Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The study of African ability

SYNOPSIS Before further comparative research is undertaken into African abilities, it would be as well to study them per se, within their own cultural context. Suggested subjects are: (1) Mental development from birth to maturity, with special attention to the alleged check in mental growth at puberty. (2) Mental characteristics of African languages. These have an important influence on the process of thought and structure of the mind, a point often overlooked in the so‐called “culture‐free” intelligence tests, which involve logical thinking typical of Western European languages. (3) Musical Ability — Many African people excel in the ability to manipulate auditory relations, and a study of the nature and determinants of the mental processes involved would be rewarding. (4) Arts and Crafts — These have so far been studied chiefly from the cultural and aesthetic point of view. A psychological study of the manual and perceptual skills involved, their development and transferability outside their cultural con.
Public Opinion and the Oregon Death with Dignity Act

Oregon voters legalized physician-assisted death in 1997 by passing the Oregon Death with Dignity Act. This law allowed terminally ill, mentally competent adult residents of the state to legally obtain a physician’s prescription to hasten death under narrow sets of circumstances. The purpose of this study was twofold: to examine contemporary patterns of support for the law in Oregon and to explore how opinions have changed over time on the issue. This study examined patterns of public support among a random sample of registered Oregon voters for the state’s death with dignity law, using a mixed mode (mail, online, and phone) cross-sectional survey (n = 442). The findings indicate a pattern of growing support with potential Oregon voters split 80%-20% on the issue, a substantial increase from the 60%-40% approval margin at the ballot box in 1997. Various demographic variables, as well as attitudinal factors, were explored in building a binary logistic regression model predicting probability of support. Frequency of church attendance, views about physician participation in the process, and opinions about Death with Dignity as an individual right were significant predictors of support. Frequent churchgoers, regardless of denomination or religious tradition, were nearly five times more likely to oppose Death with Dignity than support it, holding all other variables constant. While the findings indicate a pattern of growth in support over the past 15 years, they indicate also a stability of opinion, with few individuals indicating they had changed their opinions about the issue since the first time they encountered it. Death with Dignity ii
Contract type, perceived mobility and optimism as antecedents of perceived employability

This study aims to examine how contract type, perceived mobility and optimism are linked to perceived employability (PE). The pattern of results was investigated first cross-sectionally (n = 1379, Time 1) and then longitudinally with a one-year time lag (n = 803, Time 2) with a sample of Finnish university researchers and teachers. Moderated hierarchical regression analyses showed that perceived mobility was positively associated with PE among permanent workers but not among temporary workers, whereas optimism was positively related to PE among all the workers at both Time 1 and Time 2. In light of these results, it seems that permanent employees especially benefit from perceived mobility in terms of higher PE, whereas optimism is beneficial for all employees’ PE.
Occupational Choices of Romanian Rural Youth

Abstract This paper tries to identify the main factors influencing the decisions related to occupational choices of rural youth from Cluj County, Romania, thus contributing to a better understanding of the problems and opportunities of Romanian rural communities. In order to achieve this, the results of two surveys are compared: the first one was carried out in 2007 and the second in 2011. The two surveys adopted the same methodology, thus allowing us to test the stability of the outcomes over a period of four years and highlight the main changes occurring in that period. In 2011 information was collected also regarding the current situation of young people belonging to the first generation, thus the cross-sectional analysis has been completed with a longitudinal analysis. Results show that the educational choices of rural youth from Cluj County were not essentially modified in the period 2007-2011, but there is a growing uncertainty regarding their future profession. Most of them want to work in the services sector, the preference for agriculture remaining low and there is a clear and persistent gender division among chosen professions. The main factors identified as having an influence on continuing education are: gender (more girls opting for continuing education than boys), school results and parents’ attitude towards education. Based on the conclusions of the analysis, some policy implications are also discussed.
Irish Treebanking and Parsing: A Preliminary Evaluation

Language resources are essential for linguistic research and the development of NLP applications. Low-density languages, such as Irish, therefore lack significant research in this area. This paper describes the early stages in the development of new language resources for Irish ― namely the first Irish dependency treebank and the first Irish statistical dependency parser. We present the methodology behind building our new treebank and the steps we take to leverage upon the few existing resources. We discuss language-specific choices made when defining our dependency labelling scheme, and describe interesting Irish language characteristics such as prepositional attachment, copula, and clefting. We manually develop a small treebank of 300 sentences based on an existing POS-tagged corpus and report an inter-annotator agreement of 0.7902. We train MaltParser to achieve preliminary parsing results for Irish and describe a bootstrapping approach for further stages of development.
Customization or Conformity? An Institutional and Network Perspective on the Content and Consequences of TQM Adoption

