Big Groups Research Articles

Moral Courage -- Experimental Testing of Solidarity in Groups

Economic research usually studies cooperation behavior in situations where cooperation in the social optimum is also beneficial to the individual (e.g. public goods games). In many situations however, cooperation is defined by helping a member of a group who -- by no fault of her own -- is in need of support. Helping in these situations is costly for the contributing individuals and may only be beneficial at the group level. Furthermore, the cost of helping is often endogenously determined by how many others also help. The experiment studies such a situation by introducing a novel experimental game in differently-sized groups (groups of eight vs. groups of four). In both group settings, a subject is need of help because of an exogenous shock to her income. Other group members then decide to help by giving up parts of their income. The cost a helper has to pay is decreasing in the total number of other helpers. Helping rates significantly drop in group size. Moreover, the experiment also studies helping behavior in situations when groups are combined. Often individuals cooperate in groups but group sizes change over time (e.g. teams are combined, firms merge, etc.). Group norms persist over time when two small groups of four subjects are randomly combined to a big group of eight subjects in the second part of the experiment. Subjects in combined groups help more than subjects in big groups. In particular, high solidarity groups continue to help while low solidarity groups withhold cooperation from old group members. However, they are more prone to help subjects in need that have been in another group before.

The Savanna: formation of great productive value

The present studies elaborates a revision of the information about ecology and management that the savannas have, it makes a differentiation among the two big groups of them: natural savannas and antropic savannas. It gathers important aspects on the handling that is given to these environmental formations and the value of these natural areas of great importance and discusses its fragility and associates them as strategic ecosystem. Equally, it indexes to the evolutionary aspects of the savannas and reference the importance of these in the Colombian Caribbean.

Desain Alat Ukur Motif Merantau pada Tiga Kelompok Etnik di Indonesia

Indonesia has value of migration which parents teach to their children. Thereare three big ethnic groups in Indonesia which have different orientation on value ofmigration. Bataknese mainly migrate for study, Minangnese mainly migrate for workand trading, and Sundanese do not have a certain value of migration, although they domigrate. The aim of this article is to design an instrument for measuring migration motiveon Bataknese, Minangnese, and Sundanese. The migration motive scale was tested usingSEM to see fitness between conceptual model and empirical model. It was also testedusing EFA to explore factor analysis. Results showed the scale has 5 factors and adequateinternal consistency. The five factors are: traits needed when migrating, importance ofgoing out of the hometown, importance of having plan when migrating, importance ofbeing able to adjust, and importance of being successful when migrating.

Linguistic Features of Political Discourse

The article deal with discourse, in particular with political discourse. Various interpretations of political discourse are discussed in the article. Two big groups of discourse such as personal-oriented and institutional-oriented are described from different point of views offered by various scientist. Features of political discourse are given and supported by a number of examples. From a pragmatic point of view the following linguistic features of political discourse are analyzed: the image of the author, informational content, the factor of addressee, intentionality, estimation, conventionality, emotiveness, modality, intertextuality, social-cultural content, ideological characters, form and means of communication. Specific characteristics of a political discourse such as competitiveness, aggressiveness, ideological character and theatricality are studied as well. All above mentioned characteristics and linguistic features formulate political discourse and contribute its pragmatics in terms of influence on mass consciousness. DOI: 10.5901/mjss.2015.v6n6s2p192

Big free groups are almost free

It is shown that the big free group (the set of countably-long words over a countable alphabet) is almost free, in the sense that any function from the alphabet to a compact topological group factors through a homomorphism. This statement is in fact a simple corollary of the more general result proven below on the extendability of homomorphisms from subgroups (of a certain kind) of the big free group to a compact topological group.

