Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Effects of Voting Advice Applications (VAAs) on Political Knowledge About Party Positions: Effects of VAAs on Political Knowledge About Party Positions

Voting Advice Applications (VAAs) have experienced a rising demand in recent years, being an efficient and reliable way for voters to gain political information prior to elections. This article uses an online survey to examine the impact of the German VAA (the “Wahl-O-Mat”) on the political knowledge of its users concerning party positions during the 2009 German Federal Election. The article first assesses empirically the extent to which Wahl-O-Mat users are able to correctly identify party positions on relevant issues, and the extent to which they are misinformed. Multivariate analyses with a path model for categorical data are then undertaken to establish whether Wahl-O-Mat usage enhances political knowledge about party positions. It is shown that Wahl-O-Mat use has a positive effect on political knowledge, indicating that electoral effects can be partially explained by this change in the information level of users. However, it is also shown that political knowledge is very heterogeneous, and the level of confusion about party positions is high.
“Multimacy”: Performances of Intimacy on Facebook by Buenos Aires Adolescents

This article addresses the performances of intimacy displayed by adolescents of the City of Buenos Aires through the social networking site Facebook. The methodology used is mixed ethnography: on the one hand, conducting observations and thirty in‐depth interviews with adolescents from the study universe; on the other, analyzing personal photographs, given the centrality of this resource to the population at hand. In the results section, the performances which adolescents post on Facebook and comment on in the course of their everyday practices are described. The main contribution is the proposition of the concept of multimacy ("multimidad") to account for the ways in which they construct and share their intimacy through the platform.
Notice of RetractionA Growing Model for Biological Networks on Recombination and Divergence Principle

How to model the evolution of graphs is important for understanding the complex biological networks. A novel growing network model is presented under the principle of recombination, duplication and divergence. Simulated networks show not only small-world and scale-free features, but also have adjustable disassortative mixing and rich-club phenomenon. The later two topological features, which are widely observed in protein domain combination networks, can not be explained by other classical network models.
Applying Health Behavior Theory to Hearing-Conservation Interventions

The knowledge and experience gained by effective health behavior research programs can be applied to adolescent hearing-loss prevention programs to address the public lack of awareness and concern about the risks of hearing loss. Informative conceptual theories can be found in the health behavior literature. These theoretical models have been tested in a variety of settings over many decades. Continuing health communication interventions that examine changes in awareness levels, attitudes, and risky behaviors have supported the key constructs described in these behavior theories. Intrapersonal-level theories predict how knowledge, attitudes, beliefs, and other traits within the individual will affect health behaviors. Interpersonal-level theories predict how our relationships with significant others affect our social identity and normative expectations and how these in turn will affect our health behaviors. The Transtheoretical Model (also called Stages of Change) focuses on an individual's readiness to make a change in behavior. The underlying principle of this model is that behavior change is achieved through various stages. Research driven by the Theory of Reasoned Action and the Theory of Planned Behavior demonstrates that there is substantial evidence that behavioral intentions are highly predictive of future behavior. These theories explain the importance of subjective norms and perceived behavioral control. The Health Belief Model identifies five important factors that may influence an individual's decision to practice a health behavior, including perceptions of susceptibility and severity, perceived benefits and barriers to making a change, and environmental cues to action. Finally, the Social Cognitive Theory attempts to predict behavior by understanding the interactions that take place within an individual's social environment. In addition, new models of behavior change have been introduced that are dynamic and far-reaching. It is time for hearing-conservation interventions to reap the benefits of research driven by behavioral theory.
The green waves of environmental sustainability in sport

Abstract The purpose of this paper is to provide a conceptual framework surrounding the typology of environmental sustainability efforts made within the sport industry. We draw from multiple theoretical frameworks (i.e. institutional theory and diffusion of innovation) to understand the increased similarities of environmental sustainability efforts through organizational learning as environmental sustainability efforts become more purposeful and sophisticated across the sport industry. The paper uses examples from various sport organizations and leagues to classify the efforts of sport organizations into waves of sport environmental sustainability efforts and important implications arising from them.
Allometry of emergent tree species from saplings to above-canopy adults in a Costa Rican rain forest

