Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
BRINGING “THE MOTH” TO LIGHT: A PLANET-SCULPTING SCENARIO FOR THE HD 61005 DEBRIS DISK

The HD 61005 debris disk (“The Moth”) stands out from the growing collection of spatially resolved circumstellar disks by virtue of its unusual swept-back morphology, brightness asymmetries, and dust ring offset. Despite several suggestions for the physical mechanisms creating these features, no definitive answer has been found. In this work, we demonstrate the plausibility of a scenario in which the disk material is shaped dynamically by an eccentric, inclined planet. We present new Keck NIRC2 scattered-light angular differential imaging of the disk at 1.2–2.3 μm that further constrains its outer morphology (projected separations of 27–135 au). We also present complementary Gemini Planet Imager 1.6 μm total intensity and polarized light detections that probe down to projected separations less than 10 au. To test our planet-sculpting hypothesis, we employed secular perturbation theory to construct parent body and dust distributions that informed scattered-light models. We found that this method produced models with morphological and photometric features similar to those seen in the data, supporting the premise of a planet-perturbed disk. Briefly, our results indicate a disk parent body population with a semimajor axis of 40–52 au and an interior planet with an eccentricity of at least 0.2. Many permutations of planet mass and semimajor axis are allowed, ranging from an Earth mass at 35 au to a Jupiter mass at 5 au.
Anti-Tumor Activity of a Polysaccharide from Blueberry

Blueberries (Vaccinium spp.) are rich in bioactive compounds. However, the biological activity of polysaccharides from blueberry has not been reported so far. This study evaluated the anti-tumor and immunological activities of a polysaccharide (BBP3-1) from blueberry in S180-bearing mice. The experimental results indicated that BBP3-1 (100 mg·kg−1·d−1) inhibited the tumor growth rate by 73.4%. Moreover, this group, compared with the model control, had shown an effect of increasing both the spleen and thymus indices (p < 0.05), increasing phagocytosis by macrophages (p < 0.05), boosting the proliferation and transformation of lymphocytes (p < 0.01), promoting the secretion of TNF-α, IFN-γ, and IL-2 (p < 0.05) and improving NK cell activity (p < 0.01). From this study, we could easily conclude that BBP3-1 has the ability to inhibit tumor progression and could act as a good immunomodulator.
Job satisfaction as a predictor of work engagement of banking employees in Windhoek

Operating in an environment with so many banks offering similar products and services requires banks to have employees that are knowledgeable and have positive job attitudes. Enhancing employees’ levels of job satisfaction will likely influence their levels of work engagement. This study investigated the relation between job satisfaction and work engagement, and which dimensions of job satisfaction best predict work engagement of banking employees in Windhoek, Namibia. The negative job attitudes of bank employees impact on the quality of service delivery and negatively affect customer satisfaction. Having satisfied and engaged employees will most likely improve the quality of service and customer satisfaction within the banking sector. A cross-sectional survey design was used, employing questionnaires to collect data on the biographical details, job satisfaction and work engagement of employees within the banking industry. The sample consisted of employees from two banks, Bank X (n=106) and Bank Y (n=110) in Windhoek. Intrinsic and extrinsic job satisfaction reported strong correlations with work engagement. Intrinsic and extrinsic job satisfaction was significant predictors of work engagement, with intrinsic job satisfaction being the stronger predictor. The novelty of this study in Namibia will add to already existing knowledge within Industrial/Organisational Psychology, and pave the way for future research, and guide the development of interventions to keep bank employees satisfied and engaged in their work, improving on productivity and customer satisfaction. Managers need to assess job satisfaction and employee engagement regularly, identify the factors that impact on employees job attitudes and identify ways to improve job satisfaction, with work engagement having positive impacts on performance and customer satisfaction.
Adherence of Haemophilus somnus to tumor necrosis factor-alpha-stimulated bovine endothelial cells in culture.

