Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Psychological Contract Development during Organizational Socialization: Adaptation to Reality and the Role of Reciprocity

Based on the theoretical framework of newcomer sensemaking this study examines factors associated with changes in newcomers psychological contract perceptions during the socialization process. More specifically, two mechanisms are addressed that could explain changes in newcomers perceptions of the promises they have exchanged with their employer: (1) unilateral adaptation of perceived promises to reality and (2) adaptation of perceived promises as a function of the reciprocity norm. To test our hypotheses, a four-wave longitudinal study among 333 new hires has been conducted, covering the first year of their employment relationship. Results show that changes in newcomers perceptions of the promises they have made to their employer are affected by their perceptions of their own contributions as well as by their perceptions of inducements received from their employer. Changes in newcomers perceptions of employer promises are affected by their perceptions of employer inducements received, but the impact of perceived employee contributions is less clear. The data provide limited support for the idea that the adaptation of perceived promises to perceived inducements and contributions occurs to a stronger extent during the encounter stage than during the acquisition stage of socialization.
Prospects and Challenges for Food Security in Rural Zimbabwe: Unearthing the Contestations in Conservation Farming in Mukore Village of Bikita

The paper sought to investigate the challenges and prospects for effective institutionalization of conservation farming as a food security measure amidst the gross incidence of drought and failure of traditional subsistence agriculture in Zimbabwean rural areas. The study endeavored to achieve this through exploring the contestations among various stakeholders in their efforts to educate the rural folk about the viability of conservation farming as an option for curbing the proliferation of droughts and improve livelihoods of the rural communities. Of the many findings elicited by the research, it was established that, the perceptual, technocratic and political contestations among various actors in conservation farming should be addressed and rationalized for the fruition of the efforts to create sustainable agricultural framework and rural livelihoods. The research thrived through Norman Long's Actor Oriented Approach in which the various power dynamics between agents due to different positions, knowledge and influence presented differential "˜lifeworlds' for contestations. The research methodologically proceeded within the qualitative framework in which case, in-depth interviews with key informants and focus group discussions were used as data gathering tools.
POSITIVE CORRELATION BETWEEN APOPTOTIC AND PROLIFERATIVE INDICES IN GASTROINTESTINAL LYMPHOMAS OF MUCOSA‐ASSOCIATED LYMPHOID TISSUE (MALT)

To understand the role of deregulation of apoptosis in the pathogenesis of gastrointestinal MALT lymphoma, apoptosis has been quantitatively studied in paraffin sections from 40 cases (19 low grade, 21 high grade). The extent of apoptosis was correlated with histological grade, proliferative activity as measured by immunostaining of Ki67 proliferation antigen, and the expression of bcl‐2 and p53 oncoproteins, which are known to participate in the regulation of apoptosis. Both apoptotic and proliferative indices were significantly (P<0·00001) higher in high‐grade than in low‐grade tumours. Overall, apoptotic indices were negatively correlated with bcl‐2 expression, particularly in low‐grade tumours in which both strong bcl‐2 expression and low levels of apoptosis were observed. Thus, the slow expansion of low‐grade MALT lymphoma may partly result from a prolonged life‐span of tumour cells, due to bcl‐2‐mediated blockage of apoptosis. No difference in apoptotic indices was found between p53‐positive and p53‐negative cases. Furthermore, correlation analysis revealed a significantly positive association between apoptotic and proliferative indices. This supports the current belief that the mechanisms controlling apoptosis and proliferation are both activated during the cell cycle and whether a cell enters the proliferation cycle or the apoptotic process depends on survival factors.
Is No Election News Good News?: The 2015 Canadian Election and Locally Relevant News on Twitter

This study uses the 2015 Canadian Federal election as a case study to examine whether Twitter is used to spread locally relevant political news in Canadian communities outside major urban centres in the month leading up to an election. We examined eight communities across Canada, each with differing levels of traditional local media access (television, radio, and print). We wanted to discover, particularly in communities underserved by traditional local media, whether Twitter would help to fill an information gap during election time by helping to spread locally relevant political information. Preliminary analysis has revealed that most information shared on Twitter accounts in our eight communities was national rather than local in scope. Influencers, as identified by the number of @-mentions, tended to be national, rather than local, and general activity on Twitter did not reflect overall population of an area, or any specific locally important issue. Thus we conclude that despite its potential, Twitter is currently not a useful counterbalance for a declining local traditional news environment in smaller communities across Canada.
Relationship between Antimalarial Activity and Heme Alkylation for Spiro- and Dispiro-1,2,4-Trioxolane Antimalarials

