Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Principals’ Leadership Style and Staff Job Performance in Selected Secondary Schools in Emohua Local Government Area of Rivers State, Nigeria

This study examined the relationship between principals’ leadership style and staff job performance in Emohua Local Government Area of River State. The study was carried out within the period of 2007-2016 in secondary schools in Emohua Local Government Area of Rivers State. Path-Goal theory was adopted as the theoretical framework of analysis for the study. We reviewed the concepts of leadership, leadership style, types of leadership and staff job performance. Questionnaire items and interview methods were used to elicit primary data, and documentary method was applied to collect secondary data for the study. A total of 210 questionnaires containing 21 questionnaire items each were administered, and 195 questionnaires were successfully retrieved without error and used for the study. The primary data were presented and analysed in tabular and percentage frequency. Content analysis was used to analyse the secondary data. The study findings identified 10 different leadership styles adopted by different principals in different secondary schools in the area, and emphasized that the various leadership styles have significant effects on the staff job performance in the schools. Also, the findings proved that the principals face leadership challenges in the discharge of their administrative functions in the schools. Upon the findings, the study recommended that the principals should adopt the needed leadership style in their school to enhance staff job performance, that the various leadership challenge faced by the principals should be addressed accordingly by the government, and that both the principal and government should adopt the recommendations of this study to ensure a better leadership style and adequate staff job performance in the schools.
Lebecetin, a C-Lectin Protein from the Venom of Macrovipera lebetina That Inhibits Platelet Aggregation and Adhesion of Cancerous Cells

A novel C-lectin protein, lebecetin, was purified and characterized from the venom of Macrovipera lebetina. It is a disulfide-linked heterodimer of 15 and 16 kD. The subunits are homologous to each other and to the other snake venom proteins of the C-type (Ca2+-dependent) lectin superfamily. Lebecetin shows a potent inhibitory effect on whole blood and washed platelets induced by different agonists. It inhibits the agglutination of human fixed platelets in the presence of ristocetin. Lebecetin also interferes with the adhesion of IGR39 melanoma and HT29D4 adenocarcinoma cells. These two lines adhere to lebecetin used as matrix. Lebecetin is also able to strongly reduce IGR39 and HT29D4 cell adhesion to fibrinogen and laminin, but not to fibronectin and collagen types I and IV, respectively. Adhesion properties of lebecetin may thus involve integrin receptors.
Youth participation practice in North Ayrshire, Scotland from a Freirean perspective

There is a desire in policy, to encourage young people to take part in Youth Participation Practice (YPP). More insight is needed in approaches to YPP that enable meaningful and positive experiences for young people and communities. This qualitative study investigates youth participation practice in North Ayrshire Council in Scotland. Theories and principles from Paulo Freire (1996; 2000) form the framework for analysis. The study examines what young people and youth workers define the purpose of YPP to be; investigates the approaches that are used; and analyses what participants define as the benefits and outcomes of YPP for young people and communities. Through two focus groups with young people, 22 semi-structured interviews with young people, youth workers and Ruth Maguire, an elected member in North Ayrshire, themes were identified. These include the notion of young people feeling ‘connected’, being ‘enabled’ and feeling ‘transformed’ through their involvement in YPP. Freire’s notion of armed love has been interpreted and redefined as the term ‘alfirmo’, which is the act of caring for, nourishing and supporting people, while asserting belief in their ability as agents of change. This study found that ‘alfirmo’ is embodied by youth workers and noticed by young people who have taken part in YPP in North Ayrshire Council. Through the embodiment of ‘alfirmo’, young people in this study feel connected to peers and youth workers and enabled to undertake many tasks such as presenting in front of peers and adults. Through their experiences in YPP, young people expressed that they have gone through a personal transformation, with a greater sense and feeling of confidence as a key example.
Learning from change: Issues and experiences in participatory monitoring and evaluation

