Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Multi-Study Packages in Organizational Science Research

Purpose – The purpose of this chapter is to examine the frequency of multi-study research packages in the organizational sciences and advocate for their use by detailing strengths and recognizing limitations. Methodology/approach – Philosophy of science research, focusing on multi-study research packages, is discussed followed by a 20-year review of incidence of these packages in top organizational sciences journals. Findings – The publication of multi-study research packages have increased over the past 10 years, most notably in micro-level journals. Social implications – For reasons of validity and generalizability, society benefits if scholars adopt multi-study approaches to knowledge generation and disseminate. Originality/value of the chapter – This chapter provides the most comprehensive review of multiple-study research packages in the organizational sciences to date, examining publication trends in eight leading micro-and macro-level journals. We also summarize the use of multi-study packages in our own research and offer recommendations for improving the science of replication.
A New Implementation of the Mellin Transform and its Application to Radar Classification of Ships

A modified Mellin transform for digital implementation is developed and applied to range radar profiles of naval vessels. The scale invariance property of the Mellin transform provides a means for extracting features from the profiles which are insensitive to the aspect angle of the radar. Past implementations of the Mellin transform based on the FFT have required exponential sampling, interpolation, and the computation of a correction term, all of which introduce errors into the transform. In addition, exponential sampling results in a factor of ln N increase in the number of data points. An alternate implementation, developed in the paper, utilizes a direct expansion of the Mellin integral definition. This direct Mellin transform (DMT) eliminates the implementation problems associated with the FFT approach, and does not increase the number of samples. A scale and translation invariant transform is developed from a modification of the DMT. The MDMT applied to the FFT of the radar profiles results in the desired insensitivity without having the low-pass filtering characteristic that exists in other Fourier-Mellin implementations.
Self-reported Smoking and Urinary Cotinine Levels among Pregnant Women in Korea and Factors Associated with Smoking during Pregnancy

This study examined urinary cotinine levels and self-reported smoking among pregnant women in Korea and the factors associated with smoking during pregnancy. The subjects were selected from pregnant women who visited 30 randomly sampled obstetric clinics and prenatal care hospitals in Korea in 2006. Smoking status was determined by self-reporting and urinary cotinine measurement. A total of 1,090 self-administered questionnaires and 1,057 urine samples were analyzed. The percentage of smoking revealed by self-reporting was 0.55% (95% confidence interval [CI], 0.11-0.99) and that revealed by urinary cotinine measurement (>100 ng/mL) was 3.03% (95% CI, 1.99-4.06). The kappa coefficient of agreement between self-reported smoking status and urinary cotinine measurement was 0.20 (95% CI, 0.03-0.37). Multiple logistic regression analysis revealed that early gestational period, low educational level, and being married to a smoker were significant risk factors for smoking during pregnancy. Smoking among pregnant women in Korea is not negligible, and those who are concerned to maternal and child health should be aware of this possibility among pregnant women in countries with similar cultural background.
Towards a fuller, more nuanced narrative of Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age Britain 2500-1500 BC

This contribution considers some of the many recent advances in our understanding of Chalcolithic and Bronze Age Britain and uses these to highlight the weak points in our current state of knowledge. Focusing mainly on the period 2500–1500 BC, it concentrates on issues of chronology, human movement, the role of metal and monuments as 'drivers' of action, and the potential offered by current studies of artefact manufacture, use and deposition
Is Growth Alone Sufficient to Reduce Poverty? In Search of the Trickle Down Effect in Rural India

This enlightening and significant volume focuses on the nature, causes and features of economic growth across a wide range of countries and regions. Covering a variety of growth related topics – from theoretical analyses of economic growth in general to empirical analyses of growth in the OECD, transition economies and developing economies – the distinguished cast of contributors addresses some of the most important contemporary issues and developments in the field.
‘The world ain’t all sunshine’: Investigating the relationship between mean world beliefs, conservatism and crime TV exposure

