Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Feedback and efficient behavior

Feedback is an effective tool for promoting efficient behavior: it enhances individuals’ awareness of choice consequences in complex settings. Our study aims to isolate the mechanisms underlying the effects of feedback on achieving efficient behavior in a controlled environment. We design a laboratory experiment in which individuals are not aware of the consequences of different alternatives and, thus, cannot easily identify the efficient ones. We introduce feedback as a mechanism to enhance the awareness of consequences and to stimulate exploration and search for efficient alternatives. We assess the efficacy of three different types of intervention: provision of social information, manipulation of the frequency, and framing of feedback. We find that feedback is most effective when it is framed in terms of losses, that it reduces efficiency when it includes information about inefficient peers’ behavior, and that a lower frequency of feedback does not disrupt efficiency. By quantifying the effect of different types of feedback, our study suggests useful insights for policymakers.
Marital Processes around Depression

Despite extensive evidence of the importance of marriage and marital processes for mental health, little is known about the interpersonal processes around depression within marriage and the extent to which these processes are gendered. We use a mixed-methods approach to explore the importance of gender in shaping processes around depression within marriage. We approach this in two ways: First, using quantitative longitudinal analysis of 2,601 couples from the Health and Retirement Study (HRS), we address whether depressive symptoms in one spouse shape the other spouse’s depressive symptoms and whether men or women are more influential in this process. We find that a wife’s depressive symptoms influence her husband’s future depressive symptoms, but a husband’s depressive symptoms do not influence his wife’s future symptoms. Second, we conduct a qualitative analysis of in-depth interviews with 29 couples wherein one or both spouses experienced depression to provide additional insight into how gender impacts depression and reactions to depression within marriage. Our study points to the importance of cultural scripts of masculinity and femininity in shaping depression and emotional processes within marriage and highlights the importance of applying a gendered couple-level approach to better understand the mental health effects of marital processes.
Reassessment of convergence and divergence dynamics: implications for international HRM

The dynamics of convergence and divergence in organizations and managerial practices worldwide have attracted attention in a range of management disciplines (e.g. Adler et al ., 1986; Douglas and Wind, 1987; Levitt, 1983; Sparrow et al ., 1994). This paper explores and questions the proposition that organizations are becoming more similar in terms of macro-level variables (convergence), but maintaining their culturally based dissimilarities in terms of micro-level variables (divergence) (Adler et al ., 1986). A conceptual framework and propositions that depict the dynamics of macro-, micro- and meso-level variables and the modes of change associated with these are presented and applied to international human resource management. The framework and propositions are offered as a guide for future research exploring convergence and divergence issues.
Speed in the Internationalization Process of the Firm

While firm internationalization processes have been understood as being dynamic, the dimension of speed has rarely been the main focus of research efforts, which, until a decade ago, focused principally on explaining sequences of entry modes and choices of markets. The emergence of the study of international entrepreneurship has enhanced the role of speed, although this has usually been measured in terms of the time lag between a firm's foundation and its initial international action, with little attempt at defining and explaining the speed of the process once it is under way. This study reviews the concept of speed from an internationalization perspective, describes the multidimensional nature of the concept and sets out the different aspects that link timescales with the types of changes – continuous and discontinuous – that take place during internationalizing processes. The paper concludes with a research agenda as a guide for future work on considering the role of speed in the internationalization process.
Perceptions of Beginning Teacher Education Students Regarding Educational Technology

Abstract This study sought to identify the attitudes and perceptions of students in an introductory educational technology course situated within a teacher education program. Data were collected in the form of anonymous feedback throughout the semester. Findings included: students tended to enter the course with either a good deal of technology knowledge or with apprehension about using technology; students’ thinking evolved from conceiving of technology in a generic classroom to a classroom in which they were the teacher; the majority of students had not experienced effective uses of technology in their previous courses; technologies incorporated into the course needed to be reflective of what was available in K–12 schools; and by the end of the semester, students demonstrated technical skills, pedagogical content knowledge, and significant motivation to integrate technology into their classroom.
Endogeneity and dynamics in the impact of Free Trade Agreements on trade and Foreign Direct Investment

In recent years, international economists have devoted a great deal of attention to understanding the determinants of foreign direct investment (FDI) across countries. At the same time, many countries have entered into free trade agreements (FTA). Given their consequences for growth and welfare, it is important to determine how participation in an FTA affects the desire of firms to extend capital to foreign markets. There are theoretical arguments that support a positive (complementary) relationship between FTA and FDI between countries, as well as arguments supporting a negative (substitution) relationship. However, previous empirical studies often fail to control for endogeneity and the dynamic nature of the relationship. Using a panel of countries for the years 1990-2006, this paper effectively controls for participation in an FTA while analyzing the impact on FDI. The lengthy time series also allows us to effectively examine the dynamic nature of the relationship. Overall, we find that failing to address these econometric issues yields inaccurate conclusions regarding the impact of FTA on FDI. While simple OLS estimation generally finds that FTA promotes FDI, our analysis shows that FDI is either unrelated to participation in a FTA or is negatively affected.
Sex pheromone of the tsetse species, Glossina austeni: isolation and identification of natural hydrocarbons, and bioassay of synthesized compounds

