Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Beyond giving RUNNING HEAD : Beyond giving Beyond giving : Political advocacy and volunteer behaviors of college alumni Paper presented for the annual meeting of the Association for the Study of Higher Education

We thank Thomas Sanford, doctoral student at the University of Minnesota, for his assistance in assembling our literature review. We bear all responsibility for errors. Abstract: Colleges and universities have paid an enormous level of attention to one domain of alumni: Giving! In view of the cuts of state spending in higher education and the shrinking ability of parents and family to pay college, such emphasis is understandable. However, this emphasis has blinded scholars and practitioners to understating the non-monetary support roles played by college alumni. Drawing on data from a research extensive university, this study employs a sequential mixed method design (focus groups and confirmatory factor analysis) to demonstrate that non-monetary support behaviors are best understood through the distinct, but interrelated domains of political advocacy and volunteerism. Political advocacy behaviors include contacting legislators, the governor's office, local politicians and serving on a political action team, while volunteer behaviors include mentoring new alumni, recruiting students, and participating in special events. The study breaks ground for future research on alumni support for higher education, including strategies to recruit alumni volunteers and advocates. Beyond giving 3 College and university alumni play important roles in supporting higher education. This support is most visible in the area of charitable giving. In 2006, U.S. colleges and universities raised an estimated $28-billion in private gifts, and a significant amount of these dollars came from alumni (Strout, 2007). However, alumni play broader roles in supporting colleges and universities beyond writing a check. For example, alumni who help secure taxpayer support for their alma mater have become key players in the state lobbying process (Koral, 1998). In addition, through college advisory boards, prominent alumni lend their experiences and expertise to help higher education leaders formulate strategic directions for their institutions (Weerts, 1998). In other cases, veteran alums may serve as mentors to young alumni who are moving to a new town and/or establishing their careers and job prospects. Still, other alumni volunteers may serve recruiters and booster club leaders that raise the profile of the institution in their region. Providing internships and mentoring undergraduate and graduate students is another manifestation of alumni support. When taken together, the multiplicity of alumni support roles is critical in the increasingly competitive marketplace of higher education (Cabrera, Weerts & Despite the growing importance of non-monetary alumni service roles, research on alumni support has been one-dimensional, dominated by the drive to cultivate charitable …
Signal Transducer and Activator of Transcription 3 in Liver Diseases: A Novel Therapeutic Target

Signal transducer and activator of transcription 3 (STAT3) is a transcription factor that is activated by many cytokines and growth factors and plays a key role in cell survival, proliferation, and differentiation. STAT3 activation is detected virtually in all rodent models of liver injury and in human liver diseases. In this review, we highlight recent advances of STAT3 signaling in liver injury, steatosis, inflammation, regeneration, fibrosis, and hepatocarcinogenesis. The cytokines and small molecules that activate STAT3 in hepatocytes may have therapeutic benefits to treat acute liver injury, fatty liver disease, and alcoholic hepatitis, while blockage of STAT3 may have a therapeutic potential to prevent and treat liver cancer.
Risk Reduction as a Managerial Motive for Conglomerate Mergers

A conglomerate merger generally leads, through the diversification effect, to reduced risk for the combined entity. As is well known, in perfect capital markets such risk reduction will not be beneficial to stockholders, since they can achieve on their own the preferred degree of risk in their "homemade" portfolios. What, then, is the motive for the widespread and persisting phenomenon of conglomerate mergers? In this study a "managerial" motive for conglomerate merger is advanced and tested. Specifically, managers, as opposed to investors, are hypothesized to engage in conglomerate mergers to decrease their largely undiversifiable "employment risk" (i.e., risk of losing job, professional reputation, etc.). Such risk-reduction activities are considered here as managerial perquisites in the context of the agency cost model. This hypothesis about conglomerate merger motivation is empirically examined in two different tests and found to be consistent with the data.
New regionalism and the construction of global order

The paper introduces a framework for understanding the novelty of regionalism (new regionalism) by relating it to processes of structural change led by agency, acting according to new concepts and ideas. It uncovers the phenomenon as part of change in the relationship between political authority and the logic of the market, that is at the heart of the global political economy. It will be argued that with new regionalism, the predominant concept and thus logic and content of the old regionalism found in 'embedded liberalism' is in the process of undergoing a fundamental change. This is to a great deal due to the activities of global business actors as globalising forces: they 'infuse' the logic of the market into traditional, old style regionalism. The argument is put forward that global business not only is 'the master of the market', meaning that it creates regionalised and globalised patterns of economic transactions due to economic firm strategies. As a powerful actor, global business increasingly creates and promotes new concepts of the political framework wherein their activities should be embedded. These are concepts that envision a regionalised world that sharply contrasts to the one we used to live in so far. Two cases will support the argument: the role global business actors - acting via the European Round Table of Industrialists – play with regard to the European Single Market and similar activities of global players within the APEC process. At the end, the paper will discuss a trend new regionalism might take: towards a world in which regions converge on the model of the competition region.
Elections in Zimbabwe: The ZANU (PF) Hegemony and its Incipient Decline