Abstract Cultivation research argues that mean world beliefs are cultivated through media consumption. Our study expands this notion of cultivation research by integrating approaches from political psychology on conservatism and moral foundation theory, providing complementary explanations for mean world beliefs. Focusing on crime TV exposure and mean world beliefs, we expect both to be rooted in a conservative world view accentuated by the valuing of certain moral foundations. Participants (N = 455) took part in a paper-pencil survey design to test three hypotheses regarding the interplay of conservatism, cultivation and mean world beliefs in the context of crime TV exposure. Results indicate evidence for both a significant relationship between conservative moral orientations and mean world beliefs and crime TV choice. Nevertheless, these relationships might suppress the influence of TV crime exposure. Implications for cultivation research are discussed.
Modeling the mechanism of [Na+]i elevation in heart failure by a canine ventricular cell model

Numerous studies have found the phenomenon of [Na<sup>+</sup>]<sub>i</sub> elevation in cardiac myocytes in heart failure (HF), which may influence cardiac action potential (AP) and intracellular Ca<sup>2+</sup> handling to induce cardiac arrhythmias. As one of the most important regulators in the cardiac myocytes, Ca<sup>2+</sup>/Calmodulin-dependent protein kinase II (CaMKII), which could alter Na<sup>+</sup> channel gating, was found to be over-expressed in HF. It may contribute to [Na<sup>+</sup>]<sub>i</sub> elevation in HF. For the purpose of this study, we developed a new canine epicardial cell model based on the framework of published Hund-Rudy dynamic (HRd) model. The effects of dynamic CaMKII regulation on fast Na<sup>+</sup> current (I<sub>Na</sub>) and late Na<sup>+</sup> current (I<sub>NaL</sub>) were incorporated into our model according to the recent experimental data. Simulation results suggested that the regulation role of CaMKII on I<sub>NaL</sub> could elevate [Na<sup>+</sup>]<sub>i</sub>. The effect of COE on I<sub>Na</sub> had a function of lowering [Na<sup>+</sup>]<sub>i</sub> in fact. However, it could not offset the trend of Na<sup>+</sup> up-regulation by enhanced I<sub>NaL</sub>. The magnitude of [Na<sup>+</sup>]<sub>i</sub> elevation was smaller than experimentally measured values. We speculate that other [Na<sup>+</sup>]<sub>i</sub> elevation mechanisms such as lowered Na<sup>+</sup>/K<sup>+</sup> pump (I<sub>NaK</sub>) or increased Na<sup>+</sup>/H<sup>+</sup> exchange may happen in HF.
Altered composition of the cumulus-oocyte complex matrix during in vitro maturation of oocytes.

BACKGROUND In vitro maturation (IVM) of mammalian oocytes has potential health benefits for patients undergoing assisted reproduction as an alternative to gonadotrophin treatment. This procedure is also useful for studying the process of oocyte and early embryo development. However, oocytes undergoing IVM have much lower competence than in vivo matured oocytes. Efforts to optimize IVM success have focused on replicating in vivo timing, hormonal milieu and cumulus cell responses associated with maturing oocytes. We have previously identified two extracellular matrix proteins, the protease Adamts1 and hyaluronan-binding proteoglycan Versican, produced by mural granulosa cells that selectively incorporate into the periovulatory cumulus-oocyte complex (COC). METHODS Murine COC were cultured in the presence of epidermal growth factor and/or FSH. mRNA and protein were measured by real time PCR and Western blot and compared to in vivo derived COC. RESULTS COCs from mice that underwent IVM for 6 or 20 h in the presence of epidermal growth factor, FSH or in combination had a > 10-fold reduction in mRNA (P < 0.05) for Adamts1 and Vcan when compared with in vivo matured COCs. Hyaluronan synthase 2 expression was up-regulated up to 8-fold (P < 0.05) over the unstimulated control, demonstrating successful induction of cumulus gene expression by the IVM conditions. While in vivo matured COCs showed abundant levels of these proteins, COCs that underwent IVM had neither detectable Adamts1, nor intact or Adamts1-cleaved Vcan. Human cumulus and granulosa cells matured in vivo contained abundant mRNA for Adamts1 and Vcan, demonstrating the potential relevance to human IVM. CONCLUSION These results indicate that extensively altered COC matrix composition is present during IVM and may contribute to the observed poorer competence of the derived oocytes.
Ultrasonic attenuation imaging in a rodent thyroid cancer model

