Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Relationships between Job Stressors and Individual Outcomes: A Study of Individual Differences

The existing two-dimensional work stressor framework predicts that challenge and hindrance stressors have differing effects on job performance and job satisfaction, but the two stressors have a similar (positive) effect on job strain and burnout. I propose that perceived strain and burnout should be treated as two distinct concepts. Perceived strain partially mediates the relationships between challenge and hindrance stressors and burnout. After considering perceived strain as a mediator, the two stressors have differing direct relationships with burnout. I also propose that individual differences moderate the effects of challenge and hindrance stressors. This study of full time employees (N = 518) examined the mediating effect of perceived strain, and the moderating effects of gender, Type-A behaviour, and work locus of control on the relationship between the two stressors and burnout, in-role performance and job satisfaction. Data were collected through an online survey with an approximately 80% response rate. The established measures were used. Multiple regressions and moderated multiple regressions were used to analyze the data. In supporting the hypotheses, both challenge and hindrance stressors had positive indirect effects on burnout through perceived strain, but challenge stressors had a negative direct effect on burnout and hindrance stressors had a positive direct effect on burnout. Type-A behavior enhanced the positive effect of challenge stressors on in-role performance. It weakened the negative effect of hindrance stressors on job satisfaction. The positive relationship between challenge stressors and in-role performance was stronger for males than for females. At the most general level, results of this study increase our confidence about the validity of the challenge and hindrance stressors framework. After distinguishing perceived strain and burnout as two separate concepts, we can be confident that challenge stressors may indeed have potentials to reduce rather than increase burnout. Results of this study send several fresh messages to practicing managers. Challenge stressors may not be health impairing. Organizations should keep hindrance stressors to a minimum and consider increasing levels of challenge stressors strategically as long as they have practices in place that can buffer energy-depleting effects associated with challenges. Meanwhile, managers may consider taking advantage of Type A behavior;. It may interact with challenge stressors and lead to high in-role performance, and interact with hindrance stressors and remain high job satisfaction. Type A behavior is not related to burnout either, after controlling the two stressors and perceived strain.
Sensitive and Precise Quantification of Insulin-Like mRNA Expression in Caenorhabditis elegans

Insulin-like signaling regulates developmental arrest, stress resistance and lifespan in the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans. However, the genome encodes 40 insulin-like peptides, and the regulation and function of individual peptides is largely uncharacterized. We used the nCounter platform to measure mRNA expression of all 40 insulin-like peptides as well as the insulin-like receptor daf-2, its transcriptional effector daf-16, and the daf-16 target gene sod-3. We validated the platform using 53 RNA samples previously characterized by high density oligonucleotide microarray analysis. For this set of genes and the standard nCounter protocol, sensitivity and precision were comparable between the two platforms. We optimized conditions of the nCounter assay by varying the mass of total RNA used for hybridization, thereby increasing sensitivity up to 50-fold and reducing the median coefficient of variation as much as 4-fold. We used deletion mutants to demonstrate specificity of the assay, and we used optimized conditions to assay insulin-like gene expression throughout the C. elegans life cycle. We detected expression for nearly all insulin-like genes and find that they are expressed in a variety of distinct patterns suggesting complexity of regulation and specificity of function. We identified insulin-like genes that are specifically expressed during developmental arrest, larval development, adulthood and embryogenesis. These results demonstrate that the nCounter platform provides a powerful approach to analyzing insulin-like gene expression dynamics, and they suggest hypotheses about the function of individual insulin-like genes.
A Comment on

In his article, Hemdnus reviews some basic thoughts in his book The Mass Media as Hidden Persuaders (only available in Finnish). Not having been able to read the book, I may not do him justice in commenting on his article, but the issue is an important one and I feel there is a need for clarification. As I see it, there are two main points in the article. One is that indoctrination as a social and psychological process can only operate in the direction of the prevailing hegemony in a society. The concepts ’indoctrination’ and ’hegemonistic values’ are defined in such a way that this point becomes logically true. The other point is that indoctrination is a problem from the point of view of democracy, and Hemdnus raises the question if and how indoctrination can be minimized as far as the mass media and their audiences are concerned. In the first place I have doubts about the usefulness of the definitions, and this leads me to a somewhat different kind of worry about indoctrination and democracy. As defined by Hemdnus, the only requisite for indoctrination to occur is that the receiver is not aware of what the sender wants him to do or think.
A cognitive account of expertise: Why Rational Choice Theory is (often) a fiction