Parasitology: A Conceptual Approach

Parasitology: A conceptual approach is a newest textbook focusing on concepts and principles of parasitology for upper-level undergraduate and graduate students as well as instructors and professors in universities. The book covers a wide spectrum of parasitic protozoans, helminths, and arthropods, and even includes parasitic fungi, algae, and plants. It contains a total of 276 highest quality figures, 30 useful boxes with precise explanations, and 16 well-organized tables. A highly useful feature of this book is that, in the publishers’ website, learning and teaching materials are available for students and instructors. They can obtain images from the book and also the instructor’s guide on how to structure a teaching course using the book. The book is divided largely into 2 parts according to different approaches to parasitology. The first part is to build up basic concepts of parasitology, host-parasite relationships, epidemiology, and management and control of parasitic diseases. This first part is highly interesting to read and provides numerous unique examples of parasite behaviors, host responses, evasion from host’s immune responses, genomics, proteomics, variation, diversity, evolution, and so on. This part is divided into 10 large chapters, each of which is subdivided into 3-9 sections. The titles of the 10 chapters are as follows: an introduction to parasitism, an overview of parasite diversity, the parasite’s way of life, host defense and parasite evasion, parasite versus host: pathology and disease, the ecology of parasites, evolution biology of parasitism, parasites and conservation biology, the challenge of parasite control, and the future of parasitology. Every chapter is dealing with the most recent knowledge regarding each relevant topic and highlights the modern concepts of parasite biology and evolutionary ecology. Different types of parasites, hosts, and vectors are well explained. A unique composition of the chapter is “review questions” at the end of each chapter (before references) for further discussion and thought. The second part entitled, “Rogues’ Gallery of Parasites”, is also unique. It describes the traditional concept of parasitology with morphology and taxonomy-based approaches. It provides a concise overview of the basic biology of major parasites of medical and/or veterinary importance in total 48 sections. This part deals with details of distribution and prevalence, hosts and transmission, pathology, diagnosis, treatment, and control of each parasitic infection. The figures used in this part are extraordinarily superexcellent. This part provides students with traditional contents regarding the basic features of parasitology. One thing to mention is that trematodes infecting the intestinal tract of humans and animals are omitted in this book. It would have been good to include at least, among them, echinostomes (Echinostomatidae) and heterophyids (Heterophyidae), quite big groups of parasites of humans and animals. The book provides an excellent resource and will be highly useful and helpful for medical and veterinary medical students, tropical medicine doctors, researchers, laboratory personnel, and professors in parasitology and biology.

IsBF: Scalable in-packet bloom filter based multicast

Bloom filter (BF) based forwarding was proposed recently in several protocol alternatives to IP multicast. Some of these protocols avoid the state in intermediate routers and leave the burden of scalability management to the multicast source and end-hosts. Still, the existing BF-based protocols have scalability limitations and require explicit network management as well as non-trivial functionality from the network components. In this work we address the scalability limitations of the BF-based forwarding protocols by partitioning end-hosts into clusters. We propose several algorithms to do the partitioning so as to decrease the overall traffic in the network. We evaluate our algorithms in a real Internet topology, demonstrating the ability of the proposed design to save up to 70% of traffic volume in the large-scale topology for big groups of subscribers, and up to 30% for small groups.

Evidence for a link between tail biting and central monoamine metabolism in pigs (Sus scrofa domestica)

Tail biting in pigs is a major welfare problem within the swine industry. Even though there is plenty of information on housing and management-related risk factors, the biological bases of this behavioral problem are poorly understood. The aim of this study was to investigate a possible link between tail biting, based on behavioral recordings of pigs during an ongoing outbreak, and certain neurotransmitters in different brain regions of these pigs. We used a total of 33 pigs at a farm with a long-standing problem of tail biting. Three equally big behavioral phenotypic groups, balanced for gender and age were selected, the data thus consisting of 11 trios of pigs. Two of the pigs in each trio originated from the same pen: one tail biter (TB) and one tail biting victim (V). A control (C) pig was selected from a pen without significant tail biting in the same farm room. We found an effect of tail biting behavioral phenotype on the metabolism of serotonin and dopamine, with a tendency for a higher 5-HIAA level in the prefrontal cortex (PFC) of TB compared to the other groups, while V pigs showed changes in both serotonin and dopamine metabolism in the striatum (ST) and limbic cortex (LC). Trp:BCAA and Trp:LNAA correlated positively with serotonin and 5-HIAA in the PFC, but only in TB pigs. Furthermore, in both ST and LC, several of the neurotransmitters and their metabolites correlated positively with the frequency of bites received by the pig. This is the first study indicating a link between brain neurotransmission and tail biting behavior in pigs with TB pigs showing a tendency for increased PFC serotonin metabolism and V pigs showing several changes in central dopamine and serotonin metabolism in their ST and LC, possibly due to the acute stress caused by being bitten.

