Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Implementation of assertive communication through leadership style and its implications for organisational commitment

This study is intended to analyse the implementation of assertive communication in organisations to increase organisational commitment mediated by the implementation of leadership style. The purpose of this study is to determine how assertiveness in communication has influenced leadership style and has implications for organisational commitment. The results of the study obtained that assertive communication (X) has a direct influence on Organisational Commitment (Y) positively and significantly, which is 60.3%, and assertive communication on its mediating variable, namely leadership style (M) also has a positive and significant influence, which is 64.2%. While assertive communication implemented with leadership style has a positive and significant implication on organisational commitment, which is 74.2% where leadership style as mediation is declared to be able to mediate as evidenced by the decrease in the value of c which is 0.695 to 0.100
High-Level Heat Resistance of Spores of Bacillus amyloliquefaciens and Bacillus licheniformis Results from the Presence of a spoVA Operon in a Tn1546 Transposon

Bacterial endospore formers can produce spores that are resistant to many food processing conditions, including heat. Some spores may survive heating processes aimed at production of commercially sterile foods. Recently, it was shown that a spoVA operon, designated spoVA2mob, present on a Tn1546 transposon in Bacillus subtilis, leads to profoundly increased wet heat resistance of B. subtilis spores. Such Tn1546 transposon elements including the spoVA2mob operon were also found in several strains of Bacillus amyloliquefaciens and Bacillus licheniformis, and these strains were shown to produce spores with significantly higher resistances to wet heat than their counterparts lacking this transposon. In this study, the locations and compositions of Tn1546 transposons encompassing the spoVA2mob operons in B. amyloliquefaciens and B. licheniformis were analyzed. Introduction of these spoVA2mob operons into B. subtilis 168 (producing spores that are not highly heat resistant) rendered mutant 168 strains that produced high-level heat resistant spores, demonstrating that these elements in B. amyloliquefaciens and B. licheniformis are responsible for high level heat resistance of spores. Assessment of growth of the nine strains of each species between 5.2°C and 57.7°C showed some differences between strains, especially at lower temperatures, but all strains were able to grow at 57.7°C. Strains of B. amyloliquefaciens and B. licheniformis that contain the Tn1546 elements (and produce high-level heat resistant spores) grew at temperatures similar to those of their Tn1546-negative counterparts that produce low-level heat resistant spores. The findings presented in this study allow for detection of B. amyloliquefaciens and B. licheniformis strains that produce highly heat resistant spores in the food chain.
Focus 33 Integrating RECD fitting process

sound pressure level (SPL) directly; however, in certain populations (such as infants and children) the probe tube may not be tolerated for extended periods of time. An alternative is to derive (sometimes called “predict”) the real-ear SPL by adding an individually measured acoustic transfer function to both, the audiometric and electroacoustic data. The acoustic transfer function in question is known as the “real-ear-to-coupler difference” (RECD). The purpose of this article is to encourage clinicians to measure the RECD. The article explains how the individually-measured RECD can be integrated into the hearing instrument fitting process. Phonak has developed a fitting tool known as RECDdirect which is a one-step process that minimizes RECD measurement time and removes the need for a separate probe-tube microphone system. It utilizes the fitting software and Supero hearing instrument in the RECD measurement process. The findings from a study using RECDdirect are presented in this article. Kevin Munro
Co-production of Bio-based Fuels and Chemicals: Process Modeling and Anticipatory Lifecycle Environmental Impact Assessment

Heralded as a technology to address anthropogenic climate change, resource renewability, and national energy security, biofuels and their many production pathways have continued to scale up and develop globally. While economic feasibility is always explicitly considered in designing biorefineries and supply chains, environmental performance is often evaluated retrospectively or assumed to improve on baseline petroleum fuels. As such, many early biofuel technologies resulted in unexpected environmental consequences, prompting researchers to propose systematic frameworks to conduct forward-looking “anticipatory” lifecycle assessments (LCA), to quantify environmental impacts during the design phase of biofuel production pathways. Such analyses have gained further utility as countries implement low-carbon fuel tax credits, requiring companies to quantify lifecycle greenhouse gas (GHG)emissions for biofuels and demonstrate reductions versus a similar petroleum fuel. Allowing for further improvements in environmental performance, specialty and commodity organic chemicals can also be derived from biomass feedstocks in tandem with fuel production. In light of these considerations, this work evaluates the environmental performance of an array of biorefinery designs that co-produce bio-based fuels and chemicals. Chemical process models and a prospective well-to-wheel LCA model of a two-step multistage torrefaction and catalytic upgrading system are constructed to quantify lifecycle GHG emissions and energy return on primary fossil energy investment (EROI-fossil) for a drop-in replacement biofuel product. Cyclopentanone, biochar, and a net electricity export are each generated as potential co-products, and assessed under market-based allocation and displacement methods. Across design cases, process performance metrics and LCA results are compared to evaluate trade-offs between process and environmental performance. LCA results are generated with measures of uncertainty, and undergo sensitivity analyses to identify the most influential model parameters. Modeling results suggest that insofar as markets allow, removing bio-chemicals upstream can reduce hydrogen consumption, utilities consumption, and equipment sizing without excessive loss in fuel production – an integral step towards commercially feasible biorefineries. Finally, methodological limitations of accounting schemes for both GHG and EROIfossil are explored and discussed due to the distortions they produce under the co-production of fuels and chemicals. While GHG emissions may be better addressed via consequential LCA, co-product crediting within EROI requires a full mathematical overhaul.
Improving Review Representations with User Attention and Product Attention for Sentiment Classification