Abstract: Relations between crown width and tree height and trunk diameter and tree height were measured for trees of all sizes of six large emergent species (Balizia elegans, Dipteryx panamensis, Hieronyma alchorneoides, Hymenolobium mesoamericanum, Lecythis ampla and Terminalia oblonga) in the lowland tropical wet forest at La Selva, Costa Rica. Thirty to 45 individuals were chosen per species to provide a relatively even height distribution from 1 m up to the maximum encountered height. Among small juveniles, the crown widths of the two species with the smallest leaves and horizontally spreading branches were greater than those of the four large-leaved species. On reaching and exceeding the canopy, all but one species showed pronounced increases in crown width with increasing height. These patterns are linked to leaf size and first branching height in small juveniles and low densities of emergent trees at La Selva and other tropical forests, where crown expansion in all directions enhances light interception under the equatorial sun in trees that are not crowded by neighbours of similar height.
Role of cholinergic‐activated KCa1.1 (BK), KCa3.1 (SK4) and KV7.1 (KCNQ1) channels in mouse colonic Cl− secretion

Aim: Colonic crypts are the site of Cl− secretion. Basolateral K+ channels provide the driving force for luminal cystic fibrosis transmembrane regulator‐mediated Cl− exit. Relevant colonic epithelial K+ channels are the intermediate conductance Ca2+‐activated KCa3.1 (SK4) channel and the cAMP‐activated KV7.1 (KCNQ1) channel. In addition, big conductance Ca2+‐activated KCa1.1 (BK) channels may play a role in Ca2+‐activated Cl− secretion. Here we use KCa1.1 and KCa3.1 knock‐out mice, and the KV7.1 channel inhibitor 293B (10 μm) to investigate the role of KCa1.1, KCa3.1 and KV7.1 channels in cholinergic‐stimulated Cl− secretion.
Towards 5 G : When Explosive Bursts Meet Soft Cloud

Rapid growing demand for mobile data traffic challenges capacities and service provision of the next-generation (5G) cellular networks. The real measurement data from operating cellular networks indicates that the traffic models and scenarios disobey our traditional assumptions, i.e., expressing burst nature. As a result, the current network architectures and service management may cause experience deterioration of the subscribers in future networks. In this article, we propose three approaches to alleviate the influence caused by various traffic bursts: baseband resource pool on cloud platform as wireless infrastructure to enhance the capacity and flexibility of networks, cloud core networks to provide dynamic extension and service flow control abilities, and software-defined bearer networks to simplify service delivery instructed by core networks. Different from the conventional stovepipe-like cloud computing network architectures, our proposed architecture interconnects and shares information with each other, breaking through horizontal device barriers and vertical layers. These cloud based approaches not only avoid the potentially negative impact from bursts, but also provide a softwarecontrolled end-to-end service management framework for future cellular networks. In addition, by taking advantage of open interfaces of cloud based network elements, service control algorithms and network APIs could also be implemented to realize a smart and soft 5G cellular networks.
Balancing performance and confidentiality in air index

Studies on the performance issues (i.e., access latency and energy conservation) of wireless data broadcast have appeared in the literature. However, the important security issues have not been well addressed. This paper investigates the tradeoff between performance and security of signature-based air index schemes in wireless data broadcast. From the performance perspective, keeping low false drop probability helps clients retrieve the information from a broadcast channel efficiently. Meanwhile, from the security perspective, achieving high false guess probability prevents the hacker from guessing the information easily. There is a tradeoff between these two aspects. An administrator of the wireless broadcast system may balance this tradeoff by carefully configuring the signatures used in broadcast. This study provides a guidance for parameter settings of the signature schemes in order to meet the performance and security requirements. Experiments are performed to validate the analytical results and to obtain optimal signature configuration corresponding to different application criteria.
Pollution concerns in context: a comparison of local perceptions of the risks associated with living close to a road and a chemical factory

This paper examines accounts of the risks associated with living close to potential sources of pollution emphasizing the way in which discussion of the risk of pollution is informed by wider assessments of local life. In particular it highlights ways in which residents' accounts of local pollution often diverge from the way in which the problem is conceptualized by ‘outsiders’. Data are analysed from focus groups with lone mothers in two neighbourhoods facing clear local pollution problems – in one case from a factory and in the other from major roads. Detailed discussion is provided of how the issue of pollution fits into lone mothers' wider assessments of life within these neighbourhoods. The correlation between poor populations and pollution has recently been described by environmental groups such as Friends of the Earth as a problem of environmental injustice. The analysis suggests, however, that this description often has little resonance with those affected by local pollution and, as a consequence, may not provide the most profitable way of linking the environmental and social exclusion agendas.
Steve Kerr and His Years with Jack Welch at GE

Steve Kerr is chief learning officer and a managing director of Goldman Sachs. Until March 2001, he was vice president of leadership development and chief learning officer for General Electric (GE), including responsibility for GE’s renowned leadership education center at Crotonville. He was formerly on the faculties of Ohio State University, the University of Southern California (USC), and the University of Michigan and was dean of the faculty of the USC business school from 1985 through 1989. He is a past president of the Academy of Management. His writings on leadership and “On the Folly of Rewarding A, While Hoping for B” (Kerr, 1975) are among the most cited and reprinted in the management sciences. During the past few years, he has been the subject of interviews in Business Week, Forbes ASAP, Fortune, Human Resource Executive, Intranet, Investors Business Daily, the New York Times, Organizational Dynamics, Knowledge Management, Organization Science, and the Wall Street Journal.
Real-time object detection using dynamic principal component analysis