Controls by organic geochemistry trackers of secondary hydrocarbon accumulation during Neotectonic central uplift of the Tarim basin

Abstract Because of the Himalayan Neotectonic uplift, the Tarim Tectonic Block, a cratonic terrane which contain cover rocks of the Lower Paleozoic marine succession (a marginal basin containing huge petroleum paleo-reservoirs) experienced strong extrusion tendency. This extrusion was one of the most important factors to control the migration or accumulation of petroleum, and impact the pattern of paleo-reservoirs. In the Tarim basin, the Neotectonic activity tilted the Carboniferous and younger formation and activated old fractures. The inherited active faults of Tazhong area are mainly distributed in two big groups, respectively around the central uplift and the Tazhong-I faults. Tazhong-4 structure is combined with the two major fault zones, and is strongly affected by Neotectonics. According to the distribution characteristics of triaromatic dinosterane, 4-methyl-cholestanes and other special biomarkers in the oil samples of Tazhong-4 area, it was showed that oils in the different reservoirs were from the same source. And the vertical Pressure–Volume–Temperature (PVT) characteristics of the petroleum reservoirs changed from unsaturated oils into the unsaturated condensates. It was shown that the Tazhong-4 reservoirs had experienced a complicated accumulation process of multi-period charge, mixture and adjustment, which related closely with the multi-stage compressive Neotectonics affecting the Cenozoic sequences of the Tarim Basin and its lower paleozoic source rocks and paleo-reservoirs. The transport parameters of nitrogen compounds indicated the vertical migration of petroleum in the Tazhong-4 reservoirs. The paleozoic and current oil–water contacts (POWC & OWC) could be clearly separated by the analysis of the grains with oil inclusion (GOI). Based on the gas chromatography of oil–sand between POWC and OWC, biodegradation was not obvious. That reflects the formation of OWC and migration of POWC occurred much later. Recent activity of fault led to vertical migration of hydrocarbons and the OWC of paleo-reservoir ascended. In the central uplift of basin platform area, the multi-stratum hydrocarbons migrated and accumulated along the active faults, opening during Neotectonic activity.

Variable Polymer Properties Driven by Substituent Groups: Investigation on a Trifluorovinylether‐Functionalized Polyfluorene at the C‐9 Position

A new polyfluorene PF‐TFVE with functional trifluorovinylether (–OCF=CF2) groups at the C‐9 position is reported. When heated to high temperatures, the polymer converts to a cross‐linked network (PF‐PFCB), which exhibits much lower dielectric constant and dissipation factor at high frequency than a traditional octyl substituted polyfluorene (PFO) (cf., PF‐PFCB: 2.42 and 0.048; PFO: 3.80 and 0.22 @ 30 MHz). The electronic spectra of PF‐PFCB indicate that it exhibits weaker UV–vis absorption and photoluminescent emission than PFO in the solid state, suggesting that the big substituent groups and the cross‐linked networks in PF‐PFCB hinder the conjugation between two fluorene units. This is the first example revealing that dielectric properties of polyfluorenes can be varied by different substituent groups at the C‐9 position. These results indicate that polyfluorenes can not only be considered as semiconductors, but also as insulators. image