contribution seeks to explain the ruling ZANU (PF) party's electoral hege- mony by outlining and analysing Zimbabwe 'sfive general elections since 1979 and the two presidential elections since 1990. In this regard, the paper argues that the ruling party is experiencing a gradual decline in elite cohesion which is manifested in the electoral challenge of independent candidates coming from the ruling party itself. This phenomenon of independent candidates could have far-reaching consequences in overcoming the present state of weak political opposition in Zimbabwe. The paper therefore suggests a scenario in which a viable opposition could come from a splinter group inside the ruling ZANU (PF) itself not unlike the major ZAPU/ZANU split of 1963.
OsteoRheumatology: a new discipline?

This review summarises recent evidence about the interaction between bone, the immune system and cartilage in disabling conditions such as osteoarthritis, rheumatoid arthritis and spondyloarthritis. These topics have been recently discussed at the ‘OsteoRheumatology’ conference held in Genoa in October 2014. The meeting, at its 10th edition, has been conceived to bring together distinguished international experts in the fields of rheumatic and metabolic bone diseases with the aim of discussing emerging knowledge regarding the role of the bone tissue in rheumatic diseases. Moreover, this review focuses on new treatments based on underlying the pathophysiological processes in rheumatic diseases. Although, a number of issues still remain to be clarified, it seems quite clear that in clinical practice, as well as in basic and translational research, there is a need for more knowledge of the interactions between the cartilage, the immune system and the bone. In this context, ‘OsteoRheumatology’ represents a potential new discipline providing a greater insight into this interplay, in order to face the multifactorial and complex issues underlying common and disabling rheumatic diseases.
PR ] 2 7 Ju n 20 06 SLE and α-SLE driven by Lévy processes ∗

Stochastic Loewner Evolutions (SLE) with a multiple √ κB of Brownian motion B as driving process are random planar curves (if κ ≤ 4) or growing compact sets generated by a curve (if κ > 4). We consider here more general Lévy processes as driving processes and obtain evolutions expected to look like random trees or compact sets generated by trees, respectively. We show that when the driving force is of the form √ κB+θS for a symmetric α-stable Lévy process S, the cluster has zero or positive Lebesgue measure according to whether κ ≤ 4 or κ > 4. We also give mathematical evidence that a further phase transition at α = 1 is attributable to the recurrence/transience dychotomy of the driving Lévy process. We introduce a new class of evolutions that we call α-SLE. They have α-self-similarity properties for α-stable Lévy driving processes. We show the phase transition at a critical coefficient θ = θ0(α) analogous to the κ = 4 phase transition. AMS 2000 subject classifications: 60G51, 60G52, 60H10, 60J45.
Effects of Joint Space Use and Group Membership on Contact Rates Among White-Tailed Deer

Abstract Establishment and spread of infectious diseases are controlled by the frequency of contacts among hosts. Although managers can estimate transmission coefficients from the relationship between disease prevalence and age or time, they may wish to quantify or compare contact rates before a disease is established or while it is at very low prevalence. Our objectives were to quantify direct and indirect contacts rates among white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) and to compare these measures of contact rate with simpler measures of joint space use. We deployed Global Positioning System (GPS) collars on 23 deer near Carbondale, Illinois, USA, from 2002 to 2005. We used location data from the GPS collars to measure pairwise rates of direct and indirect contact, based on a range of proximity criteria and time lags, as well as volume of intersection (VI) of kernel utilization distributions. We analyzed contact rates at a given distance criterion and time lag using mixed-model logistic regression. Direct contact rates increased with increasing VI and were higher in autumn–spring than in summer. After accounting for VI, the estimated odds of direct contact during autumn–spring periods were 5.0–22.1-fold greater (depending on the proximity criterion) for pairs of deer in the same social group than for between-group pairs, but for direct contacts during summer the within:between-group odds ratio did not differ significantly from 1. Indirect contact rates also increased with VI, but the effects of both season and pair-type were much smaller than for direct contacts and differed little as the time lag increased from 1–30 days. These results indicate that simple measures of joint space use are insufficient indices of direct contact because group membership can substantially increase contacts at a given level of joint space use. With indirect transmission, however, group membership had a much smaller influence after accounting for VI. Relationships between contact rates and season, VI, and pair-type were generally robust to changes in the proximity criterion defining a contact, and patterns of indirect contacts were affected little by the choice of time lag from 1–30 days. The use of GPS collars provides a framework for testing hypotheses about the form of contact networks among large mammals and comparing potential direct and indirect contact rates across gradients of ecological factors, such as population density or landscape configuration.
Do Taxes Distort Corporations ' Investment Choices ? Evidence from Industry-Level Data

