Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
EMPOWERING LEADERSHIP: EMBRACING ENDOGENOUS DYNAMICS

Purpose: The article introduces the kind of leadership that fosters bottom-up dynamics, empowering people, groups, teams and societies. Approach: It is documented through literature analysis and case studies. Findings: That this approach, called Empowering Leadership, can achieve success in business and, in the case of social entrepreneurship, a significant social impact. After reviewing the existing definitions of leadership, the complexity theory is delineated, with twelve core attributes defined. Next, case studies demonstrating a new kind of leadership enabling endogenous dynamics both in in the social arena as well as in business are presented and analyzed from the perspective of the complexity theory. Finally, a definition of Empowering Leadership is delineated. Implications: The presented Empowering Leadership is becoming critical in the growing world of multiplicity and unpredictability. It also enables achieving high impact though low investments. The paper is introducing ways of implementing presented Empowering Leadership in practice through building pre-conditions for the process of empowerment. The article concludes with a review of possible future areas of research. Value: The paper brings and in-depth analysis of the bottom-up approach to leadership with the premise of complexity theory, demonstrating that Empowering Leadership is focused on building preconditions for endogenous dynamics, rather than driving change from the top.
GABAB receptor modulation of excitatory and inhibitory synaptic transmission onto rat CA3 hippocampal interneurons

Hippocampal stratum radiatum inhibitory interneurons receive glutamatergic excitatory innervation via the recurrent collateral fibers of CA3 pyramidal neurons and GABAergic inhibition from other interneurons. We examined both presynaptic‐ and postsynaptic‐GABAB receptor‐mediated responses at both synapse types. Postsynaptic GABAB receptor‐mediated responses were absent in recordings from young (P16‐18) but present in recordings from older animals (⩾P30) suggesting developmental regulation. In young animals, the GABAB receptor agonist, baclofen, inhibited the amplitude of evoked EPSCs and IPSCs, an effect blocked by prior application of the selective antagonist CGP55845. Baclofen enhanced the paired‐pulse ratio and coefficient of variation of evoked EPSCs and IPSCs, consistent with a presynaptic mechanism of regulation. In addition, baclofen reduced the frequency of miniature IPSCs but not mEPSCs. However, baclofen reduced the frequency of KCl‐induced mEPSCs; an effect blocked by Cd2+, implicating presynaptic voltage‐gated Ca2+ channels as a target for baclofen modulation. In contrast, although Cd2+ prevented the KCl‐induced increase in mIPSC frequency, it failed to block baclofen's reduction of mIPSC frequency. Whereas N‐ and P/Q‐types of Ca2+ channels contributed equally to GABAB receptor‐mediated inhibition of EPSCs, more P/Q‐type Ca2+ channels were involved in GABAB receptor‐mediated inhibition of IPSCs. Finally, baclofen blocked the frequency‐dependent depression of EPSCs and IPSCs, but was less effective at blocking frequency‐dependent facilitation of EPSCs. Our results demonstrate that presynaptic GABAB receptors are expressed on the terminals of both excitatory and inhibitory synapses onto CA3 interneurons and that their activation modulates essential components of the release process underlying transmission at these two synapse types.
Power comparison of CMOS and adiabatic full adder circuit

Full adders are important components in applications such as digital signal processors (DSP) architectures and microprocessors. Apart from the basic addition adders also used in performing useful operations such as subtraction, multiplication, division, address calculation, etc. In most of these systems the adder lies in the critical path that determines the overall performance of the system. In this paper conventional complementary metal oxide semiconductor (CMOS) and adiabatic adder circuits are analyzed in terms of power and transistor count using 0.18UM technology.
Automated Cell Phase Classification for Zebrafish Fluorescence Microscope Images