Title: Learning from change: issues and experiences in participatory monitoring and evaluation Authors: Marisol Estrella (editor) with Jutta Blauert, Dindo Campilan, John Gaventa, Julian Gonsalves, Irene Guijt, Deb Johnson and Roger Ricafort Publisher: Intermediate Technology Publications International Development Research Centre (Participation in development series) Publication date: 2000 Price: $A34.95 ISBN: 0-88936-895-3
Multiple Roles of a Heterotrimeric G-Protein γ-Subunit in Governing Growth and Development of Aspergillus nidulans

Vegetative growth signaling in the filamentous fungus Aspergillus nidulans is primarily mediated by the heterotrimeric G-protein composed of FadA (Gα), SfaD (Gβ), and a presumed Gγ. Analysis of the A. nidulans genome identified a single gene named gpgA encoding a putative Gγ-subunit. The predicted GpgA protein consists of 90 amino acids showing 72% similarity with yeast Ste18p. Deletion (Δ) of gpgA resulted in restricted vegetative growth and lowered asexual sporulation. Moreover, similar to the ΔsfaD mutant, the ΔgpgA mutant was unable to produce sexual fruiting bodies (cleistothecia) in self-fertilization and was severely impaired with cleistothecial development in outcross, indicating that both SfaD and GpgA are required for fruiting body formation. Developmental and morphological defects caused by deletion of flbA encoding an RGS protein negatively controlling FadA-mediated vegetative growth signaling were suppressed by ΔgpgA, indicating that GpgA functions in FadA-SfaD-mediated vegetative growth signaling. However, deletion of gpgA could not bypass the need for the early developmental activator FluG in asexual sporulation, suggesting that GpgA functions in a separate signaling pathway. We propose that GpgA is the only A. nidulans Gγ-subunit and is required for normal vegetative growth as well as proper asexual and sexual developmental progression.
Do ETFs Increase the Commonality in Liquidity of Underlying Stocks?

We examine the impact of ETF ownership on the commonality in liquidity of underlying stocks, while controlling for other institutional ownership. Analyses using aggregate stock-level ETF ownership and common ETF ownership at the stock-pair level indicate that ETF ownership significantly increases commonality. We show that greater arbitrage activities are associated with a larger effect of ETF ownership on commonality. We use quasi-natural experiments that exploit the reconstitution of Russell indexes, and ETF trading halts, to establish the causal effect of ETF ownership and the arbitrage mechanism, respectively. Our results suggest that ETFs reduce investors' ability to diversify liquidity risk.
Depression and physical functioning among older Americans with diabesity: NHANES 2009–2010

BACKGROUND Caring for older adults with diabesity can be challenging for primary care nurse practitioners. The purpose of this study was to examine whether there would be an additive effect of diabesity on depressive symptoms and physical functioning of older adults. We hypothesized that there is an additive effect of diabesity on depressive symptoms and physical functioning among older adults with one or neither condition. METHODS We performed a cross-sectional analysis of data from National Health and Nutrition Examination Surveys collected from African-American and Caucasian adults aged 65 and over between 2009 and 2010. Multivariate linear regression models were utilized. The sample consisted of 918 participants. In covariate-adjusted models, participants with diabesity reported more depressive symptoms than people with neither condition. Individuals with diabesity and those with obesity alone reported significantly more difficulty with physical function when compared to participants with neither condition. CONCLUSION Findings suggest that diabesity was more burdensome to older adults than either condition alone. More research is needed to understand the interplay between depression, physical function, and diabesity. IMPLICATIONS FOR PRACTICE To disrupt the adverse effects of diabesity burden, increased nurse practitioner awareness of this phenomenon may be beneficial in improving and maintaining physical and mental health among older adults.
African tourism industry employees: expenditure patterns and comparisons with other community members

