Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Exploring the Roles of Organization-Public Relationships in the Strategic Management Process: Towards an Integrated Framework

By combining the growing body of knowledge on organization-public relationships with insights from strategic management, the purpose of this study is to demonstrate, from the relational approach, the value of public relations. Specifically, it intends to examine the roles of organization-public relationships in each stage of the strategic management process, namely, strategic analysis, strategy formulation, strategy implementation, and strategic control. The findings show that OPRs can contribute to strategic analysis by being the source of information, channel of information, active information detector and foundation for internal analysis. It contributes to strategy formulation by providing broad information, incorporating intelligence, perspectives and insights and engaging employees in decision making. In strategy implementation, OPRs can generate support from parties involved and facilitate the strategy execution process. In strategic control, OPRs can provide feedback and updated information for strategy adjustments and strategy review, engage employee in self-management and facilitate organizational control through relational trust, commitment and satisfaction. Through playing multiple roles in each strategic management stage, relationships can eventually contribute to sustainable competitive advantage, achievement of organizational goals, and organizational effectiveness.
Robust regression in RKHS — An overview

The paper deals with the task of robust nonlinear regression in the presence of outliers. The problem is dealt in the context of reproducing kernel Hilbert spaces (RKHS). In contrast to more classical approaches, a recent trend is to model the outliers as a sparse vector noise component and mobilize tools from the sparsity-aware/compressed sensing theory to impose sparsity on it. In this paper, three of the most popular approaches are considered and compared. These represent three major directions in sparsity-aware learning context; that is, a) a greedy approach b) a convex relaxation of the sparsity-promoting task via the l\ norm-based regularization of the least-squares cost and c) a Bayesian approach making use of appropriate priors, associated with the involved parameters.
A reinforcement learning model using macro-actions in multi-task grid-world problems

A macro-action is a typical series of useful actions that brings high expected rewards to an agent. Murata et al. have proposed an Actor-Critic model which can generate macro-actions automatically based on the information on state values and visiting frequency of states. However, their model has not assumed that generated macro-actions are utilized for leaning different tasks. In this paper, we extend the Murata's model such that generated macro-actions can help an agent learn an optimal policy quickly in multi-task Grid-World (MTGW) maze problems. The proposed model is applied to two MTGW problems, each of which consists of six different maze tasks. From the experimental results, it is concluded that the proposed model could speed up learning if macro-actions are generated in the so-called correlated regions.
The Olive Oil-Based Lipid Clinoleic Blocks Leukocyte Recruitment and Improves Survival during Systemic Inflammation: A Comparative In Vivo Study of Different Parenteral Lipid Emulsions

Although fish oil-based and olive oil-based lipid emulsions have been shown to exert anti-inflammatory functions, the immunomodulating properties of lipids are still controversial. Therefore, we investigated the anti-inflammatory effect of three different parenterally administered lipid emulsions in vivo: olive oil-based Clinoleic, fish oil-based Smoflipid, and soybean oil-based Lipofundin. We observed leukocyte recruitment in inflamed murine cremaster muscle using intravital microscopy and survival in a murine model of LPS-induced systemic inflammation and analyzed expression of leukocyte and endothelial adhesion molecules. Olive oil-based Clinoleic and fish oil-based Smoflipid profoundly inhibited leukocyte adhesion compared to Lipofundin during LPS-induced inflammation of the murine cremaster muscle. In the trauma model of cremaster muscle inflammation, Lipofundin was the only lipid emulsion that even augmented leukocyte adhesion. In contrast to Smoflipid and Lipofundin, Clinoleic effectively blocked leukocyte recruitment and increased survival during lethal endotoxemia. Flow chamber experiments and analysis of adhesion molecule expression suggest that both endothelial and leukocyte driven mechanisms might contribute to anti-inflammatory effects of Clinoleic. We conclude that the anti-inflammatory properties of Clinoleic are superior to those of Smoflipid and Lipofundin even during systemic inflammation. Thus, these results should stimulate further studies investigating parenteral lipids as an anti-inflammatory strategy in critically ill patients.
Le Point De Vue De Piaget

Abstract Summarizing a summary is impossible if we want to avoid unacceptable schematizing. So let us merely state the theses very briefly developped in this article. (I) Knowledge deals with the transformations from a state into another one, each one being, at the same time, the point of arrival and the starting point of actual transformations. (II) Therefore knowledge is continously being built up, and this progress does not come down to recordings of external informations, but includes an internal mechanism that (III) can be reduced or compared to self- regulations in the biological meaning. (IV) So the fundamental mode of relation could not correspond to the classical notion of association: it consists in processes of “assimilation” of the object to the subject's structures or schemes, with “accommodation” of these structures to the properties of the object. (V) The mental development includes stages that occur in a necessary sequential order, but without any fixed chronological date; on an other hand.
Risk factors for mechanical ventilation in U.S. children hospitalized with seasonal influenza and 2009 pandemic influenza A*

