Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Performance Management in Public Higher Education: Unintended Consequences and the Implications of Organizational Diversity

Abstract Governments are increasingly using performance management systems to improve organizational accountability and effectiveness. Critics argue these systems create perverse incentives and neglect important differences in organizational values, missions, and resources. These concerns are particularly salient in public higher education as state governments apply uniform performance accountability policies across diverse institutions. A growing body of literature suggests that these policies do not improve performance, but few studies consider their potential unintended consequences or the implications of organizational differences, such as resource dependence, for implementation. By using a difference-in-differences approach, I find that performance-funding’s effects vary depending on institutions’ dependence on state funding. Institutions less dependent on state funding experience graduation rate gains, while more dependent institutions do not. I also find that implementing performance funding is associated with increased selectivity in admissions and a decline in minority enrollment. Broadly, the results suggest organizations will be more successful under performance management systems when they have greater flexibility in their resources and missions consistent with the performance regimes. The results also suggest, however, that institutions may realize performance gains at the expense of other important values.
Activation of the Adenosine A1 Receptor Inhibits HIV-1 Tat-Induced Apoptosis by Reducing Nuclear Factor-κB Activation and Inducible Nitric-Oxide Synthase

Human immunodeficiency virus dementia (HIV-D) is a nonfocal central nervous system manifestation characterized by cognitive, behavioral, and motor abnormalities. The pathophysiology of neuronal damage in HIV-D includes a direct toxic effect of viral proteins on neuronal cells and an indirect effect caused by the release of inflammatory mediators and neurotoxins by activated macrophages/microglia and astrocytes, culminating into neuronal apoptosis. Previous studies have documented that the nucleoside adenosine mediates neuroprotection by activating adenosine A1 receptor subtype (A1AR) linked to suppression of neuronal excitability. In this study, we show that A1AR activation protects against HIV-1 Tat-induced toxicity in primary cultures of rat cerebellar granule neurons and in rat pheochromocytoma (PC12) cell. In PC12 cells, HIV-1 Tat increased [Ca2+]i levels, release of nitric oxide (NO), and expression of inducible nitric-oxide synthase (iNOS) and A1AR. Activation of A1AR suppressed Tat-mediated increases in [Ca2+]i and NO. Furthermore, A1AR agonists inhibited iNOS expression in a nuclear factor-κB (NF-κB)-dependent manner. It is noteworthy that activation of the A1AR or inhibition of NOS protected against Tat-induced apoptosis in PC12 cells and cerebellar granule cells. Moreover, activation of the A1AR-inhibited Tat-induced increases in the levels of proapoptotic proteins Bax and caspase-3. Taken together, our results demonstrate that the A1AR protects against HIV-1 toxicity by inhibiting NF-κB, thereby reducing the expression of iNOS and NO radicals and neuronal apoptosis.
Indoor localization using multi-frequency RSS

This paper investigates the usefulness of multi-frequency received signal strength (RSS) for indoor localization. A collected set of data from four sites containing 7 frequencies from dual receivers and a high accuracy reference positioning system is presented. The collected data is also made publicly available through ResearchGate. The data is analyzed with respect to spatial variations using Gaussian processes (GP). The results show that there are more rapid signal variations across corridors than along them. The uniqueness of RSS fingerprints is analyzed suggesting that sequences of measurements in smoothing, or smoothing-like, algorithms that can handle temporary position ambiguities are likely the best choice for localization applications.
How Voters Punish and Donors Protect Legislators Embroiled in Scandal

Previous studies have largely overlooked three key components of a scandal that could determine how it shapes election outcomes: the extent to which it is covered in the media, the potential that donors respond differently than voters, and the likelihood that the impact of scandals have changed over time. Examining U.S. House scandals between 1980 and 2010, we find that while scandal-tainted politicians receive fewer votes and are less likely to win than otherwise similar legislators not embroiled in scandal, donors actually contribute more money to their campaigns after the scandal’s revelation. Both of these effects, however, are limited to financial and sex scandals that garnered national media attention. Moreover, we find that voters are less punitive and donors are even more supportive in the post-1994 period of nationalized electoral politics.
Assessing Dynamism of Crude Oil Demand in Middle-Income Countries of South Asia: A Panel Data Investigation