The authors thank Rakesh Khurana, Mark Shanley, and Edward Zajac for valuable comments on earlier versions of this paper. The paper has also benefited from the helpful comments of Christine Oliver and three anonymous reviewers for ASQ, as well as the editorial assistance of Linda Johanson. The following groups provided data used in this study: The AHA Hospital Research and Educational Trust, the AHA Data Survey Group, the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Health Care Organizations, and the Health Care Investment Analysts. We also thank the Baxter Foundation and the Graduate Program in Health Services Management at the Kellogg Graduate School of Management for generously funding this research. Additional support was provided by the A.C. Buehler Chair in Health Services Management at the Kellogg School. An earlier version of the paper received the 1996 West Press Best Paper Award in the Organization and Management Theory Division of the Academy of Management. This study develops a theoretical framework that integrates institutional and network perspectives on the form and consequences of administrative innovations. Hypotheses are tested with survey and archival data on the implementation of total quality management (TQM) programs and the consequences for organizational efficiency and legitimacy in a sample of over 2,700 U.S. hospitals. The results show that early adopters customize TQM practices for efficiency gains, while later adopters gain legitimacy from adopting the normative form of TQM programs. The findings suggest that institutional factors moderate the role of network membership in affecting the form of administrative innovations adopted and provide strong evidence for the importance of institutional factors in determining how innovations are defined and implemented. We discuss implications for theory and research on institutional processes and network effects and for the literatures on innovation adoption and total quality management. *
Reward System Design and Group Creativity: An Experimental Investigation

ABSTRACT: In an environment where three-person groups develop a creative solution to an important problem, we examine whether the efficacy of either individual- or group-based creativity-contingent incentives depends on whether they take the piece-rate or tournament form. We predict and find that group (intergroup) tournament pay increases group cohesion and collaborative efforts, which ultimately lead to a more creative group solution, relative to group piece-rate pay. While individual (intragroup) tournament pay increases individual efforts, we find that it does not enhance the creativity of group solutions relative to individual piece-rate pay. Our results advance the burgeoning management accounting literature on creativity-contingent incentives by demonstrating that reward systems are more likely to promote group creativity through collaborative efforts rather than independent individual efforts. We also provide important insights into when and why tournament pay can boost group creativity in organiz.
Interactive Domains in the Molecular Chaperone Human αB Crystallin Modulate Microtubule Assembly and Disassembly

Background Small heat shock proteins regulate microtubule assembly during cell proliferation and in response to stress through interactions that are poorly understood. Methodology Novel functions for five interactive sequences in the small heat shock protein and molecular chaperone, human αB crystallin, were investigated in the assembly/disassembly of microtubules and aggregation of tubulin using synthetic peptides and mutants of human αB crystallin. Principal Findings The interactive sequence 113FISREFHR120 exposed on the surface of αB crystallin decreased microtubule assembly by ∼45%. In contrast, the interactive sequences, 131LTITSSLSSDGV142 and 156ERTIPITRE164, corresponding to the β8 strand and the C-terminal extension respectively, which are involved in complex formation, increased microtubule assembly by ∼34–45%. The αB crystallin peptides, 113FISREFHR120 and 156ERTIPITRE164, inhibited microtubule disassembly by ∼26–36%, and the peptides 113FISREFHR120 and 131LTITSSLSSDGV142 decreased the thermal aggregation of tubulin by ∼42–44%. The 131LTITSSLSSDGV142 and 156ERTIPITRE164 peptides were more effective than the widely used anti-cancer drug, Paclitaxel, in modulating tubulin↔microtubule dynamics. Mutagenesis of these interactive sequences in wt human αB crystallin confirmed the effects of the αB crystallin peptides on microtubule assembly/disassembly and tubulin aggregation. The regulation of microtubule assembly by αB crystallin varied over a narrow range of concentrations. The assembly of microtubules was maximal at αB crystallin to tubulin molar ratios between 1∶4 and 2∶1, while molar ratios >2∶1 inhibited microtubule assembly. Conclusions and Significance Interactive sequences on the surface of human αB crystallin collectively modulate microtubule assembly through a dynamic subunit exchange mechanism that depends on the concentration and ratio of αB crystallin to tubulin. These are the first experimental results in support of the functional importance of the dynamic subunit model of small heat shock proteins.
The geomicrobiology of CO2 geosequestration: a focused review on prokaryotic community responses to field-scale CO2 injection