The U.S. corporate income tax system provides investment incentives that vary across asset types. Do corporations' investment choices respond to these differences and if so, by how much? I analyze the effect of corporate income taxes on the allocation of new capital investment in the U.S. economy by constructing an industry-level panel data from 1962 to 1997. My preferred-IV estimates of the asset substitution elasticities suggest a sizable interasset distortion effect of corporate income taxes. Substitutability is the strongest between machinery equipment and computing and electronic equipment. Compared to a revenue-neutral uniform tax scheme, differential corporate income taxes cause under-investment in computing and electronic equipment and over-investment in machinery and transportation equipment.
Chimeric VEGF-ENZ7/PlGF Promotes Angiogenesis Via VEGFR-2 Without Significant Enhancement of Vascular Permeability and Inflammation

Objective—Vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) plays critical roles in the regulation of angiogenesis and lymphangiogenesis. However, tissue edema, hemorrhage, and inflammation occur when VEGF-A is used for angiogenic therapy. To design a novel angiogenic factor without severe side effects, we examined the biological function of chimeric VEGF-ENZ7/placental growth factor (PlGF), which is composed of Orf-VirusNZ7-derived VEGF-ENZ7 and human PlGF1, in a transgenic (Tg) mouse model. Methods and Results—A strong angiogenic response was observed in both VEGF-ENZ7/PlGF and VEGF-A165 Tg mice. Notably, the vascular leakage of VEGF-ENZ7/PlGF-induced blood vessels was 4-fold lower than that of VEGF-A165–induced blood vessels. Furthermore, the monocyte/macrophage recruitment in the skin of VEGF-ENZ7/PlGF Tg mice was ≈8-fold decreased compared with that of VEGF-A165 Tg mice. In addition, the lymphatic vessels in VEGF-ENZ7/PlGF Tg mice were structurally normal, whereas they were markedly dilated in VEGF-A165 Tg mice, possibly because of the high vascular leakage. Receptor binding assay demonstrated that VEGF-ENZ7/PlGF was the ligand only activating VEGF receptor (VEGFR)-2. Conclusion—These results indicated that neither the hyperpermeability in response to simultaneous stimulation of VEGFR-1 and VEGFR-2 nor VEGFR-1–mediated severe inflammation was associated with VEGF-ENZ7/PlGF-induced angiogenesis. The unique receptor binding property may shed light on VEGF-ENZ7/PlGF as a novel candidate for therapeutic angiogenesis.
Information theoretic clustering of sparse cooccurrence data

A novel approach to clustering cooccurrence data poses it as an optimization problem in information theory which minimizes the resulting loss in mutual information. A divisive clustering algorithm that monotonically reduces this loss function was recently proposed. We show that sparse high-dimensional data presents special challenges which can result in the algorithm getting stuck at poor local minima. We propose two solutions to this problem: (a) a "prior" to overcome infinite relative entropy values as in the supervised Naive Bayes algorithm, and (b) local search to escape local minima. Finally, we combine these solutions to get a robust algorithm that is computationally efficient. We present experimental results to show that the proposed method is effective in clustering document collections and outperform previous information-theoretic clustering approaches.
Stellar populations in active galactic nuclei — I. The observations

Recent observations supported by theoretical models have led to the view that giant and supergiant stars are overabundant, and/or a high-metallicity component may be present, in the stellar populations at the centres of active galaxies. Here we attempt to quantify these effects by observing the strengths of the stellar absorption lines of Mg b, Na i and the Ca ii triplet, as well as molecular bands such as CN and TiO. Using long-slit spectroscopic data we are able to separate the stellar populations in and around the nucleus, for a sample including normal, LINER, starburst and Seyfert galaxies. In this paper we present the data, namely spectra of the nucleus and of a number of circumnuclear regions. Comparisons reveal gradients in both the reddening and the stellar population within the central regions of most galaxies. Detailed stellar population synthesis will be presented in a companion paper.
Administrators’ and Special-subject, Pre-tenured Teachers’ Perceptions of Instructional Support

