Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Emotional labour, emotional exhaustion, job satisfaction and organisational citizenship behaviour among Korean fitness employees

This study investigated the relationship between emotional labour strategies, emotional exhaustion, job satisfaction and organisational citizenship behaviour among Korean fitness employees. Three hundred and sixty-six ( n =366) fitness employees participated in a self-administered survey aimed at measuring the impact of surface acting and deep acting emotional labour strategies on these factors. The results indicated that only surface acting significantly predicted emotional exhaustion whereas job satisfaction was predicted by both surface acting and deep acting. Additionally, emotional exhaustion and job satisfaction had a significant relationship with organisational citizenship behaviour. Finally, it was found that emotional exhaustion fully mediated the relationship between surface acting and organisational citizenship behaviour, whereas job satisfaction partially mediates the relationship between both surface acting and organisational citizenship behaviour, and deep acting and organisational citizenship behaviour. The results suggest that fitness organisations need to pay attention to the emotional labour strategies that employees use to enhance their occupational well-being, as well as organisational outcomes. Keywords: Emotion; Emotional regulation; Extra-role behaviour; Fitness industry; Service sector
Fire in the belly? Employee motives and innovative performance in start-ups versus established firms

Research Summary: We examine whether start-ups attract employees with different pecuniary and non-pecuniary motives than small or large established firms. We then explore whether such differences in employee motives may lead to differences in innovative performance across firm types. Using data on more than 10,000 U.S. R&D employees, we find that start-up employees (“joiners”) place lower importance on job security and salary but greater importance on independence and responsibility. Start-up employees have higher patent output than employees in small and large established firms, and this difference is partly mediated by employee motives—especially joiners’ greater willingness to bear risk. We discuss implications for research as well as for managers and policy makers concerned with the supply of human capital to entrepreneurship and innovation. Managerial Summary: Start-ups and established firms play different roles in the economy and differ with respect to their organizational features. Recent research has started to also explore differences in their human capital. While prior work focuses on employees’ skills and experience, we broaden the notion of human capital to include motivational characteristics. We find that start-up employees differ from those working in established firms with respect to their motives, most notably a weaker concern with job security. Moreover, such differences can partly explain higher innovative performance in start-ups. Our findings suggest that founders may derive significant benefits from hiring “joiners” with entrepreneurial motives. Our findings also have implications for corporate managers who seek to acquire start-ups or who consider creating entrepreneurial units that replicate features of young and small organizations.
MINIMAX ESTIMATION OF LARGE COVARIANCE MATRICES UNDER ℓ1-NORM

Driven by a wide range of applications in high-dimensional data analy- sis, there has been significant recent interest in the estimation of large covariance matrices. In this paper, we consider optimal estimation of a covariance matrix as well as its inverse over several commonly used parameter spaces under the matrix l1 norm. Both minimax lower and upper bounds are derived. The lower bounds are established by using hypothesis testing arguments, where at the core are a novel construction of collections of least favorable multivariate nor- mal distributions and the bounding of the affinities between mixture distributions. The lower bound analysis also provides insight into where the difficulties of the covariance matrix estimation problem arise. A specific thresholding estimator and tapering estimator are constructed and shown to be minimax rate optimal. The optimal rates of convergence established in the paper can serve as a benchmark for the performance of covariance matrix estimation methods.
Attributional Style in Multiple Sclerosis: Examining the Learned Helplessness Model in a Chronically Ill Population

If cognitive factors could be identified that explain additional variance in depression in the Multiple Sclerosis (MS) population, they would represent a promising target for treatment and prevention of depression in MS. The learned helplessness model states that in certain individuals, uncontrollable negative events lead to a depressogenic attributional style, which leads to depression after future uncontrollable events. In addition, the specific vulnerability theory states that the attributions and negative events must be in the same domain. This theory has barely been studied in MS. Disease-related helplessness has also been shown to be associated with depression and to interact with attributional style, but there are mixed findings as to whether perceived control over illness is adaptive. The proposed study differentiated MSrelated and non-MS-related attributional style, and analyzed them along with disease-related helplessness in an attempt to determine whether the learned helplessness theory or the specific vulnerability theory apply to this population. 52 MS patients and 49 controls were included in this study. Participants were given the Attributional Style Questionnaire (ASQ) as well as disability and depression measures. The majority of causes listed on the ASQ were non-MS related, and more disabled and helpless participants listed more MS-related events. In patients, non-MS-related attributional style correlated with both stress and depression, but MS-related attributional style did not correlate with either disability or depression. Stress mediated the effect of non-MS-related and overall attributional style on depression. These results suggest that attributional style is an important construct in depression in MS; however, attributional style does not appear to lead directly to depression but instead to more perceived stress, which in turn leads to increased depression. Additionally, attributions seem to operate differently when they are illness vs. non-illness-related.
On the neuronal systems underlying perceptual decision-making and confidence in humans