Automated cell phenotype image classification is an interesting bioinformatics problem. In this paper, an automated cell phase classification framework is investigated for zebra fish presomitic mesoderm (PSM) images. Low image resolution, gradual transitions between adjacent categories and irregularity of real cell images make this classification task tough but intriguing. The proposed framework first segments zebra fish image into cell patches by a two-stage segmentation procedure, then extracts feature set NF9, which designed especially for this low resolution image set, on each cell patch, and finally employs support vector machine (SVM) as cell classifier. At present, the total accuracy by NF9 is 75%.
Ocean Wave Parameters Retrieval from Sentinel-1 SAR Imagery

In this paper, a semi-empirical algorithm for significant wave height (Hs) and mean wave period (Tmw) retrieval from C-band VV-polarization Sentinel-1 synthetic aperture radar (SAR) imagery is presented. We develop a semi-empirical function for Hs retrieval, which describes the relation between Hs and cutoff wavelength, radar incidence angle, and wave propagation direction relative to radar look direction. Additionally, Tmw can be also calculated through Hs and cutoff wavelength by using another empirical function. We collected 106 C-band stripmap mode Sentinel-1 SAR images in VV-polarization and wave measurements from in situ buoys. There are a total of 150 matchup points. We used 93 matchups to tune the coefficients of the semi-empirical algorithm and the rest 57 matchups for validation. The comparison shows a 0.69 m root mean square error (RMSE) of Hs with a 18.6% of scatter index (SI) and 1.98 s RMSE of Tmw with a 24.8% of SI. Results indicate that the algorithm is suitable for wave parameters retrieval from Sentinel-1 SAR data.
Dexamethasone Downregulates Endothelin Receptors and Reduces Endothelin-Induced Production of Matrix Metalloproteinases in Cultured Rat Astrocytes

In brain disorders, astrocytes change phenotype to reactive astrocytes and are involved in the induction of neuroinflammation and brain edema. The administration of glucocorticoids (GCs), such as dexamethasone (Dex), reduces astrocytic activation, but the mechanisms underlying this inhibitory action are not well understood. Endothelins (ETs) promote astrocytic activation. Therefore, the effects of Dex on ET receptor expressions were examined in cultured rat astrocytes. Treatment with 300 nM Dex for 6–48 hours reduced the mRNA expression of astrocytic ETA and ETB receptors to 30–40% of nontreated cells. Levels of ETA and ETB receptor proteins became about 50% of nontreated cells after Dex treatment. Astrocytic ETA and ETB receptor mRNAs were decreased by 300 nM hydrocortisone. The effects of Dex and hydrocortisone on astrocytic ET receptors were abolished in the presence of mifepristone, a GC receptor antagonist. Although Dex did not decrease the basal levels of matrix metalloproteinase (MMP) 3 and MMP9 mRNAs, pretreatment with Dex reduced ET-induced increases in MMP mRNAs. The effects of ET-1 on the release of MMP3 and MMP9 proteins were attenuated by pretreatment with Dex. ET-1 stimulated the phosphorylation of extracellular signal–regulated kinase 1/2 (ERK1/2) in cultured astrocytes. Pretreatment with Dex reduced the ET-induced increases in ERK1/2 phosphorylation. In contrast, pretreatment with Dex did not affect MMP production or ERK1/2 phosphorylation induced by phorbol myristate acetate, a protein kinase C activator. These results indicate that Dex downregulates astrocytic ET receptors and reduces ET-induced MMP production.
Narratives, Virtual Environments and Identity Semiotics: An Exploration of Pre-Service Teachers' Cognitions

The current study explored text-based and animated narrative vignette (ANV) social simulations to specifically examine pre-service teachers' social cognitions and personal identities. The personal and social identity and narratives of a sample of eight randomly selected elementary preservice teachers were examined in depth out of 44 pre-service teachers. Content analyses revealed that ANV social simulations provide a psycho-educational outlet to engage in reflective cognitive processes that can engage pre-service teachers in expressions of joy and healing related to positive and traumatic events from their childhood school-related experiences. This article discusses how ANVs can provide a way of learning about personal and social identity through a critical examination of self using ANV social simulations as reflections of past school experiences.
Measuring effect size: a non-parametric analogue of omega 2.