This paper arises from the need to explain expert decision-making in professional environments from a plural and interdisciplinary perspective. An extended review of Rational Choice Theory (RCT) from its first developments to current trends makes explicit the mismatch between RCT and empirical work settings. A review of recent theories on the cognitive abilities of agents makes clear the lack of integration between findings in evolutionary psychology, cognitive science, perceptual psychology and neurology, and those proposed by RCT. We will examine the causes for the failure of Good Old Fashioned Artificial Intelligence (GOFAI), the strongest empirical program for testing RCT premises. Contributions from the cognitive and social sciences put forward the weaknesses of analytical sociology at all four levels: the biological, the psychological, the epistemological, and the ontological. Alternative explanations from contemporary cognitive science will be put forward.
Entry Barriers in Retail Trade

The 1998 reform of the Italian retail trade sector delegated the regulation of entry of large stores to the regional governments. We use the local variation in regulation to determine the effects of entry barriers on sectoral performance. We address the endogeneity of entry barriers through local fixed effects and using political variables as instruments. We also control for differences in trends and for area-wide shocks. We find that entry barriers are associated with substantially larger profit margins and lower productivity of incumbent firms. Liberalising entry has a positive effect on investment in ICT, increases employment and compresses labour costs in large shops. In areas with more stringent entry regulation, lower productivity coupled with larger margins results in higher consumer prices.
MALADAPTIVE VS. ADAPTIVE USE OF INTERNET APPLICATIONS IN THE CLASSROOM: A TEST OF COMPETING MODELS

This paper examines adaptive verses maladaptive use of Internet technologies in a classroom environment. Using data collected from 353 student respondents, we empirically test our model using the Partial Least Squares approach to structural equation modeling. Our analysis found support for distinct antecedents to adaptive and maladaptive Internet use. Specifically, we found that subjective norms contributed to the intention to cyber-slack, while perceived ease of use and perceived usefulness contributed to behavior intention. Cognitive Absorption was a significant predictor of both maladaptive and adaptive behavior. The paper concludes with a discussion of implications for research and practice.
Hospital clowns working in pairs—in synchronized communication with ailing children

The aim of the present study was to gain a deeper understanding of the work of some hospital clowns with ailing children. What distinctive features and working methods can be seen in the hospitals clowns’ work? The approach taken involved an interview study with 13 hospital clowns, 10 women, and 3 men, between 30 and 60 years of age. The study was qualitative in design and took a hermeneutic approach. The analysis of data included descriptive and theoretical analyses. The descriptive analysis showed that the clowns’ strategy of working in pairs enables them to treat the child with empathy and to acknowledge the child in a sensitive manner. The theoretical analysis of hospital clowns’ method of working in pairs indicated: (a) a relational pattern, characterized by empathic preparedness: to capture and shelter the current affect climate, to express various child and adult positions, as well as to cognitively process and return, if appropriate, a humoristic message in a “digestible, humoristic form”; and (b) a communication pattern, characterized by balanced synchronization of body language and verbal expressions, in terms of pace as well as conformability, which in optimal cases gives rise to an enhanced feeling of presence and mutuality in the communication process between the hospital clowns and the child. The humoristic communication between the hospital clowns and the child worked to create an open space for play—a space in which all affects were allowed. The discussion concerned possible forms of this working method (working in pairs) that function optimally with regard to relational and communication patterns. The discussion also addressed the psychological value of hospital clowns’ work with ailing children, as seen from the perspective of the hospital clowns.
The role of gender identity in adolescents' antisocial behavior.

BACKGROUND Analysis of the relevance of the variables sex and gender to explain delinquency is a topic of growing interest in Criminology. This study tests a model of juvenile delinquency that integrates gender identity, the association with deviant peers, and a lack of attachment to conventional contexts. METHOD We used a sample of 970 adolescents of both sexes, representative of the urban population, between 12 and 18 years, attending public schools in Galicia (Spain). RESULTS The results of path analysis confirm that: a) weak attachment to conventional contexts, and belonging to a deviant groups are precedents for deviation of adolescents of both sexes; b) these contexts also contribute to the development of gender identity; and c) gender identity affects the likelihood of deviation: femininity tends to reduce this behavior, and masculinity (in particular, negatively valued masculinity) contributes to increase it. CONCLUSIONS These findings support the adequacy of including gender identity in the explanatory models of delinquency. They also suggest the need to reconsider the role of conventional settings in the socialization of masculinity and, therefore, in the genesis of adolescent delinquency of both sexes.
Impacts of television viewing on young children's literacy development in the USA: A review of the literature