Neural network methods have achieved great success in reviews sentiment classification. Recently, some works achieved improvement by incorporating user and product information to generate a review representation. However, in reviews, we observe that some words or sentences show strong user's preference, and some others tend to indicate product's characteristic. The two kinds of information play different roles in determining the sentiment label of a review. Therefore, it is not reasonable to encode user and product information together into one representation. In this paper, we propose a novel framework to encode user and product information. Firstly, we apply two individual hierarchical neural networks to generate two representations, with user attention or with product attention. Then, we design a combined strategy to make full use of the two representations for training and final prediction. The experimental results show that our model obviously outperforms other state-of-the-art methods on IMDB and Yelp datasets. Through the visualization of attention over words related to user or product, we validate our observation mentioned above.
The Effect of eWOM Social Media on Purchase Intention: The Role Moderation of Involvement

The aim of this study was to examine and analyze the effect of electronic word of mouth (eWOM) on purchase intentions with high involvement as moderation. The research sample was 390 college students. Hypothesis testing used multiple regression analysis and moderation regression methods with SPSS software version 26. This research analyzed the effect of eWOM social media on components of the information adoption model (IAM) including information quality, information credibility, information usefulness and information adoption. The results showed that there was a significant effect between information quality and information credibility on purchase intention. Information usefulness and information adoption have no significant effect on purchase intention. High involvement moderates the effect of eWOM on purchase intentions. Keywords: electronic word of mouth, purchase intentions, high involvement, IAM
Replacing the rod with the cone transducin α subunit decreases sensitivity and accelerates response decay

Cone vision is less sensitive than rod vision. Much of this difference can be attributed to the photoreceptors themselves, but the reason why the cones are less sensitive is still unknown. Recent recordings indicate that one important factor may be a difference in the rate of activation of cone transduction; that is, the rising phase of the cone response per bleached rhodopsin molecule (Rh*) has a smaller slope than the rising phase of the rod response per Rh*, perhaps because some step between Rh* and activation of the phosphodiesterase 6 (PDE6) effector molecule occurs with less gain. Since rods and cones have different G‐protein α subunits, and since this subunit (Tα) plays a key role both in the interaction of G‐protein with Rh* and the activation of PDE6, we investigated the mechanism of the amplification difference by expressing cone Tα in rod Tα‐knockout rods to produce so‐called GNAT2C mice. We show that rods in GNAT2C mice have decreased sensitivity and a rate of activation half that of wild‐type (WT) mouse rods. Furthermore, GNAT2C responses recover more rapidly than WT responses with kinetic parameters resembling those of native mouse cones. Our results show for the first time that part of the difference in sensitivity and response kinetics between rods and cones may be the result of a difference in the G‐protein α subunit. They also indicate more generally that the molecular nature of G‐protein α may play an important role in the kinetics of G‐protein cascades for metabotropic receptors throughout the body.
Genome Organization and Localization of the pufLM Genes of the Photosynthesis Reaction Center in Phylogenetically Diverse Marine Alphaproteobacteria

ABSTRACT Genome organization, plasmid content and localization of the pufLM genes of the photosynthesis reaction center were studied by pulsed-field gel electrophoresis (PFGE) in marine phototrophic Alphaproteobacteria. Both anaerobic phototrophs (Rhodobacter veldkampii and Rhodobacter sphaeroides) and strictly aerobic anoxygenic phototrophs from the Roseobacter-Sulfitobacter-Silicibacter clade (Roseivivax halodurans, Roseobacter litoralis, Staleya guttiformis, Roseovarius tolerans, and five new strains isolated from dinoflagellate cultures) were investigated. The complete genome size was estimated for R. litoralis DSM6996T to be 4,704 kb, including three linear plasmids. All strains contained extrachromosomal elements of various conformations (linear or circular) and lengths (between 4.35 and 368 kb). In strain DFL-12, a member of a putative new genus isolated from a culture of the toxic dinoflagellate Prorocentrum lima, seven linear plasmids were found, together comprising 860 kb of genetic information. Hybridization with probes against the pufLM genes of the photosynthesis gene cluster after Southern transfer of the genomic DNAs showed these genes to be located on a linear plasmid of 91 kb in R. litoralis and on a linear plasmid of 120 kb in S. guttiformis, theoretically allowing their horizontal transfer. In all other strains, the pufLM genes were detected on the bacterial chromosome. The large number and significant size of the linear plasmids found especially in isolates from dinoflagellates might account for the metabolic versatility and presumed symbiotic association with eukaryotic hosts in these bacteria.
Breast cancer in older women: quality of life and psychosocial adjustment in the 15 months after diagnosis.