Objective: We tested the hypothesis that the use of mechanical ventilator support in children hospitalized with influenza during the 2009 H1N1 influenza A (H1N1) pandemic was higher than would be expected in children hospitalized for seasonal influenza after adjusting for patient risk. Design: Retrospective cohort study. Setting: Forty-three U.S. pediatric hospitals. Patients: Children <18 yrs old with a discharge diagnosis of influenza admitted July 2006 through March 2009 (seasonal influenza) and June through December 2009 (2009 pandemic influenza A). Interventions: None. Measurements and Main Results: We included 10,173 children hospitalized with seasonal influenza and 9837 with presumed 2009 pandemic influenza A. The 2009 pandemic influenza A cohort was older (median 5.0 vs. 1.9 yrs), more likely to have asthma (30% vs. 18%), and less likely to receive mechanical ventilation (7.1% [n = 701] vs. 9.2% [n = 940]). Using logistic regression, we created a multivariable model of risk factors associated with endotracheal mechanical ventilator support in the seasonal influenza cohort and used this model to predict the number of expected mechanical ventilation cases in children with presumed 2009 pandemic influenza A. Adjusted for underlying health conditions, race, age, and a co-diagnosis of bacterial pneumonia, the observed/expected rate of mechanical ventilation in the presumed 2009 pandemic influenza A cohort was 0.74 (95% confidence interval 0.68–0.79). Early hospital treatment with influenza antiviral medications was associated with decreased initiation of mechanical ventilation on hospital day ≥3 in the seasonal influenza (odds ratio 0.66; 95% confidence interval 0.45–0.97) and 2009 pandemic influenza A (odds ratio 0.23; 95% confidence interval 0.16–0.34) periods; influenza antiviral use in the 2009 pandemic influenza A period was much higher (70% vs. 20%; p < .001). Conclusions: Although the number of children with a hospital discharge diagnosis of influenza almost tripled during the 2009 pandemic influenza A period, the risk-adjusted proportion of children receiving mechanical ventilation was lower than we would have predicted in a seasonal influenza cohort. Early hospital use of influenza antiviral medications was associated with a decrease in late-onset mechanical ventilation.
On the Evolutionary Nature of Architectural Violations

Architectural conformance checking is the process of verifying whether a given software implementation conforms to the rules and decisions in an architectural model. Different conformance checking techniques have been proposed, and both academic and commercial tools use them for architecture evaluation. In this paper, we present an exploratory and longitudinal study on architectural violations of software systems. As an exploratory study, our aim has been to reveal patterns, raise hypotheses and form an initial body of knowledge on architectural violations, rather than test specific hypotheses. We have studied the evolution of four widely known open source systems for which we have trusted architectural models. The study encompasses the analysis of 19 bi-weekly versions of each system. In total, we analyzed more than 3,000 violations. From our observations, we have derived a series of facts. Four of them, deserve attention: 1) development teams of all studied projects seem to be aware of the presence of architectural violations in the code and all of them do perform perfective maintenance aimed at eliminating such violations, 2) despite all effort, the number of architectural violations, in the long term, is continuously growing, 3) in all studied systems there is a critical core, i.e., just a few design entities are responsible for the majority of violations, and 4) some violations seem to be "respawning", i.e., they are eliminated, but are likely to be back in future versions of the system.
Quantized Constant Envelope Precoding With PSK and QAM Signaling

Coarsely quantized massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) systems are gaining more interest due to their power efficiency. We present a new precoding technique to mitigate the multi-user interference and the quantization distortions in a downlink multi-user MIMO system with coarsely quantized constant envelope (QCE) signals at the transmitter. The transmit signal vector is optimized for every desired received vector taking into account a relaxed version of the QCE constraint. The optimization is based on maximizing the safety margin to the decision thresholds of the receiver constellation modulation. Due to the linear property of the objective function and the constraints, the optimization problem is formulated as a linear programming problem. The simulation results show a significant gain in terms of the uncoded bit error rate compared to the existing precoding techniques.
A Heuristic Attempt at Understanding Economic Action in South Korea

This article presents a heuristic attempt at understanding economic action in South Korea. The heuristic is based on the idea of experience-near concepts — as introduced by Clifford Geertz — and constructed by the terms 'affiliation', 'indebtedness' and 'mediation'. In order to enrich the understanding of economic action in Korea I chose the interplay between the functionalist and the interpretivist paradigm. Qualitative interviews with native and foreign executives were conducted on site and interpreted against the background of (Neo-)Confucianism in South Korea. For the purpose of the study I developed 'the (Neo-)Confucian way of life' as an ideal type, following Max Weber's 'ideal typical construction of meaning'.
A Shapelet Transform for Time Series Classification