ABSTRACT The reaction of spiro- and dispiro-1,2,4-trioxolane antimalarials with heme has been investigated to provide further insight into the mechanism of action for this important class of antimalarials. A series of trioxolanes with various antimalarial potencies was found to be unreactive in the presence of Fe(III) hemin, but all were rapidly degraded by reduced Fe(II) heme. The major reaction product from the heme-mediated degradation of biologically active trioxolanes was an alkylated heme adduct resulting from addition of a radical intermediate. Under standardized reaction conditions, a correlation (R2 = 0.88) was found between the extent of heme alkylation and in vitro antimalarial activity, suggesting that heme alkylation may be related to the mechanism of action for these trioxolanes. Significantly less heme alkylation was observed for the clinically utilized artemisinin derivatives compared to the equipotent trioxolanes included in this study.
Iterative Fecal Microbiota Transplantations for Eradicating Digestive Colonization With Carbapenemase-Producing Enterobacteriaceae: Is It Worth It?

Carbapenemase-producing Enterobacteriaceae (CPE) have emerged as a major source of bacterial resistance and their dissemination is a serious public health threat.1 It has also been demonstrated that those bacteria could disseminate outside the hospital setting. A large study including 34 hospitals in Spain demonstrated that a significant proportion of patients identified as colonized or infected with CPE during hospitalization probably acquired this multi-resistant organism in a nursing home during the period preceding their hospital admission.2 In addition, a recent review of the literature demonstrated that according to US-based studies, the percentage of CPE isolates that could be associated with the community ranged from 5.6 to 10.8%. 3
Clinicians as Mechanics: Causal Reasoning in Clinical Judgment and Decision Making

We investigated whether mental health clinicians mentally represent client information in causal models, and whether they base their interventions on these causal models. We showed 20 clinicians an intake video and test results, and asked them to think aloud about these questions: “What do you think is the matter with this client; what would you propose as follow-up steps? ” Both causal structure analysis and content analysis of participants’ verbalizations indicated that their mental representations were predominantly descriptive and lacked causal complexity. Also, most verbalizations about further assessment and interventions did not seem to be related to participants’ causal models. Finally, we found large variation in the causal factors that participants mentioned and in the interventions they proposed. We discuss explanations for our findings and implications, and suggest further research.
A single phase seven level inverter topology for photovoltaic application

A single phase seven level inverter topology with fewer components using proportional integration controller is presented in this paper. The pulse width modulation is employed to generate gating signals for power switches. The proposed topology can be implemented for three phase application. The Separate dc sources can be replaced by solar PV arrays. The complete system is simulated using MATLAB/SIMULINK™ for simulation results and dsPIC33EP microcontroller is used to generate gating signals, hardware results are presented to check the performance of the inverter
Approaches to evaluate and improve short-term relative accuracy of GPS/INS systems

GPS/INS integrated systems can provide accurate and reliable navigation information using data fusing algorithm such as a Kalman filter. Current research works related to GPS/INS navigation systems mainly focused on the absolute accuracy with dominant components of mid-term and long-term errors. However, the short-term relative accuracy will be required particularly in some applications, such as POS for LiDAR and InSAR, GPS/INS deeply-couple. This paper raises the importance of the short-term relative accuracy of the GPS/INS systems for certain applications. Then the method to evaluate the short-term navigation errors using Allan Variance analysis is proposed and the effort to improve the short-term accuracy by adjusting the Kalman filtering parameters is made. The feasibility and effectiveness of the proposed methods were verified by simulation results and typical field test results. The outcome of this paper will help to optimize the design of GPS/INS systems for specific applications areas where short-term relative accuracy is the key requirement; and facilitate the use of the low-end GPS/INS systems in these areas.
Effect of pituitary desensitization on the early growing follicular cohort estimated using anti-Mullerian hormone.

BACKGROUND This study evaluated the effect of pituitary desensitization on the early growing follicle population through assessment of serum anti-Mullerian hormone (AMH) concentration. Other markers of ovarian reserve, basal follicular stimulating hormone (FSH), luteinizing hormone (LH), estradiol, inhibin-B and three-dimensional ultrasound ovarian parameters were also assessed for comparison. METHODS One hundred and two subjects aged <40 years with FSH levels <12 IU/l underwent venepuncture and transvaginal ultrasound in the early follicular phase of the menstrual cycle and after 14 days of down-regulation using gonadotrophin releasing hormone (GnRH) agonists. Serum levels of AMH and other markers of ovarian reserve measured during the early follicular phase were compared with those measured following down-regulation. RESULTS While AMH levels increased significantly by approximately 32% (P < 0.01), there was a significant decline of approximately 40-50% (P < 0.01) in the levels of inhibin-B, FSH, LH and estradiol. Down-regulation treatment was also associated with a decrease (P < 0.01) in mean ovarian volume and in ovarian blood flow, but no difference was seen in the antral follicle count. CONCLUSIONS Pituitary desensitization results in a significant increase in AMH levels, which implies that either the secretion of AMH by early growing follicles is enhanced or that the size of this follicle cohort is increased. The number of antral follicles visualized on ultrasound in the early follicular phase and at down-regulation appears unchanged, suggesting that any effect is restricted to the smaller selectable follicles. Our results may explain the enhanced ovarian response to conventional controlled ovarian stimulation and higher pregnancy rates when pretreatment with GnRH-agonists is employed.
Inhibition of cell proliferation, invasion and migration by the cardenolides digitoxigenin monodigitoxoside and convallatoxin in human lung cancer cell line