Using pooled mean group (PMG) estimation, the article tries to examine the impact of crude oil price, income, primary energy sources, electricity and financial crisis on the demand for crude oil in the six middle-income countries of South Asia over the period of 1988–2016, that is, 29 years. The use of PMG estimation enables us to get the short-run and long-run coefficients of comprised variables. Thereafter, dynamic ordinary least squares (DOLS) and fully modified ordinary least squares (FMOLS) panel co-integration techniques are performed to corroborate the outcomes of PMG estimation. Unlike PMG, DOLS and FMOLS panel co-integration methods examine the long-run determinants of oil demand in the presence of heterogeneity. Except for electricity, the coefficients of all other determinants are found in line with the results of PMG. However, the direction of the electricity coefficient is the same in the PMG and DOLS techniques. Therefore, the present study proposes the results of PMG estimation. The results suggest that the demand for crude oil is price inelastic and income elastic in the region. Further, the negative coefficient of electricity confirms that in the long run, electricity acts as a substitute for crude oil. Thus, the extensive use of electricity may help in reducing the demand for crude oil in the South-Asian countries. On the other hand, the primary energy is found complementary to crude oil in the selected countries over the study period. Finally, the coefficient of financial crisis, which is represented by a dummy variable, advocates that the financial crisis has a negative and significant impact on the demand for crude oil in the middle-income countries of South Asia.
Use of Intra-Abdominal Drains

Abstract The use of drains in colorectal surgery has been a subject of debate for several decades. Prophylactic drainage of the peritoneal cavity has become less popular in recent years. This change is due to several studies demonstrating that intraperitoneal drains do not adequately drain the peritoneal cavity and do not prevent or contain anastomotic leaks. Percutaneous drain placement has become the standard of care for patients with intra-abdominal abscesses. Selected anastomotic leaks in the stable patient can also be managed with percutaneous drains. In this article, the authors review in detail the use of drains and the literature to support their use in our everyday practice.
Islamic Spirituality And Continuance Organizational Commitment: The Case Of Malaysian Organizations

This research attempts to explore the linkages between Taqwa dimensions of Islamic spirituality and Islamic social responsibility, with continuance organizational commitment. The current study attempts to contribute new knowledge pertaining to Islamic management area by integrating the Islamic heritage with western literature whereby Islamic spirituality and Islamic social responsibility were developed from the Islamic heritage sources and those of continuance organizational commitment from western literature. Using a simple random sampling technique, the survey data used for this empirical research was drawn from 230 respondents from Lembaga Tabung Haji organization in Malaysia. Employing multiple regression analysis and using SPSS software, the study tests several hypotheses that Taqwa components of Islamic spirituality and Islamic social responsibility will exert statistically significant influences on continuance organizational commitment. The study found support for both main hypotheses. The model can explain only 18.2 % of the variance in continuance commitment. This is mainly contributed by integrity and emotional control indicators of Islamic social responsibility.
Factors affecting the quality of life in hemifacial spasm patients.