Vascular thrombosis and tissue infarction is a principal lesion in Haemophilus somnus septicemia known also as thrombotic meningoencephalitis. This study was undertaken to examine whether tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-alpha) can influence the adherence of H. somnus to cultured bovine aortic endothelial cells (BAEC). Confluent BAEC were exposed to 0-100 nM of human recombinant TNF-alpha for 12-48 h. Suspensions of different strains of H. somnus (approximately 1.5-3 x 10(8) labelled with [methyl-3H]-thymidine, were added to BAEC and incubated for 1.5 h. Initial studies with one pathogenic (P) strain and one non-pathogenic (NP) strain revealed that both strains adhered to normal endothelial cells but minimally to subendothelial matrix remaining after removal of BAEC. Adherence to BAEC was reduced by an excess of unlabelled H. somnus of the same strain. Adherence was enhanced for both strains by exposure of BAEC to TNF-alpha in a manner that increased with TNF-alpha concentration and with duration of exposure to TNF-alpha prior to addition of bacteria. A survey of adherence of six live P strains and six NP strains demonstrated considerable variation but no difference in adherence between P and NP strains to normal or to TNF-alpha-stimulated BAEC. However, TNF-alpha consistently increased adhesion of each strain to BAEC. Both P and NP strains caused more severe cytotoxic changes in TNF-alpha-treated BAEC. Tumor necrosis factor-alpha also increased adhesion of formalin-killed bacteria of P and NP strains. (ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)
Temporal Work in Strategy Making

This paper reports on a field study of strategy making in one organization facing an industry crisis. In a comparison of five strategy projects, we observed that organizational participants struggled with competing interpretations of what might emerge in the future, what was currently at stake, and even what had happened in the past. We develop a model of temporal work in strategy making that articulates how actors resolved differences and linked their interpretations of the past, present, and future so as to construct a strategic account that enabled concrete strategic choice and action. We found that settling on a particular account required it to be coherent, plausible, and acceptable; otherwise, breakdowns resulted. Such breakdowns could impede progress, but they could also be generative in provoking a search for new interpretations and possibilities for action. The more intensely actors engaged in temporal work, the more likely the strategies departed from the status quo. Our model suggests that strategy cannot be understood as the product of more or less accurate forecasting without considering the multiple interpretations of present concerns and historical trajectories that help to constitute those forecasts. Projections of the future are always entangled with views of the past and present, and temporal work is the means by which actors construct and reconstruct the connections among them. These insights into the mechanisms of strategy making help explain the practices and conditions that produce organizational inertia and change.
Tetrodotoxin and Manganese Ions: Effects on Electrical Activity and Tension in Taenia Coli of Guinea Pig

Tetrodotoxin, at concentrations up to 5 x 10-6 gram per milliliter, has no effect on the spontaneous discharge in the smooth muscle of taenia coli. However, the spontaneous discharge is abolished by Mn++ at a concentration of 0.5 millimole per liter. The contraction induced by immersing the muscle in isotonic KCl solution is also suppressed in the presence of Mn++. Because Mn++ is a specific suppressor of the spike induced by Ca++ and tetrodotoxin is an inhibitor of the spike induced by Na+, we suggest that Ca++ is a charge carrier in the production of spike potential in the smooth muscle and that the entry of intervening Ca++ through the membrane acts as a trigger for the contraction of smooth muscle.
Adolescent depression: social network and family climate--a case-control study.

In a study of a total high-school population, 2300 students aged 16-17 years were screened for depression (BDI, CES-DC). Those with a self-evaluation indicating depression, together with controls matched for sex, age, and class were interviewed (DICA-R-A). The 177 pairs, where both individuals were interviewed and the control had no lifetime diagnosis of depression, were analysed in the form of paired differences for psychosocial factors and compared within diagnostic groups. The psychosocial factors were measured with the ISSI subscales and six attitude questions about family climate (KSP). Adolescents with an episode of major depression during part of the last year did not differ from their controls. Those with long-lasting depressive symptoms, i.e. dysthymia with or without episodes of major depression, had a more limited social interaction and were not satisfied with it. They also evaluated their family climate and attachment network as being more inadequate than did their controls. Depressed adolescents with comorbid conduct disorder had a more negative evaluation of availability and adequacy of both social interaction and attachment network than their controls. This group had a very negative view of their family climate. Since this is a case-control study conclusions cannot be drawn about cause and effect.
Antecedents of Employee Loyalty in Educational Setting: An Empirical Study

No studies have been conducted to link three variables of work values, internal marketing, and job satisfaction in predicting employee loyalty. Therefore, this research aims to fulfill the gap by developing a model that include work values, internal marketing, and job satisfaction in assessing employee loyalty in educational context. This research apply a judgmental sampling with the sample size of 200 lecturers from a private universities in Tangerang. Structural equation modeling was applied in testing the research hypotheses. The results showed that there is one out of three hypotheses that was not supported. That hypothesis is the relationship between internal marketing and job satisfaction.
Applying big data technologies in the financial sector – using sentiment analysis to identify correlations in the stock market