Perceptual decision-making refers to the ability to arrive at categorical judgments about states of the outside world. Here we use functional magnetic resonance imaging and multivariate pattern analysis to identify decision-related brain regions and address a number of open issues in the field of perceptual decision-making. In the first study (Hebart et al., 2012), we demonstrated that perceptual decisions about motion direction are represented in both visual and parietal cortex, even when decoupled from motor plans. While in early visual cortex the amount of information about perceptual choices follows the amount of sensory evidence presented on the screen, the reverse pattern is observed in left posterior parietal cortex. These results reveal the brain regions involved when choices are encoded in an abstract format and suggest that these two brain regions are recruited differently depending on the amount of sensory evidence available. In the second study (Hebart et al., submitted), we show that the perceptual decision variable (DV) is represented throughout fronto-parietal association cortices. The DV in right ventrolateral prefrontal cortex covaries specifically with brain signals in the ventral striatum representing confidence, demonstrating a close link between the two variables. This suggests that confidence is calculated from the perceptual DV encoded in ventrolateral prefrontal cortex. In the third study (Christophel et al., 2012), using a visual short-term memory (VSTM) task, we demonstrate that the content of VSTM is represented in visual cortex and posterior parietal cortex, but not prefrontal cortex. These results constrain theories of VSTM and suggest that the memorized content is stored in regions shown to represent perceptual decisions. Together, these results shed light on the neuronal code underlying perceptual decision-making in humans and offer the prospect for a more complete understanding of these processes.
Autophagy: A Multifaceted Partner in Liver Fibrosis

Liver fibrosis is a common wound healing response to chronic liver injury of all causes, and its end-stage cirrhosis is responsible for high morbidity and mortality worldwide. Fibrosis results from prolonged parenchymal cell apoptosis and necrosis associated with an inflammatory reaction that leads to recruitment of immune cells, activation and accumulation of fibrogenic cells, and extracellular matrix accumulation. The fibrogenic process is driven by hepatic myofibroblasts, that mainly derive from hepatic stellate cells undergoing a transdifferentiation from a quiescent, lipid-rich into a fibrogenic myofibroblastic phenotype, in response to paracrine/autocrine signals produced by neighbouring inflammatory and parenchymal cells. Autophagy is an important regulator of liver homeostasis under physiological and pathological conditions. This review focuses on recent findings showing that autophagy is a novel, but complex, regulatory pathway in liver fibrosis, with profibrogenic effects relying on its direct contribution to the process of hepatic stellate cell activation, but with antifibrogenic properties via indirect hepatoprotective and anti-inflammatory properties. Therefore, cell-specific delivery of drugs that exploit autophagic pathways is a prerequisite to further consider autophagy as a potential target for antifibrotic therapy.
Comparison between Constrained and Semiconstrained Knee Allograft-Prosthesis Composite Reconstructions

Allograft-prosthesis composite (APC) can restore capsular and ligamentous tissues of the knee sacrificed in a tumor extirpation. We asked if performing APC would restore knee stability and allow the use of nonconstrained arthroplasty while preventing aseptic loosening. We retrospectively compared 50 knee APCs performed with non-constrained revision knee prosthesis (Group 1) with 36 matched APCs performed with a constrained prosthesis (Group 2). In Group 1, the survival rate was 69% at five and 62% at ten years. Sixteen reconstructions were removed due to complications: eight deep infections, three fractures, two instabilities, one aseptic loosening, one local recurrence, and one nonunion. In Group 2, the survival rate was 80% at five and 53% at ten years. Nine reconstructions were removed: 3 due to deep infections, 3 to fractures, and 3 to aseptic loosening. In both groups, we observed more allograft fractures when the prosthetic stem does not bypass the host-donor osteotomy (P > 0.05). Both groups had mainly good or excellent MSTS functional results. Survival rate and functional scores and aseptic loosening were similar in both groups. A rotating-hinge APC is recommended when host-donor soft tissue reconstruction fails to restore knee instability. The use of a short prosthetic stem has a statistical relationship with APC fractures.
Age Stereotypes and Discriminatory Attitudes towards Older Workers: An East-West Comparison

This study compared age stereotypes among 567 respondents sampled in the UK and Hong Kong and examined how these stereotypes were related to discriminatory attitudes at work. Compared to the Hong Kong sample, UK respondents saw older workers as more effective at work, but less adaptable to change. As expected, respondents' own age was predictive of positive age stereotypes, although for supervisors this relationship was moderated in the case of perceptions of work effectiveness. Stereotypical beliefs were found to significantly affect respondents' attitudes towards the training, promotion and retention of older workers, their willingness to work with older workers, and their support for positive discrimination. Findings also suggest that anti-age discrimination policies in the respondent's organization had a positive impact on beliefs about the adaptability of older workers and possibly also on attitudes towards providing them with training. Implications of the findings were discussed in light of the existing socio-political environment in the UK and Hong Kong.
Disrupted Causal Connectivity in Mesial Temporal Lobe Epilepsy