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE Hemifacial spasm (HFS), a movement disorder manifested by unilateral spasms of the muscles innervated by the facial nerve, interferes with social life in about 90% of patients, causing social isolation and depression and having a significant impact on the quality of life. The aim of the study was to assess factors affecting the quality of life in patients with HFS in respect of influence of the severity of depression symptoms and botulinum toxin type A (BTX-A) therapy. MATERIAL AND METHODS Eighty-five out of 129 patients included in the HFS database of the Movement Disorders Outpatient Clinic, Department of Neurology, University Hospital, Cracow who fulfilled the inclusion criteria and had no exclusion criteria (suffering from concomitant movement disorders, other severe chronic diseases or cognitive impairment) were studied. Demographic and clinical data (age at onset, disease duration and accompanying symptoms) were collected. Severity of HFS was assessed by the five-point clinical scale and seven-point Clinical Global Impression scale. Quality of life was assessed with the HFS-36 questionnaire and severity of depressive symptoms was evaluated with the Beck Depression Inventory. HFS-36 was performed twice, before BTX-A injection and two weeks later. RESULTS The mean global score of HFS-36 was 47 ± 31 (maximum: 140 pts). Decreased HFS-36 score resulted from divergent deterioration in all subscales included in the questionnaire. Independent risk factors of deterioration in HFS-36 were increased severity of HFS and depressive symptoms as well as accompanying trismus. The HFS-36 score depended on the number and type of accompanying symptoms as well. Botulinum toxin type A therapy led to a significant improvement of HFS-36, particularly high in patients with multiple (> 4) HFS-related symptoms. CONCLUSIONS The HFS-36 score depends mostly on severity of HFS, depressive symptoms and occurrence of accompanying trismus. It improves after BTX-A treatment.
Quantitation of borderline and malignant mucinous ovarian tumours

Discrimination between borderline and malignant mucinous ovarian tumours is a well‐known diagnostic problem. In order to obtain objective reproducible and consistent features for differential diagnosis, 32 quantitative microscopical features were assessed in 10 benign, 10 borderline and 22 malignant mucinous ovarian tumours. There were many significant differences between the three groups, but using multivariate analysis there was 93% agreement between the histopathological assessment of these sections and the qualitative analyses. The following features were useful in the quantitative classification: the mean area, the mean perimeter and the mean of the short axis of the nucleus; the volume percentage of the epithelium; the mitotic activity. In three cases, there was a difference between the original histopathological and computer classification. It was debatable whether the original diagnosis was correct, and therefore, all the cases were independently reassessed blind by three pathologists. Their diagnoses lend strong support to the computer classification in two of the three cases. The computer classification seems therefore to be even better than 93%. The present quantitative techniques are inexpensive, relatively easy to use, and, we believe, have a useful place in diagnostic histopathology.
Macroeconomic performance under evolutionary dynamics of employee profit-sharing

This paper investigates the impact on capacity utilization and economic growth as variables driven by effective demand of income distribution featuring the possibility of profit-sharing with workers. Firms choose to compensate workers with either a base wage or a share of profits on top of this base wage. In accordance with robust empirical evidence, workers in sharing firms have higher productivity than workers in non-sharing firms. The distribution of employee compensation strategies and labor productivity across firms is evolutionarily time-varying. Two major results carrying relevant theoretical and policy implications are obtained. First, heterogeneity in employee compensation strategies across firms (and therefore earnings inequality across workers) may emerge as a long-run equilibrium outcome. Second, beyond the short run, a higher fraction of profit-sharing firms may result in either higher or lower rates of capacity utilization and economic growth.
Causes and Effect of Job Stress and Coping on Performance and Psychological Well-being among the Agricultural Research Sector Employees: An Empirical Study Using Multinomial Logistic Regression Approach

This manuscript reports the results of our study to assess the influence of stress due to job, strategies adopted for coping the stress, their association, and effect on performance and psychological well-being of agricultural research sector (ARS) employees. A survey of 700 staff working in the ARS in Hyderabad Metro, consisting of 360 women and 340 men were carried out. The 14 independent job stress components, harassment, role ambiguity, psychological factors, peer support, workload, co-workers, role conflict, career, physiological factors, behavioral factors, job control and social support, strategies of coping both the approach & avoidance strategies on dependent factors Performance and Psychological well-being of the agricultural research sector employees were estimated. The Cronbach’s alpha value for the whole sample is 0.87, and C-alpha values for the job stress components and outcome factors performance and psychological well-being ranged between 0.70-0.81. The odds ratios (ORs) were measured to calculate the level of relation of job stress, coping methods, relationship with performance and psychological well-being of ARS staff. The age and gender differences were also studied.
DNA barcoding of stygofauna uncovers cryptic amphipod diversity in a calcrete aquifer in Western Australia’s arid zone

