Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Culture of trust and division of labor in nonhierarchical teams

Research Summary Firms exhibit heterogeneity in size, productivity, and internal structure, and this is true even within the same industry. Our paper provides evidence of a link between an organization's culture—specifically the trust environment—and its level of specialization. We show experimentally that exogenously‐imposed culture endogenously leads to variation in organizational form. We prime trust and demonstrate that the level of trust within an organization affects division of labor and consequently productivity in nonhierarchical teams. This evidence is consistent with a cross‐country link between trust and the division of labor that we observe in data from the European Social Survey. Managerial Summary Firms vary among many dimensions such as culture and internal organization even within the same industry. Trust is one component of corporate culture that is crucial for cooperation within organizations. In this paper, we show that the trust dimension of corporate culture can affect firm performance through internal structure, in particular the degree of division of labor. Using evidence from a game‐theoretic model, a lab experiment, and country‐level data, we show that an increase in trust leads to increased worker specialization. Our results suggest that increasing trust in work environments where division of labor is beneficial is one way to boost team productivity. RESOURCES This article has earned an Open Data badge for making publicly available the digitally‐shareable data necessary to reproduce the reported results. The data is available at https://osf.io/pr39h/. Learn more about the Open Practices badges from the Center for Open Science: https://osf.io/tvyxz/wiki.
Alcohol abuse: a source of reversible functional disability among residents of a VA nursing home

The prevalence of psychiatric disorders was determined in a sample of 196 VA nursing home residents who were interviewed using the modified Schedule for Affective Disorders and Schizophrenia (mSADS). Of the 160 subjects for whom data were available, 86% had a diagnosis of at least one psychiatric disorder. The prevalence of clinically significant cognitive impairment was 60.6% and of major depression 13.8%. Of 110 residents for whom alcohol histories were obtained, 32 (29%) had a lifetime diagnosis of alcohol abuse. The degree of impairment in activities of daily living improved significantly from the time of admission to the time of the evaluation (average 1.4 years) among those who were recently abusing alcohol compared to those who formerly abused alcohol and those who never abused alcohol. The effect is clinically as well as statistically significant and has the potential benefit of reducing caregiver burden and health care costs for the elderly. © 1997 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
High-Gain Wide-Bandwidth Capacitor-Less Low-Dropout Regulator (LDO) for Mobile Applications Utilizing Frequency Response of Multiple Feedback Loops

This paper presents a novel capacitor-less low-dropout regulator (LDO) for mobile applications. The proposed capacitor-less LDO utilizes multiple feedback loops to satisfy several design challenges for some mobile applications which were not considered in the previous capacitor-less LDOs. The proposed LDO has a wide bandwidth of 3.03 MHz at a load current of 150 mA with a bias current of 40 μA, and the best line and load regulations of 0.0024%/V and 0.0000417%/mA, respectively, which are improvements over previously reported LDOs. This chip has a 100 mV dropout voltage with a 150 mA maximum load current. A total capacitance of 29 pF was used with a chip size of 0.279 mm2.
Community Participation in the Treatment Development Process Using Community Development Teams

Little literature exists about methods for adapting research-based treatments to typical practice settings. This report describes a 2-step process and associated methods used to adapt a school-based treatment program for middle-school youth with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) that operates in a controlled setting to one that can operate in a typical practice setting. Step 1 included a feasibility study that yielded important findings regarding potential obstacles to successful implementation. These data, along with original treatment manuals and literature on treatments for youth with ADHD, were utilized for Step 2—the Community Development Team (CDT) process. Data collected about the CDT process indicate that its strengths outweigh potential limitations. These methods are discussed in the context of successful collaborative procedures for developing and evaluating research-based treatments in practice settings.
Investigating factors influencing the performance of the Office of the Auditor General in Zimbabwe

The Office of the Auditor General’s (the OAG’s) primary mandate is to audit and ensure the best practices of financial management among public sector entities. However, despite this mandate being driven by the national constitution, significant deviations from the international best practices have been seen to be rife within the OAG. This study, therefore, sought, to determine the socio-factors that impact on the audit performance of the Office of the Auditor General. To help achieve this objective, a quantitative method approach was adopted. The population for the study comprised 16 senior management members of the OAG, 36 audit team leaders for each of the 36 Government Ministries, as well as the 25 Parliamentary Audit Committee (PAC) members. Convenient sampling was used. The results of the study provided invaluable insights into how the OAG can improve its effectiveness in achieving its mandate. Inadequate working tools, bureaucratic systems, statutes and legislation emerged as the most significant factors affecting the performance of the OAG. Regarding the economic factors, poor financing of auditing operations and poor staff remuneration were the most dominant ones. Overall, non-economic factors superseded the economic factors in influencing the performance of the audit office. Since the auditor was identified as a key player in this study, the researcher recommended that the welfare of the auditor be taken seriously in order to ostensibly address issues such as low staff morale, lack of motivation and poor remuneration. As a long-term solution, it is recommended that the Office of the Auditor General be commercialised so as to ideally address inadequate resource problems.
Dynamic Bayesian framework for extracting temporal structure in video