Television viewing plays an important role in the lives of many young children and has received a great deal of attention in the public as well as in research. This review examined research on television and literacy development in early childhood, including studies of messages about literacy in children's programs as well as the impact of specific programs on young viewers' literacy development. Results indicate: (1) moderate amounts of television viewing were found to be beneficial for reading; (2) the content of programs viewed by children matters; (3) programs that aim to promote literacy in young children have been found to positively impact specific early literacy skills; and finally, (4) there are limitations to the existing literature. Suggestions for addressing these limitations were included, and future studies should focus on methodological, theoretical, and measurement issues in this area, in addition to exploring a wider variety of programs watched by young viewers.
Rising powers, global capitalism and liberal global governance: A historical materialist account of the BRICs challenge

This article analyses the phenomenon of rising powers from a historical materialist perspective. It (1) elaborates the key concepts of historical structures of world order, state–society complexes and transnational class formation, and (2) applies them to Brazil, Russia, India, China and other so-called ‘rising powers’ to account for the nature and extent of the challenge they pose to the existing institutions of global governance. A double argument is advanced: first, the integration of rising powers into the historical structure of global capitalism has reduced traditional sources of great power conflict, and made rising powers heavily dependent on the existing institutional framework established by the liberal West. This facilitates their integration into the existing governance order. However, within the limits of the existing order, two factors lend a heartland–contender cleavage to the politics of global governance: the rising powers’ relatively more statist, less market-driven forms of state, and their subsequent failure to be integrated into emergent transnational capitalist class structures. Consequently, it is not the global governance order itself, but its most liberal features, that are contested by rising powers. The result is that, in contrast to realist pessimism and liberal optimism, the rise of new powers is leading to a hybrid governance order that is both transnationally integrated and less liberal.
Cognitive control, emotional value, and the lateral prefrontal cortex

Cognitive control refers to the intentional selection of thoughts, emotions, and behaviors based on current task demands and social context, and the concomitant suppression of inappropriate habitual actions (Miller and Cohen, 2001). Common situations that require cognitive control include: studying for an exam while resisting the impulse to check Facebook; having fruit instead of dessert when on a diet; and being patient with one's kids instead of yelling at them for spilling juice on the carpet. Historically, there has been preferential interest in how cognitive control operates. An influential model suggests that the lateral prefrontal cortex (LPFC) represents rules or instructions in working memory and that this information adaptively guides perceptual and motor processing in posterior brain regions, thus resulting in the selection of appropriate behaviors, and the suppression of maladaptive habitual actions (Miller and Cohen, 2001; Bunge, 2004). Surprisingly, there has been less focus on why individuals choose to engage cognitive control in the first place (Dixon and Christoff, 2012; Botvinick and Braver, 2015). In this article, I outline a value-based framework of cognitive control which suggests that: (1) individuals choose to engage cognitive control when they expect that it will produce an emotionally valued outcome (i.e., a reward or the avoidance of punishment); (2) the LPFC is a critical neural substrate involved in representing the value of engaging cognitive control; and (3) the LPFC is organized along a rostro-caudal axis, with different sub-regions contributing to different elements of the decision to employ cognitive control.
Marketplace of Ideas and Marketplace of Money : A Study of Commercialism and the Swedish Election News Coverage in 1998 and 2002

The purpose of this study is to investigate whether commercialization can explain the extent to which the Swedish news media during the 1998 and 2002 national elections framed politics as a game, followed an interpretive journalistic style and allowed politicians to speak for themselves. Six hypotheses were derived from the claim by Patterson (2000) that commercialism is the driving force behind the framing of politics as a game and, by implication, the increasing use of an interpretive journalistic style and shrinking sound- or inkbites. Taken together, the results show only mixed support for the hypotheses. The results thus indicate that perceiving commercialism as the crucial independent variable is too simplified. Moreover, it must certainly not be a universal truth that commercialism is driving the changes of election news coverage, or that there is always a contradiction between the media functioning in the marketplace of ideas and the marketplace of money.
From BIS/BAS to the big five

Gray (1987) proposed two systems that underlie much of our behaviour and personality. One system relates to avoidance or withdrawal behaviour, called the Behavioural Inhibition System (BIS), whereas the other system relates to approach behaviour, called the Behavioural Approach System (BAS). In two samples, it was investigated whether individual differences in surface of personality as described by the Big Five can be explained by BIS/BAS. Neuroticism and Extraversion could be explained well by BIS/BAS, but also for Agreeableness and Conscientiousness consistent findings were obtained. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Generic behavior of asymptotically holomorphic Lefschetz pencils