Although mesial temporal lobe epilepsy (mTLE) is characterized by the pathological changes in mesial temporal lobe, function alteration was also found in extratemporal regions. Our aim is to investigate the information flow between the epileptogenic zone (EZ) and other brain regions. Resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (RS-fMRI) data were recorded from 23 patients with left mTLE and matched controls. We first identified the potential EZ using the amplitude of low-frequency fluctuation (ALFF) of RS-fMRI signal, then performed voxel-wise Granger causality analysis between EZ and the whole brain. Relative to controls, patients demonstrated decreased driving effect from EZ to thalamus and basal ganglia, and increased feedback. Additionally, we found an altered causal relation between EZ and cortical networks (default mode network, limbic system, visual network and executive control network). The influence from EZ to right precuneus and brainstem negatively correlated with disease duration, whereas that from the right hippocampus, fusiform cortex, and lentiform nucleus to EZ showed positive correlation. These findings demonstrate widespread brain regions showing abnormal functional interaction with EZ. In addition, increased ALFF in EZ was positively correlated with the increased driving effect on EZ in patients, but not in controls. This finding suggests that the initiation of epileptic activity depends not only on EZ itself, but also on the activity emerging in large-scale macroscopic brain networks. Overall, this study suggests that the causal topological organization is disrupted in mTLE, providing valuable information to understand the pathophysiology of this disorder.
Anticipatory On-Line Planning

We consider the problem of on-line continual planning, in whichadditional goals may arrive while plans for previous goals are stillexecuting and plan quality depends on how quickly goals are achieved.This is a challenging problem even in domains with deterministicactions. One common and straightforward approach is reactive planning,in which plans are synthesized when a new goal arrives. In this paper,we adapt the technique of hindsight optimization from on-line schedulingand probabilistic planning to create an anticipatory on-line planningalgorithm. Using an estimate of the goal arrival distribution, wesample possible futures and use a deterministic planner to estimate thevalue of taking possible actions at each time step. Results in twobenchmark domains based on unmanned aerial vehicle planning andmanufacturing suggest that an anticipatory approach yields a superiorplanner that is sensitive not only to which action should be executed,but when.
Plasticity in the Adult Human Auditory Brainstem following Short-term Linguistic Training

Peripheral and central structures along the auditory pathway contribute to speech processing and learning. However, because speech requires the use of functionally and acoustically complex sounds which necessitates high sensory and cognitive demands, long-term exposure and experience using these sounds is often attributed to the neocortex with little emphasis placed on subcortical structures. The present study examines changes in the auditory brainstem, specifically the frequency following response (FFR), as native English-speaking adults learn to incorporate foreign speech sounds (lexical pitch patterns) in word identification. The FFR presumably originates from the auditory midbrain and can be elicited preattentively. We measured FFRs to the trained pitch patterns before and after training. Measures of pitch tracking were then derived from the FFR signals. We found increased accuracy in pitch tracking after training, including a decrease in the number of pitch-tracking errors and a refinement in the energy devoted to encoding pitch. Most interestingly, this change in pitch-tracking accuracy only occurred in the most acoustically complex pitch contour (dipping contour), which is also the least familiar to our English-speaking subjects. These results not only demonstrate the contribution of the brainstem in language learning and its plasticity in adulthood but also demonstrate the specificity of this contribution (i.e., changes in encoding only occur in specific, least familiar stimuli, not all stimuli). Our findings complement existing data showing cortical changes after second-language learning, and are consistent with models suggesting that brainstem changes resulting from perceptual learning are most apparent when acuity in encoding is most needed.
Affect Recognition from Face and Body Early Fusion vs. Late Fusion

- This paper presents preliminary results of automatic visual emotion recognition from two modalities: face and body. Firstly, individual classifiers are trained from individual modalities. Secondly, we fuse facial expression and affective body gesture information first at a feature-level, in which the data from both modalities are combined before classification and later at a decision-level, in which we integrate the outputs of the mono-modal systems by the use of suitable criteria. We then evaluate these two fusion approaches, in terms of performance over mono-modal emotion recognition based on facial expression modality only. The emotion classification using the two modalities achieves a better recognition accuracy outperforming the classification using the individual facial modality. Moreover, fusion at a feature level performs better recognition than fusion at a decision level.
Effect of acute exercise and cardiovascular fitness on cognitive function: an event-related cortical desynchronization study.

