Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The improbable commitment: organizational commitment amongst South African knowledge workers

Knowledge workers, who typically enjoy global labour mobility, are considered critical to economic growth in developing countries. The purpose of this dissertation was to examine the organizational commitment of South African knowledge workers, a commitment widely considered both improbable and unobtainable. In this study, a critical review of the organizational commitment literature, to ascertain its psychometric applicability to knowledge workers in South Africa, uncovered an unsystematic and fragmented body of research that has been imperfectly integrated in previous research models. A new definition of organizational commitment is therefore developed to account for current contextual complexities and theoretical advances in commitment research (e.g. multiple foci, variable duration, and changing intensities). A mixed-method research design was used in all stages of the investigation. To establish the construct validity and practical validity of the organizational commitment construct, a multidisciplinary explanatory model was developed based on the extant literature and focus group discussions with knowledge workers. To test the proposed model, a self-administered survey questionnaire was developed. A total of 637 usable questionnaires from knowledge workers employed in the accounting and information technology occupations in both the public and private sector were analysed using a variety of statistical techniques, primarily hierarchical regression analysis and structural equation modelling. Particular care was taken that appropriate and strict statistical criteria guided the analyses. The survey results were then presented to focus groups for discussion. The results clearly evidence the widely accepted three-component structure of organizational commitment but provide new insight into the nature of the relationship between the commitment components. The veracity of a multiple foci approach is demonstrated and interaction effects between commitment bases and commitment foci are examined. The results are mixed concerning the proposed model, which required revision after the psychometric analyses. Overall, however, the results are both surprising and encouraging. Surprising given the evidence of high levels of organizational commitment amongst knowledge workers, and encouraging given the amount of variance explained in salient organizational outcomes such as turnover intentions (37%) and boosting behaviour (24%). Analysis per employment sector showed no overall effect of sector in the regression models but further analyses showed different patterns of significant antecedents amongst knowledge workers employed in the public and private sectors. The empirical findings and theoretical position of this study challenge prevailing assumptions about the organizational commitment of knowledge workers and provide refreshment to both scholars and practitioners faced with the development of new management approaches and insights.
Applying cognitive load theory to the design of Web-based instruction

Cognitive load theory can inform the design of Web-based instruction. The basic premise of cognitive load theory is that the focus of an instructional module must be the instruction itself. Information that is adjunct to the instruction must be designed to minimize cognitive load and enhance working memory. Because the mental resources of working memory can be overloaded, any information that ignores cognitive load may interfere with the process of acquiring knowledge and skills. Instruction that effectively presents the learning to our working memory has an impact on our ability to store knowledge and skills in our long-term memory. Everything that we "know" is held in our long-term memory. Our team applied the principles of cognitive load theory to the design our instructional Web site and discovered that cognitive load theory provides a sound baseline for the design of effective Web-based instruction. Further, to effectively enhance Web-based instruction, the graphical user interface and multimedia formats must be developed in consideration of cognitive load principles.
Acquiring Word Class Distinctions in American Sign Language: Evidence from Handshape

Handshape works differently in nouns versus a class of verbs in American Sign Language (ASL) and thus can serve as a cue to distinguish between these two word classes. Handshapes representing characteristics of the object itself (object handshapes) and handshapes representing how the object is handled (handling handshapes) appear in both nouns and a particular type of verb, classifier predicates, in ASL. When used as nouns, object and handling handshapes are phonemic––that is, they are specified in dictionary entries and do not vary with grammatical context. In contrast, when used as classifier predicates, object and handling handshapes do vary with grammatical context for both morphological and syntactic reasons. We ask here when young deaf children learning ASL acquire the word class distinction signaled by handshape. Specifically, we determined the age at which children systematically vary object versus handling handshapes as a function of grammatical context in classifier predicates but not in the nouns that accompany those predicates. We asked 4–6-year-old children, 7–10-year-old children, and adults, all of whom were native ASL signers, to describe a series of vignettes designed to elicit object and handling handshapes in both nouns and classifier predicates. We found that all of the children behaved like adults with respect to all nouns, systematically varying object and handling handshapes as a function of type of item and not grammatical context. The children also behaved like adults with respect to certain classifiers, systematically varying handshape type as a function of grammatical context for items whose nouns have handling handshapes. The children differed from adults in that they did not systematically vary handshape as a function of grammatical context for items whose nouns have object handshapes. These findings extend previous work by showing that children require developmental time to acquire the full morphological system underlying classifier predicates in sign language, just as children acquiring complex morphology in spoken languages do. In addition, we show for the first time that children acquiring ASL treat object and handling handshapes differently as a function of their status as nouns vs. classifier predicates, and thus display a distinction between these word classes as early as 4 years of age.
Spatial Relations in Congenitally Blind Infants: A Study

The purpose of the study presented in this article was to determine whether a specially designed environment called the “Little Room” could give congenitally blind infants an early basis for developing an awareness of spatial relations. It was found that blindness is no impediment to the early development of this awareness as long as blind infants are given an environment that enables them to achieve a preunderstanding of the concept and permanence of objects and an awareness that they can produce object-based sounds.
Optical mapping of the early development of the response pattern to vagal stimulation in embryonic chick brain stem.