ABSTRACT Tourism is frequently put forward as a means to promote conservation and development. Numerous studies focus on tourists’ and tourism industry spending, but very few have looked at tourism staff spending. This paper examines spending patterns of 385 tourism staff in six southern African countries. The analysis includes understanding how much staff are spending, what factors impact on their spending and the local economic impacts of this spending in remote, rural areas. A comparison with 1400 respondents who are not working in tourism (non-staff) highlights the potential indirect multiplier effects and where rural households are spending their income. The results show that tourism staff are spending, on average, more than other community members (non-staff) and that a large percentage of their spending is local and has important positive impacts on other households, highlighting the wider importance of tourism employment, beyond simple job creation and the increased potential benefit-sharing from tourism, through staff spending. Promoting the use of local suppliers of goods and services would increase these induced impacts further. Future research should focus on further rounds of tourism staff spending to determine the full development impact.
An Initial Investigation Into Naturally Occurring Loss- and Gain-Framed Memorable Breast Cancer Messages

Memorable message research examines interpersonal messages “ … remembered for extremely long periods of time and which people perceive as a major influence on the course of their lives” (Knapp, Stohl, & Reardon, 1981, p. 27). They can also guide actions, such as health behaviors. This exploratory research examined self-reported memorable messages about breast cancer to determine if they were framed, emphasizing either the benefits (gain-framed) or the costs (loss-framed) of a behavior. About one-fourth of the messages were framed, with most being gain-framed. The messages tended to emphasize early detection actions. Study limitations and implications for future research are discussed.
Corporate Financial Policy and the Value of Cash

We examine the cross-sectional variation in the marginal value of corporate cash holdings that arises from differences in corporate financial policy. We begin by providing semi-quantitative predictions for the value of an extra dollar of cash depending upon the likely use of that dollar, and derive a set of intuitive hypotheses to test empirically. By examining the variation in excess stock returns over the fiscal year, we find that the marginal value of cash declines with larger cash holdings, higher leverage, better access to capital markets, and as firms choose greater cash distribution via dividends rather than repurchases. WHAT VALUE DO SHAREHOLDERS PLACE ON THE CASH THAT FIRMS HOLD, and how does that value differ across firms? While an extensive literature attempts to estimate the value of adding debt to a firm’s capital structure, the search for estimates of the value of additional cash has not received nearly as much attention. This is a non-trivial oversight considering that corporate liquidity enables firms to make investments without having to access external capital markets, and to thereby avoid both transaction costs on either debt or equity issuance and information asymmetry costs that are often associated with equity issuances. Moreover, corporate liquidity reduces the likelihood of incurring financial distress costs if the firm’s operations do not generate sufficient cash flow to service obligatory debt payments. Corporate liquidity comes at a cost, however, since interest earned on corporate cash reserves is often taxed at a higher rate than interest earned by individuals. Furthermore, cash may provide funds for managers to invest in projects that offer non-pecuniary benefits but destroy shareholder value (Jensen and Meckling (1976)). Given the extent to which the literature examines the effect of these same frictions on capital structure, it is surprising that the value implications of holding cash in the presence of these frictions have not been similarly explored. 1
Application of Bispectrum Estimation for Time-Frequency Analysis of Ground Surveillance Doppler Radar Echo Signals

A microwave coherent homodyne and polarimetric ground surveillance Doppler radar is employed for collecting the radar returns from moving objects. Nonstationary nonlinearly frequency-modulated and multicomponent backscattered signals are analyzed and described as a sum of Doppler frequency-shifted polynomial chirp-like components. Instantaneous frequencies corresponding to the radiation backscattered by the different parts of a moving spatially distributed object are extracted from the time-varying bimagnitude estimates of transient sample sequences separated from the total received signal by a sliding window and projected into the time-frequency (TF) domain. Experimental investigations demonstrate a clean recovery of evolutionary phase-coupled harmonics for such targets as a swinging metallic sphere or a walking human. The computed TF distributions can be used in radar automatic target recognition systems to retrieve new data for the classification and recognition of ground moving objects.
Delegation of Decision Rights and Misreporting: The Roles of Incentive-based Compensation Schemes and Responsibility Rationalization

