Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Transformational Leader Self-Perception And Objective Sales Performance: The Potential Moderating Effects Of Behavioral Coping Ability

This research reports results from an exploratory study that examined the relationship between salespersons’ self-perceived leadership styles, behavioral and emotional coping abilities, and objective sales performance. The direct sales staff of a financial services firm provided the data for the study. The self-rater version of the Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire (MLQ 5X, short form) was used to capture the sales personnel’s self-perceptions of their leadership styles with respect to transformational and transactional leadership. Two main scales from the Constructive Thinking Inventory (CTI) were used to assess the behavioral and emotional coping abilities of the participants. Data analyses indicated a significant relationship between active transactional leader self-perception, transformational leader self-perception, behavioral coping ability, and sales performance. This was not the case for passive transactional leadership or emotional coping ability. In addition, behavioral coping ability moderated the relationship between transformational self-perception and sales performance such that those sales personnel who perceived themselves as transformational delivered enhanced performance when behavioral coping ability was good rather than poor.
Duration and Frequency of a High Temperature Pulse Affect Survival of Emergence-Ready Megachile rotundata (Hymenoptera: Megachilidae) during Low-Temperature Incubation

ABSTRACT Synchronizing Megachile rotundata (F.) nesting activity with alfalfa bloom is essential for ensuring optimal pollination for alfalfa seed production. This is achieved by timing the initiation of spring bee incubation so that adults will emerge ∼2 wk before peak bloom. If weather conditions change so as to delay the bloom, bee managers will commonly expose the developing bees to a period of low-temperature incubation to slow their development. We have previously demonstrated survival during low-temperature incubation can be significantly increased by using a fluctuating thermal regime (FTR) where the bees receive a daily pulse at 20°C. A FTR incubation protocol is composed of a number of different components, such as the base and pulse temperatures, and the duration and frequency of the pulse. In this investigation, the effect of the duration of the pulse (5–120 min) and the frequency of a pulse (twice daily to weekly) on the survival of developing M. rotundata was examined. A pulse as short as 5 min at 20°C increased survival of the developing bees as compared with the constant 6°C controls. Increasing the pulse duration induced a further increase in tolerance to 6°C. As with the pulse duration, increasing the pulse frequency from once weekly to twice daily had a significant effect on improving the bees tolerance to low-temperature incubation. This investigation further strengthens the argument that a FTR protocol is superior to using a constant low-temperature exposure for interrupting the spring incubation of M. rotundata.
Developmental process of the arcuate fasciculus from infancy to adolescence: a diffusion tensor imaging study

We investigated the radiologic developmental process of the arcuate fasciculus (AF) using subcomponent diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) analysis in typically developing volunteers. DTI data were acquired from 96 consecutive typically developing children, aged 0-14 years. AF subcomponents, including the posterior, anterior, and direct AF tracts were analyzed. Success rates of analysis (AR) and fractional anisotropy (FA) values of each subcomponent tract were measured and compared. AR of all subcomponent tracts, except the posterior, showed a significant increase with aging (P < 0.05). Subcomponent tracts had a specific developmental sequence: First, the posterior AF tract, second, the anterior AF tract, and last, the direct AF tract in identical hemispheres. FA values of all subcomponent tracts, except right direct AF tract, showed correlation with subject′s age (P < 0.05). Increased AR and FA values were observed in female subjects in young age (0-2 years) group compared with males (P < 0.05). The direct AF tract showed leftward hemispheric asymmetry and this tendency showed greater consolidation in older age (3-14 years) groups (P < 0.05). These findings demonstrated the radiologic developmental patterns of the AF from infancy to adolescence using subcomponent DTI analysis. The AF showed a specific developmental sequence, sex difference in younger age, and hemispheric asymmetry in older age.
Explaining and envisaging an ecological phenomenon

Two-way causal processes, in which a change in one factor affects a second factor which in turn affects the first, are an important feature of the natural and social world. Yet prior research (White, 1992, 1995) suggests that individuals only envisage one-way causal processes when they think of the natural world. The limiting factor may be the nature of their mental model of the situation. With the relatively complex tasks such as those used by White, individuals may be less likely to think through the consequences of a change. This paper reports four experiments which simplify the participants' task. They were asked to consider certain phenomena involving predator-prey relations. Experiment 1 required participants to account for specific variations in the size of a fox population over time. Experiments 2 and 3 required them, in various ways, to envisage how the size of a target population might change over time and to write down their accounts. Experiment 4 examined the effect of problem complexity. The results indicate that two-way causal accounts are an outcome of participants constructing small-scale mental models that they use to simulate the consequences of change.
The c / Rule for Many-Server Queues with Abandonment