1. In both intact and slice preparations of vagus‐brain stem isolated from 3‐ to 8‐day‐old chick embryos, the spatial pattern of neural responses to vagal stimulation and its development were assessed by means of multiple‐site optical recording of electrical activity, using a voltage‐sensitive merocyanine‐rhodanine dye (NK2761) and a 12 x 12‐element photodiode array. 2. The first neural responses, viz. fast optical signals (related to the action potential), were recorded in the 4‐day‐old brain stem preparation, and slow optical signals (related to excitatory postsynaptic potentials) were detected from late 7‐ and 8‐day‐old brain stem preparations. 3. The evoked optical signals appeared to be concentrated longitudinally in the central region of the stimulated side of the intact brain stem preparation and in a limited dorsal area in the slice preparation. The signal size gradually increased and the response area expanded as development proceeded. 4. Based on the above results, we have constructed developmental maps of the spatial patterns of the fast and slow optical responses. In the maps, the positions of the peak‐size regions of the fast and slow signals were assessed and we have found that there were differences in the location of these areas for the fast vs. the slow signals in the late 7‐ and 8‐day‐old embryonic brain stem preparations. 5. In the maps for the late 7‐ and 8‐day‐old embryonic brain stems, the fast signal response area seems to correspond to the dorsal motor nucleus of the vagus nerve and the slow response area to the nucleus tractus solitarii.
What's Scene and Not Seen: Influences of Movement and Task Upon What We See

Studies concerning the processing of natural scenes using eye movement equipment have revealed that observers retain surprisingly little information from one fixation to the next. Other studies, in which fixation remained constant while elements within the scene were changed, have shown that, even without refixation, objects within a scene are surprisingly poorly represented. Although this effect has been studied in some detail in static scenes, there has been relatively little work on scenes as we would normally experience them, namely dynamic and ever changing. This paper describes a comparable form of change blindness in dynamic scenes, in which detection is performed in the presence of simulated observer motion. The study also describes how change blindness is affected by the manner in which the observer interacts with the environment, by comparing detection performance of an observer as the passenger or driver of a car. The experiments show that observer motion reduces the detection of orientation and location changes, and that the task of driving causes a concentration of object analysis on or near the line of motion, relative to passive viewing of the same scene.
Impact of age and mismatch repair status on survival in colorectal cancer

Previous studies have suggested that deficiencies in mismatch repair genes (dMMR) often occur in patients with colorectal cancer (CRC) and contribute to disease etiology. Here, we looked for a correlation of MMR status to disease outcomes from a large number of Chinese CRC patients stratified by the age of onset of disease. A total of 2233 CRC patients were analyzed and tissue biopsies of surgically removed tumors scored for MMR gene status. The patient distribution after classification consisted of 188 younger aged patients (20–39 years of age), 1024 middle aged patients (40–59 years of age), and 1020 older aged patients (60–85 years of age). In this analysis, the expression of four MMR genes was assessed by immunohistochemistry (IHC). We found that the young group of CRC patients with dMMR had higher overall survival (OS) than the young group of patients with proficient MMR (pMMR) (77% vs. 56%, P = 0.03). Middle‐aged patients with dMMR also had higher OS than middle‐aged group patients with pMMR (78% vs. 68%, P = 0.012). However, we found no statistical difference in OS between dMMR and pMMR status in the older group of patients (75% vs. 71%, P = 0.224). Finally, the middle‐ and older‐aged group set of patients had higher OS than the young group of patients (69% vs. 71% vs. 59%, P = 0.008). These data demonstrated that the age of disease onset can be an important factor to help evaluate the prognosis of CRC when combined with the analysis of MMR status within tumor biopsied tissue.
AIDS Care : Psychological and Socio-medical Aspects of AIDS / HIV

Prevalence of HIV among those 15 and older in rural South Africa Francesc Xavier Gómez-Olivé a , Nicole Angotti a b , Brian Houle b , Kerstin KlipsteinGrobusch a c , Chodziwadziwa Kabudula a , Jane Menken a b , Jill Williams a b , Stephen Tollman a d e & Samuel J. Clark a e f a School of Public Health, Faculty of Health Sciences, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa b Institute of Behavioral Science, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO, USA c Julius Center for Health Sciences and Primary Care, Utrecht University, Utrecht, The Netherlands d Centre for Global Health Research, Umeå University, Umeå, Sweden e INDEPTH Network, Accra, Ghana f Department of Sociology, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA Version of record first published: 11 Jan 2013.
A relação entre tabagismo e características socio-demográficas em universitários

