3) a second fMRI run with the same paradigm as in the test motor-task immediately after electrical stimulation, and 4) a final identical fMRI run 2 hours post-stimulation to test the cortical changes induced by electrical stimulation. Experiments were carried out on a 1.5 T MR scanner and for fMRI echoplanar sequences were used. Data analysis was performed with SPM99. Results: An increase of movement-related responses was seen within the primary motor and primary somatosensory areas of both hemispheres when comparing the test motor-task with the motor-task after electrical stimulation relative to the baseline or sham stimulation. Two hours post-stimulation the modulatory effects of mesh-glove stimulation diminished to baseline level except within the contralateral primary motor region. Conclusions: The increased BOLD response spatially localized within the sensorimotor cortex reflects an increase in neuronal activity that may provide augmented neuronal excitability.
Composition of seams in cheddar cheese.

Abstract The material comprising the obvious light-colored seams in some Cheddar cheeses now commercially available was analyzed in situ and after isolation. From the data obtained, it was concluded that the seam material contained primarily whey proteins, slightly elevated levels of chloride, calcium and phosphate. Some fat was also present but was not studied. The seam area is characterized by a pH approximately one unit higher than the bulk cheese. The ratio of calcium to phosphate indicates that it may be present in the form of calcium orthophosphate.
Modeling multimodal biometric modalities for continuous user authentication

Continuous authentication offers the ability to continuously verify users' identity for accessing to the protected resource. Although current explorations such as face and fingerprint verification have seen varying rates of success, three main problems may limit their applicability in the context of information protection and access control: they can be of low availability in some practical scenarios, they can be intrusive, and they commonly require costly equipment. This paper presents a multimodal biometrics authentication system that can continuously verify the presence of a logged-in user. Three passive biometric modalities are currently used - keystroke (i.e., behavioral biometric), face (i.e., physiological biometric), and skin color (i.e., soft biometric) - but our approach can also be readily extended to include more modalities. By fusing these three passive biometrics, the continuous authentication system combines both temporal and modality information holistically, and can keep verifying who is using the computing system, without troubling users' routine activities. Based on real data resulting from our implementation, we find the results to be very promising with a false-acceptance rate of 0% and a false-rejection rate of 0.72%. Additional experiment on the size of observation window is provided to further examine the applicability of the proposed approach.
Genetic influences on cellular reactions to spinal cord injury: Activation of macrophages/microglia and astrocytes is delayed in mice carrying a mutation (WldS) that causes delayed Wallerian degeneration

Reactive changes in macrophages/microglia and astrocytes were evaluated following spinal cord injury in normal mice of the C57BL/6J strain and in mice carrying a mutation (Wlds) which delays the onset of Wallerian degeneration in damaged axons. Crush injuries were produced at the T8 level by using an extradural approach; animals were allowed to survive for 2 days to 12 weeks, and spinal cords were prepared for immunocytochemistry using antibodies against Mac1 and glial fibrillary acidid protein (GFAP).
Cognitive sequelae of Parkinson’s disease : nature, course, risk factors and functional impact

A meta-analysis was conducted on 25 longitudinal studies involving 901 initially nondemented Parkinson’s disease (PD) patients to examine the magnitude of decline across multiple cognitive domains associated with disease progression. Pooled effect sizes reflecting the standardized difference between baseline and follow-up neuropsychological performance were calculated for 8 cognitive domains using a random-effects model. Relatively small effect sizes were found across all cognitive domains (d = 0.00 – 0.40). During a mean follow-up interval of 29 months, significant declines were detected in global cognitive ability (d = 0.40), visuoconstructive skills (d = 0.32) and memory (d = 0.29). Age showed a significant relation with decline in global cognitive ability and memory. Lower educational level was associated with greater decline in all cognitive domains. Studies with longer follow-up intervals yielded larger effect sizes for global cognitive ability. In nondemented PD patients, changes in cognitive functions over time appear to be modest. Educational level, age and length of the follow-up interval are likely to affect the magnitude of decline in several domains. Methodological flaws, such as selection bias and uncontrolled practice effects, may have caused underestimation of the true extent of decline. Dissertatie-Dino Muslimovic.pdf 28 05-05-09 15:48 29 Cognitive decline in PD: meta-analysis
A Theoretical and Experimental Investigation of Impact Control for Manipulators

This article describes a simple control strategy for stable hard- on-hard contact of a manipulator with the environment. The strategy is motivated by recognition of the equivalence of pro portional gain explicit force control and impedance control. It is shown that negative proportional force gains, or impedance mass ratios less than unity, can equivalently provide excel lent impact response without bouncing. This result is indicated by an analysis performed with an experimentally determined arm/sensor/environment model. The results are corroborated by experimental data from implementation of the control al gorithms on the CMU DD Arm II system. The results confirm that manipulator impact against a stiff environment without bouncing can be readily handled by this novel control strategy.
Synthesising the origins of language and meaning using co-evolution , self-organisation and level formation

The paper reports on experiments in which robotic agents and software agents are set up to originate language and meaning. The experiments test the hypothesis that mechanisms for generating complexity commonly found in biosystems, in particular self-organisation, co-evolution, and level formation, also may explain the spontaneous formation, adaptation, and growth in complexity of language.
A Meta‐Analytic Investigation of the Within‐Person Self‐Efficacy Domain: Is Self‐Efficacy a Product of Past Performance or a Driver of Future Performance?

We conducted a meta-analysis to determine whether the within-person self-efficacy/performance relationship is positive, negative, or null and to compare the strength of the self-efficacy/performance and past performance/self-efficacy within-person relationships. The self-efficacy/performance within-person corrected correlation was . 23 but was weak and nonsignificant (ρ = .06) when controlling for the linear trajectory, revealing that the main effect was spurious. The past performance/self-efficacy within-person corrected correlation was . 40 and remained positive and significant (ρ = .30) when controlling for the linear trajectory. The moderator results revealed that at the within-person level of analysis: (a) self-efficacy had at best a moderate, positive effect on performance and a null effect under other moderating conditions (ρ ranged from –.02 to .33); (b) the main effect of past performance on self-efficacy was stronger than the effect of self-efficacy on performance, even in the moderating conditions that produced the strongest self-efficacy/performance relationship; (c) the effect of past performance on self-efficacy ranged from moderate to strong across moderating conditions and was statistically significant across performance tasks, contextual factors, and methodological moderators (ρ ranged from .18 to .52). Overall, this suggests that self-efficacy is primarily a product of past performance rather than the driving force affecting future performance.
HIF‐1α cytoplasmic accumulation is associated with cell death in old rat cerebral cortex exposed to intermittent hypoxia

Intermittent hypoxia, followed by reoxygenation, determines the production of reactive oxygen species (ROS), which may lead to accelerated aging and to the appearance of age‐related diseases. The rise in ROS levels might constitute a stress‐stimulus activating specific redox–sensitive signalling pathways, so inducing either damaging or protective functions. Here, we report that in old rat cerebral cortex exposed to hypoxia, the accumulation in the cytoplasm of hypoxic inducible factor 1α (HIF‐1α) – the master regulator of oxygen homeostasis – concomitant with p66Shc activation and reduced IkBα phosphorylation is associated with tissue apoptosis or necrosis. In young cerebral cortex, we hypothesize that the hypoxic damage may be reversible, based on our demonstration of elevated HIF‐1α levels, combined with a low level of IkBα phosphorylation, a decrease in IAP‐1 and a lack of major change in Bcl2 family proteins. These observations are associated with a low level of cell death induced by hypoxia, suggesting that HIF‐1α activation in cortical neurons may produce rescue proteins in response to intermittent hypoxia.