Abstract Cardiac glycosides consist of a large family of naturally derived compounds that are clinically used to treat congestive heart failure, and also present anticancer properties. In this study, the cytotoxic effects of two cardenolides, digitoxigenin monodigitoxoside (DGX) and convallatoxin (CON) were screened in four human tumour cell lines. Both compounds showed anti-proliferative effects in all tumour cells, at nanomolar concentrations. Since the human lung cancer cell line A549 was the most sensitive, we investigated the anti-proliferative, anti-migratory and anti-invasive effects of these cardenolides. DGX and CON reduced A549 cell migration, being able to reduce more than 90% of cell invasion. Their effects on the expression of key regulators of metastatic mechanism showed decreased levels of MMP-2, MMP-9 and p-FAK. Both compounds also presented low toxicity for healthy cells. Finally, this work provides the first insights into the effects of these cardenolides on key steps of lung cancer metastasis. Graphical Abstract
Syntactic variation in interactions across international Englishes

Discussions of World Englishes mainly concentrate on the particularities of individual varieties of English spoken in the different parts of the world. There is, however, another form of World English which emerges when speakers of different international varieties interact with each other. When English is the mother tongue of neither of the speakers who use the language for communicative purposes, they employ it as a lingua franca. This paper describes the syntactic variation found in this variety of English. It presents the results of analyses of a corpus containing 22 hours of naturally occurring interactions and describes both unsystematic as well as (seemingly) systematic grammatical choices made by the speakers. The results reveal that, not unlike the processes which have previously been documented for dialect contact, interactions across international Englishes are characterised by processes of levelling and regularisation, whilst at the same time individual speakers retain the characteristics of their original varieties. Individual Englishes are further constrained by transfer processes and interlanguage patterns.
Mouse Thalamic Differentiation: Gli-Dependent Pattern and Gli-Independent Prepattern

Sonic hedgehog (Shh) signaling is essential for thalamic development. The Gli transcription factors act downstream of Shh – while Gli2 is the major activator (GliA), Gli3 acts primarily as a repressor (GliR). The thalamus is remarkable among dorsal structures because of its proximity to the mid-diencephalic organizer, a unique dorsal Shh source. This lends complexity to the interactions between Shh, Gli2, and Gli3, suggesting the presence of a dorsal Gli activator which elsewhere is found only ventrally, and making the dissection of thalamic Gli functions particularly interesting. A current model based on mutant phenotypes in telencephalon and midbrain postulates a degree of reciprocal antagonism of Shh and Gli3 in dorsal brain regions. To approach the role of Gli factors in thalamic specification we first analyzed mice deficient in Gli2 or Gli3. In Gli2 mutants, the thalamus is small and poorly differentiated with the exception of the medial and intralaminar nuclei which, in contrast, are specifically and severely affected by Gli3 inactivation. Gbx2 expression is very reduced in the Gli3 mutant. Most thalamic nuclei are present in both mutants, although incompletely differentiated, as reflected by the loss of specific markers. The ventral posterior group, revealed by novel specific marker Hes1, is present in both mutants and extends axons to the telencephalon. To test the Gli3/Shh interaction we generated a novel mutant deficient in Gli3 and neuroepithelial Shh. The thalamus of the n-Shh/Gli3 double mutants is very large and very poorly differentiated except for a broad domain of Gbx2, Lhx2, and Calb2 expression. In utero electroporation experiments on wild type embryos suggest that a stage-specific factor acting early is responsible for this prepattern. We show that, in the thalamus, GliA acts downstream of Shh to specify pattern and size of the thalamic nuclei to the exception of the medial and intralaminar groups. Gli3A can partially substitute for Gli2A in the Gli2 mutant. GliR is essential for specification and growth of the medial and intralaminar nuclei, contributes to the specification of other thalamic nuclei and reduces thalamic size. GliA (from neuroepithelial Shh signaling) and GliR do not show reciprocal antagonism in the thalamus, and their joint abolition does not rescue the wild type phenotype.
Effects of culture conditions on heterogeneity and the apical junctional complex of the ARPE-19 cell line.

