Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Voluntary risk Seeking in the Risk Society: Explaining Involvement in Edgework

markdownabstract__Abstract__ How does voluntary participation in dangerous leisure activities requiring skills (‘edgework’) compare, for example, to gambling and thrill seeking and why does edgework thrive in societies preoccupied with safety and security? Lyng (1990) assumes edgework constitutes an escape from alienating working conditions and disenchanting rationalism in risk societies bearing upon blue and white collar workers alike. He also distinguishes these structural forces as drivers of edgework from a cultural explanation tying participation in edgework to individualism and anti-institutionalism. Besides, according to Fletcher (2008) and others, although athletes themselves legitimize their engagement in edgework as an escape from alienating and disenchanting living conditions, this is actually not the real reason for their participation in edgework. Instead, edgework supposedly provides an arena for the accumulation and display of cultural capital needed for members of the professional middle class to sustain their position on the labor market. We refute Lyng’s explanation and partly the cultural explanation as well and we validate the latter one based on two surveys among Dutch citizens (N=1,302; N=299). On the one hand, edgework cannot be explained by either perceived alienation, disenchantment, and institutionalism. On the other hand, it can be explained by individualism and the professional middle class is overrepresented in edgework, partly because its members cherish Protestant ethics such as the deferral of gratification and perseverance. This suggests that although edgeworkers resist the risk society in name, they in fact reproduce its underlying stratified class structure by investing in the symbolic capital needed to sustain and shield their own socio-economic position.
Inheritance of resistance to common bacterial blight in four selected common bean ( Phaseolus vulgaris L.) genotypes

1 College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, Makerere University, P. O. Box 7062, Kampala, Uganda. 2 National Crops Resources Research Institute (NaCRRI), Namulonge, P. O. Box 7084 Kampala, Uganda. 3 International Centre for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT), Kampala, Uganda. 4 University of Nebraska, Panhandle Research & Extension Center, 4502 Ave. I, Scottsbluff, NE 69361 USA. 5 Department of Plant, Michigan State University, Soil and Microbial Sciences, 1066 Bogue St., Room A370, East Lansing, MI 48824 USA.
Creation and Initial Validation of the Motivation Beliefs Inventory: Measuring Leaders' Beliefs about Employee Motivation Using Four Motivation Theories

This article describes the development and validation of the Motivation Beliefs Inventory (MBI), a new instrument for measuring leaders’ motivation beliefs. For decades, organizational scholars and a small number of motivation researchers have urged leaders to examine their beliefs related to employee motivation. Answering this challenge was difficult, however, given the lack of instruments designed to measure motivation beliefs at all, much less beliefs from a range of prevalent theories. Using principal components and parallel analyses, the 20-item Motivation Beliefs Inventory (MBI) was created to measure motivation beliefs along four theoretical lines: reinforcement theory; expectancy-valence theory; achievement motivation theory; and self-determination theory. The instrument was validated in two studies involving large samples of businesspeople (n=1322 and 712). Validity and reliability analyses revealed the instrument demonstrates acceptable psychometric properties. Four subscales, each representing a single theory, were confirmed and demonstrated alpha coefficients as follows: reinforcement theory, . 77; expectancy-valence theory, . 71; achievement motivation theory, . 82; self-determination theory, . 77. The entire Motivation Beliefs Inventory produced a strong alpha coefficient of . 77. The creation of a new instrument like the MBI opens fresh possibilities for both practitioners and scholars. While workplace practitioners now have the ability to measure a leader’s beliefs about motivation, researchers can use the instrument to test for differences in these beliefs among leaders in different occupations, companies, industries, and countries. Given the link between leader beliefs and behavior, the article concludes with a discussion about belief strength, and the challenges and opportunities of empirically investigating leaders’ beliefs about what motivates employees.
Fine-scale spatial distribution of the common lugworm Arenicola marina , and effects of intertidal clam fi shing

Despite its ubiquity and its role as an ecosystem engineer on temperate intertidal mudflats, little is known of the spatial ecology of the lugworm Arenicola marina. We estimated lugworm densities and analyzed the spatial distribution of A. marina on a French Atlantic mudflat subjected to long-term clam digging activities, and compared these to a nearby pristine reference mudflat, using a combination of geostatistical techniques: point-pattern analysis, autocorrelation, and wavelet analysis. Lugworm densities were an order of magnitude greater at the reference site. Although A. marina showed an aggregative spatial distribution at both sites, the characteristics and intensity of aggregation differed markedly between sites. The reference site showed an inhibition process (regular distribution) at distances <7.5 cm, whereas the impacted site showed a random distribution at this scale. At distances from 15 cm to several tens of meters, the spatial distribution of A. marina was clearly aggregated at both sites; however, the autocorrelation strength was much weaker at the impacted site. In addition, the nonimpacted site presented multi-scale spatial distribution, which was not evident at the impacted site. The differences observed between the spatial distributions of the fishing-impacted vs. the non-impacted site reflect similar findings for other components of these two mudflat ecosystems, suggesting common community-level responses to prolonged mechanical perturbation: a decrease in naturally-occurring aggregation. This change may have consequences for basic biological characteristics such as reproduction, recruitment, growth, and feeding. 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Mapping the ionised gas around the luminous QSO HE 1029-1401: evidence for minor merger events?