The aim of this article is to introduce a system that is capable of collecting and analyzing different types of financial data to support traders in their decision - making. Oracle’s Big Data platform Oracle Advanced Analytics was utilized, which extends the Oracle Database with Oracle R, thus providing the opportunity to run embedded R scripts on the database server to speed up data processing. The extract, transform and load (ETL) process was combined with a dictionary - based sentiment analysis module to examine cross - correlation and causality between numerical and textual financial data for a 10 week period. A notable correlation (0.42) was found between daily news sentiment scores and daily stock returns. By applying cross - correlation analysis and Granger causality testing, the results show that the news’ impact is incorporated into stock prices rapidly, having the highest correlation on the first day, while the returns’ impact on market sentiment is seen only after a few days.
Neurologic status of newborns with congenital heart defects before open heart surgery.

UNLABELLED Controversy exists regarding the integrity of the nervous system in the newborn with a congenital heart defect who must undergo corrective or palliative open heart surgery. Neurodevelopmental sequelae have been primarily attributed to surgical procedures without standardized evaluation of the preoperative neurologic status. OBJECTIVE To determine whether newborns with congenital heart defects demonstrate abnormalities in neurobehavioral status before surgery. STUDY DESIGN In this prospective study, a standardized neonatal neurobehavioral assessment and a neurologic examination were conducted independently in a consecutive series of 56 neonates referred to our hospital for investigation of open heart surgery. RESULTS Neurobehavioral and neurologic abnormalities were documented in greater than half of the cohort and included hypotonia, hypertonia, jitteriness, motor asymmetries, and absent suck. Poor state regulation (62%) and feeding difficulties (34%) also were commonly observed. Furthermore, 3 subjects had seizures, 35.7% were microcephalic, and 12.5% were macrocephalic. The overall likelihood of neurobehavioral abnormalities was not enhanced by indicators of cardiorespiratory compromise. Interestingly, newborns with acyanotic congenital heart defects were more likely to demonstrate neurologic compromise than were those with cyanotic defects. CONCLUSIONS Findings suggest that the prevalence of neurobehavioral abnormalities before surgery in newborns with congenital heart defects has been underappreciated and would indicate that factors other than intraoperative procedures should be considered in the genesis of brain injury in this population.congenital heart defects, neurologic examination, newborn.
Mobility-related fatigue, walking speed, and muscle strength in older people.

BACKGROUND Fatigue is an important early marker of functional decline among older people, but the mechanisms underlying this association are not fully understood. The purpose of the present study was to examine the association between mobility-related fatigue and walking speed and to test the degree to which muscle strength accounts for this association. METHODS The study is based on baseline (n = 523) and 5-year follow-up data (n = 292) from a cohort of 75-year-old persons. Standardized assessments include self-report measures of mobility-related fatigue (score range 0-6) and medical history, as well as performance-based assessment of walking speed and maximal isometric strength of knee extension, body extension, and handgrip. RESULTS In the cross-sectional baseline analysis, one unit increase in fatigue score was associated with 0.03 m/s (β = -.03, p < .001) and 0.05 m/s (β = -.05, p < .001) slower maximum walking speed among women and men, respectively, while adjusting for important covariates. Among women, muscle strength accounted up to 21% and among men up to 24% for the association. In the prospective analysis, fatigue at baseline was predictive of change in walking speed among men (β = -.04, p < .001) but not among women (β = -.005, p = .64). Among men, muscle strength accounted up to 15% for the association between baseline fatigue and change in maximum walking speed. CONCLUSIONS Mobility-related fatigue is associated with slower walking speed in older adults. The results suggest that muscle strength is one of the underlying factors explaining this association.
Spreadsheet Model Helps to Assign Medical Residents at the University of Vermont's College of Medicine

This paper describes a spreadsheet model that MBA students enrolled in an MS course constructed to replace the manual method of assigning medical residents in radiology to on-call and emergency rotations at the University of Vermont's College of Medicine. Although it contains more than 10,000 variables, the model was easy to build and solve by practitioners who are “lightly educated” in OR/MS. Based on this group's work, we discuss an approach that end-user practitioners can take to create spreadsheet optimization models. We also provide several observations and argue that spreadsheet models can provide an alternative scheduling method for problems of a smaller scope. Despite the major advances in personnel-scheduling methodologies and software, manual scheduling is still the predominant method used for such smaller-scope problems.
Factors affecting the emotional labor in food services: The case of Van as a tourism destination