This study aimed to clarify the effects of acute exercise and cardiovascular fitness on cognitive function using the Stroop test and event-related desynchronization (ERD) in an aged population. Old adults (63.10 ± 2.89 years) were first assigned to either a high-fitness or a low-fitness group, and they were then subjected to an acute exercise treatment and a reading control treatment in a counterbalanced order. Alpha ERD was recorded during the Stroop test, which was administered after both treatments. Acute exercise improved cognitive performance regardless of the level of cognition, and old adults with higher fitness levels received greater benefits from acute exercise. Additionally, acute exercise, rather than overall fitness, elicited greater lower and upper alpha ERDs relative to the control condition. These findings indirectly suggest that the beneficial effects of acute exercise on cognitive performance may result from exercise-induced attentional control observed during frontal neural excitation.
Quantitative Anatomy of the Growing Lungs in the Human Fetus

Using anatomical, digital, and statistical methods we examined the three-dimensional growth of the lungs in 67 human fetuses aged 16–25 weeks. The lung dimensions revealed no sex differences. The transverse and sagittal diameters and the base circumference were greater in the right lungs while the lengths of anterior and posterior margins and the lung height were greater in the left lungs. The best-fit curves for all the lung parameters were natural logarithmic models. The transverse-to-sagittal diameter ratio remained stable and averaged 0.56 ± 0.08 and 0.52 ± 0.08 for the right and left lungs, respectively. For the right and left lungs, the transverse diameter-to-height ratio significantly increased from 0.74 ± 0.09 to 0.92 ± 0.08 and from 0.56 ± 0.07 to 0.79 ± 0.09, respectively. The sagittal diameter-to-height ratio significantly increased from 1.41 ± 0.23 to 1.66 ± 0.18 in the right lung, and from 1.27 ± 0.17 to 1.48 ± 0.22 in the left lung. In the fetal lungs, their proportionate increase in transverse and sagittal diameters considerably accelerates with relation to the lung height. The lung dimensions in the fetus are relevant in the evaluation of the normative pulmonary growth and the diagnosis of pulmonary hypoplasia.
PKCδ Sensitizes Neuroblastoma Cells to L-Buthionine-Sulfoximine and Etoposide Inducing Reactive Oxygen Species Overproduction and DNA Damage

Neuroblastoma is a type of pediatric cancer. The sensitivity of neuroblastoma (NB) cancer cells to chemotherapy and radiation is inhibited by the presence of antioxidants, such as glutathione (GSH), which is crucial in counteracting the endogenous production of reactive oxygen species (ROS). We have previously demonstrated that cells depleted of GSH undergo apoptosis via oxidative stress and Protein kinase C (PKC) δ activation. In the present study, we transfected PKCδ in NB cells resistant to oxidative death induced by L-buthionine-S,R-sulfoximine (BSO), a GSH-depleting agent. Cell responses, in terms of ROS production, apoptosis and DNA damage were evaluated. Moreover, PKCδ activation was monitored by analyzing the phosphorylation status of threonine 505 residue, carrying out PKC activity assay and investigating the subcellular localization of the kinase. The cell responses obtained in BSO-resistant cells were also compared with those obtained in BSO-sensitive cells subjected to the same experimental protocol. Our results demonstrate, for the first time, that PKCδ induces DNA oxidation and ROS overproduction leading to apoptosis of BSO-resistant NB cells and potentiates the cytotoxic effects induced by BSO in sensitive cells. Moreover, PKCδ overexpression enhances the sensitivity of NB cells to etoposide, a well-characterised drug, commonly used in neuroblastoma therapy. Altogether our data provide evidence of a pro-oxidant role of PKCδ that might be exploited to design new therapeutic strategies aimed at selective killing of cancer cells and overcoming drug resistance. However, it becomes evident that a more detailed understanding of ROS-mediated signaling in cancer cells is necessary for the development of redox-modulated therapeutic approaches.
Two Methods For Exploiting Abstraction In Systems

As complex models are used in practice, modelers require ways of abstracting their models and having the ability to traverse levels of abstraction. The use of abstraction in modeling is spread over many disciplines and it is often diicult to locate an abstraction methodology or a set of practical techniques to help the mod-eler to perform the abstraction. Several approaches have been discussed in the general simulation literature: (1) variable resolution modeling; (2) combined modeling; (3) multimodeling; and (4) metamodeling. Our premise is that there are two diierent approaches to abstraction: behavioral and structural. We present one physical example of heat transfer and display the diierent abstraction approaches on this example. The approach taken to abstraction is an important design approach|to break a system into hierarchical levels. Behavioral abstraction serves to simplify the dynamic of a system without gaining the kind of reductionist knowledge one obtains through hierarchical decomposition. This work provides a comprehensive approach to system abstraction, while including speciic practical behavioral methods to achieve abstract system descriptions .