When comparing two groups of subjects, one of the many measures of effect size is omega 2. This paper suggests a non-parametric analogue of omega 2 based on the following point of view. Given an observation from one of two groups, but not knowing whether it came from the first or second group, how certain can we be that the observation came from the first group? This is in contrast to omega 2 where, given that an observation came from a specific group, say the first group, how much does this reduce our uncertainty about the dependent variable? One problem with omega 2 is that it is not robust--it is a function of the variances--so it can be misleading for reasons reviewed in the paper. Four estimators of the proposed measure of effect size are described and compared in a simulation study. Contrary to what was expected, the . 632 bootstrap estimator performed best in terms of bias and mean squared error.
Utilities for advanced basal cell carcinoma

Abstract Objective: Most incidences of basal cell carcinoma are cured by a number of surgical or non-surgical treatments. However, a few patients have lesions which have metastasized or progressed to an extent that surgery or other treatment options are not possible. The lesions associated with advanced basal cell carcinoma (aBCC) can be disfiguring, affecting patients’ psychological state, general quality-of-life (QoL), and potentially life expectancy. The objective of this study was to capture societal utility values for health states related to aBCC, using the time trade-off (TTO) methodology. Methods: Nine health states were developed with input from expert clinicians and literature. States included: complete response (CR), post-surgical, partial response (PR) (with differing sized lesions [2 or 6 cm]), stable disease (SD) (with differing size and number of lesions [2 or 6 cm, or multiple 2 cm]) and progressive disease (PD) (with differing sized lesions [2 or 6 cm]). A representative sample of 100 members of the UK general public participated in the valuation exercise. The TTO method was used to derive utility values based upon subjects’ responses to decision scenarios; between living in the health state for 10 years or living in a state of full health for 10-x years. Results: Mean utility scores were calculated for each state. The least burdensome state as valued by subjects was CR (mean = 0.94; SD = 0.08), suggesting only a minimal impact on QoL. The state valued as having a greatest impact on QoL was PD, with a 6 cm lesion (mean = 0.67, SD = 0.25). Limitations and conclusions: Not all possible presentations of aBCC were included; the disease is a challenging condition to characterise given its rarity, the nature of the patients affected, and its variable progression. Findings suggest that aBCC is associated with significant burden for individuals, even when their disease is stable or where surgical treatment has been successful.
Distance Matters: Spatial Contiguity Effects as Trade‐Off between Gaze Switches and Memory Load

Summary The present study combined the approaches of multimedia learning and of comparative visual search (Hardiess, Gillner, & Mallot, 2008) in order to analyse the processing of spatially separated information. Participants were asked to compare two depictions of a mechanical pendulum clock to detect no, one, or two differences between them. The spatial distance between the two depictions was varied, and participants received either stimulus-related information about the functionalities of pendulum clocks or stimulus-unrelated information about the design of cuckoo clocks. The study demonstrates a trade-off between gaze movement and working memory use. We observed fewer gaze shifts with increasing distance between the pictures, suggesting higher working memory use. The findings indicate that the distance between two pictures, domain knowledge and visual working memory span are important factors that determine memory load required for processing split information sources. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
The subaltern speaks back into the image factory: Justine Sacco's AIDS tweet cross-pollinates social and mass media

ABSTRACT Days before the Christmas of 2013, Justine Sacco, a former Public Relations Executive for InterActiveCorp (IAC), tweeted an HIV/AIDS slur she had considered innocuous. The supposedly ‘harmless’ message drew a firestorm from social media users and spilled over into the mass media. Using critical communication approach in conjunction with hegemonic-framing, I placed the text in a historical, ideological and political context. I argue that, as a feature of the postmodern media landscape, the disruption in media hierarchies implies that the subaltern can speak back into the image factory with repercussions.
Alexithymia and Cardiovascular Risk in Older Adults: Psychosocial, Psychophysiological, and Biomedical Correlates