In this paper, we develop the concept of descriptors based on perceptual-level motion features such as time-to-collision, shot transition and temporal motion and it is shown that by including them the representational level of the video classes is significantly enhanced, e.g. violence could be detected. The temporal context cues, which had been largely neglected by present content-based retrieval (CBR) systems, are integrated into the framework. A dynamic Bayesian framework for the CBR systems which can learn the temporal structure through the fusion of all the features is designed The experimental results for more than 4 hours of videos are presented for a number of key applications like sequence identifier, highlight extraction for sports, and detecting climax or violence.
Gamification at Work: Employee Motivations to Participate and Preference for Energy Conservation

Energy wastage, especially in public buildings, is one of the widely acknowledged issues that have to be addressed towards protecting the environment. Furthermore, affecting the occupants’ behaviour has been identified in the literature as an under-investigated means of conserving energy. In this research paper we report on the results from an investigation we conducted in three different workplaces, situated in different EU countries. In a survey of N=119 employees, we explore Employee Motivations to Participate in Gamification at work (EMPG) and identify the needs for (i)SelfActualisation, (ii)Self-Regulation, (iii)Rewards & Recognition and (iv)Affiliation as most prominent. Additionally we examine the employees’ profiles, specific needs and preferences in game elements, towards participating in gamification aimed at conserving energy at the workplace. Correlations of the four types of EMPG with basic game elements and energy-saving actions at work are consequently explored and discussed. Ultimately, taking into consideration employees’ motivations and preferences, we derive and propose design guidelines for gamified applications providing personalised feedback towards saving energy at work.
Anomaly detection boundary based on the moving averages of Markov chain model

In the anomaly event detection and recognition, we want to know the deviation which is caused by the difference between the training Markov chain model's distribution and the real data's distribution. The moving relative entropy density deviation method is introduced to solve the problem. The results show the boundaries of the detection. If the results' fluctuations do not exceed the upper and lower boundaries, those data are normal. Otherwise, those data are dangerous.
The Intellectual Core Knowledge of the Mobile Information System

Recent advances in mobile technology have led to a newly emerging and gigantic market with billions of mobile users, and research focused on the issues of mobile information systems has increased dramatically. However, there remains a lack of core knowledge of mobile information systems. This paper collected a total of 1684 mobile information system related articles and 43064 references from the Web of Science. We identified 8 core knowledge of the mobile information system, as follows: (1) technology acceptance; (2) information system success; (3) value of mobile continuance usage; (4) technology adoption; (5) user behavior on the World Wide Web; (6) measurement and evaluation of mobile commerce; (7) innovation and usage of mobile commerce; (8) opportunities and challenges of mobile technology. This study intends that these results will stimulate researchers and practitioners for future mobile information systems.
Evaluation of a Community Health Worker Pilot Intervention to Improve Diabetes Management in Bangladeshi Immigrants With Type 2 Diabetes in New York City

Purpose The purpose of this study is to explore the impact and feasibility of a pilot Community Health Worker (CHW) intervention to improve diabetes management among Bangladeshi-American individuals with type 2 diabetes living in New York City. Methods Participants were recruited at clinic- and community-based venues. The intervention consisted of 6 monthly, CHW-facilitated group sessions on topics related to management of diabetes. Surveys were collected at baseline and follow-up time points. Study outcomes included clinical, behavioral, and satisfaction measures for participants, as well as qualitative measures from CHWs. Results Improvements were seen in diabetes knowledge, exercise and diet to control diabetes, frequency of checking feet, medication compliance, and self-efficacy of health and physical activity from baseline to 12 months. Additionally, there were decreases in A1C, weight, and body mass index. Program evaluation revealed a high acceptability of the intervention, and qualitative findings indicated that CHWs helped overcome barriers and facilitated program outcomes through communal concordance, trust, and leadership. Conclusions The intervention demonstrated high acceptability and suggested efficacy in improving diabetes management outcomes among Bangladeshi immigrants in an urban setting. The US Bangladeshi population will continue to increase, and given the high rates of diabetes, as well as linguistic and economic barriers faced by this community, effective and culturally tailored health interventions are needed to overcome barriers and provide support for diabetes management.
High Performance Computation and Interactive Visualization of Electromagnetics for Engineering Education Programs

