Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Social Media in the Workplace: Information Exchange, Productivity, or Waste?

Public managers play a central role in the adoption and smooth implementation of social media tools in the workplace, with local governments increasingly expecting managers to utilize these tools. Nevertheless, we know little about how public managers perceive social media use for work activities and what factors shape such perceptions. Preliminary research has shown that social media use in government may enhance task efficiency, but it may also increase management complexity and workload. In this study, we draw from current literature on e-government adoption and use to investigate the role of personal and organizational use of social media, organizational culture, digital threats, and technological capacity in shaping public managers’ perceptions of social media use. Combining data from a national survey of 2,500 public managers in 500 U.S. local governments, Census data, and data collected from city websites, we find that perceptions of social media tools in the workplace are influenced by the interplay of personal and organization use of social media, an organizational culture of innovation, and formal guidance on social media use. Technological capacity and perceptions of digital threats are not significantly related to perceptions of social media. We conclude with a discussion of what these findings mean for research and practice.
Role of PPARγ in Regulating a Cascade Expression of Cyclin-dependent Kinase Inhibitors, p18(INK4c) and p21(Waf1/Cip1), during Adipogenesis*

Molecular mechanisms coupling growth arrest and cell differentiation were examined during adipogenesis. Data are presented that document a cascade expression of members of two independent families of cyclin-dependent kinase inhibitors that define distinct states of growth arrest during 3T3-L1 preadipocyte differentiation. Exit from the cell cycle into a pre-differentiation state of post-mitotic growth arrest was characterized by significant increases in p21 and p27. During onset of irreversible growth arrest associated with terminal differentiation, the level of p21 declined with a concomitant, dramatic increase in p18 and a sustained level of p27. The expression of p18 and p21, regulated at the level of protein and mRNA accumulation, was directly coupled to differentiation. Stable cell lines were engineered to express adipogenic transcription factors to examine the active role of trans-acting elements in regulating these cell cycle inhibitors. Ectopic expression of peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor (PPAR) γ in non-precursor fibroblastic cell lines resulted in conversion to adipocytes and a coordinated increase in p18 and p21 mRNA and protein expression in a PPARγ ligand-associated manner. These data demonstrate a role for PPARγ in mediating the differentiation-dependent cascade expression of cyclin-dependent kinase inhibitors, thereby providing a molecular mechanism coupling growth arrest and adipocyte differentiation.
Testosterone decreases trust in socially naïve humans

Trust plays an important role in the formation and maintenance of human social relationships. But trusting others is associated with a cost, given the prevalence of cheaters and deceivers in human society. Recent research has shown that the peptide hormone oxytocin increases trust in humans. However, oxytocin also makes individuals susceptible to betrayal, because under influence of oxytocin, subjects perseverate in giving trust to others they know are untrustworthy. Testosterone, a steroid hormone associated with competition and dominance, is often viewed as an inhibitor of sociality, and may have antagonistic properties with oxytocin. The following experiment tests this possibility in a placebo-controlled, within-subjects design involving the administration of testosterone to 24 female subjects. We show that compared with the placebo, testosterone significantly decreases interpersonal trust, and, as further analyses established, this effect is determined by those who give trust easily. We suggest that testosterone adaptively increases social vigilance in these trusting individuals to better prepare them for competition over status and valued resources. In conclusion, our data provide unique insights into the hormonal regulation of human sociality by showing that testosterone downregulates interpersonal trust in an adaptive manner.
Autism Spectrum Disorder Phenotypes and Prenatal Exposure to Methylmercury