Our paper examines when and how the delegation of decision rights and incentive-based compensation schemes (two organizational-design choices) and responsibility rationalization affect managers’ misreporting behavior. One hundred and twenty-nine managers from manufacturing firms in the US completed an online survey. Our results suggest that managers’ responsibility rationalization moderates the relationships between the delegation of decision rights and misreporting, and incentive-based compensation schemes and misreporting. Despite our results providing no evidence of a simple mediating role of incentive-based compensation schemes on the relationship between the delegation of decision rights and misreporting, we find support for a moderated-mediation effect. Specifically, our results demonstrate that the indirect effect of the delegation of decision rights on misreporting via incentive-based compensation schemes is conditional on managers’ responsibility rationalization. The theoretical and practical implications of our findings are discussed.
A static and dynamic workload characterization study of the San Diego Supercomputer center Cray X-MP

The San Diego Supercomputer Center is one of four NSF sponsored national supercomputer centers. Up until January of 1990, its workhorse was a Cray X-MP, which served 2700 researchers from 170 institutions, spanning 44 states. In order to better understand how this supercomputer was utilized by its diverse community of users, we undertook a workload characterization study of the Cray X-MP. The goals of our study were twofold. First, we wished to characterize the workload at both the functional and resource levels. The functional level represents the user point of view: what types of programs users are running on the system. The resource level represents the system point of view: how the systems resources (CPU, memory, I/O bandwidth) are being used. Second, we wanted to see how the workload changed over an average weekday. Thus, we conducted a static characterization to understand its global attributes over the entire measurement period, as well as a dynamic workload characterization to understand the time behavior of the workload over a weekday cycle.
What drives productivity change in the manufacturing sector? Evidence from the metalworking industry in Ethiopia

We employ longitudinal data to explore sources of heterogeneity in productivity among firms in the metalworking industry in Ethiopia. We measure multifactor and labor productivity using non-parametric and regression residual parametric approaches. We find a sizable improvement in both labor productivity and TFP over time, which is also accompanied by large productivity dispersion across firms in the industry. The decomposition of industry-level productivity indicate that productivity increases is mostly explained by the reallocation of market shares across plants in the industry and that firm exit is preceded by declining productivity trends. Our reduced model also indicates that labor productivity and TFP is significantly higher in firms with a large share of workers with vocational training background. Productivity, however, does not differ with firm ownership. These results are robust to the choice of productivity measures.
Control of cancer-related anemia with erythropoietic agents: a review of evidence for improved quality of life and clinical outcomes.

BACKGROUND Anemia occurs frequently in patients with cancer and is associated with impaired health-related quality of life (HRQOL). Treatment of anemia results in significant improvements in energy, activity and overall HRQOL, particularly among patients with mild-to-moderate anemia. Importantly, studies have indicated that anemia may have a negative impact on the success of radiotherapy, reducing survival and locoregional control. Recent preclinical and preliminary clinical data have also suggested that anemia may be associated with poorer outcomes following chemotherapy or surgery. MATERIALS AND METHODS Data for review were identified and selected from searches of the literature published from January 1990 through to October 2002 using Medline, and searches of proceedings from key international oncology and hematology meetings. RESULTS A wealth of data indicate that treatment of anemia improves HRQOL in patients with cancer. Prospective studies exploring survival and/or treatment outcomes in anemic cancer patients are currently in their early stages, preventing any firm conclusions from being drawn, although they do indicate a benefit in treating anemia. CONCLUSIONS Recent studies support the use of erythropoietic agents in anemic cancer patients as a means of raising their hemoglobin levels and consequently improving their HRQOL. Randomized, controlled trials are needed to determine whether treating anemia with erythropoietic agents will improve other outcomes following therapy.
Brain injury and neurometabolic abnormalities in systemic lupus erythematosus.