This paper introduces a newly developed high performance computation and interactive visualization (HPCIV) system and related techniques for engineering education programs. This HPCIV system can be used to investigate the effectiveness of multiphysics or coupled domain and time domain problems, such as a comb-drive MEMS problem solved by the finite-element method (FEM), and the planar waveguide problem solved by the finite difference-time domain (FD-TD) method. The HPCIV system combines numerical computation and interactive visualization techniques to analyze the engineering problems with multiple users through networks concurrently, but at different locations. Pyramid type data and Lattice type data structures obtained from FEM and FD-TD are used for data transformation and manipulation in the collaborative visualization program. The case study problems present the computational models with different aspects and results analyzed by a group of engineering students across a network or the Internet.
JISC/HE Academy OER Programme: Pilot Phase Synthesis and Evaluation Report

In June 2009, JISC and the HE Academy awarded funding to Glasgow Caledonian University to examine their jointly funded OER Pilot programme; bringing together and analysing the activity of all the individual projects to gain a greater understanding of the release of Open Educational Resources. The OER Pilot programme enabled the large scale release of OER with a view to the creation of a mass of released materials and sustainability of OER release. The synthesis & evaluation project engaged with participants in the OER Pilot programme throughout to enable early identification of support needs as well as to gather information. The Synthesis & evaluation project therefore ran in parallel with the Pilot Programme. The project team developed a Generic framework to capture common issues related to OER release (barriers and enablers), cultural differences across the sector: what norms, roles, rules and reward structures foster effective OER practice in differing institutional and consortia climates, and ‘strand specific’ content related to the context: individuals, subject communities, institutions. The framework was also used to support project and programme evaluation and this is described in detail in the Project method and approaches section.
Physicochemical consequences of amino acid variations that contribute to fibril formation by immunoglobulin light chains

The most common form of systemic amyloidosis originates from antibody light chains. The large number of amino acid variations that distinguish amyloidogenic from nonamyloidogenic light chain proteins has impeded our understanding of the structural basis of light‐chain fibril formation. Moreover, even among the subset of human light chains that are amyloidogenic, many primary structure differences are found. We compared the thermodynamic stabilities of two recombinant k4 light‐chain variable domains (VLs) derived from amyloidogenic light chains with a VL from a benign light chain. The amyloidogenic VLs were significantly less stable than the benign VL. Furthermore, only the amyloidogenic VLs formed fibrils under native conditions in an in vitro fibril formation assay. We used site‐directed mutagenesis to examine the consequences of individual amino acid substitutions found in the amyloidogenic VLs on stability and fibril formation capability. Both stabilizing and destabilizing mutations were found; however, only destabilizing mutations induced fibril formation in vitro. We found that fibril formation by the benign VL could be induced by low concentrations of a denaturant. This indicates that there are no structural or sequence‐specific features of the benign VL that are incompatible with fibril formation, other than its greater stability. These studies demonstrate that the VL β‐domain structure is vulnerable to destabilizing mutations at a number of sites, including complementarity determining regions (CDRs), and that loss of variable domain stability is a major driving force in fibril formation.
3-phase AC/DC boost converter power factor control via traditional and second order sliding modes

A full bridge boost power converter is considered in order to convert 3-phase AC into DC voltage with power factor correction. Desired current trajectories are generated so that, if they are followed, the output voltage will have the desired value and the converter will have a unity power factor. Traditional as well as two types of second order (super-twisting sliding and prescribed convergence law algorithms) sliding mode controllers are used to control the converter. The controlled converters is simulated and studied for the effectiveness of the proposed control algorithms.
Internet of Things Based Smart Prayer Time Management System

— Technology intervention for better user experiences in religious or spiritual practices has become a new focus for researchers from different disciplines. In different religions, prayer time is maintained with importance in prayer houses such as in mosques, temples, churches, etc. Muslim perform five-time prayer in a day and prayer is performed at a fixed time in a day. Therefore, mosques maintain two type of times named Owakt time and Jammat time. We designed a low-cost Internet of Things (IoT) based smart prayer time management system so that an attendant of the mosque do not need to worry about the Owakt time management at all since the times get automatically updated in the clock from our system. In case of Jammat time, the attendant of the mosque can set the convenient time according to the expectation of the local mosque using the web interface of the system. He can access the interface from any device by accessing the local network and does not require to engage with clock every day physically.
Interprétation automatique d'itinéraires dans des récits de voyages. : D'une information géographique du syntagme à une information géographique du discours.

