Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Governance structures for public infrastructure projects: Public–private management regimes, contractual forms and innovation

Abstract The choice of appropriate governance structures for public infrastructure projects is a major challenge for governments. The extant literature provides ample theoretical support to analyse various public–private management regimes for public infrastructure service delivery, but there is little discussion on the innovation incentives of specific contractual forms and their welfare implications under different management regimes. Our research aims at providing answers to the following research questions: who should manage different tasks in public infrastructure delivery – public, private or public–private partnership (PPP)? ; how should these tasks be managed to foster innovation and enhance welfare? We explore these using a multi-period analytical model that analyses innovation incentives induced by six contractual forms under five management regimes. We derive conditions under which specific governance structures maximise welfare. Our analysis reveals that PPPs induce optimal innovation and maximise welfare if governed through revenue-sharing concessions for user-payment type services and fixed-price annuity type contracts for no-user-payment type services. The risk share of the private partner and the shadow cost of public funds strengthen the case for PPPs while transaction costs weaken it. These results generate novel insights for policymakers to design effective governance structures and set new research directions in public infrastructure governance.
Does Learning Geography Increase Climate Change Awareness? A Comparison of School Subjects’ Influence on Climate Change Awareness

Abstract School subjects’ curricula, including geography, are infused with contents to improve climate change literacy. This study sampled 420 public secondary school students in Enugu State, Nigeria. Mean differences and multinomial logistic regression results show geography students possess the highest climate change awareness level. Besides, students’ gender, location, age and class are variables significantly influencing climate change awareness. Students who took geography had an increased probability of being moderately or highly aware of climate change. The scope of climate change contents infused in other school subjects ought to be expanded, with explicit specifications of methods and materials for delivery.
Collisions in the Dark: Invisible Intersectionality and the Black Female Psychoanalyst

Abstract At the end of the 1980s, Black feminist legal scholar Kimberle Crenshaw offered intersectionality as a way to shift our attention to Black female subjectivity as a complex, multi-dimensional unfolding of identity. This essay focuses on how she situated that identity within, as she termed it, whiteness as “a single-axis framework of analysis. ” In this respect, her discussion converged with that of her peer, the writer Toni Morrison, in the work, Playing in the Dark: Whiteness and the Literary Imagination (1993). Interpreting the psychoanalytic implications of Crenshaw’s and Morrison’s stances toward Whiteness, this essay asks, where does the Black female analyst position herself in this discussion? Drawing from the writings of Black feminist thinkers, Black female psychoanalysts, and relational and interpersonal theorists, invisible intersectionality is explored as a set of unseen forces colliding in the dark, animating the dyad in the clinical space of the Black female analyst’s consulting room.
The Making of Data Commodities: Data Analytics as an Embedded Process

ABSTRACT This paper studies the process by which data are generated, managed, and assembled into tradable objects we call data commodities. We link the making of such objects to the open and editable nature of digital data and to the emerging big data industry in which they are diffused items of exchange, repurposing, and aggregation. We empirically investigate the making of data commodities in the context of an innovative telecommunications operator, analyzing its efforts to produce advertising audiences by repurposing data from the network infrastructure. The analysis unpacks the processes by which data are repurposed and aggregated into novel data-based objects that acquire organizational and industry relevance through carefully maintained metrics and practices of data management and interpretation. Building from our findings, we develop a process theory that explains the transformations data undergo on their way to becoming commodities and shows how these transformations are related to organizational practices and to the editable, portable, and recontextualizable attributes of data. The theory complements the standard picture of data encountered in data science and analytics, and renews and extends the promise of a constructivist Information Systems (IS) research into the age of datafication. The results provide practitioners, regulators included, vital insights concerning data management practices that produce commodities from data.
Effectiveness of Integrated Offline-and-Online Promotions in Omnichannel Targeting: A Randomized Field Experiment

ABSTRACT Leveraging omnichannel has become a new norm of strategic marketing in the retail industry, with many vendors foregrounding the value of customers who wish to maximize their shopping experiences across all channels. Notwithstanding such heightened attention, little is known about the effectiveness of omnichannel targeting and promotional strategies. Whereas previous studies assessed the economic worth of channel promotions independently of each other, our study delved into the effects of integrated omnichannel campaigns. Using a randomized field experiment design, we provide empirical evidence of an offline direct experience effect and revealed short-term channel substitution (spillover) effects among customers who only use the online-channel (offline-channel). We further examined omnichannel conversion behaviors after exposure to online promotion and developed different coupon schemes based on responses to the previously offered offline initiative. Finally, we detected significant patterns of post-treatment omnichannel migration and confirmed the effectiveness of integrated omnichannel promotions in fostering a shift to omnichannel shopping.
The Use of Color to Determine Fish Freshness: European Seabass (Dicentrarchus labrax)