Abstract. Copulatory responses of male Glossina austeni (Newstead) (Diptera: Glossinidae), that were elicited after contact with frozen female tsetse, were not observed after solvent washing of cuticular lipids. Chromatographic analysis of extracts from laboratory‐reared and field‐collected G. austeni females yielded natural hydrocarbons that were highly stimulatory to males. Most of this activity was produced by compounds in the alkene fraction. Gas chromatograms (GC) contained five natural alkenes; these were separated by preparative GC for bioassays conducted in Tanzania. The two major alkenes were identified using gas chromatography–mass spectrometry (GC–MS) to be 13,17‐dimethyltritriacont‐1‐ene and 13,17‐dimethylpentatriacont‐1‐ene, after the samples had undergone derivatization using dimethyl disulphide and saturation with deuterium. These alkenes and natural alkanes were quantified from G. austeni of both sexes from laboratory and field samples to confirm that their presence was consistent in this species. Trials of synthetic samples resulted in the order of biological activity for the stereoisomers of 13,17‐dimethyltritriacont‐1‐ene as follows: S,R‐33:1 > R,S‐ 33:1 > S,S‐33:1 > R,R‐33:1. Dose–response data showed an ED50 at 5 µg per treated, solvent‐washed male decoy. Of the four stereoisomers of 13,17‐dimethylpentatriacont‐1‐ene, R,R‐35:1 showed the most activity. This is the first report of alkene‐induced sexual activity in males of the genus Glossina.
Strategic thinking and decision making: literature review

Purpose – The paper seeks to examine both management and psychological literature on strategic decision making. Design/methodology/approach – A review of the management and psychological literature is undertaken, with particular focus on factors affecting strategic decision making. Findings – The literature review reveals that managerial cognition as well as individual and corporate values can have an impact on strategic decision making. The review also finds that strategic competencies are important although there is no agreement within the literature on what those competencies are. Originality/value – Strategic thinking and strategic decision making have been discussed within the psychological and management literature for decades. Psychological and management theoretical perspectives and empirical research have been discussed separately and failed to consider both together. The current paper reviews both psychological and management literature to provide an understanding of the strategic thinking and decision making process and factors that may affect the process.
A Comparison between Young and Old Adults in Their Ability to Rapidly Sidestep during Gait when Attention Is Divided

Background: The incidence of falls among older adults is high and the risk factors are often complex in nature. Considerable research has been done in the area of age-related changes of balance in an attempt to better understand the increased risk of falls. Studies of cognitive changes, however, suggest that the elderly are less able to divide their attention between two or more activities. This inability to divide attention could explain the increased risks of falls in the elderly. Objective: To investigate the effects of divided attention, age and prior knowledge of movement path, on kinetic measures and the position of the sacral marker relative to the center of pressure (COP) when individuals perform a rapid sidestep during walking. Methods: 32 young and 32 old adults participated in this study. Subjects walked and took a sidestep without interrupting forward progression. An arithmetic task was performed during half of the walking trials with the sidestep direction preplanned or unknown. Peak lateral ground reaction force, mean distance between COP and sacrum, walking velocity, performance speed and accuracy of the cognitive task were measured. Results: Both groups significantly decreased their mediolateral distance between the sacral marker and the COP in the dual-task trials (p = 0.04). Both groups significantly decreased their walking speed in the dual-task trials (p < 0.0001). Prior knowledge of the sidestep direction significantly affected the peak lateral ground reaction force and the sacral marker to COP distance but the differences were age-dependent. Young adults had a larger value in the unknown condition than in the preplanned condition (p < 0.0001). For the cognitive task, both groups decreased their performance speed (p < 0.0001) but maintained their performance accuracy as compared to the baseline data (p > 0.05). Conclusions: Our results revealed that old adults tended to be conservative, when facing the dual-task trials or unknown test condition. The fact that the older adults in the current study did not perform similarly to the younger adults suggests that they might have a fear of fall when facing a challenging balance task.
MARKETPLACE ORGANIZATION AND MARKETABILITY: NASDAQ, THE STOCK EXCHANGE, AND THE NATIONAL MARKET SYSTEM

