Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A Hierarchy of Associations in Hippocampo-Cortical Systems: Cognitive Maps and Navigation Strategies

In this letter we describe a hippocampo-cortical model of spatial processing and navigation based on a cascade of increasingly complex associative processes that are also relevant for other hippocampal functions such as episodic memory. Associative learning of different types and the related pattern encoding-recognition take place at three successive levels: (1) an object location level, which computes the landmarks from merged multimodal sensory inputs in the parahippocampal cortices; (2) a subject location level, which computes place fields by combination of local views and movement-related information in the entorhinal cortex; and (3) a spatiotemporal level, which computes place transitions from contiguous place fields in the CA3-CA1 region, which form building blocks for learning temporospatial sequences. At the cell population level, superficial entorhinal place cells encode spatial, context-independent maps as landscapes of activity; populations of transition cells in the CA3-CA1 region encode context-dependent maps as sequences of transitions, which form graphs in prefrontal-parietal cortices. The model was tested on a robot moving in a real environment; these tests produced results that could help to interpret biological data. Two different goal-oriented navigation strategies were displayed depend-ing on the type of map used by the system. Thanks to its multilevel, multimodal integration and behavioral imple-mentation, the model suggests functional interpretations for largely un-accounted structural differences between hippocampo-cortical systems. Further, spatiotemporal information, a common denominator shared by several brain structures, could serve as a cognitive processing frame and a functional link, for example, during spatial navigation and episodic memory, as suggested by the applications of the model to other domains, temporal sequence learning and imitation in particular.
Testing and Developing the Environment Risk Construct in Hospitality Strategy Research

The study of environment risk as a construct in strategy research has been mostly conducted in the context of events that occur in the environment of enterprises. Moreover, prior studies in hospitality strategy research have captured managers’ perceptions of their environment and its impact on firm business strategy, organizational structure, and performance. In this study, the authors develop an approach to model environment events by measuring the risk factors using indicators of a ratio scale and by testing the risk effects on the firm vis-à-vis corporate strategies, capital structure, and performance. The dimensions of the environment risk construct and their measures are developed and then tested with regard to their relationship to the performance of the firm.The results of this research suggest that proxies of environment risk account for a significant variation in the firm’s strategy and its performance.
Situational judgement in driver training and assessment: a literature review

Situational judgement testing and commentary driving are two methods that can be used to assess the higher cognitive processes that underlie observed driving behaviours. The research literature is reviewed, and advice sought from expert police drivers, to assess the suitability of these two methods for use in practical driver training and testing in Great Britain (GB). Key findings from the relevant literatures - related to the practical use of these methods in the GB driver training and testing protocol - are then listed. It is concluded that neither method is suitable as a "pass-fail" instrument in the practical driving test in GB, although situational judgement testing has considerable promise as a method for use in the driving theory test, as long as good-practice procedures for test creation are followed. The focus of situational judgement testing should be on the assessment of safe "behavioural tendencies" in driving as well as "knowledge" of what constitutes safe and appropriate behaviour. It is suggested that commentary driving would not be suitable for learner drivers while they are in control of the vehicle, due to possible deleterious effects on driving performance.
No effect of femtosecond laser pulses on M13, E. coli, DNA, or protein

Abstract. Data showing what appears to be nonthermal inactivation of M13 bacteriophage (M13), Tobacco mosaic virus, Escherichia coli (E. coli), and Jurkatt T-cells following exposure to 80-fs pulses of laser radiation have been published. Interest in the mechanism led to attempts to reproduce the results for M13 and E. coli. Bacteriophage plaque-forming and bacteria colony-forming assays showed no inactivation of the microorganisms; therefore, model systems were used to see what, if any, damage might be occurring to biologically important molecules. Purified plasmid DNA (pUC19) and bovine serum albumin were exposed to and analyzed by agarose gel electrophoresis (AGE) and polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (PAGE), respectively, and no effect was found. DNA and coat proteins extracted from laser-exposed M13 and analyzed by AGE or PAGE found no effect. Raman scattering by M13 in phosphate buffered saline was measured to determine if there was any physical interaction between M13 and femtosecond laser pulses, and none was found. Positive controls for the endpoints measured produced the expected results with the relevant assays. Using the published methods, we were unable to reproduce the inactivation results or to show any interaction between ultrashort laser pulses and buffer/water, DNA, protein, M13 bacteriophage, or E. coli.
Understanding the Relationship between Tourism Destination Imagery and Tourist Photography