The arid Yilgarn region of Western Australia contains numerous subterranean calcrete aquifers with unique assemblages of obligate groundwater invertebrates (stygofauna). We aimed to establish a DNA barcoding framework for the macro‐invertebrates present in a single calcrete, as a basis for future assessment of biodiversity of the Yilgarn calcretes and for investigating food webs. Intense sampling of a bore field grid in the Sturt Meadows calcrete was undertaken to obtain representatives of the entire macro‐invertebrate ecosystem. A 623‐bp fragment of the mitochondrial cytochrome c oxidase 1 (COI) gene was used to provide DNA barcodes for stygobiont macro‐invertebrates plus terrestrial organisms that are found in the calcrete. Phylogenetic analyses revealed the existence of 12 divergent monophyletic groups of haplotypes. Subterranean amphipods (Chiltoniidae) showed three groups of COI haplotypes with sequence divergences between them of >11%. Allozyme analyses found a large number of fixed allelic differences between these three amphipod groups, indicating that there are three morphologically cryptic species within the Sturt Meadows calcrete. Unlike the sister triplet of dytiscid beetles present, the amphipods are not sister clades and are more closely related to other Yilgarn and non‐Yilgarn amphipods than to each other. Our results show that the aquifer contains at least 12 macro‐invertebrate species and DNA barcoding provides a useful means for discriminating species in this system.
Preoperative chemotherapy plus surgery versus surgery plus adjuvant chemotherapy versus surgery alone in early-stage non-small-cell lung cancer.

PURPOSE To address whether preoperative chemotherapy plus surgery or surgery plus adjuvant chemotherapy prolongs disease-free survival compared with surgery alone among patients with resectable non-small-cell lung cancer. PATIENTS AND METHODS In this phase III trial, 624 patients with stage IA (tumor size > 2 cm), IB, II, or T3N1 were randomly assigned to surgery alone (212 patients), three cycles of preoperative paclitaxel-carboplatin followed by surgery (201 patients), or surgery followed by three cycles of adjuvant paclitaxel-carboplatin (211 patients). The primary end point was disease-free survival. RESULTS In the preoperative arm, 97% of patients started the planned chemotherapy, and radiologic response rate was 53.3%. In the adjuvant arm, 66.2% started the planned chemotherapy. Ninety-four percent of patients underwent surgery; surgical procedures and postoperative mortality were similar across the three arms. Patients in the preoperative arm had a nonsignificant trend toward longer disease-free survival than those assigned to surgery alone (5-year disease-free survival 38.3% v 34.1%; hazard ratio [HR] for progression or death, 0.92; P = .176). Five-year disease-free survival rates were 36.6% in the adjuvant arm versus 34.1% in the surgery arm (HR 0.96; P = .74). CONCLUSION In early-stage patients, no statistically significant differences in disease-free survival were found with the addition of preoperative or adjuvant chemotherapy to surgery. In this trial, in which the treatment decision was made before surgery, more patients were able to receive preoperative than adjuvant treatment.
Cold acclimation in warmer extended autumns impairs freezing tolerance of perennial ryegrass (Lolium perenne) and timothy (Phleum pratense).