We present VIMOS integral field spectroscopy of the brightest radio-quiet QSO on the southern sky HE 1029-1401 at a redshift of z = 0.086. Standard decomposition techniques for broad-band imaging are extended to integral field data in order to deblend the QSO and host emission. We perform a tentative analysis of the stellar continuum, finding a young stellar population (<100 Myr) or a featureless continuum embedded in an old stellar population (10 Gyr) typical for a massive elliptical galaxy. The stellar velocity dispersion of σ∗ = 320 ± 90 km s −1 and the estimated black hole mass log(MBH/M� ) = 8.7 ± 0.3 are consistent with the local MBH–σ∗ relation within the errors. For the first time, we map the two-dimensional ionised gas distribution and the gas velocity field around HE 1029-1401. While the stellar host morphology is purely elliptical, we find a highly structured distribution of ionised gas out to 16 kpc from the QSO. The gas is highly ionised solely by the QSO radiation and has a significantly lower metallicity than would be expected for the stellar mass of the host, indicating an external origin of the gas most likely due to minor mergers. We find a rotating gas disc around the QSO and a dispersion-dominated non-rotating gas component within the central 3 kpc. At larger distances the velocity field is heavily disturbed, which could be interpreted as another signature of past minor merger events. Alternatively, the arc-like structure seen in the ionised gas might also be indicative of a large-scale expanding bubble, centred on and possibly driven by the active nucleus.
Global Sensitivity Analysis to Assess Salt Precipitation for CO 2 Geological Storage in Deep Saline Aquifers

Salt precipitation is generated near the injection well when dry supercritical carbon dioxide (scCO2) is injected into saline aquifers, and it can seriously impair the CO2 injectivity of the well. We used solid saturation (Ss) to map CO2 injectivity. Ss was used as the response variable for the sensitivity analysis, and the input variables included the CO2 injection rate (QCO2 ), salinity of the aquifer (XNaCl), empirical parameterm, air entry pressure (P0), maximum capillary pressure (Pmax), and liquid residual saturation (Splr and Sclr). Global sensitivity analysis methods, namely, theMorris method and Sobol method, were used. A significant increase in Ss was observed near the injection well, and the results of the two methods were similar:XNaCl had the greatest effect on Ss; the effect of P0 and Pmax on Ss was negligible. On the other hand, with these two methods, QCO2 had various effects on Ss: QCO2 had a large effect on Ss in the Morris method, but it had little effect on Ss in the Sobol method. We also found that a low QCO2 had a profound effect on Ss but that a high QCO2 had almost no effect on the Ss value.
Dissecting Chinese ODI: Dragon Multinationals in Italy

This paper provides original evidence about Chinese Outward Direct Investments in Italy. Data have been collected at the micro level, through a multiple-choice questionnaire, designed by the author and submitted to the whole population of Dragon multinationals. With a reply rate of 65%, we draw a detailed profile of Chinese parent companies and document the strategic features of their operations in Italy. Empirical findings are highly consistent with the theoretical expectations.
On The Role Of Public Policies And Wage Formation For Private Investment In R&D: A Long-Run Panel Analysis

This paper studies the drivers of business funded and performed R&D in a panel of 14 OECD countries since 1981. More specifically, we investigate the effects of public R&D related policies and wage formation. Following Pesaran (Econometrica, 2006) and Kapetanios et al. (Journal of Econometrics, 2011), our empirical strategy allows for cross-sectionally correlated error terms due to the presence of unobserved common factors, which are otentially non-stationary. We find that tax incentives are effective. Public funding (subsidization) of R&D performed by firms can also be effective if subsidies are not too low, neither too high. R&D performed within the government sector and within institutions of higher education is basically neutral with respect to business R&D. We find no evidence for crowding out, nor for complementarity. The higher education sector may, however, indirectly be of great significance. Our results reveal human capital accumulation at the tertiary level as a key driver of business R&D in the OECD during the last decades. As to the impact of wage formation, using an indicator for wage pres- sure developed by Blanchard (Economic Policy, 2006), we find that wage moderation may contribute to innovation, but only in fairly closed economies and in economies with flexible labour markets. In highly open economies and economies with rigid labour markets rather the opposite holds. In these economies high wage pressure may enhance creative destruction and force firms to innovate as a competitive strategy. Our results show that a careful treatment of the properties of the data is crucial.
Risk in Banking and Capital Regulation