Photography and tourism are widely considered to be intrinsically linked. Photographs play a crucial role in the promotion of tourism destinations, working through a range of media including brochures, television commercials, and picture postcards. Meanwhile the practice of photography is often held to be intimately related to the condition of being a tourist. Urry (1990) links these two phenomena, suggesting that they may constitute a self-reinforcing "closed circle of representation" in which tourist photographs both reflect and inform destination images. Using an innovative research approach combining visitor-employed photography with content analysis and quantitative statistical techniques, this article presents an empirical test of Urry's theory. Mixed evidence is found, suggesting that while in many respects the circle of representation may indeed be at work, in certain other respects it may not be. This suggests that a more fine-grained and nuanced understanding of the circle of representation is required.
Fine‐scale geographical structure of genetic diversity in inland wild beet populations

Introgression arising from crop‐to‐wild gene flow provides novel sources of genetic variation in plant species complexes. Hybridization within the Beta vulgaris species complex is of immediate concern; crop lineages (B. vulgaris ssp. vulgaris) hybridize easily with their wild relatives (B. vulgaris ssp. maritima) thereby threatening wild beet gene diversity with genetic swamping. Hybridization ‘hotspots’ occur in European seed production areas because inland ruderal wild beets occur and reproduce in sympatry with cultivated beets. We studied gene flow occurring between seed‐producing cultivars and ruderal wild B. vulgaris in southwestern France to determine whether feral beets, arising from unharvested cultivated seed, represent an opportunity for crop‐to‐wild gene flow. We surveyed 42 inland ruderal beet populations located near seed production fields for nucleo‐cytoplasmic variation and used a cytoplasmic marker diagnostic of cultivated lines. Occurrence of cultivated‐type cytoplasm within ruderal populations clearly reflected events of crop seed escape. However, we found no genetic signatures of nuclear cultivated gene introgression, which suggests past introgression of cultivated cytoplasm into a wild nuclear background through seed escape rather than recent direct pollen flow. Overall, patterns of genetic structure suggested that inland ruderal wild beet populations act as a metapopulation, with founding events involving a few sib groups, followed by low rates of seed or pollen gene flow after populations are established. Altogether, our results indicate that a long‐lived seed bank plays a key role in maintaining cultivated‐type cytoplasm in the wild and highlight the need for careful management of seed production areas where wild and cultivated relatives co‐occur.
The Vulnerability of ASEAN 3 Countries to International Financial Crises

This article focuses on the reaction of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) economies to international financial shocks. The crises in emerging markets at the end of the last century underlined the significant vulnerability of the emerging ASEAN economies to international financial fluctuations and a lack of sustainability in their exchange rate regime. A structural VAR model is used to analyze the efficiency of the measures adopted by these countries after this episode of crisis in order to protect their economies against speculative attacks. The results reveal that the impact of the recent subprime crisis on emerging ASEAN countries is less significant than that observed in industrialized ones.
Inflation and economic growth: evidence from a growth equation

There is little existing empirical evidence on the relationship between inflation and growth, and much of what evidence there is fails to control appropriately for growth in real inputs. The present work uses a small sample of OECD countries for which capital stock and labour force data are available to investigate, in a pooled time series and cross-section fashion, the relationship between inflation and growth. Strong evidence is found contrary to the maintained hypothesis that there should be no association between inflation and real growth. The weight of evidence is that, having appropriately controlled for capital and labour inputs, inflation and its first difference are significantly negatively related to economic growth.
Creating Visible Customer Value

Hotel guests seek value, and hotel managers seek to provide that value. The matter is not that simple, however, because the hotel attributes that create value depend on the reason a guest is traveling (e.g., for business or for pleasure). Moreover, the value-creating attributes that guests consider in the decision to book a hotel are not necessarily the same attributes that create value during the hotel stay. In particular, guests seem to consider only an outstanding performance as value laden. Only half of the 469 frequent travelers surveyed by a Cornell University study, for example, could recall an instance of outstanding value in their most recent hotel stay. Travelers were able to identify well over 1,000 hotel attributes that help to drive their purchase decision. Fortunately, those attributes can be aggregated. The top attributes driving the guests' purchase decision were: location, brand name and reputation, physical property (exterior, public space), guest-room design, and value for money. Some of the same attributes also created value during the stay. The top five were: guest-room design, physical property (exterior, public space), interpersonal service, functional service, and F&B-related services.
City Size and Fund Performance

The literature predicts that the average skill level and productivity are higher in larger cities. Prior studies use workers’ wage or education differentials to indirectly link city size and output. This article relates city size and productivity directly, using performance data of U.S. equity mutual funds. On average, funds in financial centers perform better than other funds in terms of both gross and risk-adjusted returns, but this difference is driven only by more experienced managers. Among funds in financial centers there is strong evidence of a positive relation between performance and manager experience in a given city, especially among New York funds. More importantly, we observe performance improvements of the same manager at the same fund in financial centers but not elsewhere. Our tests provide novel evidence of knowledge spillovers and learning in cities.
South Indian calcaneal talar facet configurations and osteoarthritic changes