PURPOSE We examined the health-related quality of life (QOL) of a cohort of older women with breast cancer after their diagnosis. PATIENTS AND METHODS Six hundred ninety-one women aged 65 years and older were interviewed approximately 3 months after breast cancer surgery and two additional times in the following year using standardized QOL measures. Demographic factors, breast cancer treatments, and comorbid conditions were used to model ratings of health-related QOL over time. Self-perceived health and psychosocial adjustment at 15 months after surgery were modeled. RESULTS Physical and mental health scores declined significantly in the follow-up year, independent of age. However, a cancer-specific psychosocial instrument showed significant improvement in scores. Better 3-month physical and mental health scores, as well as better emotional social support, predicted more favorable self-perceived health 15 months after surgery. Psychosocial adjustment at 15 months was significantly predicted by better mental health, emotional social support, and better self-rated interaction with health care providers assessed at 3 months. CONCLUSION Contrary to reports from younger women with breast cancer, we observed significant declines in the physical and mental health of older women in the 15 months after breast cancer surgery, whereas scores on a cancer-specific psychosocial QOL measure improved over time, consistent with patterns in younger women. Predictive models indicate that older women with impaired physical functioning, mental health, and emotional social support after surgery have poorer self-perceived health and psychosocial adjustment 1 year later. Interventions to address the physical and emotional needs of older women with breast cancer should be developed and evaluated to determine their impact on subsequent health-related QOL.
Estimating Intra-Party Preferences: Comparing Speeches to Votes*

Well-established methods exist for measuring party positions, but reliable means for estimating intra-party preferences remain underdeveloped. While most efforts focus on estimating the ideal points of individual legislators based on inductive scaling of roll call votes, this data suffers from two problems: selection bias due to unrecorded votes and strong party discipline, which tends to make voting a strategic rather than a sincere indication of preferences. By contrast, legislative speeches are relatively unconstrained, as party leaders are less likely to punish MPs for speaking freely as long as they vote with the party line. Yet, the differences between roll call estimations and text scalings remain essentially unexplored, despite the growing application of statistical analysis of textual data to measure policy preferences. Our paper addresses this lacuna by exploiting a rich feature of the Swiss legislature: on most bills, legislators both vote and speak many times. Using this data, we compare text-based scaling of ideal points to vote-based scaling from a crucial piece of energy legislation. Our findings confirm that text scalings reveal larger intra-party differences than roll calls. Using regression models, we further explain the differences between roll call and text scalings by attributing differences to constituency-level preferences for energy policy.
Single-Step Synthesis and Characterization of Non-Linear Tough and Strong Segmented Polyurethane Elastomer Consisting of Very Short Hard and Soft Segments and Hierarchical Side-Reacted Networks and Single-Step Synthesis of Hierarchical Hyper-Branched Polyurethane

Polyurethane elastomers are among the most versatile classes of industrial polymers—typically achieved through a two-step synthesis of segmented block copolymers, comprising very long and soft segments that provide elasticity and significantly long and hard segments that provide strength. The present research focused on the design of a single-step synthesis of a new segmented polyurethane consisting of very short soft and hard segments, crosslinked by preferentially side-reacted hierarchical tertiary oligo-uret network structures, thus exhibiting significant strength, elasticity, and toughness. Despite the theoretically linear structure, both FTIR and solid-state 13C NMR spectroscopy analyses indicated the quasi-equal presence of urethane groups and tertiary oligo-uret structures in the resulting polymer, indicating a preferential consecutive side reaction mechanism. Thermal analysis indicated the significant crystallization of soft segments consisting of only four ethylene oxide units, which was, hereby, demonstrated to occur via an extended chain mechanism. Tensile mechanical properties included significant strength, elasticity, and toughness. Increasing the soft segment length led to a decreased tertiary oligo-uret secondary crosslinking efficacy. The preferential hierarchical side reaction mechanism was, hereby, further confirmed through the synthesis of a completely new type of hyper-branched polymer via diisocyanate and a mono-hydroxy-terminated reagent. The structure–property relations and reaction mechanisms demonstrated in the present research can facilitate the design of new polyurethanes of enhanced performance and processing efficacy for a variety of novel applications.
Augmenting Supervised Neural Networks with Unsupervised Objectives for Large-scale Image Classification