There are many studies on the concept of emotional labor in the literature, but limited studies available in the food services business. For this reason, the basic objective of present study is to identify the factors affecting emotional labor of employees in this industry and to explore the situational factors and demographic variables that may have an impact on emotional labor through its sub dimensions as surface acting and deep acting. The data were collected from the food services workers during 2017 summer season in Van, by a questionnaire as the survey instrument which was developed by the authors from the literature. Major findings of this survey can be summarized as; emotional labor was mostly influenced by emotional dissonance and interaction variety, and positive relationships were found between interaction frequency and interaction intensity, emotional dissonance and interaction variety; there is a significant association between intensity of interaction and gender of the employees; and as a demographic dimension, woman workers display more intensive emotional labor then men do.
Learning Deep Features on Multiple Scales for Coffee Crop Recognition

Geographic mapping of coffee crops by using remote sensing images and supervised classification has been a challenging research subject. Besides the intrinsic problems caused by the nature of multi-spectral information, coffee crops are non-seasonal and usually planted in mountains, which requires encoding and learning a huge diversity of patterns during the classifier training. In this paper, we propose a new approach for automatic mapping coffee crops by combining two recent trends on pattern recognition for remote sensing applications: deep learning and fusion/selection of features from multiple scales. The proposed approach is a pixel-wise strategy that consists in the training and combination of convolutional neural networks designed to receive as input different context windows around labeled pixels. Final maps are created by combining the output of those networks for a non-labeled set of pixels. Experimental results show that multiple scales produces better coffee crop maps than using single scales. Experiments also show the proposed approach is effective in comparison with baselines.
Local Meat and Poultry Processing: The Importance of Business Commitments for Long-Term Viability

Consumer demand for local food, including local meat and poultry, has risen in recent years. To sell meat, farmers need access to appropriately scaled processing facilities with the skills, inspection status, and reliability to prepare these products safely, legally, and to customer specifications. Farmers and others suggest that limited processing infrastructure restricts the supply of local meat and poultry. At the same time, existing small processors often lack the steady, consistent business required for profitability. This report explores this multi-faceted problem and identifies fundamental causes, drawing on a cost analysis of local processing. Case studies of seven successful local and regional processors illustrate strategies or best practices currently in place: farmers commit to providing consistent throughput of livestock to process, and processors commit to providing consistent, high-quality processing services. This long-term commitment, supported by coordination and communication between processors and their customers as well as along the entire supply chain, is essential to the persistence and expansion of local meats. Also, five public-private collaborations around the country demonstrate how to expand opportunities for local meat marketing by providing support and technical assistance to meat processors and their farmer customers.
CEO Duality and Firm Performance for Chinese Shareholding Companies

The board plays an important role in the corporate governance system. Since China's economic reform in early 1980s China's economy has been developing quickly and thus making research in this market intriguing. This study tries to answer the following question: "Does CEO duality leadership structure have negative implications to the performance of Chinese public listed companies compared to split positions? " Cross sectional regressions are used to examine all Chinese public listed firms except finance industry from 2001 to 2003. Data analysis results show that CEO duality is negatively related with firm performance in 2001, the negative relation disappeared in 2002 and 2003. The negative relation with firm performance is stronger in high munificence environment. Here munificence means abundant resources. Board salary, board and CEO shareholding exert a positive role to moderate the relations of CEO duality with firm performance. Debt level exerts a negative role to moderate the relations of CEO duality with firm performance. Being the first study to examine moderating factors in China adds original contribution to literature and provides new directions for future research.
Continuous improvement and organizational practices in service firms: Exploring impact on cost reduction

A growing importance of services sectors for global trade invokes the question of how to combat the innate complexity and inefficiency of service operations. As a response to the growing request for enhancement of service efficiency, companies implement Continuous Improvement (CI) initiatives to reduce costs of operations. However, the researchers failed to reach consensus on the effect of CI operations efficiency in non-manufacturing environment. Thus, the proposed study attempts to answer an important question of impact of CI on cost reduction in the services environment by applying Structural Equation Modeling to the 304 survey responses collected in the course of the study. Furthermore, the research investigates how organizational practices impact relationship between CI and cost reduction. The study suggests that CI itself is unable to reduce costs and requires a support of multiple organizational practices, such as Rewards and Recognition of Employees, Quality Culture, Employee Training and Goal setting, to obtain the benefits of cost reduction. Consequently, the research results allow for a conclusion with a vast practical implication that there is need to develop a comprehensive infrastructure of organizational practices to support CI in order to attain cost reduction. The research findings provide recommendations for CI implementation and investment prioritization in service organizations.