Background: There continues to be public concern that mercury exposure and autism spectrum disorder (ASD) may be associated. The primary source of exposure to organic mercury in humans is to methylmercury from fish consumption. We evaluated the association between prenatal methylmercury exposure and ASD phenotype in children and adolescents in the Republic of Seychelles, where fish consumption is high. Methods: We administered the Social Communication Questionnaire to parents of a cohort of 1784 children, adolescents, and young adults. The Social Responsiveness Scale was administered to teachers of 537 cohort subjects at about 10 years of age. Prenatal exposure to methylmercury was measured in maternal hair samples collected at or near the time of birth. Multivariable regression models evaluated the relationship between prenatal methylmercury exposure and ASD phenotypic scores, adjusting for relevant covariates. Results: The mean prenatal methylmercury exposure for subjects in the analysis was 8.4 ppm (standard deviation [SD] = 5.7). The mean Social Communication Questionnaire score was 8.0 (SD = 4.4). The mean prenatal methylmercury exposure for subjects with Social Responsiveness Scale scores was 6.7 ppm (SD = 4.4) and the mean Social Responsiveness Scale score was 57.6 (SD = 26.8). No consistent association between prenatal methylmercury exposure and ASD screening instrument was found, using linear and nonlinear regression analyses. Conclusions: Prenatal exposure to methylmercury was not associated with ASD phenotypic behaviors in our cohort of high fish consumers. Our findings contribute to the growing literature suggesting that exposure to methylmercury does not play an important role in the development of ASD phenotypic behavior.
Unconscious emotion regulation: Nonconscious reappraisal decreases emotion-related physiological reactivity during frustration

Reappraisal of negative events is known to be useful in decreasing their emotional impact. However, existent evidence for this conclusion mostly relies on conscious, deliberate reappraisal that comes with the cost of cognitive efforts. The aim of the present study was to compare emotion regulation effects of conscious and unconscious reappraisal, which has been shown to be less costly in previous studies. Subjects randomly assigned to an unconscious reappraisal, conscious reappraisal, and control condition performed a frustrating arithmetic task. Subjective emotional experience and heart-rate reactivity were recorded. Participants primed with unconscious reappraisal showed the same decrease in heart-rate reactivity as those explicitly instructed to reappraise. In addition, the unconscious reappraisal group did not show reductions in subjective negative emotion, whereas this was significantly decreased in the conscious reappraisal group. Heart-rate reactivity was positively correlated with negative emotion ratings and negatively correlated with the positive emotion ratings. These results suggest that unconscious reappraisal is only effective in decreasing physiological consequences of frustrating emotion, but not in reducing subjective experience.
Implications of the Achievement Motivation Theory for School Management in Ghana: A Literature Review

The purpose of the paper is to review literature on the implications of the achievement motivation theory for school management. It is realized from the literature for managers to understand human behaviour and how an individual could be motivated, they must first understand their needs and inclinations. It is also found from the literature of this paper that employees have the need for achievement which the suitable opportunities should be created for them to satisfy it. It is deduced that that employees have the need for power which should also be exercised and satisfied and the role of the need for affiliation is paramount in the management of every school. From the review, it is recommended a periodical workshop is organized for all heads and mangers of schools to sensitize them on the need for them to satisfy the desires of the teachers and students to satisfy the three major needs outlined by McClelland. This will go a long way to assist school managers to identify the needs within themselves, their co-workers and subordinates in order to create the work environment that are responsive to those needs. In this sense teachers would be willing to put in their best in teaching and motivating their students to achieve high academic laurels.
Plasma lipoproteins in visceral leishmaniasis and their effect on Leishmania‐infected macrophages