This study informs the work of school leaders, administrators, pre-tenured teachers, and induction program directors by supporting research related to instructional leadership, school performance, and teacher socialization. The study investigates how administrators’ and special-subject, pre-tenured teachers’ perceive instructional leadership support. The study compared administrators’ and specialsubject, pre-tenured teachers’ perceptions of support strategies in schools meeting and not meeting New York State English Language Arts adequate yearly performance (AYP) targets. The results of the study support research related to effective school leadership and contribute to the current literature on support for new teachers. The results suggest that administrators in schools meeting AYP targets set school-wide goals based on school and student achievement data and administrators’ current support practices may not adequately meet the needs of special-subject, pre-tenured teachers. The results suggest a number of recommendations for improving administrators’ current practices related to goal setting and support for special-subject, pre-tenured teachers and opportunities for further research related to administrators’ instructional leadership support. Document Type Dissertation Degree Name Doctor of Education (EdD) Department Executive Leadership First Supervisor Jason Berman Second Supervisor Russell Coward Subject Categories Education This dissertation is available at Fisher Digital Publications: https://fisherpub.sjfc. edu/education_etd/33 Administrators’ and Special-subject, Pre-tenured Teachers’ Perceptions of Instructional Support By Sheila M. Marconi Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree Ed.D. in Executive Leadership Supervised by Dr. Jason Berman Committee Member Dr. Russell Coward Ralph C. Wilson, Jr. School of Education St. John Fisher College
An institutional analysis of governance structures : how institutional carriers influence decision making in Brazilian environmental-education internet-mediated communities

This thesis presents an investigation on the institutionalisation of four Brazilian Internet-mediated communities that provide debate and organize political mobilization related to the education on environmental issues. Drawing on new institutionalism, this research claims that institutional factors influence how these collectivities structure their governance and decision-making processes. More specifically, this study adopts W. Richard Scott's (2001) framework on institutional carriers to analyse the phenomenon of the diffusion of a segregated decision-making process, which Simon (1997 [1945]) claims is an instance of centralization present in hierarchical organizations, in communities that declare to be attempting to create network-like organizational structures. The comparative case study, based on qualitative methodology (in-depth, semi-structured interviews), reveals that laws, power and authority systems, cognitive schema, jobs, roles, scripts and Internet tools, among other institutional carriers, influence the communities in reproducing centralized governance structures. Furthermore, this research highlights how social actors interpret and reproduce such social structures in their environment. This research balances the role of both social structures and agency to understand how institutional forms diffuse through the studied virtual communities. Empirical evidence suggests social actors embed institutionalised social structures in their practices through adapting them to the situation, which includes the cultivation of mechanisms of legitimation and sanctions of patterned behaviour.
Sociodemographic Risk Factors of Diabetes and Hypertension Prevalence in Republic of Korea

This study examined the relationships between SES and diabetes and hypertension for Korean adults using the Korean National Health and Nutritional Examination Survey. To handle the four dummy dependent variables: Diabetes and Hypertension, Diabetes alone, Hypertension alone, and Diabetes or Hypertension, four different logistic models were conducted. The descriptive statistics showed a considerable amount of comorbidity between the combined dependent variable of diabetes and hypertension. To gauge more realistic measures of SES, education and income were combined together as four dummy categories. The SES factor indeed had significant impacts on diabetes and hypertension. Socioeconomically disadvantaged groups demonstrated to have increased likelihood of having these diseases. However, we could not find the strong compensating effect between education and income; the higher level of education but lower income variable was only significant in having both diseases, and the higher income but lower level of education variable was only significant in having hypertension alone and either one of the diseases. Only the highest SES one, the one with a higher level of education and a higher income, was significantly lowering the likelihood of having these diseases in all models. Therefore, public policy and intervention programs should focus on individuals matching these socioeconomic characteristics.
Tool Support for Distributed Pair Programming

Geographically distributed project teams and organizations are becoming more common. For example, in many organizations workers from multiple locations collaborate on projects. Telecommuting is becoming more common, yet these workers are also project team members. Open source software development is an extreme example of this movement, since there are typically no collocated developers at all. Conflicts between the desire to use pair programming and factors motivating distributed teams may result in organizational change. For example, Morales [1] reports that introducing pair programming at one organization resulted in reduced telecommuting due to the need to be in the office. Although pair programming has not been studied extensively, early research indicates that it results in software with fewer errors. While the total person effort may be slightly larger [2] than that expended by traditional programming methods, the elapsed time is reduced. Additional benefits of pairing include higher confidence in solutions [3], improved staff morale and increased job satisfaction [4]. At UC Santa Cruz, pair programming has been successfully used as a teaching tool in introductory programming courses [5, 6]. Unfortunately, some students have had difficulty participating due to the collocation requirement, largely due to scheduling conflicts and personal desires not to meet in campus labs at night. Although some efforts have been made to apply pair programming or XP in a distributed manner [7, 8], little quantitative evidence of its success has been published. Anecdotal evidence of the potential of distributed pair programming can