PURPOSE To investigate with statistical analysis the relationship between brain injury measured with magnetic resonance (MR) imaging and that measured with proton (hydrogen-1) MR spectroscopy. MATERIALS AND METHODS Forty-two patients (34 female, eight male; mean age +/- SD, 38.7 years +/- 13.1; age range, 6-60 years) with systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) were examined with H-1 MR spectroscopy to measure N-acetylaspartate (NAA), creatine (Cr), and choline (Cho) levels in normal-appearing white matter and with MR imaging to detect anatomic abnormalities. RESULTS Results of linear regression analysis revealed an association between the NAA/Cr ratio and anatomic abnormalities (P = .03). However, only small focal lesions were independently related to NAA/Cr ratio changes (P = .04). Results of a similar analysis showed associations between the Cho/Cr ratio and anatomic abnormalities (P = .002). An elevated Cho/Cr ratio and cerebral infarction were independently associated (P = .02), as were a decreased Cho/Cr ratio and severe cortical atrophy (P = .02). CONCLUSION Cerebrovascular abnormalities underlie diffuse cerebral injury in SLE, with small vessel injury (i.e., small focal lesions) primarily associated with a decreased NAA/Cr ratio and medium vessel injury (i.e., infarct) primarily associated with an increased Cho/Cr ratio. Statistical integration of H-1 MR spectroscopic and MR imaging findings over large data sets provides insights into the relevance of individual MR imaging-visible brain abnormalities in SLE. This statistical approach may be applicable to other systemic diseases complicated by brain injury.
Absence of MHC class II antigen on mast cells at sites of inflammation in human skin

Abstract Since the presence of major histocompatibility complex (MHC) antigens has recently been reported on murine and human mast cells under various conditions, we have investigated their expression on mast cells in different types of cutaneous inflammation. Cryostat sections from lesional biopsies of patients with psoriasis, atopic eczema, chronic urticaria, lichen planus, bullous pemphigoid and urticaria pigmentosa were immunohistochemically stained with monoclonal antibodies against MHC class I and class II antigens using a double staining APAAP/toluidine blue methodology. While strongly positive staining with the antibody directed against MHC class I antigens was found on nearly all mast cells in normal skin and in inflammatory dermatoses, reactivity for HLA‐DR and HLA‐DQ antigens on mast cells could not be detected, except for less than 2% of cells with doubtful staining. Human mast cells therefore probably play no significant rôle as antigen‐presenting cells in the conditions studied.
Predictive value of mechanomyography and accelerometry for pulmonary function in partially paralyzed volunteers

Background: Accelerometry (ACM) of adductor pollicis muscle has been used for monitoring of neuromuscular blockade but its validity compared with the gold standard, mechanomyography (MMG), has been questioned. During neuromuscular blockade we compared these methods and we assessed pulmonary function.
Market Arrival and Price behaviour of Potato in Agra district of uttar Pradesh

Potato is the major vegetable of India. Variation in output of potato over the years leads to wide fluctuation in its price exposing the growers to a high risk situation. To cope with this, information on potential market and quantum of arrivals and prices of potato in different months of year is necessary for farmers. The current study attempted to analyze the variation in arrivals and prices of potato in highest potato producing district of Uttar Pradesh i.e. Agra. Time series data for last 10 years on area and production as well as market arrivals and prices of potato was collected from various government organizations. The findings indicated that the annual growth rates in area and production of potato during last ten years were significant and positive. However in case of productivity, it was insignificant and negative. The annual compound growth rates of arrivals were comparatively higher than that of market price. Inter-year variations in market arrivals and prices of potato were observed. The monthly arrival of potato was highest in the month of January and lowest in the month of October. Accordingly, the market price was highest during October-November and lowest in the month of February. The seasonal index of arrival showed that the arrivals were low during June to November and higher during December to May. The results confirmed that there were both negative and positive relationships across months between market arrivals and prices in terms of correlation coefficients.