This work aimed at investigating the lipid profile of zoonotic visceral leishmaniasis (VL) patients’ sera and the effect of lipoproteins on the in vitro production of tumour necrosis factor‐α (TNF‐α), interleukin (IL)‐6, IL‐10 and IL‐12 by Leishmania infantum‐infected and uninfected macrophages. Lipids were quantified in 26 VL patients’ sera and 26 healthy controls from a VL endemic area. The patients’ sera had higher triglyceride and very low density lipoprotein (VLDL) levels, and much lower apolipoprotein A1, total cholesterol, low density lipoprotein (LDL) and high density lipoprotein (HDL) levels than the control sera. Lipoprotein fractions were obtained by ultracentrifugation of sera. The addition of LDL and HDL to Leishmania‐infected and uninfected macrophages, in physiological concentrations, enhanced the production of IL‐6 and IL‐10, but not of IL‐12. LDL stimulated the production of TNF‐α only in infected macrophages, whereas HDL stimulated the production of lower amounts of TNF‐α in both infected and uninfected macrophages. VLDL stimulated only the production of IL‐10. It is proposed herein that LDL may influence the development of VL by promoting the production of TNF‐α by infected macrophages. A decrease in plasma LDL in some VL patients (to 20 mg/mL or less); however, would tend to reduce the production of TNF‐α and therefore to limit the development of immune‐mediated pathology, not withstanding the fact that it would perhaps increase the permissiveness of macrophages to Leishmania growth.
Codebook Design for Beam Alignment in Millimeter Wave Communication Systems

Owing to abundant spectrum resources, millimeter wave (mmwave) communication promises to provide Gbps data rates, which, however, may be restricted by large path-loss. Thus, antenna arrays are commonly used along with beam alignment (BA) as an important step to achieve the array gain. Efficient BA relies on the beam training codebook design. In this paper, we propose a new hierarchical codebook to achieve uniform BA performance with low overhead. To better elaborate on the design principle, a single-path channel model is considered first to frame the proposal. The codebook design is formulated as an optimization problem, where the ripple in the main/side lobes is constrained such that each training beam is close to the ideal one with a flat magnitude response and a narrow transition band. Then, we propose an efficient algorithm to find such a beam training codebook. Furthermore, we derive closed-form expressions of the BA misalignment probability or error rate of the proposed beam training codebook. Our results reveal that using the proposed codebook, the error rate of tree-search-based BA exponentially decreases with the SNR for a given channel, and linearly decreases in the log–log coordinate axis for a fading channel. We further propose a power allocation scheme used in different training stages to further improve the BA performance. Finally, the proposed framework is extended to the more complex case of multi-path channels. Numerical results confirm the effectiveness of the proposed training codebook and power allocation scheme as well as the accuracy of the performance analysis.
The Role of Learning for Asset Prices and Business Cycles

I examine the implications of learning-based asset pricing in a model in which firms face credit constraints that depend partly on their market value. Agents learn about stock prices, but have conditionally model-consistent expectations otherwise. The model jointly matches key asset price and business cycle statistics, while the combination of financial frictions and learning produces powerful feedback between asset prices and real activity, adding substantial amplification. The model reproduces many patterns of forecast error predictability in survey data that are inconsistent with rational expectations. A reaction of the monetary policy rule to asset price growth increases welfare under learning.
Effect of Acidulated Phosphate Fluoride Gel Application Time on Enamel Demineralization of Deciduous and Permanent Teeth

Although the effect of acidulated phosphate fluoride gel (APF gel) on caries reduction in permanent teeth is based on evidence, the relevance of the clinical application time is still under debate. Also, the effect of 4- versus 1-min application has not been evaluated in deciduous enamel. In a blind, crossover, in situ study of 14 days, 16 adult volunteers wore palatal appliances containing slabs of human permanent and deciduous enamel. At the beginning of each phase, the slabs were submitted to one of the following treatments: no APF application (negative control); APF gel (1.23% F) application for 1 or 4 min. Biofilm accumulation on the slab surface was allowed and the slabs were subjected eight times a day to 20% sucrose, simulating a high cariogenic challenge condition. On the 15th day of each phase, fluoride retained as CaF2 and fluorapatite (FAp) was determined on the enamel of the slabs and demineralization was assessed by cross-sectional microhardness. Fluoride as CaF2 and FAp, formed by APF gel application on the enamel slabs not subjected to the cariogenic challenge, was also determined. APF gel reduced demineralization in both enamel types (p < 0.05), but the difference between 1 and 4 min was not statistically significant (p > 0.05). CaF2 and FAp formed and retained on deciduous and permanent enamel was significantly higher in APF gel groups (p < 0.05), but no significant difference was found between 1 and 4 min (p > 0.05). The findings suggest that 1 min of APF gel application provides a similar effect on inhibition of demineralization as 4 min, for both permanent and deciduous enamel.
Results of the Intergroup Rhabdomyosarcoma Study Group D9602 protocol, using vincristine and dactinomycin with or without cyclophosphamide and radiation therapy, for newly diagnosed patients with low-risk embryonal rhabdomyosarcoma: a report from the Soft Tissue Sarcoma Committee of the Children's O