RESUMO: A relacao entre caracteristico socio-demografico e consumo de tabaco pode subsidiar a elaboracao de programas de natureza preventiva contra iniciacao e/ou dependencia nicotinica. O objetivo do estudo e investigar a associacao entre caracteristicas socio-demograficas e tabagismo em uma amostra de universitarios. Foram sorteados aleatoriamente, 1245 academicos matriculados na UFMT em 2001. Aplicou-se um questionario para levantamento do perfil socio-demografico e padrao de consumo de tabaco da populacao. Utilizou-se o Teste de Fagerstrom (1978), para avaliacao do grau de dependencia dos fumantes. Os estudantes foram agrupados em tres categorias: "fumantes" (F), "ex-fumantes" (EF), e "nao-fumantes" (NF). Efetuou-se duas analises de regressao logistica, respectivamente, tomando-se as categorias F x NF e F x EF como variaveis "dependentes". Universitarios fumantes, foram classificados como "dependentes" ou "nao-dependentes", segundo a pontuacao no este de Fagerstrom. Efetuou-se uma regressao linear multipla, para investigar a associacao entre as pontuacoes no teste e fatores socios-demograficos. Foi encontrada uma prevalencia de 6,67% de fumantes, 6,58% ex-fumantes e 86,73% nao fumantes. Na primeira analise de regressao logistica multipla, apenas o fator idade permaneceu associado a categoria Fumantes. Na segunda analise, apenas os fatores idade, area do curso e idade de inicio do consumo, permanecem associados a categoria ex-fumantes. Universitarios fumantes tendem a se concentrar nas faixas etarias mais altas. Academicos de cursos da area de biologicas/saude tem mais probabilidade de inter- romper o consumo, em comparacao aos de humanas. Palavras chave: Caracteristicas socio-demograficas, Tabagismo. RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN SOCIO-DEMOGRAPHIC CHARACTERISTICS AND THE CONSUMPTION OF TOBACCO IN UNIVERSITY STUDENTS ABSTRACT: The relationship between socio-demographic characteristics and the consumption of tobacco may subsidize the elaboration of programs of a preventive nature against the beginning of the smoking habit and/or dependence. The aims of the study is to investigate the association between socio-demographic characteristics and smoking within a sample of university students. 1245 students enrolled at UFMT in 2001 were chosen at random. A questionnaire was applied to verify the population's socio-demographic profile and tobacco consumption pattern. The Fagerstrom test (1978) was used to asses the degree of dependence of the smokers. The students were grouped in three categories: "smokers" (F), "former-smokers" (EF), and "non-smokers"
Social‐Emotional Development of Infants and Young Children With Orofacial Clefts

Children with orofacial clefts are believed to have distinctly elevated risk for a variety of adverse social-emotional outcomes including behavior problems, poor self-concept, and parent-child relationship difficulties. This assumption has been based primarily on theories of facial appearance and social bias, a handful of empirical studies, and clinical impressions. Studies of these children have been limited by methodological problems such as diagnostic heterogeneity, ascertainment bias, and absent or poorly matched control groups. In an attempt to address at least some of these methodological problems, the longitudinal research described in this article examined the developmental course of infants with unilateral cleft lip & palate (CLP) and cleft palate only (CPO). We followed these infants to age 7, with ongoing comparisons to a demographically matched group of typical children. Outcome measures targeted child attachment, maternal/child interaction during feeding and teaching tasks, parent satisfaction with surgical outcomes, parent and teacher behavior rating scales, and child self-concept and behavioral adaptation. Although our findings have provided limited support for the hypothesis that infants and young children with CLP/CPO are at greater risk for social-emotional problems than their peers, we have found that among infants with clefts, early assessment can predict subsequent social-emotional outcomes. In this article, we review theory and data in this area of study, summarize our longitudinal findings, describe our success and failures with respect to methodological rigor, and discuss emerging research and areas for further inquiry.
Dominant Currency Paradigm: A New Model for Small Open Economies

Most trade is invoiced in very few currencies. Despite this, the Mundell-Fleming benchmark and its variants focus on pricing in the producer’s currency or in local currency. We model instead a ‘dominant currency paradigm’ for small open economies characterized by three features: pricing in a dominant currency; pricing complementarities, and imported input use in production. Under this paradigm: (a) the terms-of-trade is stable; (b) dominant currency exchange rate pass-through into export and import prices is high regardless of destination or origin of goods; (c) exchange rate pass-through of non-dominant currencies is small; (d) expenditure switching occurs mostly via imports, driven by the dollar exchange rate while exports respond weakly, if at all; (e) strengthening of the dominant currency relative to non-dominant ones can negatively impact global trade; (f) optimal monetary policy targets deviations from the law of one price arising from dominant currency fluctuations, in addition to the inflation and output gap. Using data from Colombia we document strong support for the dominant currency paradigm.
“24 Hours On Air”: Gender and Mobile Phones in a Brazilian Low-Income Neighbourhood