The incidence of diagnosed thyroid cancer has increased significantly over the last decades. Although advances in ultrasonic imaging have increased the malignancy detection rate, current ultrasonic imaging markers do not provide a sufficient level of diagnostic accuracy to replace biopsy. Recent studies suggest that ultrasound parameters derived from backscatter coefficients may allow differentiating among different types of thyroid tumors and normal tissues in a rodent model ex vivo. In this work, the potential use of attenuation coefficient (AC) estimates for the same purpose was explored. A sample set of 24 excised mice thyroids were scanned using a 40-MHz, f/3 single element transducer. The experimental dataset contained six animals that developed papillary thyroid carcinoma (PTC), five that developed follicular variant papillary thyroid carcinoma (FV-PTC), five that developed c-Cell adenoma (c-Cell) and eight that did not develop thyroid abnormalities (control). AC slope maps were generated with a spectral log difference method using 0.5mm by 0.5mm data blocks. Outliers of each slice due to artifacts in AC estimation were discarded using the Thompson Tau method. Finally, a Kruskal-Wallis test was conducted to analyze if statistically significant differences in the mean AC slope among the four groups existed. The median and interquartile range for each group were 1.29 and 0.22 dB/cm-MHz for the control group, 1.64 and 0.09 dB/cm-MHz for c-Cell, 1.16 and 0.12 dB/cm-MHz for PTC and 1.33 and 0.08 dB/cm-MHz for FV-PTC, respectively. These values are consistent with previous reports of attenuation in thyroid tissues. The Kruskal-Wallis test reported statistically significant differences between the c-Cell group and the other groups of study and between the PTC and FV-PTC groups (p<;0.05). These preliminary results suggest that the AC may be used to characterize thyroid tissues.
Assessment of Student Performance in an Internet-Based Multimedia Classroom

Much research has been devoted to the study of exclusively distance-learning paradigms for teaching various technological subjects, yet many students have not been satisfied with existing distance learning methodologies. This paper addresses a new approach called the cyber classroom, which combines the best practices of distance learning with traditional “brick and mortar” classrooms through technical facilities that allow lectures to be automatically recorded and made available for viewing/download on the world-wide web to all students in the class. The system approach does not force a distinction between in-class and distance learners, and students are allowed to dynamically choose whether they wish to attend class or learn remotely on a class session by class session basis. Past results have shown that the students prefer this dynamic method of delivery over all other class formats. This current paper focuses on the actual student outcomes in terms of grade distribution from courses taught prior to the development of the cyberclassroom and the grade distributions from classes taught in the room by the same faculty where we show a nearly one-half point mean grade improvement, a 36% increase in honors grades, and a 56% reduction in failures.
Structure and Functional Characteristics of Rat's Left Ventricle Cardiomyocytes under Antiorthostatic Suspension of Various Duration and Subsequent Reloading

The goal of the research was to identify the structural and functional characteristics of the rat's left ventricle under antiorthostatic suspension within 1, 3, 7 and 14 days, and subsequent 3 and 7-day reloading after a 14-day suspension. The transversal stiffness of the cardiomyocyte has been determined by the atomic force microscopy, cell respiration—by polarography and proteins content—by Western blotting. Stiffness of the cortical cytoskeleton increases as soon as one day after the suspension and increases up to the 14th day, and starts decreasing during reloading, reaching the control level after 7 days. The stiffness of the contractile apparatus and the intensity of cell respiration also increases. The content of non-muscle isoforms of actin in the cytoplasmic fraction of proteins does not change during the whole experiment, as does not the beta-actin content in the membrane fraction. The content of gamma-actin in the membrane fraction correlates with the change in the transversal stiffness of the cortical cytoskeleton. Increased content of alpha-actinin-1 and alpha-actinin-4 in the membrane fraction of proteins during the suspension is consistent with increased gamma-actin content there. The opposite direction of change of alpha-actinin-1 and alpha-actinin-4 content suggests their involvement into the signal pathways.
Memory-enhanced Decoder for Neural Machine Translation