This paper investigates the role of bank capital regulation in risk control. It is known that banks choose portfolios of higher risk because of inefficiently priced deposit insurance. Bank capital regulation is a way to redress this bias toward risk. Utilizing the mean-variance model, the following results are shown: (1) the use of simple capital ratios in regulation is an ineffective means to bound the insolvency risk of banks; (2) as a solution to problems of the capital ratio regulation, the "theoretically correct" risk weights under the risk-b ased capital plan are explicitly derived; and (3) the "theoretically correct" risk weights are restrictions on asset composition, which alters the optimal portfolio choice of banking firms. Copyright 1988 by American Finance Association.
Teachers' perceptions on collaborative activity in ESL writing class

This study focused on teachers' perceptions of collaborative writing and how this activity was enacted in the classroom. Data were collected from a questionnaire and a semi-structured interview with 16 instructors who taught an academic writing course at Universiti Putra Malaysia. The findings revealed that collaborative activity is beneficial because it could enhance the development of cognitive and social skills and boost students' confidence in writing. On the contrary, the disadvantages of collaborative work are attributed by passive and uncooperative members as well as time factor. The findings also showed that the ways collaborative activities were enacted differed among the instructors. In addition, the choice of assigning groups and roles to students was also found to be varied. The insights from the teachers' perceptions are useful in improving the pedagogical applications of collaborative writing.
Egg strain in the sea urchin Pseudechinus magellanicus (Echinoidea: Temnopleuridae)

Echinoid eggs with sizes greater than the gonopore experience strain resulting from compression during spawning, which can damage them affecting fertilization. The aim of this study was to describe gamete characteristics and analyse aspects related to egg strain during spawning of Pseudechinus magellanicus from Golfo Nuevo, Patagonia, Argentina. Mean fresh egg diameter observed was 122 μm with an additional jelly coat of 49 μm. The relationship between gonopore sizes and maximum test diameter showed a positive correlation but egg size did not vary with test diameter, as seen in other sea urchins, indicative of egg strain during spawning. Egg strain calculated from the relationship between egg size and gonopore size was 0.47-0. Eggs of small individuals (<15 mm test diameter) were the most affected by this strain. The egg jelly coat observed in P. magellanicus could protect eggs from strain and shear stress during spawning. Rev. Biol. Trop. 56 (Suppl. 3): 335-339. Epub 2009 January 05.
Epistemic governance: an approach to the politics of policy-making

The aim of this paper is to make a meta-theoretical contribution to conceptions of how power and governance operate in contemporary policy-making. Most approaches to governance generally brush aside the actual mechanics of how influence is wielded and social change effected. To fill this gap we argue that society is managed increasingly through epistemic governance, which works on actors' perceptions of the world and its current challenges. Our point is that regardless of which actors we assume to be influential in affecting public policies, they operate by utilizing a limited number of strategies, in broad paradigmatic as well as in focused practical dimensions. The epistemic work actors are engaged in focuses on three aspects of the social world: (1) ontology of the environment, (2) actor identifications, and (3) norms and ideals, or constructions of what the world is, who we are, and what is good or desirable. As such, we suggest ways to move beyond more or less structuralist explanations of sources an.
Credit Crunch and Household Welfare, the Case of the Korean Financial Crisis

We examine how the credit crunch in Korea in the late 1990s affected household behaviour and welfare. Using 1996–1998 household panel data, we estimate a consumption Euler equation, augmented by endogenous credit constraints. Korean households coped with the negative shocks of the 1997 credit crunch by reducing consumption of luxury items while maintaining food, education and health related expenditures. Our results show that, in 1997–1998, during the crisis, the probability of facing credit constraints and the resulting expected welfare loss from the binding constraints increased significantly, suggesting the gravity of the credit crunch at the household level.
CAN FINANCIAL RATIOS EXPLAIN THE OCCURRENCE OF FRAUDULENT FINANCIAL STATEMENTS

This paper examines financial ratios as a tool to discriminate fraudulent financial statements (FFS). The empirical analysis covers the period from 2003 to 2010. Using a sample of 122 fraud and nonfraud companies in Malaysia, the study tests eleven financial ratios based on Spathis (2002) and other studies that examined financial ratios indicative capabilities. This study also includes the classical Benneish (1991) ratios and control for distress factor using the Altman Z-Score (1968) model. The diagnostic tests were conducted using backward Wald binary logistic regression approach. The results show that all the financial ratios have significant relationships with FFS except for Gross Profit-toAssets ratio, percentage of Inventory-to-Total Assets, Gross Margin Index and Z-Scores. This concludes that financial ratios have the ability to explain the occurrence of FFS.
Ramipril and Valsartan as Protective Agents against Some Complications of an Experimentally Induced Obesity in Rats