Our primary research paper (Mu et al., 2014) demonstrated selective changes to a deep subsurface prokaryotic community as a result of CO2 stress. Analyzing geochemical and microbial 16S rRNA gene profiles, we evaluated how in situ prokaryotic communities responded to increased CO2 and the presence of trace organic compounds, and related temporal shifts in phylogeny to changes in metabolic potential. In this focused review, we extend upon our previous discussion to present analysis of taxonomic unit co-occurrence profiles from the same field experiment, to attempt to describe dynamic community behavior within the deep subsurface. Understanding the physiology of the subsurface microbial biosphere, including how key functional groups integrate into the community, will be critical to determining the fate of injected CO2. For example, community-wide network analyses may provide insights to whether microbes cooperatively produce biofilm biomass, and/or biomineralize the CO2, and hence, induce changes to formation porosity or changes in electron flow. Furthermore, we discuss potential impacts to the feasibility of subsurface CO2 storage of selectively enriching for particular metabolic functions (e.g., methanogenesis) as a result of CO2 injection.
CULTURE and culture at the Royal Ontario Museum: Anthropology Meets Marketing, Part Two

This paper reports anthropological research conducted at the Royal Ontario Museum (ROM) by the author over three years. The purpose of the research was a traditional anthropological one: to listen to visitors at length and in depth. Part One, published in Curator 46 (2), offered ethnographic data, anthropological analysis, and a marketing perspective to suggest why the visitor's point of view may seem vertiginously strange to museum personnel. It characterized the conflict between host and guest as the outcome of two competing models of culture: “preferment” and “transformation. ” In Part Two, visitors' experiences of the museum serve to illuminate a shift in attitudes toward museum culture. This research establishes a typology of consumer segments and a set of strategic recommendations for freeing the museum from the preferment model without abandoning those visitors who continue to embrace it.
Race and the Father-Son Connection: The Conditional Relevance of Father Absence for the Orientations and Identities of Adolescent Boys

This study investigates how structural circumstances condition the meaning of the father-son connection and the effects of father absence. Examining a sample of white and black adolescents, the research sought father-present/father-absent differences in personal identity and orientation toward the conventional success goals of early adulthood. The results indicate that father absence has quite different consequences by race, with father absence being associated with damaging effects only among white boys. By contrast, father absence seems to have some slightly positive effects on black boys. This pattern of “costs” for whites and “gains” for blacks is general across social class levels. The lack of evidence of detrimental effects of father absence among black boys raises questions about the role of the black family in sustaining intergenerational patterns of racial inequality.
Entre percursos e discursos identitários: etnicidade, classe e género na cultura hip-hop

With the present article we intend to explore the way the so called hip-hop culture, although globally available, tends to be adopted and adapted at a local level, hence creating both cultural convergence and divergence. The focus of this analysis will be the trajectory and identity construction of several hip-hop protagonists, considering three entwined dimensions: ethnicity, class and gender. Besides an initial theoretical discussion regarding the relevance of these dimensions, we also intend to present findings from an ethnographic research conducted in Portugal, more specifically in the metropolitan area of Lisbon. These results, although specific and contextual, show resemblance with other similar phenomena, thus being helpful in understanding these practices and corresponding interpretations throughout different national contexts.
Discourse Structure in Nonnative English Discourse

A frequently discussed hypothesis concerning the source of cross-linguistic communication difficulty in written discourse is conflicting organizational patterns (Kaplan, 1966, 1987). Extending the argument to oral discourse, Young (1982) argued that spoken English discourse produced by Chinese speakers evidenced a discourse-level topic-comment structure that native English speakers find difficult to follow. However, Tyler (1988) argued that the perception of incoherence might better be understood as the cumulative result of interacting miscues at the discourse level, that is, miscues in syntactic incorporation, lexical discourse markers, tense/aspect, and lexical The study reported here aims at testing these competing hypotheses. One hundred fifteen subjects rated four versions of the Chinese-produced English discourse presented in Young's study for comprehensibility. Results indicated that the effect of discourse miscues on comprehensibility was highly significant (F = 70, p <.0001). However, there was no significant effect for order of ideas (F = .47, p <.49).
Design of Novel Relaxase Substrates Based on Rolling Circle Replicases for Bioconjugation to DNA Nanostructures

During bacterial conjugation and rolling circle replication, HUH endonucleases, respectively known as relaxases and replicases, form a covalent bond with ssDNA when they cleave their target sequence (nic site). Both protein families show structural similarity but limited amino acid identity. Moreover, the organization of the inverted repeat (IR) and the loop that shape the nic site differs in both proteins. Arguably, replicases cleave their target site more efficiently, while relaxases exert more biochemical control over the process. Here we show that engineering a relaxase target by mimicking the replicase target, results in enhanced formation of protein-DNA covalent complexes. Three widely different relaxases, which belong to MOBF, MOBQ and MOBP families, can properly cleave DNA sequences with permuted target sequences. Collaterally, the secondary structure that the permuted targets acquired within a supercoiled plasmid DNA resulted in poor conjugation frequencies underlying the importance of relaxase accessory proteins in conjugative DNA processing. Our results reveal that relaxase and replicase targets can be interchangeable in vitro. The new Rep substrates provide new bioconjugation tools for the design of sophisticated DNA-protein nanostructures.
Drying of Oil Palm Frond via Swirling Fluidization Technique