In this work, we contribute to the real-time detection of buried objects, with special emphasis on explosive ones, using the ground penetrating radar (GPR). When the buried objects have explosive substance, the moment of detection becomes vital. Therefore, we start the detection process right after the very first GPR signals begin to return from the buried objects. For this purpose, we adopted the studies focusing on the online process monitoring methods using principal component analysis (PCA), and adapted them to the dynamic conditions of the ground. Different objects with varying dielectric properties are buried in the test environment and used for the evaluation of the proposed method. With the observed results, it is validated that, the proposed method is employable towards the real-time object detection.
A comparative study of cellulose I and II and fibers and nanocrystals

for introducing me the method of cellulose hydrolysis. Dr. Chengjun Zhou is gratefully acknowledged for helping me resolve technical problems during my experiments. Dr. Qingfeng Shi is thanked for many valuable and enlightening discussions. Dr. Xiaozhou Song is thanked for his skilful experimental assistance. My deepest thanks go to my family and friends for their support throughout my life. And finally, I would like to thank my boyfriend, Jingquan Han, for spending many weekends and nights in the laboratory with me, and most importantly of all, for his endless love and belief in me.
Understanding heterogeneity in normal older adult populations via clustering of longitudinal data

Populations of healthy older individuals are often highly heterogeneous, as prevalence of various underlying pathologies increases with age. Finding coherent groups of normal older adults may allow to identify subpopulations that are at risk of developing Alzheimer's disease (AD). In this paper, we propose an approach that utilizes longitudinal magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) data to obtain natural groupings of older adult subjects via an unsupervised (i.e., clustering) technique. We develop a k-medoids-like clustering algorithm that simultaneously finds clusters of longitudinal images, as well as weights brain regions in such a way that the obtained clusters are maximally coherent. We propose a cluster-based measure that reflects the individual subject's cognitive decline. The proposed method is unsupervised and is suitable for analyzing AD at its very early stages.
Fast obstacle detection for urban traffic situations

The early recognition of potentially harmful traffic situations is an important goal of vision-based driver assistance systems. Pedestrians, in particular children, are highly endangered in inner city traffic. Within the DaimlerChrysler urban traffic assistance (UTA) project, we are using stereo vision and motion analysis in order to manage those situations. The flow/depth constraint combines both methods in an elegant way and leads to a robust and powerful detection scheme. A ball bouncing on the road often implies a child crossing the street. Since balls appear very small in the images of our cameras and can move considerably fast, a special algorithm has been developed to achieve maximum recognition reliability.
Managerial competence and new technology: don't shoot the piano player: he's doing his best

Abstract Much concern has been expressed over the last few years regarding the lack of success of British companies when introducing new technology. Though many explanations have been given for this, often there is one common factor: the competence of British managers. This article examines the relationship between managerial competence and the poor record of British companies in successfully introducing new technology. It argues that in examining these issues too much attention is paid to the final decisions taken by managers, and their consequences, and not enough to the context— the organizational circumstances— in which the decisions are arrived at. It begins by examining the impact of organizational structures and practices (socio-structure) on managerial decision-making. Empirical evidence relating to the purchase of computer systems is presented which shows how socio-structure limits and shapes managerial behaviour and success with new technology. It then proceeds to discuss the relationship betwee.
Renal cell carcinoma in children and young adults: analysis of clinicopathological, immunohistochemical and molecular characteristics with an emphasis on the spectrum of Xp11.2 translocation‐associated and unusual clear cell subtypes

Aims: Recent studies suggest that paediatric renal cell carcinoma (RCC) may represent a distinct group of tumours; however, its biological behaviour and classification remain poorly understood. The aim was to analyse 13 RCCs from patients ≤23 years of age to determine their clinicopathological, immunohistochemical and molecular characteristics.
New observations on Micropleura australiensis (Nematoda, Dracunculoidea), a parasite of crocodiles in Australia