We consider a multiclass queueing system with multiple homogeneous servers and customer abandonment. For each customer class i, the holding cost per unit time, the service rate, and the abandonment rate are denoted by ci, i, and i, respectively. We prove that under a many-server fluid scaling and overload conditions, a server-scheduling policy that assigns priority to classes according to their index ci i/ i is asymptotically optimal for minimizing the overall long-run average holding cost. An additional penalty on customer abandonment is easily incorporated into this model and leads to a similar index rule.
An experimental study based on Fuzzy Systems and Artificial Neural Networks to estimate the importance of reviews about product and services

With the evolution of e-commerce and Online Social Networks, the web information has constantly increased, so the relevance to create methods for automatic knowledge extraction and data mining earned notoriety. Information as opinion evaluation is a point studied by Sentiment Analysis area, which is becoming important nowadays. Be aware of the best reviews is a factor that must be taken into account. Sousa et al. proposed an approach to estimate the degree of importance of reviews about product and services using Fuzzy System, reporting good results. This work proposes an experimental study between their approach using Fuzzy Systems and an execution using Artificial Neural Network to verify which is the most appropriate to solve the problem to estimate the importance of reviews.
Cyclical thrombocytopenia: Characterization by spectral analysis and a review

We have analyzed published platelet time series in four normal individuals and 29 putative cyclical thrombocytopenia patients for evidence of significant (p ≤ 0.05) cyclicity. Three of the normal individuals (all males) showed significant cycling (periods T of 23, 30 and 31 days) as did 15 of the cyclical thrombocytopenia patients (T from 13 to 65 days). Cyclical thrombocytopenia seems to be approximately equally prevalent in women and men, though in cases where a definite etiology was suggested an autoimmune origin occurs more frequently in women. We also briefly review the current state of knowledge of the control of platelet production by thrombopoietin (c-Mpl ligand) and previous attempts that have been made to construct mathematical models for the platelet control system.
Dermatoglyphics and syndromes.

There are a number of dermatoglyphic patterns that occur more frequently in certain syndromes than in the general population. The relative frequencies of various dermatoglyphic features have been reviewed for nine chromosomal disorders, three single-gene defects, three syndromes of unknown cause, and one caused by an environmental teratogen. The data are presented in a form that may aid the clinician in arriving at a diagnosis.
Surfactant for meconium aspiration syndrome in full term/near term infants.

BACKGROUND Surfactant replacement therapy has been proven beneficial in the prevention and treatment of neonatal respiratory distress syndrome (RDS). The deficiency of surfactant or surfactant dysfunction may contribute to respiratory failure in a broader group of disorders, including meconium aspiration syndrome (MAS). OBJECTIVES To evaluate the effect of surfactant administration in the treatment of term/near-term infants with MAS. SEARCH STRATEGY Searches were made using The Cochrane Library (Issue 4, 2006), MEDLINE and EMBASE (1985 to December 2006), previous reviews including cross-references, abstracts, conference and symposia proceedings, expert informants, and journal hand searching. No language restrictions were applied. Authors were directly contacted to provide additional data. SELECTION CRITERIA Randomised controlled trials which evaluated the effect of surfactant administration in term infants with meconium aspiration syndrome are included in the analyses. DATA COLLECTION AND ANALYSIS Data regarding clinical outcomes including mortality, treatment with extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO), pneumothorax, duration of assisted ventilation, duration of supplemental oxygen, intraventricular haemorrhage (any grade and severe IVH), and chronic lung disease, and were excerpted from the reports of the clinical trails by the review authors. Data analyses were done in accordance with the standards of the Cochrane Neonatal Review Group. MAIN RESULTS Four randomised controlled trials met inclusion criteria. The meta-analysis of 4 trials enrolling 326 infants showed no statistically significant effect on mortality (typical relative risk 0.98 (95% CI 0.41, 2.39), typical risk difference 0.00 (95% CI -0.05, 0.05). The risk of requiring extracorporeal membrane oxygenation was significantly reduced in a meta-analysis of two trials (n = 208); (typical relative risk 0.64, 95% CI 0.46, 0.91; typical risk difference -0.17, 95% CI -0.30, -0.04); number needed to treat to benefit 6 (95% CI 3, 25). One trial (n = 40) reported a statistically significant reduction in the length of hospital stay [mean difference - 8 days (95% CI -14, -3 days)]. There were no statistically significant reductions in any other outcomes studied (duration of assisted ventilation, duration of supplemental oxygen, pneumothorax, pulmonary interstitial emphysema, air leaks, chronic lung disease, need for oxygen at discharge or intraventricular haemorrhage). AUTHORS' CONCLUSIONS In infants with MAS, surfactant administration may reduce the severity of respiratory illness and decrease the number of infants with progressive respiratory failure requiring support with ECMO. The relative efficacy of surfactant therapy compared to, or in conjunction with, other approaches to treatment including inhaled nitric oxide, liquid ventilation, surfactant lavage and high frequency ventilation remains to be tested.
Content and quality of currently published phase II cancer trials.