Unsupervised learning and supervised learning are key research topics in deep learning. However, as high-capacity supervised neural networks trained with a large amount of labels have achieved remarkable success in many computer vision tasks, the availability of large-scale labeled images reduced the significance of unsupervised learning. Inspired by the recent trend toward revisiting the importance of unsupervised learning, we investigate joint supervised and unsupervised learning in a large-scale setting by augmenting existing neural networks with decoding pathways for reconstruction. First, we demonstrate that the intermediate activations of pretrained large-scale classification networks preserve almost all the information of input images except a portion of local spatial details. Then, by end-to-end training of the entire augmented architecture with the reconstructive objective, we show improvement of the network performance for supervised tasks. We evaluate several variants of autoencoders, including the recently proposed "what-where" autoencoder that uses the encoder pooling switches, to study the importance of the architecture design. Taking the 16-layer VGGNet trained under the ImageNet ILSVRC 2012 protocol as a strong baseline for image classification, our methods improve the validation-set accuracy by a noticeable margin.
Learning from discordance in patient and physician global assessments of systemic lupus erythematosus disease activity.

OBJECTIVE Differences have been described between patient and physician assessments of well being in several chronic illnesses, and these differences may affect outcome. Disagreement may lead to dissatisfaction and to behaviors with dangerous consequences. We describe and identify predictors of patient-physician differences on ratings of disease activity in systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE). METHODS Data collected on 154 patients included age, education, disease duration, and patient and physician global assessments of lupus activity on a 10 cm visual analog scale (VAS), the Health Assessment Questionnaire (HAQ), the Medical Outcome Study Short-Form 36 (SF-36), the Systemic Lupus Disease Activity Index (SLEDAI), the Systemic Lupus Activity Measure (SLAM-R), and the Systemic Lupus International Collaborating Clinics/American College of Rheumatology Damage Index (SDI). Multiple linear regression models were performed using patient VAS scores, physician VAS scores, and patient minus physician VAS scores as the dependent variables, and age, disease duration, selected SF-36 and SLAM-R subscales, and SDI as independent variables. RESULTS Patients were 90% female and 80% Caucasian, with a mean education of 13 +/- 2.8 years and a mean age of 43.1 +/- 13.6 years. The overall mean disease duration was 10.5 +/- 7.8 years. Physicians overscored patients by 2.5 cm in 6% of the cases and patients overscored physicians in 16% of the cases. The best multivariate model to predict overall differences included SF-36 mental health and SLAM-R kidney scores. CONCLUSION Patient-physician differences may result from a divergence in focus. Patients score lupus activity based on their psychological status, while physicians rely more heavily on the physical effect of the disease.
Variation in chest pain emergency department admission rates and acute myocardial infarction and death within 30 days in the Medicare population.

OBJECTIVES The objective was to assess the relationship between emergency department (ED) admission rates for Medicare beneficiaries with chest pain and outcomes, specifically 30-day rates of acute myocardial infarction (AMI) and mortality. METHODS Using a 20% random sample of Medicare beneficiaries in 2009, 158,295 beneficiaries with a primary diagnosis of chest pain at the conclusion of their ED visits were selected to assess outcomes based on the decision to hospitalize or discharge home. The proportions of these patients admitted to inpatient or observation status at 2,219 U.S. hospitals were calculated, adjusting for differences in patient and hospital characteristics. Both bivariate analysis and multivariable logistic regression were used to estimate the effect of the adjusted admission rates (designed to be a measure of care intensity) on patient outcomes. Other covariates in the multivariable model included patient demographics, medical conditions, and hospital utilization in the 30 days prior to the ED visits. Results from the bivariate and multivariable analyses were compared for consistency. RESULTS The adjusted Medicare admission rate for ED patients with chest pain averaged 63% for the middle quintile of the patient sample and ranged from 38% to 81% in the lowest and highest quintiles. The multivariable model yielded estimates of 3.6 fewer cases of AMI (95% confidence interval [CI] = 1.5 to 5.1 cases) and 2.8 fewer deaths (95% CI = 0.6 to 4.1 deaths) per 1,000 chest pain patients associated with an admission rate of 81% versus 38%. The estimates from the bivariate analysis were of similar magnitude. CONCLUSIONS Considerable variation exists across U.S. hospitals in ED admission rates for Medicare patients with chest pain. Hospitals that approach admissions more conservatively (i.e., higher admission rates) in this population have lower rates of AMI and mortality.