We propose to enhance the RNN decoder in a neural machine translator (NMT) with external memory, as a natural but powerful extension to the state in the decoding RNN. This memory-enhanced RNN decoder is called \textsc{MemDec}. At each time during decoding, \textsc{MemDec} will read from this memory and write to this memory once, both with content-based addressing. Unlike the unbounded memory in previous work\cite{RNNsearch} to store the representation of source sentence, the memory in \textsc{MemDec} is a matrix with pre-determined size designed to better capture the information important for the decoding process at each time step. Our empirical study on Chinese-English translation shows that it can improve by $4.8$ BLEU upon Groundhog and $5.3$ BLEU upon on Moses, yielding the best performance achieved with the same training set.
13-Acetoxysarcocrassolide Induces Apoptosis on Human Gastric Carcinoma Cells Through Mitochondria-Related Apoptotic Pathways: p38/JNK Activation and PI3K/AKT Suppression

13-acetoxysarcocrassolide (13-AC), an active compound isolated from cultured Formosa soft coral Sarcophyton crassocaule, was found to possess anti-proliferative and apoptosis-inducing activities against AGS (human gastric adenocarcinoma cells) gastric carcinoma cells. The anti-tumor effects of 13-AC were determined by MTT assay, colony formation assessment, cell wound-healing assay, TUNEL/4,6-Diamidino-2-phenylindole (DAPI) staining, Annexin V-fluorescein isothiocyanate/propidium iodide (PI) staining and flow cytometry. 13-AC inhibited the growth and migration of gastric carcinoma cells in a dose-dependent manner and induced both early and late apoptosis as assessed by flow cytometer analysis. 13-AC-induced apoptosis was confirmed through observation of a change in ΔΨm, up-regulated expression levels of Bax and Bad proteins, down-regulated expression levels of Bcl-2, Bcl-xl and Mcl-1 proteins, and the activation of caspase-3, caspase-9, p38 and JNK. Furthermore, inhibition of p38 and JNK activity by pretreatment with SB03580 (a p38-specific inhibitor) and SP600125 (a JNK-specific inhibitor) led to rescue of the cell cytotoxicity of 13-AC-treated AGS cells, indicating that the p38 and the JNK pathways are also involved in the 13-AC-induced cell apoptosis. Together, these results suggest that 13-AC induces cell apoptosis against gastric cancer cells through triggering of the mitochondrial-dependent apoptotic pathway as well as activation of the p38 and JNK pathways.
Multidimensional Scaling and Preference Mapping: Promising Methods for Investigating Older Adults’ Physical Activity Perceptions and Preferences

Research on older adult physical activity promotion has lacked methods to measure older adults’ physical activity perceptions and preferences. This article describes perceptual and preference-mapping marketing techniques for investigating perceived features in physical activities. Using these techniques, investigators can represent the dimensions in which older adults perceive physical activity modes, label them, and consider individual differences. In this study, older adults compared 13 physical activities and ranked them by preference. A 4-dimensional space satisfactorily represented perceptions, and a 3-dimensional space, preferences. Physical activity perceptions varied along orthogonal dimensions of health affordance. intensity, social nature, and competitive nature. Categories of preference were revealed as dimensions relating to noncompetitive/self-efficacy attributes, intensity, and gender practices. The authors conclude that older adults’ physical activity preferences and perceptions can be repr.
Blow away the blues: The development and prevention of depressive symptoms and negative cognitions in young adolescents