Scanning electron microscopy examination of male and female specimens of Micropleura australiensis Moravec, Kay et Hobbs, 2004 (Nematoda, Dracunculoidea) from the peritoneal cavity of the freshwater crocodile Crocodylus johnsoni of the Ord River in Western Australia revealed some previously unreported morphological features. The male, first studied by SEM, possesses the same number (14) of cephalic papillae as the gravid female, but these are comparatively larger and somewhat differently arranged; four slit-like depressions located near the inner base of male dorsolateral and ventrolateral cephalic papillae of the external circle are present. The inner margin of the female oral aperture is smooth, without papilla-like formations. The male caudal end is provided with a right-side ventral ala. The transverse cuticular striae on the male ventral surface bear minute ornamentations (rows of papilla-like formations) in the pre-and postcloacal region. For the first time, M. australiensis is reported from wild and farmed Crocodylus johnsoni and saltwater crocodile C. porosus (new host record) from four localities in the Northern Territory, Australia.
Die Basisemotion Ekel : Untersuchungen zum Zusammenhang zwischen Gefühl und Ausdruck

Anhand von drei Experimenten wurde der Zusammenhang zwischen dem mimischen Ausdruck, dem Erleben und dem Vermeidungsverhalten der Emotion Ekel untersucht. Als mogliche Einflussfaktoren auf den Emotionsaudruck und auf den Zusammenhang zwischen Ausdruck, Erleben und Verhalten wurden (a) die Intensitat des erlebten Gefuhls (hohe versus niedrige Gefuhlsintensitat), (b) die Anwesenheit anderer Personen (Feund anwesend, Fremde anwesend, alleine sein), (c) die Art der Messmethode des Ausdrucks (versteckte Videoaufnahmen versus Elektromyographie) und (d) der Typ der Ekelemotion (core disgust versus animal reminder disgust) berucksichtigt. Es zeigte sich, dass Ekelmimik bei hoherer Gefuhlsintensitat haufiger auftrat, aber auch unter den gunstigsten Bedingungen sehr selten blieb. Der Zusammenhang zwischen Mimik und Gefuhl war in allen Versuchsbedingungen niedrig, der Zusammenhang zwischen Ekelverhalten und Gefuhl zumindest mittel hoch ausgepragt. Die Ergebnisse widersprechen sowohl einer Affektprogrammtheorie der Emotionen als auch einem "behavioral ecology view" des Gesichtsausdrucks.
Taxonomic revision of Aegista subchinensis (Möllendorff, 1884) (Stylommatophora, Bradybaenidae) and a description of a new species of Aegista from eastern Taiwan based on multilocus phylogeny and comparative morphology

Abstract Aegista subchinensis (Möllendorff, 1884) is a widely distributed land snail species with morphological variation and endemic to Taiwan. Three genetic markers (partial sequence of the mitochondrial cytochrome c oxidase subunit I [COI], the 16S rDNA and the nuclear internal transcribed spacer 2 [ITS2]) were analysed to infer phylogenetic relationships and genetic divergence of closely related species of the genus Aegista, Aegista vermis (Reeve, 1852) and Aegista oculus (Pfeiffer, 1850). A new species from Aegista subchinensis has been recognized on the basis of phylogenetic and morphological evidences. The nominal new species, Aegista diversifamilia sp. n. is distinguished from Aegista subchinensis (Möllendorff, 1884) by its larger shell size, aperture and apex angle; wider umbilicus and flatter shell shape. The northernmost distribution of Aegista diversifamilia sp. n. is limited by the Lanyang River, which is presumed to mark the geographic barrier between Aegista diversifamilia sp. n. and Aegista subchinensis.
Ships that pass in the night

Reber and Collins are each major researchers in psychology and sociology respectively. Both focus on the analysis and investigation of tacit knowledge. Yet neither had read or cited the other’s work. Here we explore how this similarity of interest can coexist in the midst of ignorance. Over many months we explored the differences in our world views, our approaches to the topic and the difficulties of interdisciplinarity. This paper is a summary of that exchange presented as a kind of case-study in doing science. We conclude with a list of the general properties of the dialogue associated with this kind of “incommensurability” and state our distaste for tribalism in academic life.
LITMUS: An Open Extensible Framework for Benchmarking RDF Data Management Solutions

Developments in the context of Open, Big, and Linked Data have led to an enormous growth of structured data on the Web. To keep up with the pace of efficient consumption and management of the data at this rate, many data Management solutions have been developed for specific tasks and applications. We present LITMUS, a framework for benchmarking data management solutions. LITMUS goes beyond classical storage benchmarking frameworks by allowing for analysing the performance of frameworks across query languages. In this position paper we present the conceptual architecture of LITMUS as well as the considerations that led to this architecture.
The evolution of subtle manoeuvres in simulated hockey

A simulated hockey environment is introduced as a test bed for studying adaptive behavior and evolution of robot controllers. A near-frictionless playing surface is employed, partially mimicking zero gravity conditions. We show how a neural network using a simple evolutionary algorithm can develop nimble strategies for moving about the rink and scoring goals quickly and e ectively.