The purpose of this study was to determine the talar facet configuration of South Indian calcanei, measure the angle between the anterior and middle facet planes of these calcanei, and assess the relation between the above parameters and the degenerative changes in the subtalar joints. The angle between the anterior and middle talar facets was measured in 222 South Indian adult calcanei. The degree of sclerosis was measured on radiographs of the calcanei. Lipping and osteophytes around the joints were recorded by visual inspection. The facet patterns observed were fused anterior and middle facets (Type I), three separate facets (Type II), absence of the anterior facet (Type III), three merged facets (Type IV), and a new pattern of absent anterior and fused middle and posterior facets (Type V). An anterolateral impression was present in nine calcanei. Type I was the predominant pattern (72%). Type II configuration had the least mean angle (125°) and had less number of calcanei with significant osteoarthritic changes. A wider angle was observed in Type I and Type III calcanei. Type IV and Type V were observed in only three and one calcanei, respectively. Lipping and osteophytes were observed in Type I to IV configurations. There was no correlation between the facet configuration and the radiological subchondral sclerosis in the posterior talar facet of the calcanei. This study reveals that the talar facet configuration of calcanei and the angle between the anterior and middle facets influence the stability of the subtalar joints and development of osteoarthritis. Clin. Anat. 21:581–586, 2008. © 2008 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Nitric Oxide Mediates Molybdenum-Induced Antioxidant Defense in Wheat under Drought Stress

Molybdenum (Mo) has been reported to alleviate drought stress by enhancing antioxidant defense in plants, but the underlying mechanism remains unclear. Here, we hypothesized that Mo mediates nitric oxide (NO)-induced antioxidant defense through Mo-enzymes, particularly by nitrate reductase (NR) in wheat under drought stress. The 30-day-old wheat seedlings cultivated in -Mo (0 μM Mo) and +Mo (1 μM Mo) Hoagland solutions were detached and then pretreated with Mo-enzyme inhibitors, NO scavengers, NO donors or their combinations according to demands of complementary experiment under 10% polyethylene glycol 6000 (PEG)-stimulated drought stress (PSD). Mo supplementation increased the activities and transcripts of antioxidant enzymes, decreased H2O2 and MDA contents, and elevated NO production, implying that Mo-induced antioxidant defense may be related to NO signal. Complementary experiment showed that NO production was induced by Mo, while suppressed by Mo-enzyme inhibitors and NO scavengers, but restored by NO donors, suggesting that Mo-induced increase of NO production may be due to the regulation by Mo-enzymes. Further experiment indicated that the increased activities and transcripts of antioxidant enzymes induced by Mo were suppressed by Mo-enzyme inhibitors and NO scavengers, and NO donors could eliminate their suppressing effects. Moreover, Mo application increased NR activity and inhibitors of Mo-enzymes inhibited NR activity in wheat leaves under PSD, suggesting that NR might involve in the regulation of Mo-induced NO production. These results clearly indicate that NO mediates Mo-induced antioxidant defense at least partially through the regulation of NR.
The Effect of Foreign Aid on Real Exchange Rate in Ghana

This paper assesses the effect of foreign aid inflows on real exchange rate in Ghana in order to test the hypothesis that large foreign aid inflows might lead to the appreciation of the real exchange rate of the recipient country and thus, impact negatively on its trade position, a case known as â€œThe Dutch Diseaseâ€ effect. Using the ordinary least squares method of estimation, the paper finds that although foreign aid inflows to Ghana are quite high, foreign aid inflows have positive impact on the real exchange rate. In other words, foreign aid inflows lead to the depreciation of the cedi, implying that â€œThe Dutch Diseaseâ€ hypothesis of large foreign aid inflows is rejected in the case of Ghana. In terms of policy recommendation, the results suggest that Ghana can still receive aid without fear of harming its exports competitiveness.
Volatility Spillovers and Contagion from Mature to Emerging Stock Markets

This paper examines volatility spillovers from mature to emerging stock markets and tests for changes in the transmission mechanism-contagion-during turbulences in mature markets. Tri-variate GARCH-BEKK models of returns in global (mature), regional, and local markets are estimated for 41 emerging market economies (EMEs), with a dummy capturing parameter shifts during turbulent episodes. LR tests suggest that mature markets influence conditional variances in many emerging markets. Moreover, spillover parameters change during turbulent episodes. Conditional variances in most EMEs rise during these episodes, but there is only limited evidence of shifts in conditional correlations between mature and emerging markets.
An Assessment of the National Representativeness of Children in the 2007 Panel Study of Income Dynamics