ABSTRACT In this study, the relationship between color and the quality of fish was investigated. Additionally, how the color properties alter as a result of whether the fish is kept in cold water during the storage was also observed. For this purpose, the color changes on both halves of the sea bass (the bottom side dipped in cold water (WS: wet side) and the top side exposed to air (AR: air side)) were analyzed during 4°C storage by computer-based image analysis (CBI). The eyes, gills, and skin of the samples were monitored separately. Along with the color measurements, some freshness parameters, including total volatile basic nitrogen (TVB-N), thiobarbituric acid reactive substances (TBARs), TVC (total viable count), quality index method (QIM), and Torry score sensory analysis were assessed. The results indicated that the shelf life of sea bass was six days. High correlations were obtained between CBI results and the freshness parameters analyzed (min R2 = 0.844). Among the CBI analyses of skin, gill, and eye segmentation, the best results were achieved via monitoring the skin color. Regardless of the side of the fish (AS or WS) used, our study has revealed that applicable color parameters for the determination of shelf life of sea bass are a* and b*.
Effect of Heat Treatment on the Antioxidant Activity as Well as In vitro Digestion Stability of Herring (Clupea harengus) Protein Hydrolysates

ABSTRACT The aim of this study was to determine the effect of heat treatment on the antioxidant properties of herring meat and then subjecting it to hydrolysis with Alcalase® and testing these activities in the obtained protein hydrolysates. Another objective was to evaluate the antihypertensive activity and free amino acid profile of herring hydrolysates and to assess the stability of antioxidant properties against simulated digestion. The best biological activities present fried herring hydrolysates – 29.19% ability radical scavenging, sterilized canned hydrolysates – 2.55 μmol TE/mg for FRAP value, raw and boiled herring hydrolysates were characterized by 89.89% Fe 2+-chelating activity. After simulated digestion, the radical scavenging ability and the FRAP value of hydrolysates from thermally processed raw materials decreased. However, decrease in Fe2+-chelating activity after simulated digestion was only noted for hydrolysates from boiled herring. The results show that heat treatment and In Vitro digestion affect the biological activities of herring protein hydrolysates.
What Drives the Adoption of the Blockchain Technology? A Fit-Viability Perspective

ABSTRACT Blockchain technology has the promise of transforming security and trust in digital transactions. However, concerns about technical complexity and the benefits of deployment have blunted its adoption. We examine factors that influence managerial intention to adopt blockchain technology. We extend the fit-viability model (FVM) and develop a value-based technology adoption model through an empirical study of 242 managers mostly in medical and financial industries. Managers in such organizations are likely to consider fit and viability in adopting blockchain technology to store and protect data. Drawing upon Fit-Viability and Task-Technology Fit models, and the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT), we test a model with Partial Least Squares (PLS) to assess managers’ intention to adopt blockchain technology. Our findings indicate that functional and symbolic benefits have positive impact on managers’ assessment of task-technology fit. Furthermore, viability is an important criterion in adopting blockchain technology.
Assessment of the Nutritional Value of Cultured Sea Cucumber Apostichopus japonicus

ABSTRACT The sea cucumber (Apostichopus japonicus) is a high-priced and appreciated food. Output of cultured sea cucumber has been increasing in China. From a nutritional point of view, there is still limited data on the chemical composition of cultured sea cucumber from pond and cage aquaculture. Therefore, the nutritional value of sea cucumber from 4 important aquaculture regions of Dalian, Yantai, Qingdao, and Putai in China were evaluated in the present work. The proximate composition, except for protein, and the profiles of amino acid and fatty acid were significantly different among the aquaculture regions, especially, saturated fatty acids (SFA), monounsaturated fatty acids (MUFA), and polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFA). The cultured sea cucumbers were rich in glutamine (66.90–71.60 g kg−1), glycine (54.30–58.90 g kg−1), and leucine (29.20–32.40 g kg−1) and showed a high content in PUFA (35.26%–46.47%), especially eicosapentaenoic (EPA, 10.04%–16.04%). All cultured sea cucumber have the recommended essential amino acid/total amino acid (0.33–0.35), lysine/arginine (0.66–0.74), and n-6/n-3 ratio (0.52–1.88) for good health status of humans and very low level of atherogenic and thrombogenic indices (0.20–0.36 and 0.21–0.29, respectively). The results indicate that the cultured sea cucumber has a nutritional value perfectly compatible with nutritious and healthy diets
Monetization Of Digital Content: Drivers Of Revenue On Q&A Platforms