THIS PAPER CONCERNS the effect of the National Association of Securities Dealers' Automated Quotation (NASDAQ) system on the price of marketability' for unlisted common stocks in the over-the-counter (OTC) marketplace. The analysis of NASDAQ contributes some evidence on the relationship between the organization of the marketplace for stocks and the price of marketability. Tinic and West [14] have noted the paucity of empirical evidence on the relative merits of alternative marketplace organizations and have created "a stem in the direction of redressing this deficiency. " Finding that prices of marketability were lower (ceteris paribus) in marketplaces with dealers than in those without dealers, they concluded that dealers increased the efficiency of the marketplace for stocks. Marketplaces with dealers have been organized in various ways, however. The study reported here considers some alternative organizations for dealer marketplaces. In particular, the analysis of NASDAQ revealed that changing a multidealer marketplace to incorporate a computerized market information system has increased its efficiency. This finding adds to Tinic and West's stem a branch that is of interest for several reasons. The first is the efficiency of the OTC marketplace itself. Dealer firms provide
MicroRNA expression signatures accurately discriminate acute lymphoblastic leukemia from acute myeloid leukemia

Acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) is the most common childhood cancer, whereas acute myeloid leukemia (AML) is the most common acute leukemia in adults. In general, ALL has a better prognosis than AML. To understand the distinct mechanisms in leukemogenesis between ALL and AML and to identify markers for diagnosis and treatment, we performed a large-scale genome-wide microRNA (miRNA, miR) expression profiling assay and identified 27 miRNAs that are differentially expressed between ALL and AML. Among them, miR-128a and -128b are significantly overexpressed, whereas let-7b and miR-223 are significantly down-regulated in ALL compared with AML. They are the most discriminatory miRNAs between ALL and AML. Using the expression signatures of a minimum of two of these miRNAs resulted in an accuracy rate of >95% in the diagnosis of ALL and AML. The differential expression patterns of these four miRNAs were validated further through large-scale real-time PCR on 98 acute leukemia samples covering most of the common cytogenetic subtypes, along with 10 normal control samples. Furthermore, we found that overexpression of miR-128 in ALL was at least partly associated with promoter hypomethylation and not with an amplification of its genomic locus. Taken together, we showed that expression signatures of as few as two miRNAs could accurately discriminate ALL from AML, and that epigenetic regulation might play an important role in the regulation of expression of miRNAs in acute leukemias.
Concentration of Interleukin‐12 in the peritoneal fluid is not influenced by the presence of endometriosis, its stage or the phase of the menstrual cycle

Background. IL‐12 is a key immunomodulatory cytokine. Its presence or concentration in peritoneal fluid is not related to the presence of endometriosis or the stage of the disease. A study was carried out to gain insight into the role of IL‐12 in the development and maintenance of endometriosis in relation to menstrual cycle.
Management Quality and the Cost of Debt: Does Management Matter to Lenders?

This paper investigates the effect of organizational capital, typified by various management practices within a firm, on the cost of external debt financing. Using a sample of medium-sized manufacturing firms in the US, we find that better management practices enhance a firm’s external financing capacity by lowering the firm’s cost of bank loans. We do not find any evidence that the lower loan cost of a high-quality-management firm is associated with more restrictive non-price contract terms such as greater collateral requirements and stricter covenants. These results suggest that banks explicitly take into account the risk arising from poor management practices when pricing and designing debt contracts.
COMT Val158Met polymorphism influences the susceptibility to framing in decision‐making: OFC‐amygdala functional connectivity as a mediator

Individuals tend to avoid risk in a gain frame, in which options are presented in a positive way, but seek risk in a loss frame, in which the same options are presented negatively. Previous studies suggest that emotional responses play a critical role in this “framing effect. ” Given that the Met allele of COMT Val158Met polymorphism (rs4680) is associated with the negativity bias during emotional processing, this study investigated whether this polymorphism is associated with individual susceptibility to framing and which brain areas mediate this gene–behavior association. Participants were genotyped, scanned in resting state, and completed a monetary gambling task with options (sure vs risky) presented as potential gains or losses. The Met allele carriers showed a greater framing effect than the Val/Val homozygotes as the former gambled more than the latter in the loss frame. Moreover, the gene–behavior association was mediated by resting‐state functional connectivity (RSFC) between orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) and bilateral amygdala. Met allele carriers showed decreased RSFC, thereby demonstrating higher susceptibility to framing than Val allele carriers. These findings demonstrate the involvement of COMT Val158Met polymorphism in the framing effect in decision‐making and suggest RSFC between OFC and amygdala as a neural mediator underlying this gene–behavior association. Hum Brain Mapp 37:1880–1892, 2016. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
The Profit-Structure Relationship in Banking--Tests of Market-Power and Efficient-Structure Hypotheses

