Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Institutions, Partisanship, and Inequality in the Long Run

It has been widely suggested by political scientists and economists, based on empirical evidence for the period since 1970, that the institution of centralized wage bargaining and the presence of a government of the left are associated with lower levels of income inequality. The authors make use of new data on top income shares as well as long-run series on wage inequality to examine the effects of partisanship and wage bargaining over a much longer time period, nearly the entire twentieth century. Their empirical results provide little support for the idea that either of these two factors is correlated with income inequality over this period. They then show that a closer look at the introduction of centralized wage bargaining in individual countries during the middle part of the twentieth century reveals that in countries that moved to centralize wage bargaining, income inequality had already been trending downward well before the institutional change, that the move to centralized bargaining did not alter this trend, and that these changes in income inequality were also observed in countries that did not adopt centralized wage bargaining at this time. The results suggest that there were alternative institutional paths to reduced income inequality during most of the twentieth century. This raises the possibility that either structural economic changes or commonly shared economic and political events, such as world wars and economic crises, may ultimately be more important for understanding the evolution of income inequality than are the institutional or partisan characteristics commonly considered to be decisive by political scientists.
A Comparative Examination of Attitudes Toward Software Piracy Among Business Professors and Executives

This study investigates attitudes toward unauthorized copying of microcomputer software, a practice which is costing the industry an estimated $800 million to $2 billion a year in lost revenue. Specifically, the copying activities of business executives are compared with those of business faculty members. Executives are found to report less unauthorized copying activities both personally and by colleagues; they also reject rationalizations for such copying. Academicians, on the other hand, tend to view unauthorized copying as being less unethical. Possible explanations for the differences between the two groups include the degree and type of job-related supervision, identification with the organization vs. the profession, and social-desirability bias. Implications of these findings and future research needs are discussed.
Interfering Breast Cancer Metastasis by Blocking NGAL Function

Abstract : NGAL project was initiated based on the genome-wide transcript analysis using RNA samples of 318 breast cancer patients diagnosed in MD Anderson Cancer Center. We found that the transcript of NGAL from the tumor mass correlates with advanced tumor stage, metastatic status and other poor clinical indexes. NGAL (neutrophil gelatinase associated lipocalin) is a glycosylated secreted protein and it also can be detected at high concentration in the plasma of various types of cancer patients including breast cancer patients. We tested the function of NGAL in breast tumorigenesis using a spontaneous mammary tumor mouse model. Our data on LCN2 function in promoting mouse mammary tumor in vivo was published in Cancer Research 2009 Nov 15;69(22):8579-84 (See Appendix I), which confirmed our hypothesis that NGAL is a driving factor for mammary tumor formation and metastasis. Our results are largely supported the later data from other labs. As requested by Journal of Cell physiology, we reviewed the progress in NGAL studies in breast cancer (J Cell Physiol. 2011 Feb 226(2):309-14) (See Appendix II). The goals of this DOD funding are to: 1) develop methods to block NGAL function for producing a clinically applicable drug; and 2) dissect the molecular mechanisms of how NGAL promote breast tumorigenesis. We have designed high throughput screen methods to identify small inhibitory chemical compounds blocking the interaction of NGAL and matrix metalloproteinase 9 (MMP-9) or blocking NGAL entry into the cells. We constructed luciferase-expressing human breast tumor cell lines for future testing the NGAL inhibitors in vivo. For the second goal, we found that mouse mammary tumor lacking NGAL expression retained CK-18 (a good prognostic marker) expression. Reducing mouse NGAL expression greatly attenuated the invasive potential of 4T1 cells.
Exploring the Impact of Congenital Visual Impairment on the Development of Absolute Pitch Using a New Online Assessment Tool: A Preliminary Study

A high incidence of absolute pitch has been reported among individuals with visual impairment (VI), while recent behavioral and imaging evidence has indicated that enhanced abilities in the auditory domain result from the cross-modal takeover of the visually deafferented occipital areas. In this study, we tested the identification of musical pitch associated with verbal labels in children with congenital VI, together with a group of fully sighted children who acted as a comparison group, using a novel online assessment tool. The results indicated superior naming of musical pitch in the group with VI compared with the control group. Moreover, a bimodal distribution was found in the VI group in terms of the number of accurate pitch identifications. These preliminary findings suggest that enhanced pitch-naming ability in individuals with severe VI may be due to early differences in neural development brought about by loss of sight.
PAVEd for Success: An Evaluation of a Comprehensive Preliteracy Program for Four-Year-Old Children