ABSTRACT Valuation of digital content has important individual, organizational, and microeconomic implications. Yet, the existing understanding of digital content consumption is focused primarily on consumption of free content. This means, that digital content is not a source of revenue for contributors and not directly tied to the revenue or expenses of these platforms and that it is practically impossible to capture its value in national income accounts. Academic and anecdotal evidence seems to indicate that sharing of revenue from paid viewership in paid question-and-answer (Q&A) platforms is a factor that differentiates successful platforms, such as Weibo Q&A, from unsuccessful ones, such as Google Answers. Yet, the growing paid Q&A literature does not shed much light on our understanding of the drivers of revenues from paid viewership. Our study focuses on the unique revenue sharing of paid viewership among stakeholders because this feature makes paid Q&A a success and helps ensure the sustainability of the hosting social media platform. This study draws upon signaling theory to identify the drivers of the sales of paid viewership. We further draw on the cognitive view of signal attention and interpretation and the literature on social media trend and the literature on information perishability to hypothesize the differential moderating impacts of question price and content perishability. Consistent with the literature, we found the positive impacts of social media status and social endorsement on the sales of paid viewership. Extending past literature, we found an inverted-U impact of social feedback and the differential moderating effects of question price and content perishability on the sales of paid viewership.
Prediction performance of linear models and gradient boosting machine on complex phenotypes in outbred mice

Recent literature suggests machine learning methods can capture interactions between loci and therefore could outperform linear models when predicting traits with relevant epistatic effects. However, investigating this empirically requires data with high mapping resolution and phenotypes for traits with known non-additive gene action. The objective of the present study was to compare the performance of linear (GBLUP, BayesB and elastic net [ENET]) methods to a non-parametric tree-based ensemble (gradient boosting machine – GBM) method for genomic prediction of complex traits in mice. The dataset used contained phenotypic and genotypic information for 835 animals from 6 non-overlapping generations. Traits analyzed were bone mineral density (BMD), body weight at 10, 15 and 20 weeks (BW10, BW15 and BW20), fat percentage (FAT%), circulating cholesterol (CHOL), glucose (GLUC), insulin (INS) and triglycerides (TGL), and urine creatinine (UCRT). After quality control, the genotype dataset contained 50,112 SNP markers. Animals from older generations were considered as a reference subset, while animals in the latest generation as candidates for the validation subset. We also evaluated the impact of different levels of connectedness between reference and validation sets. Model performance was measured as the Pearson’s correlation coefficient and mean squared error (MSE) between adjusted phenotypes and the model’s prediction for animals in the validation subset. Outcomes were also compared across models by checking the overlapping top markers and animals. Linear models outperformed GBM for seven out of ten traits. For these models, accuracy was proportional to the trait’s heritability. For traits BMD, CHOL and GLU, the GBM model showed better prediction accuracy and lower MSE. Interestingly, for these three traits there is evidence in literature of a relevant portion of phenotypic variance being explained by epistatic effects. We noticed that for lower connectedness, i.e., imposing a gap of one to two generations between reference and validation populations, the superior performance of GBM was only maintained for GLU. Using a subset of top markers selected from a GBM model helped for some of the traits to improve accuracy of prediction when these were fitted into linear and GBM models. The GBM model showed consistently fewer markers and animals in common among the top ranked than linear models. Our results indicate that GBM is more strongly affected by data size and decreased connectedness between reference and validation sets than the linear models. Nevertheless, our results indicate that GBM is a competitive method to predict complex traits in an outbred mice population, especially for traits with assumed epistatic effects.
Neurotensin neurons in the central extended amygdala control energy balance

Overeating and a sedentary life style are major causes of obesity and related metabolic disorders. Identification of the neurobiological processes that regulate energy balance will facilitate development of interventions for these disorders. Here we show that the Neurotensin-expressing neurons in the mouse IPAC (IPACNts), a nucleus of the central extended amygdala, bidirectionally coordinate hedonic feeding and physical activity, thereby regulating energy balance, metabolic processes and bodyweight. IPACNts are preferentially activated by consumption of highly palatable food or exposure to its taste and smell. Activating IPACNts promotes food intake in a palatability-dependent manner and decreases locomotion. Conversely, inhibiting IPACNts selectively reduces palatable food intake and dramatically enhances physical activity and energy expenditure, and in parallel stimulates physiological responses that oppose diet-induced obesity and metabolic dysfunctions. Thus, a single neuronal population, Neurotensin-expressing neurons in the IPAC, acts to control obesogenic and leptogenic processes by synergistically coordinating energy intake and expenditure with metabolism.
Efficient differentiation of human primordial germ cells through geometric control reveals a key role for Nodal signaling