Research has indicated that depression prevention programs attenuate the development of symptoms of depression in adolescents. In the present study, the effectiveness of the Dutch depression prevention program Op Volle Kracht (OVK) provided by school teachers during school hours with adolescents from high-risk neighborhoods will be tested. We hypothesize that the OVK program will prevent or decrease reported depressive symptoms, and that this association will be mediated by cognitive distortions and alexithymia. Schools with at least 30% of their pupils living in low-income areas in the Netherlands are invited to participate in the study. Classes from vocational training up to pre-university level are eligible and 1324 adolescents (11–14 years) will be participating in the study. Randomization will be done at class level, randomly assigning participants to an intervention group (OVK) and a control group (care as usual). Trained school teachers will be delivering the program, which covers cognitive-behavioral and social problem‐solving skills. Longitudinal data will be collected with self-report measurements administered in the school setting at baseline, post intervention and at two follow ups (at 6 and 12 months). Primary outcome is the level of depressive symptoms, and secondary outcomes include: cognitive errors, response style, attributional style, alexithymia, stressful life events, substance use, happiness, and school grades. If the OVK program proves to be effective when it is provided by school teachers, a structural implementation of the program in the school curriculum will enhance the quality of the lives of adolescents and their families and will reduce costs in health care. In addition, the results of the study advances current knowledge on the underlying mechanisms of the development of depression and may aid the improvement of depression prevention programs in general. Trial registration: Dutch Trial Register NTR3110
Defining the expression of marker genes in equine mesenchymal stromal cells

Mesenchymal stromal (MS) cells have been derived from multiple sources in the horse including bone marrow, adipose tissue and umbilical cord blood. To date these cells have been investigated for their differentiation potential and are currently being used to treat damage to horse musculoskeletal tissues. However, no work has been done in horse MS cells to examine the expression profile of proteins and cell surface antigens that are expressed in human MS cells. The identification of such profiles in the horse will allow the comparison of putative MS cells isolated from different laboratories and different tissues. At present it is difficult to ascertain whether equivalent cells are being used in different reports. Here, we report on the expression of a range of markers used to define human MS cells. Using immunocytochemistry we show that horse MS cells homogenously express collagens, alkaline phosphatase activity, CD44, CD90 and CD29. In contrast, CD14, CD79α and the embryonic stem cell markers Oct-4, SSEA (stage specific embryonic antigen) −1, −3, −4, TRA (tumor rejection antigen) −1–60 and −1–81 are not expressed. The MS cells also express MHC class I antigens but do not express class II antigens, although they are inducible by treatment with interferon gamma (IFN-γ).
Imaging imagination: Brain scanning of the imagined future

In this chapter we review an emerging literature con- cerning the neuroimaging of various subcomponents of imagin- ation. The preliminary conclusions of this review are two-fold. First, acts of imagination recruit similar networks in the brain to those used for the sensory and motor processing during corres- ponding actions in, or interactions with the real world (with the important exception that imagined movements do not activate the primary motor cortex). That the majority of studies reviewed have been concerned with visual imagery was inevitable since this is the form of imagination for which most neuroimaging experiments have been conducted. It should be noted that this first conclusion is relevant to all forms of imagination, and not just those of veridi- cal imagery, where there is a 'real world' referent for the imaginary content. Second, the selection processes used in subcomponents of imagination such as anticipation, mindedness, and counterfactual thinking rely on widely distributed subcortical and cortical net- works within the brain, consisting of important components such as the cingulate cortex, the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, the cere- bellum and the orbitofrontal cortex. These neural structures play quite different functional roles in the complex interactions of real and imagined acts that constitute human thought and behaviour. Further knowledge of the precise functional roles of the interact- ing networks can be expected from neuroimaging in the coming years, perhaps through the technical breakthroughs which we imagine in a Coda and which could potentially facilitate and enhance our understanding of imagination in the future. Proceedings of the British Academy 147, 307-326. © The British Academy 2007.