Classification of time series has been attracting great interest over the past decade. Recent empirical evidence has strongly suggested that the simple nearest neighbor algorithm is very difficult to beat for most time series problems. While this may be considered good news, given the simplicity of implementing the nearest neighbor algorithm, there are some negative consequences of this. First, the nearest neighbor algorithm requires storing and searching the entire dataset, resulting in a time and space complexity that limits its applicability, especially on resource-limited sensors. Second, beyond mere classification accuracy, we often wish to gain some insight into the data. In this work we introduce a new time series primitive, time series shapelets, which addresses these limitations. Informally, shapelets are time series subsequences which are in some sense maximally representative of a class. As we shall show with extensive empirical evaluations in diverse domains, algorithms based on the time series shapelet primitives can be interpretable, more accurate and significantly faster than state-of-the-art classifiers.
A Bayesian method for integrated multitarget tracking and sensor management

This paper presents an integrated method for target tracking and sensor management, applied to the problem of tracking multiple ground targets. We use a multiple target tracking methodology based on re- cursive estimation of a Joint Multitarget Probability Density (JMPD) which is implemented using particle filtering methods. This Bayesian method for tracking multiple targets allows nonlinear, non- Gaussian target motion and measurement-to-state coupling. The sen- sor management scheme is predicated on maximizing the expected Rinyi Information Divergence between the current JMPD and the JMPD after a measurement has been made. The Rinyi Information Divergence, a gen- eralization of the Kullback-Leibler Distance, provides a way to measure the dissimilarity between two den- sities. Sensor management then proceeds by evaluat- ing the expected information gain for each of the pos- sible measurement decisions, and selecting to make the measurement that maximizes the expected information gain.
Run and tumble navigation can be very fast

The ability to navigate environmental gradients is often critical for survival. When gradients are shallow or noisy, most organisms move by alternating straight motion (runs) with random reorientations (tumbles). Navigation is achieved by transiently reducing the probability to tumble when attractant signal increases. One drawback of this strategy is that occasional runs in the wrong direction reduce progress up the gradient. Here we discovered a positive feedback regime inherent in this strategy that strongly mitigates this problem. In an attractant field, motion up the gradient reduces tumble probability, which further boosts drift up the gradient. This positive feedback can drive large fluctuations in the internal state of the organism away from its mean, resulting in long runs in favorable directions but short ones otherwise. In this new regime the organism achieves a "ratchet-like" gradient climbing behavior unexpected from mean field theory, and drift speeds much faster than previously believed possible.
Scaffolding leadership for learning in school education

The notion of leadership for learning as a resource for improving student learning in schools has attracted much attention from scholars. However, its use lacks clarity or meaning for teachers implementing this concept in schools. In seeking to pursue a better understanding of leadership for learning based on a comprehensive review of relevant literature a scaffold of key themes was established. This scaffold shows leadership for learning as a liberating process in which whole-school communities actively engage in purposeful interactions that nurture relationships focused on improving learning. In examining the extent to which this conception of leadership for learning was evident in schools, a survey was developed and tested for its veracity. This article presents the results of factor analysis and importantly, introduces two themes not originally included in the scaffold.
Anaerobic Biodegradation of the Lignin and Polysaccharide Components of Lignocellulose and Synthetic Lignin by Sediment Microflora

Specifically radiolabeled [C-lignin]lignocelluloses and [C-polysaccharide]lignocelluloses were prepared from a variety of marine and freshwater wetland plants including a grass, a sedge, a rush, and a hardwood. These [C]lignocellulose preparations and synthetic [C]lignin were incubated anaerobically with anoxic sediments collected from a salt marsh, a freshwater marsh, and a mangrove swamp. During long-term incubations lasting up to 300 days, the lignin and polysaccharide components of the lignocelluloses were slowly degraded anaerobically to CO(2) and CH(4). Lignocelluloses derived from herbaceous plants were degraded more rapidly than lignocellulose derived from the hardwood. After 294 days, 16.9% of the lignin component and 30.0% of the polysaccharide component of lignocellulose derived from the grass used (Spartina alterniflora) were degraded to gaseous end products. In contrast, after 246 days, only 1.5% of the lignin component and 4.1% of the polysaccharide component of lignocellulose derived from the hardwood used (Rhizophora mangle) were degraded to gaseous end products. Synthetic [C]lignin was degraded anaerobically faster than the lignin component of the hardwood lignocellulose; after 276 days, 3.7% of the synthetic lignin was degraded to gaseous end products. Contrary to previous reports, these results demonstrate that lignin and lignified plant tissues are biodegradable in the absence of oxygen. Although lignocelluloses are recalcitrant to anaerobic biodegradation, rates of degradation measured in aquatic sediments are significant and have important implications for the biospheric cycling of carbon from these abundant biopolymers.
My Private Google Calendar