PURPOSE Patients with localized, grossly resected, or gross residual (orbital only) embryonal rhabdomyosarcoma (ERMS) had 5-year failure-free survival (FFS) rates of 83% and overall survival rates of 95% on Intergroup Rhabdomyosarcoma Study Group (IRSG) protocols III/IV. IRSG D9602 protocol (1997 to 2004) objectives were to decrease toxicity in similar patients by reducing radiotherapy (RT) doses and eliminating cyclophosphamide for the lowest-risk patients. PATIENTS AND METHODS Subgroup A patients (lowest risk, with ERMS, stage 1 group I/IIA, stage 1 group III orbit, stage 2 group I) received vincristine plus dactinomycin (VA). Subgroup B patients (ERMS, stage 1 group IIB/C, stage I group III nonorbit, stage 2 group II, stage 3 group I/II) received VA plus cyclophosphamide. Patients in group II/III received RT. Compared with IRS-IV, doses were reduced from 41.4 to 36 Gy for stage 1 group IIA patients and from 50 or 59 to 45 Gy for group III orbit patients. RESULTS Estimated 5-year FFS rates were 89% (95% CI, 84% to 92%) for subgroup A patients (n = 264) and 85% (95% CI, 74%, 91%) for subgroup B patients (n = 78); median follow-up: 5.1 years. Estimated 5-year FFS rates were 81% (95% CI, 68% to 90%) for patients with stage 1 group IIA tumors (n = 62) and 86% (95% CI, 76% to 92%) for patients with group III orbit tumors (n = 77). CONCLUSION Five-year FFS and OS rates were similar to those observed in comparable IRS-III patients, including patients receiving reduced RT doses, but were lower than in comparable IRS-IV patients receiving VA plus cyclophosphamide. Five-year FFS rates were similar among subgroups A and B patients.
Azole Resistance of Aspergillus fumigatus Biofilms Is Partly Associated with Efflux Pump Activity

ABSTRACT This study investigated the phase-dependent expression and activity of efflux pumps in Aspergillus fumigatus treated with voriconazole. Fourteen strains were shown to become increasingly resistant in the 12-h (16- to 128-fold) and 24-h (>512-fold) phases compared to 8-h germlings. An Ala-Nap uptake assay demonstrated a significant increase in efflux pump activity in the 12-h and 24-h phases (P < 0.0001). The efflux pump activity of the 8-h germling cells was also significantly induced by voriconazole (P < 0.001) after 24 h of treatment. Inhibition of efflux pump activity with the competitive substrate MC-207,110 reduced the voriconazole MIC values for the A. fumigatus germling cells by 2- to 8-fold. Quantitative expression analysis of AfuMDR4 mRNA transcripts showed a phase-dependent increase as the mycelial complexity increased, which was coincidental with a strain-dependent increase in azole resistance. Voriconazole also significantly induced this in a time-dependent manner (P < 0.001). Finally, an in vivo mouse biofilm model was used to evaluate efflux pump expression, and it was shown that AfuMDR4 was constitutively expressed and significantly induced by treatment with voriconazole after 24 h (P < 0.01). Our results demonstrate that efflux pumps are expressed in complex A. fumigatus biofilm populations and that this contributes to azole resistance. Moreover, voriconazole treatment induces efflux pump expression. Collectively, these data may provide evidence for azole treatment failures in clinical cases of aspergillosis.
A short physical performance battery assessing lower extremity function: association with self-reported disability and prediction of mortality and nursing home admission.