The purpose of the study was to evaluate the effectiveness of PAVEd for Success, comprehensive preliteracy program guidelines to support the development of foundational preliteracy skills in 4 year olds. Prekindergarten teachers received professional development on variables of the program that included a summer institute, after-school workshops, and classroom support from preliteracy specialists. Children were assessed at prekindergarten entry, following the implementation period and at the end of the school year. Vocabulary knowledge, phonological awareness, and alphabet knowledge were assessed during the prekindergarten year, and early literacy indicators and early decoding skills were assessed at the end of the kindergarten year. While all experimental variables showed some benefits to the development of children's preliteracy skills, only the full program benefited children who entered the prekindergarten program at risk for reading difficulties. The program participants benefited in early literacy and decoding skills when compared to controls. Implementation by teachers with support and sustainability of program features without support was also evaluated. Teachers were most likely to implement and sustain program features which shared consistency with some prior literacy focus and when they were able to integrate program features across the curriculum. This research suggests that long-term change in the literacy skills of young children will involve complex and multifaceted approaches to preliteracy development.
A cultural bridge for academic integrity? Mainland Chinese master's graduates of UK institutions returning to China

Cultural and developmental perspectives (Flowerdew & Li, 2007) of plagiarism were explored through interviews with Chinese graduates of UK master's degrees after they have returned to work in transnational higher education in China. This allowed reflection on experiences of plagiarism in the context of the participants' educational history, life in the UK and their return to China. These accounts provided narratives of their development of academic integrity and a cultural comparison of the British and Chinese understandings of plagiarism. Interpretive repertoires (Gilbert & Mulkay, 1984) identified the significant commonalities and inconsistencies within and between the participants' accounts. The findings suggest that the participants use UK institutional vocabulary and have developed a more strict approach to plagiarism and academic integrity during their master's course and in their subsequent educational career. Analysis indicates that rather than being equivalents, plagiarism and the corresponding Chinese terms are dependent on the particular assessment backgrounds in the UK and China. Having moved between and adapting to these educational contexts, the potential for these returning Chinese graduates to act as a cultural bridge for academic integrity within internationalised higher education is discussed.
INTERPERSONAL RELATIONS AND GROUP PROCESSES Teacher Expectations II: Construction and Reflection of Student Achievement

Hypotheses regarding self-fulfilling prophecies, perceptual biases, and accuracy were tested using longitudinal data relating 98 6th-grade math teachers' expectations to 1,731 students' performance. Consistent with the self-fulfilling prophecy hypothesis, teacher expectations predicted changes in student achievement beyond effects accounted for by previous achievement and motivation. Consistent with the perceptual bias hypothesis, teacher expectations predicted their own evaluations of students' performance more strongly than they predicted standardized test scores. Consistent with the accuracy hypothesis, path coefficients relating teacher expectations to standardized achievement tests were about 80% lower than zero-order correlations, and the path coefficients relating teacher expectations to students' grades were 45% to 65% lower than the zero-order correlations. These results support a weak constructivist perspective.
“Meanings” toward Death: A TST Strategy

This paper describes a new method for operationalizing attitudes toward death utilizing the Twenty Statements Test format and emphasizes the social and symbolic nature of these attitudes. A theoretical rationale and empirical data are presented. Responses to the “What is Death? ” question were obtained from seventy-nine nurses. Seventeen categories were generated from a content analysis of these responses. Coding reliability checks produced substantial agreement. Subjects expressed varied and contradictory meanings toward death which included religious, nonreligious as well as favorable and unfavorable attitudes. The TST strategy is uniquely appropriate for tapping the social, symbolic, and contradictory meanings that are often held of death.
A tree kernel to analyse phylogenetic profiles

MOTIVATION The phylogenetic profile of a protein is a string that encodes the presence or absence of the protein in every fully sequenced genome. Because proteins that participate in a common structural complex or metabolic pathway are likely to evolve in a correlated fashion, the phylogenetic profiles of such proteins are often 'similar' or at least 'related' to each other. The question we address in this paper is the following: how to measure the 'similarity' between two profiles, in an evolutionarily relevant way, in order to develop efficient function prediction methods? RESULTS We show how the profiles can be mapped to a high-dimensional vector space which incorporates evolutionarily relevant information, and we provide an algorithm to compute efficiently the inner product in that space, which we call the tree kernel. The tree kernel can be used by any kernel-based analysis method for classification or data mining of phylogenetic profiles. As an application a Support Vector Machine (SVM) trained to predict the functional class of a gene from its phylogenetic profile is shown to perform better with the tree kernel than with a naive kernel that does not include any information about the phylogenetic relationships among species. Moreover a kernel principal component analysis (KPCA) of the phylogenetic profiles illustrates the sensitivity of the tree kernel to evolutionarily relevant variations.
Evidence on the extent of harms experienced by children as a result of online risks: implications for policy and research