Psychosocial correlates of alexithymia were examined in 102 healthy, older adults (ages 53-83; 76% male). Alexithymic ( n = 26) and non-alexithymic ( n = 30) groups, defined by top ( S 70) and bottom ( h 54) quartiles of the distribution of Toronto Alexithymia Scale (26-item) scores, were compared with respect to psychosocial, psychophysiological, and biomedical risk factors for cardiovascular disease. Both categorical ratings and continuous scores of alexithymia were associated with significantly greater levels of trait anxiety, anger-in, neuroticism, hostility, perceived stress, depression, and lower levels of social support. Compared to non-alexithymics, alexithymics displayed significantly greater blood pressure responses to anger provocation and tended to have a greater percent body fat. The groups did not differ in resting cardiovascular parameters, heart rate reactivity, fasting glucose and lipoprotein lipids, body mass index, waist-to-hip ratio, social desirability, or trait anger. These findings suggest several psychosocial and psychophysiological pathways by which alexithymia may confer risk for cardiovascular disease among older adults.
Syntactical &amp; Semantical Web Services Discovery And Composition

In this paper, a method for syntactical and semantical Web service discovery and composition is described based on the CEC-06/EEE-06 WS-Challenge requirements. Analysis of service discovery method shows that it can quickly find the exact, partial as well as over-qualified matching services. Service composition can also be speeded up via two parallel execution of forward as well as backward chaining process
Recognizing Multiuser Activities Using Wireless Body Sensor Networks

The advances of wireless networking and sensor technology open up an interesting opportunity to infer human activities in a smart home environment. Existing work in this paradigm focuses mainly on recognizing activities of single user. In this work, we focus on the fundamental problem of recognizing activities of multiple users using a wireless body sensor network, and propose a scalable pattern mining approach to recognize both single- and multiuser activities in a unified framework. We exploit Emerging Pattern-a discriminative knowledge pattern which describes significant changes among activity classes of data-for building activity models and design a scalable, noise-resistant, Emerging Pattern-based Multiuser Activity Recognizer (epMAR) to recognize both single- and multiuser activities. We develop a multimodal, wireless body sensor network for collecting real-world traces in a smart home environment, and conduct comprehensive empirical studies to evaluate our system. Results show that epMAR outperforms existing schemes in terms of accuracy, scalability, and robustness.
Neural-Network-Based Distributed Adaptive Robust Control for a Class of Nonlinear Multiagent Systems With Time Delays and External Noises

A class of nonlinear multiagent systems with time delays and external noises is investigated, and a distributed adaptive robust control protocol is developed. It is the first time for a class of multiagent systems to take both time delays and external noises into consideration. By virtue of Lyapunov-Krasovskii functional and Young's inequality, the effects of time delay can be eliminated. Then, to exclude external noises, a robustifying term is introduced to eliminate the negative effects of these noises. Moreover, neural networks are utilized to learn the unknown nonlinear terms to adapt to the complex external environment. Finally, a numerical simulation is conducted to validate the effectiveness of our distributed control protocol.
Daydreaming Styles, Emotionality and the Big Five Personality Dimensions

This study examined the relationships between measures of personality (the NEO-FFI), Emotionality (Positive and Negative), and Daydreaming (the Short Imaginal Processes Inventory) to assess hypotheses about private experience, behavioral and affective tendencies. A sample of 103 young adults completed questionnaires and results were analyzed by correlations and principle components factor analysis. As predicted Positive-Constructive Daydreaming was positively correlated with the NEO “Big Five” dimension of Openness, Guilty-Dysphoric Daydreaming loaded with both the NEO Neuroticism scale and the Negative Emotionality measure. Poor Attentional Control of the SIPI was linked negatively with Conscientiousness and Positive Emotionality. Our results further suggest that Extraversion may be primarily social as measured in the NEO while a separate Thinking Introversion-Extraversion dimension in the sense used by Jung and Guilford may be reflected by the personality-daydreaming results we obtained.
The clinical significance criterion in DSM-IV post-traumatic stress disorder