Objectives: Our work aimed to study the effect of experimentally induced obesity on the rate of advanced glycated end products (AGEs) formation and the activity of angiotensin converting enzyme (ACE) and its relation to oxidative stress and also to evaluate the protective effect of ramipril (an angiotensin converting enzyme inhibitor), valsartan [an angiotensin II blocker; AT1 receptor blocker), and their combination on these obese animals. Materials and Methods: The present study was conducted on ten female albino rats fed on standard chow as a control group and fifty obese animals received for sixteen weeks high fat diet alone or in concomitant combination with either ramipril (2 mg/kg/day or 0.25 mg/kg) or valsartan (0.30 mg/kg/day) or the combination of both drugs (0.25 mg/kg of ramipril and 0.30 mg/kg of valsartan daily for sixteen weeks). Blood, kidney and aortic AGEs, ACE activity and advanced oxidation protein products (AOPPs) were measured. Results: The obtained results showed increase in triacylglycerols (TGs) levels (p<0.043) in the obese animals versus the control group. The total blood cholesterol (TC) and LDL-cholesterol (LDL-C) levels, also, were significantly higher (p<0.0001) in obese animals compared to the corresponding values in controls, with a significant reduction in their levels in all treated groups except in group IV (p=.041) when compared to the control group. On the other hand, HDL-cholesterol (HDL-C) was significantly lower (p<0.0001) in the obese animals compared to its level in the controls. The obese animals showed significant increase in their blood glucose and serum insulin levels when compared to the controls [(p<0.037) and (p<0.045), respectively]. The results, also, revealed that obesity was associated with a statistically significant increase in the blood, kidney and aortic tissue levels of AGEs, ACE and AOPPs compared to their corresponding values in the control group. Treatment with ramipril, valsartan and their combination caused significant reduction in serum and tissue levels of both AGEs and AOPPs when compared with the obese group. On the other hand, ACE activity was markedly reduced following the administration of ramipril alone or when it is combined with valsartan, while the administration of valsartan alone showed no significant effect on the activity of ACE when compared to the obese group. Moreover, combination of ramipril (at a submaximal antihypertensive dose of 0.25 mg/kg/day) with valsartan produce a marked reduction in all parameters examined compared to valsartan alone. Conclusion: combination of ramipril and valsartan showed more therapeutic effect compared to individual therapy with ACE inhibitor or AT1 receptor blocker.
Assessment of genetic relationship of promising potato genotypes grown in Rwanda using SSR markers

Evaluation of genetic relationship and divergence is important for an efficient choice of parents for breeding and strategic conservation. The objective of this study was to determine genetic relationship among Rwandan potato genotypes using thirteen selected polymorphic simple sequence repeat (SSR) markers to identify suitable parents for breeding. The thirteen SSR primers identified 84 alleles across all genotypes. The number of alleles per locus ranged from 3 to 10 with an average was 6.5. The polymorphic information content (PIC) of loci ranged from 0.51 to 0.85 with an average of 0.71. Heterozygosity (He) varied from 0.59 to 0.86 with an average of 0.75. Significant positive correlations were detected between PIC and He (r= 0.99), PIC and number of alleles (r=0.76) and, He and number of alleles (r=0.80). The genetic distance between cultivars ranged from 0.44 to 0.93 and the average was 0.68. Overall the SSR analysis provided five different genetic clusters of the potato cultivars useful for breeding.
The Unrecognized Dimension of Corporate Sustainability Assessment

Companies play a central role on the way towards sustainable development. Over the last years, many approaches have emerged that attempt to measure companies’ contribution to sustainable development, i.e. corporate sustainability. Our analysis of existing approaches reveals two major shortcomings. First, value creation as a core condition for sustainability as well as for further contributions to economic sustainability is often ignored in these assessments. Second, existing approaches fail to differentiate between the actual contribution of a firm to sustainability on one hand and the structural and managerial measures aimed at attaining this contribution on the other hand. We argue that the implementation of sustainability oriented organizational structures and managerial instruments alone does not necessarily guarantee sustainability performance. In response to these shortcomings we put forward a generic framework for corporate sustainability assessment. Besides the dimension of current sustainability performance we introduce the notion of future-orientation of management as the second – and so far unrecognized – dimension of corporate sustainability assessment.