Human primordial germ cells (hPGCs) form around the time of implantation and are the precursors of eggs and sperm. Many aspects of hPGC specification remain poorly understood. Here we show that micropatterned human pluripotent stem cells (hPSCs) treated with BMP4 give rise to hPGC-like cells (hPGCLC) and use these as a quantitatively reproducible and simple in vitro model to interrogate this important developmental event. We characterize micropatterned hPSCs up to 96h for the first time and show that hPGCLC populations are stable and continue to mature. By perturbing signaling during hPGCLC differentiation, we identify a previously unappreciated role for NODAL signaling and find that the relative timing and duration of BMP and NODAL signaling are critical parameters controlling the number of hPGCLCs. We formulate a mathematical model for a network of cross-repressive fates driven by NODAL and BMP signaling which predicts the measured fate patterns after signaling perturbations. Finally, we show that hPSC colony size dictates the efficiency of hPGCLC specification, which led us to dramatically improve the efficiency of hPGCLC differentiation over current protocols.
The impact of eye closure on anticipatory alpha activity in a tactile discrimination task

One of the very first observations made regarding alpha oscillations (8–14 Hz), is that they increase in power over posterior areas when awake participants close their eyes. Recent work, especially in the context of (spatial) attention, suggests that alpha activity reflects a mechanism of functional inhibition. However, it remains unclear how eye closure impacts anticipatory alpha modulation observed in attention paradigms, and how this affects subsequent behavioral performance. Here, we recorded magnetoencephalography (MEG) in 33 human participants performing a tactile discrimination task with their eyes open vs. closed. We replicated the hallmarks of previous somatosensory spatial attention studies: alpha lateralization across the somatosensory cortices as well as alpha increase over posterior regions. Furthermore, we found that eye closure leads to (i) reduced task performance, (ii) widespread increase in alpha power, and (iii) reduced anticipatory visual alpha modulation (iv) with no effect on somatosensory alpha lateralization. Regardless of whether participants had their eyes open or closed, increased posterior alpha power and somatosensory alpha lateralization improved their performance. Thus, we provide evidence that eye closure does not alter the impact of anticipatory alpha modulations on behavioral performance. We propose there is an optimal posterior alpha level for somatosensory task performance, which can be achieved through a combination of eye closure and top-down anticipatory attention. Significance Statement Alpha oscillations are dominant when awake participants have their eyes closed. Furthermore, alpha is known to modulate with anticipatory attention, and has been ascribed a role of active functional inhibition. Surprisingly, the link between anticipatory alpha and eye closure remains unclear. Here we collected MEG data while human participants performed a tactile discrimination task either with their eyes open or closed. Eye closure led to a widespread increase in alpha power, and affected anticipatory visual alpha modulation but not somatosensory alpha lateralization. Importantly, eye closure did not affect the correlation between alpha and task performance. Our findings provide novel insights into how eye closure impacts anticipatory alpha modulation, and how optimal alpha levels for task performance can be achieved differently.
Retinoic acid treatment recruits macrophages and increases axonal regeneration after optic nerve injury in the frog Rana pipiens

Retinoic acid (RA) plays major roles during nervous system development, and during regeneration of the adult nervous system. We have previously shown that components of the RA signaling pathway are upregulated after optic nerve injury, and that exogenous application of all-trans retinoic acid (ATRA) greatly increases the survival of axotomized retinal ganglion cells (RGCs). The objective of the present study is to investigate the effects of ATRA application on the macrophages in the optic nerve after injury, and to determine whether this affects axonal regeneration. The optic nerve was crushed and treated with PBS, ATRA and/or clodronate-loaded liposomes. Nerves were examined at one and two weeks after axotomy with light microscopy, immunocytochemistry and electron microscopy. ATRA application to the optic nerve caused transient increases in the number of macrophages and microglia one week after injury. The macrophages are consistently labeled with M2-type markers, and have considerable phagocytic activity. ATRA increased ultrastructural features of ongoing phagocytic activity in macrophages at one and two weeks. ATRA treatment also significantly increased the numbers of regenerating GAP-43-labeled axons. Clodronate liposome treatment depleted macrophage numbers by 80%, completely eliminated the ATRA-mediated increase in axonal regeneration, and clodronate treatment alone decreased axonal numbers by 30%. These results suggest that the success of axon regeneration is partially dependent on the presence of debris-phagocytosing macrophages, and that the increases in regeneration caused by ATRA are in part due to their increased numbers. Further studies will examine whether macrophage depletion affects RGC survival.