This paper enters the debate between market-power and efficient-structure explanations of the profit-structure relationship in banking by including direct measures of X-efficiency and scale efficiency in the analysis. Structural models of two market-power hypotheses and two efficient-structure hypotheses are expressed in testable reduced form profit equations. This methodology is applied to thirty cross-sections of 1980s banking data. These data are somewhat consistent with one of the market-power and one of the efficient-structure hypotheses. However, none of the hypotheses are overwhelmingly important in explaining bank profits, suggesting that alternative theories be pursued. Copyright 1995 by Ohio State University Press.
Female Entrepreneurs, Work–Family Conflict, and Venture Performance: New Insights into the Work–Family Interface

Existing theory is extended to predict the effectiveness of strategies for structurally reducing work–family conflict by manipulating roles, given the salience of work and family roles and resources available to the female entrepreneur. A conceptual framework based on the constructs of role involvement and role conflict is used to examine whether high‐growth female entrepreneurs choose more appropriate strategies for reducing work–family conflict than their less successful counterparts. Three basic strategies for manipulating roles are discussed: (1) role elimination; (2) role reduction; and (3) role‐sharing. The following propositions are advanced: (1) work–family management strategies are a significant determinant of venture growth; (2) women who develop high‐growth businesses more effectively reduce work–family conflict by choosing strategies better matched with their internal needs and access to external resources than less successful women; and (3) role‐sharing strategies are preferred because they allow women to enjoy the enhancement of both work and family roles while reducing the level of inter‐role conflict. As a result, the high prevalence of team‐building and participative management practices observed in women‐owned businesses may be driven by the need for female entrepreneurs to manage work–family conflicts as well as genetics or socialization.
Life Cycle Greenhouse Gas Emissions of Electricity Generated from Conventionally Produced Natural Gas

This research provides a systematic review and harmonization of the life cycle assessment (LCA) literature of electricity generated from conventionally produced natural gas. We focus on estimates of greenhouse gases (GHGs) emitted in the life cycle of electricity generation from natural gas‐fired combustion turbine (NGCT) and combined‐cycle (NGCC) systems. The smaller set of LCAs of liquefied natural gas power systems and natural gas plants with carbon capture and storage were also collected, but analyzed to a lesser extent. A meta‐analytical process we term “harmonization” was employed to align several system boundaries and technical performance parameters to better allow for cross‐study comparisons, with the aim of clarifying central tendency and reducing variability in estimates of life cycle GHG emissions.
Optimal Policies for Perishable Products When Transportation to Export Market Is Disrupted

We consider a problem where a firm produces a variety of fresh products to supply two markets: an export market and a local market. A public transportation service is utilized to deliver the products to the export market, which is cheap, but its schedule is often disrupted severely. Each time this happens, the firm faces the following questions. (i) For a product that has been finished and is waiting for delivery to the export market, should it continue to wait, at an increasing risk of decay, and when should the waiting be terminated and the product be put to the local market? (ii) For a product that has not been finished, should its processing be postponed, so as to reduce the loss from decay after its completion? (iii) What is the best sequence to process the remaining products, according to the information available? We develop, in this study, a model to address these and other related questions. We find optimal policies that minimize the total expected loss in both the make‐to‐order and make‐to‐stock production systems, respectively. For each finished product, we reveal relationships among the desirable waiting time, the price at the local market, and the decaying cost. For unfinished products, we find the optimal start times and processing sequence. Numerical experiments are also conducted to evaluate the optimal policies.
Identification of a Drosophila homologue of alpha-catenin and its association with the armadillo protein

The cadherin cell adhesion system plays a central role in cell-cell adhesion in vertebrates, but its homologues are not identified in the invertebrate. alpha-Catenins are a group of proteins associated with cadherins, and this association is crucial for the cadherins' function. Here, we report the cloning of a Drosophila alpha-catenin gene by low stringent hybridization with a mouse alpha E-catenin probe. Isolated cDNAs encoded a 110-kD protein with 60% identity to mouse alpha E- catenin, and this protein was termed D alpha-catenin. The gene of this protein was located at the chromosome band 80B. Immunostaining analysis using a mAb to D alpha-catenin revealed that it was localized to cell- cell contact sites, expressed throughout development and present in a wide variety of tissues. When this protein was immunoprecipitated from detergent extracts of Drosophila embryos or cell lines, several proteins co-precipitated. These included the armadillo product which was known to be a Drosophila homologue of beta-catenin, another cadherin-associated protein in vertebrates, and a 150-kD glycoprotein. These results strongly suggest that Drosophila has a cell adhesion machinery homologous to the vertebrate cadherin-catenin system.