There are many ways that nationally-representative samples drawn for panel surveys can become non-representative over time. For example, selective attrition and non-response, immigration, and shortcomings in the initial sample may lead to a divergence of the panel sample from the corresponding population it seeks to represent. Although initial cross-sectional weights together with attrition weights in later waves may correct for some sources of nonrepresentativeness, they do not correct for all possible sources. Furthermore, a periodic reassessment of sample representativeness is important for understanding the cumulative effects of attrition and immigration and determining whether additional measures are necessary to correct for declining representativeness and coverage. In this technical report, we assess the national representativeness of the 2007 sample of children in the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID)—a total of approximately 7,100 children aged 0–17 years of age. We evaluated the national coverage of the PSID child sample using microdata from the American Community Survey (ACS) and a new statistical technique called generalized boosted regression models. The ACS provides a gold-standard comparison based on its extremely high (98%) response rate, excellent data quality and completeness, and large sample sizes (approximately 700,000 children aged 0–17 years in 2007). We constructed a reasonably consistent set of covariates across PSID and ACS to describe children on the basis of their age, race/ethnicity, sex, poverty status, geographic region, and having a foreign-born parent. The generalized boosted models provided flexible, non-parametric estimates for assessing the relationship between our dependent variable (an indicator of whether an observation in the pooled ACS-PSID sample came from PSID) on covariates and their interactions. We also used the ACS sample to identify cases that are logically excluded from PSID (specifically, children whose parents are both post-1997 immigrants to the U.S.), and assess the size and composition of this group. Our results reveal that PSID child sample provides good representation of the corresponding national population with coverage of approximately 97% of the U.S. population of children in 2007 and reasonable balance for most groups, although with some exceptions.
Flexible working in sport and recreation: current practices in Scottish public, not-for-profit and private leisure facilities

Public sector leisure managers in the UK have, since the imposition of compulsory competitive tendering to leisure management in 1989, been struggling to reconcile the conflicts between becoming more consumer led and satisfying the needs of the 'recreationally deprived'. Budget cuts and an increase in competition from private sector leisure clubs has exacerbated this situation. More recently managers have had to operationalize the new Best Value policy that aims to ensure public services do not lose sight of the public sector principles of transparency and accountability in their attempts to deliver economy, efficiency and effectiveness. In tandem, a number of European Employment Directives have placed constraints on HRM practices. This paper explores the challenges inherent in managing employees within this environment and examines the preferred employment practices used by managers within the public, not-for-profit and private sectors of the leisure and recreation industry. An analysis of five case studies from across these sectors reveals differences in relation to the nature and extent of flexible working policies used by managers. Managers of local authority operated leisure facilities generally used a mix of strategies, partly to conform to changing demographic and household trends and the 'back to work' policies of their political masters as well as for 'business' reasons and to cater for employee work–life balance needs. Evidence was found that managers in not-for-profit leisure facilities were, with the approval of their Board of Directors, adopting a greater degree of flexible working practices as compared to their public sector counterparts. The highest proportion of full-time jobs were found within the private sector, although at less favourable terms and conditions of employment.
Ethnic Voting and Accountability in Africa: A Choice Experiment in Uganda

The strong support that African presidents retain among voters of their own ethnicity, de¬spite clear evidence of shirking and corruption, has prompted numerous empirical investigations into whether an incumbent’s ethnicity or performance is more important to African voters. The model of vote choice underlying almost all of these studies is additive and implies that either coethnicity or good performance can increase a candidate’s vote share. However, there is little theoretical justification for such a model. In the dominant theory of ethnic voting in Africa, coethnicity is a signal of better outcomes, indicating that ethnicity and performance are not separate considerations. Using an experiment that is designed to determine how Ugandan voters make choices, the author shows that the effects of coethnicity and good performance interact: neither attribute increases support for a candidate in the absence of the other. Though previous analyses indicate that, all else being equal, voters always prefer coethnics, this study demon¬strates that coethnics only have an advantage when they are not shirkers. Additionally, though previous studies indicate that voters always prefer good performers, this analysis shows that vot¬ers are indifferent to the performance of non-coethnic candidates. The article provides evidence that this pattern is in fact a result of voters’ beliefs that they will only receive future goods from coethnics, making a demonstrated ability to provide such goods relevant for the electability of coethnic candidates, but not for non-coethnics. Since a large number of African voters do not share the ethnicity of their incumbent, this finding has troubling implications for accountability of African leaders.