We prove that the vanishing spheres of the Lefschetz pencils constructed by Donaldson on symplectic manifolds of any dimension are conjugated under the action of the symplectomorphism group of the fiber. More precisely, a number of generalized Dehn twists may be used to conjugate those spheres. This implies the non-existence of homologically trivial vanishing spheres in these pencils. To develop the proof, we discuss some basic topological properties of the space of asymptotically holomorphic transverse sections.
Comparison of Seven Chemical Pretreatments of Corn Straw for Improving Methane Yield by Anaerobic Digestion

Agriculture straw is considered a renewable resource that has the potential to contribute greatly to bioenergy supplies. Chemical pretreatment prior to anaerobic digestion can increase the anaerobic digestibility of agriculture straw. The present study investigated the effects of seven chemical pretreatments on the composition and methane yield of corn straw to assess their effectiveness of digestibility. Four acid reagents (H2SO4, HCl, H2O2, and CH3COOH) at concentrations of 1%, 2%, 3%, and 4% (w/w) and three alkaline reagents (NaOH, Ca(OH)2, and NH3·H2O) at concentrations of 4%, 6%, 8%, and 10% (w/w) were used for the pretreatments. All pretreatments were effective in the biodegradation of the lignocellulosic straw structure. The straw, pretreated with 3% H2O2 and 8% Ca(OH)2, acquired the highest methane yield of 216.7 and 206.6 mL CH4 g VS −1 in the acid and alkaline pretreatments, which are 115.4% and 105.3% greater than the untreated straw. H2O2 and Ca(OH)2 can be considered as the most favorable pretreatment methods for improving the methane yield of straw because of their effectiveness and low cost.
Career Development Strivings

This article describes and demonstrates a novel approach to assessing goals and motives among individuals engaged in the career decision-making and planning process. Participants generated five career development strivings, rated each striving along several dimensions (self-efficacy, outcome expectations, sense of calling, spiritual significance, and materialism), and completed measures of conceptually related and unrelated variables. Results indicated adequate to strong internal consistency reliability for the strivings appraisal scale scores, and the pattern of correlations support the convergent and discriminant validity for scores obtained using this approach. We conclude that the career development strivings strategy has great potential as a flexible and efficient tool for use in career development research and practice.
Macroscopic 3D Porous Graphitic Carbon Nitride Monolith for Enhanced Photocatalytic Hydrogen Evolution

A macroscopic 3D porous graphitic carbon nitride (g-CN) monolith is prepared by the one-step thermal polymerization of urea inside the framework of a commercial melamine sponge and exhibits improved photocatalytic water-splitting performance for hydrogen evolution compared to g-CN powder due to the 3D porous interconnected network, larger specific surface area, better visible light capture, and superior charge-separation efficiency.
Local anaesthesia versus intravenous regional anaesthesia in endoscopic carpal tunnel release: a randomized controlled trial

We carried out a prospective randomized trial in 38 patients to compare intravenous regional anaesthesia with local anaesthesia in endoscopic carpal tunnel release using the Agee single-portal technique. There was no significant difference in reported pain during surgery. Immediately after surgery, patients in the local anaesthesia group reported significantly less pain in the hand and at the tourniquet. Two hours after surgery, patients in the local anaesthesia group reported significantly less hand pain. Moreover, significantly fewer patients in the local anaesthetic group required additional analgesics during the first 2 hours after operation. We conclude that local anaesthesia reduces post-operative pain in endoscopic carpal tunnel release compared with intravenous regional anaesthesia.
Loved music can make a listener feel negative emotions

This paper tested the applicability of cognitive unit activation (CUA) theory to explain the paradoxical enjoyment of felt negative emotions in music. CUA refers to preference for activation of cognitive units (as distinct from non-activation) as proposed by Martindale (1984, 1988). Content analysis of open-ended responses by 60 participants to a self-selected loved and hated piece of music was conducted. Negative emotions were spontaneously evoked for the loved music condition by 19 participants. The same salient emotions (e.g., sadness) could be evoked by both loved and hated music. The distinction between terms used to described loved versus hated music led to a reappraisal of past literature, with the conclusion that there are qualitative differences among negative emotions, those which occur as affect valence (AV) and those which occur as emotion valence (EV). When a piece of music is hated, the disliking or avoidance response in itself is considered negative AV – regardless of the EV (e.g., sadness) induced in the listener. Consequently, the CUA model is modified by addition of a negative AV inhibiter to explain how sadness can activate a cognitive unit, thus adding to the enjoyment of the experience, without producing avoidance intentions/behaviors (dislike of the music leading to a desire to stop it or leave it). A good match between felt and expressed emotions was more frequently reported (n = 34) for loved than for hated pieces (n = 12), suggesting activation of “mirror circuits. ”