Oil palm frond (OPF) is one of the largest available resources of biomass from oil palm plantations. Previous research works reported the high potentials of using the OPF as the main component for cattle feed. The production of cattle feed however, depends strongly on the drying efficiency of freshly pruned OPF. The current study proposes the swirling fluidization technique as a method for drying the OPF. A laboratory scale swirling fluidized bed dryer (SFBD) was constructed to carry out investigation on hydrodynamics and drying characteristics of chopped OPF in hot air stream at temperatures of 45oC and 60oC. OPF which consists of leaves (57% moisture content – wet basis) and stem (70% moisture content – wet basis) are dried separately in the SFBD. The average time taken to reduce moisture to 15% (as per required in cattle feed production) is about 60 minutes for leaves and 90 minutes for stems. It was found that the hydrodynamics and drying kinetics of both leaves and stems differ greatly. The leaves dry faster with large amount of moisture loss in early stages of drying before slowing down, in contrast with stems. This leads to a conclusion that the leaves are kinetic controlled while the stems are diffusion controlled and thus justifies the drying to be conducted separately. In conclusion, drying of OPF using swirling fluidized bed is effective for both continuous and batch drying. The ability to fluidize the highly irregular shapes of OPF at relatively low energy consumption is another strong advantage to use the swirling fluidization technique in comparison with other methods of fluidized bed drying as reported in the literature. Index Terms — Oil palm frond (OPF), Drying characteristics, Swirling fluidized bed dryer (SFBD), moisture content.
Topoisomerases and site-specific recombinases: similarities in structure and mechanism

The processes of DNA topoisomerization and site-specific recombination are fundamentally similar: DNA cleavage by forming a phospho-protein covalent linkage, DNA topological rearrangement, and DNA ligation coupled with protein regeneration. Type IB DNA topoisomerases are structurally and mechanistically homologous to tyrosine recombinases. Both enzymes nick DNA double helices independent of metal ions, form 3′-phosphotyrosine intermediates, and rearrange the free 5′ ends relative to the uncut strands by swiveling. In contrast, serine recombinases generate 5′-phospho-serine intermediates. A 180° relative rotation of the two halves of a 100 kDa terameric serine recombinase and DNA complex has been proposed as the mechanism of strand exchange. Here I propose an alternative mechanism. Interestingly, the catalytic domain of serine recombinases has structural similarity to the TOPRIM domain, conserved among all Type IA and Type II topoisomerases and responsible for metal binding and DNA cleavage. TOPRIM topoisomerases also cleave DNA to generate 5′-phosphate and 3′-OH groups. Based on the existing biochemical data and crystal structures of topoisomerase II and serine recombinases bound to pre- and post-cleavage DNA, I suggest a strand passage mechanism for DNA recombination by serine recombinases. This mechanism is reminiscent of DNA topoisomerization and does not require subunit rotation.
Comparison of 2f1-f2 DPOAE and 2f2-f1 DPOAE fine structure in young and middle-aged adults

Abstract Objective: The 2f2-f1 DPOAE is not as popular as the 2f1-f2 DPOAE in the clinical realm as it is not as robust. However, it does have an advantage of being a predominantly reflection emission. The reflection component has been found to be sensitive to cochlear damage. Our objective was to compare the two types of DPOAE to track subtle changes due to aging. Design: We used the most suitable stimulus parameters to record the fine structures of 2f2-f1 DPOAE and 2f1-f2 DPOAE for comparison in two groups of individuals. Study sample: Young adults and middle-aged adults with normal hearing sensitivity participated in the experiment. Both ears of all participants were tested. Results: Although reductions were noted in the both types of DPOAE in the middle-aged participants compared with the young adults, the decrease in amplitude of the 2f2-f1 DPOAE was found to be statistically significant. This corresponded with statistically significant reductions in the reflection component of the 2f1-f2 DPOAE. Reductions in the 2f2-f1 DPOAE were found with both, high-level and low-level primaries. Conclusions: These results highlight the advantages of analysing fine structure data of the 2f2-f1 DPOAE to track subtle cochlear changes in response to aging.
Non-hyperbolicity in random regular graphs and their traffic characteristics

In this paper we prove that random d-regular graphs with d ≥ 3 have traffic congestion of the order O(n logd−13n) where n is the number of nodes and geodesic routing is used. We also show that these graphs are not asymptotically δ-hyperbolic for any non-negative δ almost surely as n → ∞.