ABSTRACT Background The DSM-IV definition of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) requires that the syndrome cause clinically significant distress or impairment. The impact of the clinical significance criterion on the lifetime prevalence of PTSD among civilian victims of traumatic events has not been evaluated. Method Data from two community-based samples were examined, the 1996 Detroit Area Survey of Trauma (n=2181) and the Mid-Atlantic Urban Youth Study (n=1698). The World Health Organization Composite International Diagnostic Interview (WHO CIDI) was used to ascertain DSM-IV PTSD. Results The inclusion of the clinical significance criterion in DSM-IV reduces the conditional probability of PTSD given exposure to trauma by approximately 30%. Cases with clinically significant syndrome showed more pervasive and persistent disturbance and an excess in impaired activity days. Conclusions The consistency of the findings between the two studies strengthens the evidence on the impact of the clinical significance criterion in the diagnosis of PTSD, and the construct validity of its measurement. There is a need for greater research effort on the definition and measurement of the clinical significance criterion.
In Situ TEM Concurrent and Successive Au Self-Ion Irradiation and He Implantation

The development of advanced computational methods used for predicting performance lifetimes of materials exposed to harsh radiation environments are highly dependent on fundamental understanding of solid-radiation interactions that occur within metal components. In this work, we present successive and concurrent in situ TEM dual-beam self-ion irradiation of 2.8MeV Au 4+ and implantation of 10keV He 1+ , utilizing a new facility at Sandia National Laboratories. These experiments, using a model material system, provide direct real-time insight into initial interactions of displacement damage and fission products that simulate damage from neutron exposure. In successive irradiation, extensive dislocation loop and stacking fault tetrahedra damage was formed and could be associated with individual ion strikes, but no evidence of cavity formation was observed. In contrast, concurrent irradiation to the same dose resulted in the onset of cavity formation at the site of a heavy-ion strike. This direct real-time observation provides insight into the complex interplay between the helium and vacancy dynamics. [doi:10.2320/matertrans.MD201316]
Interactive tasks and the implicit‐explicit distinction

Two experiments explore the relationship between implicit and explicit processes in the acquisition of complex knowledge. Their purpose is twofold. Firstly, to specify some of the variables that control whether or not performance and explicit knowledge will be associated when people interact with computer-implemented control tasks. Secondly, to clarify the relationships between implicit and explicit modes of learning on the one hand and implicit and explicit types of knowledge on the other. The experiments show that salience of the relationship between decision and action is a crucial factor in relation to both the distinction between implicit and explicit learning and the distinction between implict and explicit knowledge.
Learning in multinational enterprises as the socially embedded translation of practices

Purpose – With a few exceptions, the mainstream literature on learning in multinational enterprises (MNEs) has shown little concern for the transformational nature and the social constitution of learning. This paper aims to address this gap by drawing on Scandinavian institutionalism, social learning perspectives, and comparative institutionalism.Design/methodology/approach – A comparative case study of two subsidiaries of the same MNE was conducted. The subsidiaries received similar practices from headquarters (HQ) but displayed contrasting learning outcomes.Findings – It is shown that learning outcomes differed based on the varying extent to which practices were translated, which depends on the participation of local actors. The difference in participation pattern, in turn, is rooted in differences in the institutional context of the two subsidiaries.Research limitations/implications – It is recognized that apart from institutional influences, organizational idiosyncrasies may be at work. In addition, t.
Using Context to Understand User Intentions in Image Retrieval

This paper discusses how combining existing techniques in a new way may help improve the understanding of user intentions in image retrieval. This is an especially challenging task in situations where the information need of a user is ambiguous, or if the user is unable to express it. The suggestion made here is that combining two different approaches to image retrieval with the utilization of context information and user interaction will help alleviate this problem. This paper describes how an approach that uses visual data, textual data in the form of context information, and user interaction in the image retrieval process may be developed and evaluated.