In this paper, which is part of a twelve-month ethnography on the sociocultural practices and meanings ascribed to mobile phones in a low-income neighbourhood in Southern Brazil, I examine various forms of appropriation of this gadget in their intersections with gender relations . Following a literature discussion about gender relations in low-income groups, as well as the role of mobile phones in love/sexual relationships, I argue that mobile phones are appropriated to strengthen love ties, but also cause tension and conflict to arise as they become tools of surveillance. In this sense, I discuss the ways in which mobile phones engender what Foucault called the micropolitics of daily life, in which men and women interact in sociocultural dynamics that may reproduce gender hierarchies, but also hold the potential to subvert them. As such, the analysis also pays attention to the vitality and humour present in women's narratives, in order to argue that these seem to be connected to a certain autonomy of the female persona. The discussion engages with the work of various other researchers internationally and in Brazil and reflects on the cross-cultural implications of these practices in relation to similar studies in Africa.
P2P Group Formation Enhancement for Opportunistic Networks with Wi-Fi Direct

The Wi-Fi Direct technology was proposed by Wi-Fi Alliance in order to facilitate device-to-device communications in Wi-Fi. The Wi-Fi Direct technology offers new possibilities to deploy opportunistic and cooperative networks. The actual state of the Wi-Fi Direct specification lacks optimization for P2P grouping and creating opportunistic networks. In this paper, we present a new P2P group formation method for opportunistic networks and we introduce the concept of nominating a backup group owner that can replace the group owner of a broken P2P group. In addition, we investigate required times to form a P2P group of variable number of nodes and we evaluate the efficiency of the backup group owner. Results show that our proposed P2P group formation method, in addition to the introduction of the backup group owner, can facilitate and accelerate opportunistic P2P grouping.
DNA sequence variants in the metabotropic glutamate receptor 3 and risk to schizophrenia: an association study

Objectives Recent studies investigating the association of DNA variants in the metabotropic glutamate receptor gene (GRM3) with schizophrenia susceptibility revealed conflicting results. In this study, we focused on DNA sequence variants, for which association was reported and attempted to replicate association with schizophrenia or with cognitive deficits known to be present in patients with schizophrenia. Methods A sample of 242 families with affected offspring and five single nucleotide markers located in the genomic region of GRM3 has been used to replicate association with schizophrenia. In addition, results of neuropsychological tests, trail making test B and the Stroop color-naming task were available for a subgroup of these families (N=88) and an independent sample of 148 patients with schizophrenia. Correlation of these measurements with genotypic data was performed using analysis of variance. Results No statistical evidence for association with schizophrenia or correlation with cognitive deficits as measured by the trail making test B or the Stroop color-naming task and the five DNA sequence variants could be detected. A trend towards association with schizophrenia was revealed for a single marker (rs2237562, P=0.056) and for 2-marker and 3-marker haplotypes containing this variant. Conclusions Our study of DNA sequence variants in the GRM3 gene did not provide further support for genetic association with schizophrenia or for correlation with cognitive deficits.
Oxidative stress and lipid peroxidation products: effect of pinealectomy or exogenous melatonin injections on biomarkers of tissue damage during acute pancreatitis.

BACKGROUND Melatonin (N-acetyl-5-methoxytripta-mine) is a free radical scavenger and a strong antioxidant, secreted by the pineal gland. In this study, we evaluated the effects of decreasing and increasing serum melatonin levels on malonyldialdehyde (MDA), superoxide dismutase (SOD), and reduced glutathione (GSH) levels in pancreatic tissue from rats with experimental acute pancreatitis. METHODS Experimental acute pancreatitis was induced in three groups of Wistar albino rats (10 animals per group) by pancreatic ductal ligation. The first group had only acute pancreatitis and served as the control. Surgical pinealectomy was added to acute pancreatitis in the second group, removing the source of endogenous melatonin (low melatonin levels group). The third group was given 0.1 ml daily intraperitoneal injections of 20 mg/ml melatonin solution for one week (high melatonin levels group). The effects of melatonin levels were evaluated by comparison of the levels of MDA, SOD, and GS in pancreatic tissue. RESULT We found that intraperitoneal melatonin injections decreased the levels of MDA and increased the levels of SOD and GSH in pancreatic tissue. CONCLUSION Exogenous melatonin has a preventive effect on lipid peroxidation and oxidative damage in acute pancreatitis.