Intense media and policy focus on issues of online child protection have prompted a resurgence of moral panics about children and adolescents' Internet use, with frequent confounding of different types of risk and harm and little reference to empirical evidence of actual harm. Meanwhile, within the academic literature, the quantity and quality of studies detailing the risks and opportunities of online activity for children and young people has risen substantially in the past 10 years, but this is also largely focused on risk rather than evidence of harm. Whilst this is understandable given the methodological and ethical challenges of studying Internet-related harms to minors, the very concept of risk is dependent on some prior understanding of harm, meaning that without efforts to study what harms are connected with children's online experiences, discussions of risk lack a strong foundation. This article makes a key contribution to the field by reviewing available evidence about the scale and scope of online harms from across a range of disciplines and identifying key obstacles in this research area as well as the major policy implications. The findings are based on a review of 148 empirical studies. Results were found in relation to main types of harms: health-related harms as a result of using pro-eating disorder, self-harm or pro-suicide websites; sex-related harms such as Internet-initiated sexual abuse of minors and cyber-bullying.
L3 English acquisition in Denmark and Greenland: gender-related tendencies

This paper presents findings of gender-related tendencies found in a study of factors influential in third language acquisition of English in Denmark and Greenland. A survey consisting of a questionnaire and an English test was carried out amongst pupils in their last year of compulsory schooling in Copenhagen, Denmark, and Nuuk, Greenland. In total, responses from 187 pupils were included, some of which were responses from pupils learning English as a second language; these respondents were included for comparisons (Copenhagen: L2 learners N =59, L3 learners N=32; Nuuk: L3 learners N=96; age: 14–16 years). The results showed significant gender-related differences with different patterns between the three learner groups (L2 and L3 learners in Copenhagen, L3 learners in Nuuk) with regard to the level of English proficiency, the degree to which pupils like English as a school subject and the pupils' degree of English classroom anxiety. The results differentiate the view that L3 learners as a group do less well in English than L2 learner peers, warranting further research into gender-related tendencies and extra focus on the English acquisition of L3 learner boys in particular in the Danish context.
Digital game building: learning in a participatory culture

Background: The emergence of a participatory culture, brought about mainly by the use of Web2.0 technology, is challenging us to reconsider aspects of teaching and learning. Adapting the learning-as-digital-game-building approach, this paper explores how new educational practices can help students build skills for the 21st century. Purpose: This paper examines elementary students' learning experiences through digital game building and playing. The following research questions guided the study: (1) What emotions do students experience during the process of building digital games for others to use? ; (2) What traits do students display when they learn through digital game-building? ; and (3) What do students learn from the digital game-building experience? Sample: The participants were 21 elementary students (19 boys and two girls), aged between seven and 11, who were on a summer camp at a university in Canada. Design and methods: This small-scale study made use of enactivism (Li, Clark, and Winchester, Instructional design and technology grounded in enactivism: A paradigm shift? , British Journal of Educational Technology 41, no. 3: 403–419, 2010), a new theoretical framework, as a basis for analysing the students' experiences and responses as they created computer games to teach others the concept of Issac Newton's Three Laws of Motion. Quantitative and qualitative data collected included student and parent surveys, teacher and student interviews, field observations and the digital games created by the students. Data were subjected to quantitative and thematic analyses. Results: The results indicated that only a small minority of students reported never feeling the positive emotions excited/happy or smart/proud during the process of building digital games. In addition, analysis suggested that creativity, engagement and new identity were the three salient traits displayed by the students when learning by digital game-building. There was also evidence that students increased their understanding of the subject matter in question (mathematics, science and technology) and enhanced their general problem-solving abilities through the process. Conclusions: This small-scale study suggests that student engagement in the game-building experience can enhance not just the learning of the game design process but also subject matter and generic skills. Thus, the learning-as-building approach can empower students to ‘take over the technology’ and become creators rather than passive consumers.
Estimation of a One Repetition Maximum Bench Press for Untrained Women

This study compared the estimated weight lifted for 1-RM and actual 1-RM bench press weight for untrained women using 3 common regression equations. Regression analysis was also used to develop an equation for estimating max bench press strength using the relationship of a 1-RM bench press measure with performance variables and/or structural dimensions in the same group of women (N = 57), who underwent a submax bench press test (4–8-RM) and a 1-RM for bench press to determine repetitions (Reps) to fatigue and the weight lifted during the submaximal test (SubWt). Also measured were body mass (BM), height (Ht), biacromial breadth (BaB), arm length (AL), triceps skinfold (TS), and upper arm circumference (UAC). Cross-sectional area (CSA) of the upper arm was calculated from UAC and TS. The Reps and SubWt were then entered into regression equations from Bryzcki, Epley, and Landers. Paired t-test comparisons of actual vs. predicted indicated statistical difference (p < 0.001) using the equations by Landers and Brzycki, but none when using the equation by Epley. Stepwise regression analysis showed SubWt, Reps, and BaB as the variables to be used in the prediction equation for this population. This study concluded the Epley equation could be used to estimate 1-RM for untrained women, and that the regression equation for this population provided a good estimate of bench press strength.
Hypophagic, endocrine and subjective responses to m‐chlorophenylpiperazine in healthy men and women