Cette these se place a la croisee du traitement automatique du langage, de l'extraction d'information, de la recherche d'information et des sciences cognitives, dans un contexte de geomatique. Dans ce contexte, nos travaux visent a traiter automatiquement des textes relatant des recits de voyage, avec pour objectif d'interpreter l'information geographique qu'ils contiennent et plus particulierement les itineraires qu'ils decrivent. L'approche que nous proposons est une methode incrementale de decouverte du sens : partant d'une semantique du niveau du syntagme nominal simple, et passant par une semantique du niveau de la proposition, nous atteignons une semantique du niveau du texte. Tres schematiquement, notre parcours dans la decouverte du sens est donc le suivant : interpretation des evocations de lieux, interpretation des deplacements du narrateur basee sur les verbes de deplacement et le critere de polarite aspectuelle spatiale qui leur est attache, et enfin interpretation de cette sequence de deplacements pour construire l'itineraire. Notre contribution reside donc dans la proposition d'un modele du concept d'itineraire adapte a des usages cibles (pour la RI et pour des usages de conception d'activites pedagogiques), la proposition d'une approche pour caracteriser l'itineraire dans le texte, et enfin la proposition d'un mode operatoire automatise et entierement implemente permettant de relier la caracterisation de l'itineraire dans le texte a son modele du concept. Notre demarche etant clairement experimentale, nous nous sommes appuye tout au long de nos travaux sur un prototype que nous avons mis au point. Ce prototype (PIIR pour Prototype pour l'Interpretation d'Itineraires dans des Recits) nous permet de mettre face au traitement automatique les analyses et les algorithmes que nous proposons. Nous avons egalement evalue les resultats de nos traitements automatises afin de pointer les problemes qui restent en suspens apres ces travaux de these. Ces problemes ouvrent des perspectives interessantes que nous avons discutees en fin de memoire.
Max-Log-MAP Optimal MU-MIMO Receiver for Joint Data Detection and Interferer Modulation Classification

We consider a multi-user multiple-input multiple-output (MU-MIMO) system that uses orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM). Several receivers are developed for data detection, where the receivers have partial state information about the MU-MIMO transmission; however, the modulation constellation of the co-scheduled users is unknown. We propose a joint data detection and maximum likelihood (ML) modulation classification (MC) of the co-scheduled user. We show that the decision metric for MC is an accumulation of the Euclidean distances used by the ML single-user MIMO detector. An efficient hardware architecture emerges that exploits this commonality between the classification and detection steps and results in sharing of hardware resources.
Using satellite data to track socio-economic outcomes: a case study of Namibia

Efforts to improve the livelihoods of the poor in sub-Saharan Africa are hindered by data deficiencies. Surveys on socio-economic outcomes, for example, are generally conducted infrequently and are only statistically representative for relatively large geographic areas. To overcome these data limitations, researchers are increasingly turning to satellites which capture data for small areas at high frequencies. Night lights satellite data has particularly drawn interest and growth in lights have been shown to be a useful proxy for GDP growth (Henderson et al., 2012). However, in poor agricultural regions, night lights data might be less useful in explaining variation in socio-economic outcomes because such regions are generally under-electrified. Daytime satellite data measuring land use and vegetation quality, have been used to model socio-economic outcomes across regions, but no studies have explored whether daytime satellite data can be used to track welfare longitudinally. This paper argues that indicators of vegetation quality can be used to track welfare over time in agriculturally dominant areas. Such indicators are used extensively to predict agricultural yields and thus should correlate with welfare, as agriculture is an important source of income. This paper presents results from a small study in Namibia, that explores whether this is the case. Firstly, it is shown using classification of cropland, that daytime satellite data can identify areas of economic activity where night lights cannot. Secondly the relationship between vegetation quality and welfare is studied. Cross-sectionally, increases in vegetation quality correlate negatively with welfare. This is expected as the poor are more likely to live in rural areas. Within rural areas, however, vegetation quality correlates positively with welfare. This study thus supports the hypothesis that satellite based indicators of vegetative health can be used to track welfare over time in areas where night lights are not present.