PURPOSE A number of statistical methods have been proposed for the design and analysis of phase II studies based on dichotomous outcomes. To investigate to what extent such methods are in current use, we conducted a survey of published studies. MATERIALS AND METHODS We identified studies by conducting a computerized literature search of MEDLINE. We considered trials on systemic antineoplastic treatments described as phase II or pilot. The search was limited to articles written in English and published in 1997. RESULTS Three hundred eight trials were identified. The majority, ie, 295 (95.8%), had been conducted as single-arm studies, with objective tumor response as the primary efficacy end point. An identifiable statistical design was reported for only 58 (19.7%) of these trials. The quality in reporting the statistical design and compliance with the design in carrying out the study or results interpretation were frequently poor. The frequency of reporting the statistical design was not shown to increase over the years of study start and was not associated with sample size or study duration. Instead, a significant association was found with trial results (which were less frequently positive among studies with a statistical design) and with the impact factor of the publishing journal. CONCLUSION This survey shows that the quality of the statistical component of published phase II cancer trials is generally poor and raises suspicion that low quality is likely to bias study findings. Journals might improve the methodologic standard of published articles through a more vigilant reviewing policy.
Normalized Autobinomial Markov Channels For Pedestrian Detection

Pedestrian detection represents one of the most important components of engineering devices that use automated vision to help decision systems take quick and accurate actions. Such systems are defined and customized to be useful for different needs, such as monitoring and aided surveillance, or increasing safety features in automotive industry. Given the large spectrum of applications that use pedestrian detection, demand has increased in recent years for the development of feasible solutions which can be integrated in devices such as smartphones or action cameras. This paper focuses on finding probabilistic features that highlight the human body characteristics regardless of contextual information in images. Adjacent pixels are often spatially correlated, which means that they are likely to have similar values. We view the image as a collection of random variables indexed by certain locations, called sites. The state of a site ξ is conditionally independent of all variables in the random field, except the neighbouring system Nξ = { η ∈Ω | η 6= ξ , d2(ξ ,η)≤ ∆ } , where ∆ is a positive integer and d2(ξ ,η) is the squared Euclidean distance between ξ and η . The neighbouring system strictly depends on a collection of cliques C = ∑ ) k=1 Ck, where ω(∆) is the number of cliques for each local specification. Energy function: An unpublished manuscript [2] describes how to interpret the local property of a Markov random field in terms of energy and potential, claiming that the probability at a site ξ is given by:
Finite-Horizon Near-Optimal Output Feedback Neural Network Control of Quantized Nonlinear Discrete-Time Systems With Input Constraint

The output feedback-based near-optimal regulation of uncertain and quantized nonlinear discrete-time systems in affine form with control constraint over finite horizon is addressed in this paper. First, the effect of input constraint is handled using a nonquadratic cost functional. Next, a neural network (NN)-based Luenberger observer is proposed to reconstruct both the system states and the control coefficient matrix so that a separate identifier is not needed. Then, approximate dynamic programming-based actor-critic framework is utilized to approximate the time-varying solution of the Hamilton-Jacobi-Bellman using NNs with constant weights and time-dependent activation functions. A new error term is defined and incorporated in the NN update law so that the terminal constraint error is also minimized over time. Finally, a novel dynamic quantizer for the control inputs with adaptive step size is designed to eliminate the quantization error overtime, thus overcoming the drawback of the traditional uniform quantizer. The proposed scheme functions in a forward-in-time manner without offline training phase. Lyapunov analysis is used to investigate the stability. Simulation results are given to show the effectiveness and feasibility of the proposed method.
Linking knowledge corridors to customer value through knowledge processes

Purpose – Spanish banks which took rescue packages are trying to find innovative ways to improve customer value. The main purpose of this paper is to investigate the extent to which banks combine external knowledge with internal knowledge to build customer value. Design/methodology/approach – A firm ' s knowledge corridor is an organizational capacity, referring to the ability to absorb external knowledge and utilize it in generating innovative outputs. This paper examines the relative importance and significance of knowledge transfer and knowledge storage/retrieval processes as bridges between “potential absorptive capacity” and “realized absorptive capacity” and its effects on the application of knowledge through an empirical investigation of 76 banks. Findings – The results are calculated using structural equation modelling. This leads to the main conclusion that a “realized absorptive capacity” is unlikely without being fostered by the transference and storage of new knowledge and it therefore require.
Prognostic Significance of Plasma Osteopontin in Patients with Locoregionally Advanced Head and Neck Squamous Cell Carcinoma Treated on TROG 02.02 Phase III Trial