Everybody loves Google Apps. Google provides highly available web applications that help you communicate, organize and collaborate from anywhere using different interfaces in the most user friendly and efficient way, without being worried about any IT issues. However, some people still hesitate using Google services because of privacy and trust issues. In this paper, we identify privacy issues in GoogleWeb Applications as a particularly vital problem and propose a solution. In our solution a transparent encryption layer is put between the user and the cloud service provider on a site trusted by the user. This layer accesses the request and response messages passed between the two parties in a fine-grained manner. It applies modern cryptography techniques to encrypt the data without sacrificing functionality and portability of the cloud service. This way the trust of the end user can be reobtained and he or she will be encouraged to further enjoy using web applications such as Google Apps without having to worry about privacy issues.
Mitochondrial fusion increases the mitochondrial DNA copy number in budding yeast

Mitochondrial fusion plays an important role in mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) maintenance, although the underlying mechanisms are unclear. In budding yeast, certain levels of reactive oxygen species (ROS) can promote recombination‐mediated mtDNA replication, and mtDNA maintenance depends on the homologous DNA pairing protein Mhr1. Here, we show that the fusion of isolated yeast mitochondria, which can be monitored by the bimolecular fluorescence complementation‐derived green fluorescent protein (GFP) fluorescence, increases the mtDNA copy number in a manner dependent on Mhr1. The fusion event, accompanied by the degradation of dissociated electron transport chain complex IV and transient reductions in the complex IV subunits by the inner membrane AAA proteases such as Yme1, increases ROS levels. Analysis of the initial stage of mitochondrial fusion in early log‐phase cells produced similar results. Moreover, higher ROS levels in mitochondrial fusion‐deficient mutant cells increased the amount of newly synthesized mtDNA, resulting in increases in the mtDNA copy number. In contrast, reducing ROS levels in yme1 null mutant cells significantly decreased the mtDNA copy number, leading to an increase in cells lacking mtDNA. Our results indicate that mitochondrial fusion induces mtDNA synthesis by facilitating ROS‐triggered, recombination‐mediated replication and thereby prevents the generation of mitochondria lacking DNA.
Repetition and Event-related Potentials: Distinguishing Early and Late Processes in Affective Picture Perception

A repetition paradigm was used to assess the nature of affective modulation of early and late components of the event-related potential (ERP) during picture viewing. High-density ERPs were measured while participants passively viewed affective or neutral pictures that were repeated up to 90 times each. Both ERP components were modulated by emotional arousal, with ERPs elicited when viewing pleasant and unpleasant pictures different than when viewing neutral pictures. On the other hand, repetition had different effects on these two components. The early occipitotemporal component (150300 msec) primarily showed a decrease in amplitude within a block of repetitions that did not differ as a function of picture content. The late centroparietal component (300600 msec) showed a decrease both between and within blocks of repetitions, with neutral pictures eliciting no late positive potential in the final block of the study. The data suggest that the early ERP primarily reflects obligatory perceptual processing that is facilitated by active short-term memory representations, whereas the late ERP reflects increased resource allocation due to the motivational relevance of affective cues.
Cigarette Use and Striatal Dopamine D2/3 Receptors: Possible Role in the Link between Smoking and Nicotine Dependence

Background: Cigarette smoking induces dopamine release in the striatum, and smoking- or nicotine-induced ventral striatal dopamine release is correlated with nicotine dependence. Smokers also exhibit lower dopamine D2/3 receptor availability in the dorsal striatum than nonsmokers. Negative correlations of striatal dopamine D2/3 receptor availability with smoking exposure and nicotine dependence, therefore, might be expected but have not been tested. Methods: Twenty smokers had positron emission tomography scans with [18F]fallypride to measure dopamine D2/3 receptor availability in ventral and dorsal regions of the striatum and provided self-report measures of recent and lifetime smoking and of nicotine dependence. Results: As reported before, lifetime smoking was correlated with nicotine dependence. New findings were that ventral striatal dopamine D2/3 receptor availability was negatively correlated with recent and lifetime smoking and also with nicotine dependence. Conclusion: The results suggest an effect of smoking on ventral striatal D2/3 dopamine receptors that may contribute to nicotine dependence.