BACKGROUND A short battery of physical performance tests was used to assess lower extremity function in more than 5,000 persons age 71 years and older in three communities. METHODS Balance, gait, strength, and endurance were evaluated by examining ability to stand with the feet together in the side-by-side, semi-tandem, and tandem positions, time to walk 8 feet, and time to rise from a chair and return to the seated position 5 times. RESULTS A wide distribution of performance was observed for each test. Each test and a summary performance scale, created by summing categorical rankings of performance on each test, were strongly associated with self-report of disability. Both self-report items and performance tests were independent predictors of short-term mortality and nursing home admission in multivariate analyses. However, evidence is presented that the performance tests provide information not available from self-report items. Of particular importance is the finding that in those at the high end of the functional spectrum, who reported almost no disability, the performance test scores distinguished a gradient of risk for mortality and nursing home admission. Additionally, within subgroups with identical self-report profiles, there were systematic differences in physical performance related to age and sex. CONCLUSION This study provides evidence that performance measures can validly characterize older persons across a broad spectrum of lower extremity function. Performance and self-report measures may complement each other in providing useful information about functional status.
Paternity success and the direction of sexual selection in a field population of a semelparous marsupial, Antechinus agilis

Antechinus agilis is a small sexually size dimorphic marsupial with a brief annual mating period of 2–3 weeks. All males die after this period, and females give birth to up to 10 young. Mating is thought to be promiscuous, however, there is no field data to confirm this. Using microsatellites, we investigated paternity patterns over two seasons in a wild population. Male weight was significantly positively related to the number of females fertilized and with the number of offspring sired, in both years. Furthermore, selection gradients indicated selection for larger males. Both results suggest that size dimorphism in A. agilis can be explained by sexual selection for larger males. The proportion of offspring sired within litters, did not relate to male size. Therefore, larger males are more successful through higher mating access, not through their sperm outcompeting that of smaller males. As expected from their known ranging behaviour, the number of offspring within litters left unassigned to a father did not depend on the grid location of the mother. Female size did not differ between successful reproducing and unsuccessful females. However, females that weaned offspring had larger heads than females that did not wean offspring. Males did not ‘prefer’ mating with larger females, nor did assortative mating occur. From our results, the mating system of A. agilis is clearly promiscuous. Selection for larger males occurred in both years, even though in one year the operational sex ratio was highly female biased, suggesting that the potential reproductive rate is a better predictor of the direction of sexual selection in A. agilis.
A comparison of pricing and hedging performances of equity derivatives models

ABSTRACT This article investigates the pricing/hedging conundrum, i.e. the observation of a mismatch between derivatives models’ pricing and hedging performances, that has so far been under-emphasized as the literature tends to focus on increasingly complicated option pricing models, without adequately addressing hedging performance. Hence, we analyse the ability of the Black–Scholes, Practitioner Black–Scholes, Heston–Nandi and Heston models to Delta-hedge a set of call options on the S&P500 index and Apple stock. We extend earlier studies in that we consider the impact of asset dynamics, apply a stringent payoff replication strategy, look at the impact of moneyness at maturity and test for the robustness to the parameters’ calibration frequency and Delta-Vega hedging. The study shows that adding risk factors to a model, as stochastic volatility, should only be considered in light of the data dynamics. Even then, however, more complicated models generally fare poorly for hedging purposes. Hence, a better fit of a model to option prices is not a good indicator of its hedging performance, and so of its ability to describe the underlying dynamics. This can be understood for reasons of over-fitting. Those findings hint to a potentially appealing hedging-based calibration of models’ parameters, rather than the standard pricing-based one.