We studied the effect of the 5‐HT receptor agonist, m‐chlorophenylpiperazine (mCPP) (0.4 mg orally), on food intake, plasma prolactin and subjective state in 24 healthy male and female volunteers, using a double‐blind, placebo‐controlled design. mCPP lowered food intake, and increased plasma prolactin to the same extent in both sexes. Increased anxiety ratings, however, occurred more in females. Other mCPP‐induced subjective changes in nausea, light‐headedness and hunger did not distinguish the sexes. There was no significant correlation between the decrease in food intake produced by mCPP and any of the subjective ratings. Overall, the data indicate that mCPP produces significant hypophagia in both men and women. The greater anxiogenic effect of mCPP in female subjects is of interest in view of the increased prevalence of clinical anxiety disorders in women.
Mutator phenotype may be required for multistage carcinogenesis.

There is increasing evidence that the pathogenesis of cancer proceeds by sequential steps from normal cells to premalignant foci to localized tumors to invasive tumors and to metastatic lesions. The concept of stages of tumor progression was initially analyzed by Foulds (1), and a model for tumor progression based on genetic instability and clonal selection has been pro posed by Nowell (2). Individual steps in tumor progression have been operationally delineated in mouse skin by the responses of cells to different chemicals (3). A progression of phenotypic changes has been described in human tumors, the anatomical localization of which has made it feasible to obtain serial biopsies (2, 4). Sequential somatic chromosomal abnormalities have been reported in human cancers including malignant mel anoma (5), colon cancer (6), gliomas (7), adenocarcinoma of the esophagus (8), and small cell carcinomas of the lung (9). In addition, a multiplicity of different mutations has been carefully documented in human breast cancer (10). The dilemma is that there are too many mutations in human tumors. In this perspective, I will consider the relationships between mutation rates and cancer. At least two mutations are required to account for the chromosomal changes observed in certain human inherited diseases (11). An analysis of the literature indicates that the spontaneous mutation rate in cells is of sufficient magnitude to account for a two mutation hypothesis for the initiation of cancer. However, a larger number of mu tations are observed in many human tumors. The spontaneous mutation rate in somatic cells is not sufficient to account for these multiple mutations. If the multiple mutations in tumors are causally associated with and not just an accompaniment of cancer, then I argue that an early step in tumor progression is one that induces a mutator phenotype. An increased mutation rate in tumors could be the basis for the multiple mutations that characterize many cancers.
Wavelet deconvolution

This paper studies the issue of optimal deconvolution density estimation using wavelets. The approach taken here can be considered as orthogonal series estimation in the more general context of the density estimation. We explore the asymptotic properties of estimators based on thresholding of estimated wavelet coefficients. Minimax rates of convergence under the integrated square loss are studied over Besov classes B/sub /spl sigma/pq/ of functions for both ordinary smooth and supersmooth convolution kernels. The minimax rates of convergence depend on the smoothness of functions to be deconvolved and the decay rate of the characteristic function of convolution kernels. It is shown that no linear deconvolution estimators can achieve the optimal rates of convergence in the Besov spaces with p<2 when the convolution kernel is ordinary smooth and super smooth. If the convolution kernel is ordinary smooth, then linear estimators can be improved by using thresholding wavelet deconvolution estimators which are asymptotically minimax within logarithmic terms. Adaptive minimax properties of thresholding wavelet deconvolution estimators are also discussed.
Impact of learning organization culture on performance in higher education institutions

In this paper, an adapted version of the Dimensions of Learning Organization Questionnaire (DLOQ) was employed to investigate the perception of academic staff on learning organization culture in Indian higher education institutions. The questionnaire was sent to 700 faculty members of different universities using a non-probability purposive sampling technique. The results showed that there exists a significant and positive correlation amongst the constructs of learning organization culture, knowledge performance and research performance. Further, the results showed that knowledge performance is a statistically significant predictor of research performance. Thus, the empirical findings of this study will contribute to the literature on learning organization culture in higher education institutions, particularly with respect to the Indian scenario, an area where empirical studies are scant.