Purpose: High plasma osteopontin (OPN) levels have been reported to be an adverse prognostic factor in head and neck squamous cell carcinomas (HNSCC), correlate with tumor hypoxia, and be predictive of benefit from hypoxia-targeted therapy. We sought to confirm the prognostic and predictive significance of OPN in patients treated on a large international trial. Experimental Design: Patients with stage III/IV HNSCC were randomized to receive definitive radiotherapy concurrently with cisplatin or cisplatin plus the hypoxic cell cytotoxin, tirapazamine (TPZ). Eligibility criteria for this prospective substudy included plasma sample availability for OPN assay by ELISA and absence of major radiation therapy deviations (N = 578). OPN concentrations were analyzed for overall survival (OS) and time to locoregional failure (TTLRF), adjusting for known prognostic factors. Additional analysis was carried out in patients with available tumor p16INK4A staining status. Results: The median OPN level was 544 ng/mL (range: 7–2,640). High OPN levels were not associated with worse OS (relative HR, 1.03 for highest tertile) or TTLRF (relative HR 0.91 for highest tertile). There was no interaction between OPN and treatment arm for OS or TTLRF (P = 0.93 for OS; P = 0.87 for TTLRF). For the highest tertile the 2-year OS was 66% on control arm and 67% on TPZ arm (HR = 1.11, P = 0.67). Similarly for p16INK4A negative patients in the highest tertile, the 2-year OS was 61% on control arm and 63% on TPZ arm (HR = 1.05, P = 0.86). Conclusions: We found no evidence that high plasma OPN levels were associated with an adverse prognosis in HNSCC, or were predictive of benefit with hypoxia targeting therapy. Clin Cancer Res; 18(1); 301–7. ©2011 AACR.
The /spl pi/-rotation low-density parity check codes

We introduce an ensemble of quasi-regular low-density parity check error control codes we call /spl pi/-rotation LDPC codes. These codes are completely defined by a single permutation vector of length n/8 where n is the length of the code. We present an efficient encoding scheme and circuit design based on the single permutation. Simulation results indicate that these codes perform as well as regular low density parity check codes based on completely random matrix constructions. These features make the /spl pi/-rotation code valuable for practical communication system implementation.
The geodynamo, past, present and future

Abstract The geodynamo simulation of Glatzmaier and Roberts (1996, Physica D97, 81) is driven by the cooling of the model Earth, which releases latent heat and light components of core fluid at the freezing surface of the inner core as it advances outwards. At some time in the past, the inner core was only a quarter of its present size and at some time in the future it will be twice its present size. The geodynamo operating during those epochs are studied here, the three models (past, present and future) being tied together in an evolutionary sense. The time taken for the models to evolve from past to future depends on the cooling rate, which is controlled by the dynamics of the mantle and is not studied here. All three models generate external fields of comparable strength and all three appear to be close to Taylor states. Unexpectedly, the future model showed considerable variability in time, while the past model does not. Deviations from axisymmetry in the external field increase with inner core radius and the relative predominance of the centered dipole over other multipole components declines.
Old stellar Galactic disc in near-plane regions according to 2MASS: Scales, cut-off, flare and warp

We have pursued two dierent methods to analyze the old stellar population near the Galactic plane, using data from the 2MASS survey. The first method is based on the isolation of the red clump giant population in the color-magnitude diagrams and the inversion of its star counts to obtain directly the density distribution along the line of sight. The second method fits the parameters of a disc model to the star counts in 820 regions. Results from both independent methods are consistent with each other. The qualitative conclusions are that the disc is well fitted by an exponential distribution in both the galactocentric distance and height. There is not an abrupt cut-o in the stellar disc (at least within R 6 kpc) that: the scale- height in the solar circle is hz(R)= 3:6 10 2 R, the scale-length of the surface density is hR= 0:42 R and the scale-length of the space density in the plane (i.e. including the eect of the flare) is H= 0:25 R. The variation of the scale-height due to the flare follows roughly a law hz(R) hz(R )e xp R R (12 0:6R(kpc)) kpc (for R< 15 kpc; R= 7:9 kpc). The warp moves the mean position of the disc to a height zw= 1:2 10 3 R(kpc) 5:25 sin(+ 5) pc (for R< 13 kpc; R= 7:9 kpc).