The effect of variable autumn temperatures in combination with decreasing irradiance and daylength on photosynthesis, growth cessation and freezing tolerance was investigated in northern- and southern-adapted populations of perennial ryegrass (Lolium perenne) and timothy (Phleum pratense) intended for use in regions at northern high latitudes. Plants were subjected to three different acclimation temperatures; 12, 6 and 9/3°C (day/night) for 4 weeks, followed by 1 week of cold acclimation at 2°C under natural light conditions. This experimental setup was repeated at three different periods during autumn with decreasing sums of irradiance and daylengths. Photoacclimation, leaf elongation and freezing tolerance were studied. The results showed that plants cold acclimated during the period with lowest irradiance and shortest day had lowest freezing tolerance, lowest photosynthetic activity, longest leaves and least biomass production. Higher acclimation temperature (12°C) resulted in lower freezing tolerance, lower photosynthetic activity, faster leaf elongation rate and higher biomass compared with the other temperatures. Photochemical mechanisms were predominant in photoacclimation. The northern-adapted populations had a better freezing tolerance than the southern-adapted except when grown during the late autumn period and at the highest temperature; then there were no differences between the populations. Our results indicate that the projected climate change in the north may reduce freezing tolerance in grasses as acclimation will take place at higher temperatures and shorter daylengths with lower irradiance.
Canadian Society of Transplantation Consensus Workshop on Cytomegalovirus Management in Solid Organ Transplantation Final Report

The Canadian Society of Transplantation sponsored a Cytomegalovirus (CMV) Consensus Working Group that met on March 19, 2003. The objectives of this group were to determine the current burden of CMV‐associated disease in the setting of solid organ transplantation in Canada, make recommendations regarding optimal strategies for the diagnosis, treatment and prevention of CMV infection and disease, highlight gaps in knowledge and outline priorities for research and other initiatives that might further reduce the burden of CMV‐associated effects in this setting. This report summarizes the recommendations of the working group including ratings of the strength of evidence supporting the recommendations.
On theories and estimation techniques of fiscal multipliers

The fiscal multiplier is a condensed key figure of the complex transmission mechanism of fiscal policy into output. I give an overview and systemize the numerous contributions to the theory and measurement of multipliers. The analysis is not confined to a certain model class but is intended to be as inclusive as possible to lay out the relevant channels of influence that have been discussed in the literature, while pointing to some blind spots. I also review the econometric problems when estimating fiscal multipliers and the estimation techniques at hand.
Praxis of Resilience & Resistance: “We can STOP Donald Trump” and Other Messages from Immigrant Children

In 2018 there have been constant anti-immigrant rhetoric, policies, and enforcement. Most recently, Trump referred to immigrant children as “future criminals” who needed to be kept in prison-like detention centers and “tender age facilities” (Min Kim, 2018). Meanwhile, the 4.5 million children of immigrants already in the US continue to face possibilities of family separation due to this enforcement-focused political system (Suárez-Orozco et al., 2015). The goal of this article is to provide insight into the lives of one of the most vulnerable and fastest growing populations in the U.S.—immigrant children. As a researcher and educator, I developed an art-centered methodological and pedagogical tool that can serve those working with immigrant children and vulnerable populations. Over a two-year period, I used artistic tools such as drawings, storyboards, Teatro Campesino’s actos, and various techniques from Theater of the Oppressed (Boal, 2000) to work with children of immigrants in a sixth-grade class of English Language Learners (ELL) in Los Angeles. Through educational, artistic, and anecdotal components of their work, these children created a world where they could resist and fight Trump and share that victory by utilizing the transformative imaginary of art.
Frozen: A fat tale of immigration

ABSTRACT Fat people are constructed as failed citizens; they are believed to be a burden on society, consuming too many resources and costing too many healthcare monies. In modern neoliberal contexts, this results in hostile environments and the development of spoiled identities (stigmatized identities in which the bearer is held responsible for the stigma). These hostile environments are demonstrated in many ways: governments failing to designate weight as a category protected from discrimination, public health campaigns aimed at battling the “war on obesity,” and immigration policies that exclude people based on body mass index. The author explores the latter using an autoethnographic method; the author, who was excluded from obtaining a resident visa in New Zealand because of her body mass index, uses her personal experiences battling an immigration system to explore these biopolitics and their role in (re)producing fat oppression.