PURPOSE ARPE-19 is a spontaneously transformed cell line of human RPE that is widely studied. This report examines its suitability for studying the tight junctions of the RPE. METHODS ARPE-19 was maintained in standard medium or one of three reduced-serum medium formulations. The expression and distribution of cytoskeletal and junctional proteins were examined by immunocytochemistry, immunoblot analysis, and the reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction. Barrier function was measured as the transepithelial electrical resistance (TER) and the transmonolayer diffusion of horseradish peroxidase (HRP). RESULTS Unlike the original reports using passage-15 to -20 cells, commonly available strains of ARPE-19 exhibited a heterogeneous mixture of elongate and polygonal cells. Actin was distributed in stress fibers rather than circumferential bands. The TER was low, and the permeability of HRP was high. The expression of claudins and cytokeratins was heterogeneous. Partial differentiation could be induced in subsets of cells by manipulating the growth medium. A common effect was an increase in the expression of JAM-A, AF-6, and PAR-3 that correlated with a redistribution of actin filaments. This effect was accompanied by a 10x decrease in the permeability of HRP, but a minimal effect on TER. CONCLUSIONS The properties of ARPE-19 appear to be changing in ways that may depend on how the cells are maintained and passaged. Caution should be exercised in comparing data between laboratories and in interpreting studies in which only a subset of cells may respond to experimental stimuli. Specialized media promoted the maturation of the adherens junction, but only a partial maturation of the tight junctions.
L’introduction du contrôle de gestion en PME : Étude d’un cas de structuration tardive de la gestion d’une entreprise familiale en forte croissance

La structuration tardive de la gestion d’une entreprise familiale moyenne en forte croissance est decrite et analysee a partir d’une recherche de terrain longitudinale. En plus de la taille, le role de facteurs de contingence tels que le positionnement strategique, la fonction de production et le profil du dirigeant dans l’introduction du controle de gestion est mis en evidence. Les tentatives de mise en oeuvre successives, et pour le moment infructueuses, du controle de gestion dans cette PME sont etudiees. Cela amene a admettre la possible coexistence durable dans une meme entreprise de divers modes de pilotage locaux sans qu’ils soient coordonnes dans un systeme de controle global et coherent.
Laparoscopic versus open abdominal surgery in children with sickle cell disease is associated with a shorter hospital stay

Limited information exists comparing the post‐operative complication rate of laparoscopic or open abdominal surgeries in children with sickle cell disease (SCD). The primary objective of this study was to compare the outcomes in children with SCD who required laparoscopic or open abdominal surgery for a cholecystectomy or splenectomy.
The Problem of Adult Play Fighting: A Comparative Analysis of Play and Courtship in Primates

Although play fighting, like play generally, is predominantly a feature of the juvenile phase, such behavior persists in the adults of many species. There are two major contexts in which adults engage in play fighting – with juveniles and with other adults. The least attention has been given to adult–adult play. However, one pattern that has been noted by several authors is that the most commonly occurring context of adult–adult play fighting is during courtship, and that this is more likely to occur in solitary species. Supposedly, such play could function to overcome the aggressiveness of potential pairmates unfamiliar with one another, or as a means of evaluating mate quality by one or both partners. By contrasting the presence and degree of play fighting during courtship with the degree of male–female familiarity, the hypothesis that the former is influenced by the latter is tested. Data on 35 species of primates, from 15 families, were compiled from the literature and compared using a method of independent contrasts that incorporates information on phylogenetic relationships. A significant regression was found, with the degree of male–female familiarity accounting for 40% of the variance in courtship play. Therefore, our data support the hypothesis that play fighting in courtship is influenced by male–female patterns of association. However, the data also indicate that other factors must influence the occurrence of play fighting amongst adults, not only during courtship, but also in nonsexual contexts. The broader context of adult–adult play in mammals is discussed.
Comparing moral judgments of patients with frontotemporal dementia and frontal stroke.

IMPORTANCE Several clinical reports have stated that patients with prefrontal lesions or patients with the behavioral variant of frontotemporal dementia share social cognition impairments. Moral reasoning is impaired in both conditions but there have been few investigations that directly compare this domain in the 2 groups. OBSERVATIONS This work compared the moral judgments of these patient groups using a task designed to disentangle the contributions of intentions and outcomes in moral judgment. For both disorders, patients judged scenarios where the protagonists believed that they would cause harm but did not as being more permissible than the control group. Moreover, patients with frontotemporal dementia judged harmful outcomes in the absence of harmful intentions as less permissible than the control participants. There were no differences between the 2 conditions. CONCLUSIONS AND RELEVANCE Both disorders involved impairments in integrating intention and outcome information for moral judgment. This study was the first, to our knowledge, to directly compare a social cognition domain in 2 frontal pathologies with different etiology. Our results highlighted the importance of comparing patients with vascular lesions and patients with neurodegenerative diseases.