A Direct Renin Inhibitor Aliskiren: Re-Evaluation of Effectiveness

The RAAS is an important pharmacologic target as the system is involved in cardiovascular (CV) and renovascular disease. Ang II is the key component of RAAS. The intervention to the RAAS can be achieved in different stages. While angiotensin converting enzyme inhibitors (ACEIs) and angiotensin receptor blockers (ARBs) are two big groups that target the RAAS, aliskiren a direct renin inhibitor that became clinically feasible in 2007 with the launch of aliskiren. In this review, we will discuss direct renin inhibition as a new concept for pharmacotherapy of hypertension and aliskiren, the first oral direct renin inhibitor, as a new class of antihypertensive drug based on new evidence.

Retinal vein occlusion management algorithm. Part 1. Classification, diagnosis, and acute-stage treatment

Considering an upward global trend in cardiovascular disease rates, retinal vein occlusion (RVO) in particular, development of therapeutic guidelines is a pressing issue in ophthalmology. Risk factors for RVO include hypertension, atherosclerosis, diabetes mellitus, blood disorders, inflammatory disorders, and prescription drug use. Three stages of RVO have been identified. By location, the entity can be divided into three big groups: central retinal vein occlusion (CRVO), branch retinal vein occlusion (BRVO), and hemicentral retinal vein occlusion (HCRVO), each being either ischemic or nonischemic. Functional prognosis is better in nonischemic occlusions. Patient management comprises acute-stage treatment (anticoagulants, fibrinolytic agents, and hemodilution) and struggling with ocular complications (intravitreal injections and laser coagulation). It is essential that primary assessment and follow-up of patients at any stage of RVO include optical coherence tomography and fluorescent angiography.

The History of Junk Bonds and Leveraged Buyouts

Abstract Leveraged buyouts (LBOs) and their effect on the economy (following their history that started in 1919 with the first LBO of Ford Motor Company) cannot be adequately discussed without taking into consideration the junk bonds. The reason for this necessary linkage is directly connected with the power that rests in the junk bonds, because they are used to finance LBO deals. The original-issue high-yield debt instrument, the so-called “junk bond” innovation, was pioneered by Michael Milken of Drexel Burnham, providing many hostile bidders and LBO firms with the enormous amounts of capital needed to finance multi-billion-dollar deals. The history of these two instruments goes hand in hand, as for example, the conjunction between the U.S. recession of the early 1990s along with the junk bond market crash following the fall of the investment bank Drexel Burnham Lambert, brought the first LBO wave (the one that started in 1980) to an end. This is not the only example that shows a true connection between LBOs and junk bonds. This paper aims to bring into light the liaison that exists between these two instruments and the history that was created by the financing of LBOs with junk bonds. The present article will bring into focus the speculations that rests on the idea that the junk bonds has proven to be a life saver to big leveraged buyout groups as companies are able to get access to funding as investors look to invest in companies with high yields. Apart from this subject, this paper will try to figure out the role that the junk bond market plays in new LBO's, especially the ones created after 2012 (there was a slowdown in the LBOs activity after the financial turnover from 2008, and only after 2012 we can observe an improvement in the leveraged buyout market). This research paper will try to stimulate thinking about the effects that are generated on a market by a LBO, the power that exists behind a leveraged buyout (e.g. the junk bonds) and the connection that makes them prevail and become powerful, mainly together.

Commercial Communication in Social Media

Today, the internet has evolved into an instrument from which not only researchers but also ordinary people have great expectations. It offers easy access to information as well as entertainment and consumption opportunities. First, social networking sites started to become popular, then shopping websites gained widespread use, and thus social commerce began to rise. People started to search for others’ experiences in websites before shopping. The internet has thus increasingly become a venue where people share their shopping experiences and preferences. A significant phenomenon of social commerce is perhaps more evident today than anything else in social networking websites such as Facebook and Twitter. In this study, historical development and current situation of social commerce, in which small traders can participate alongside big commercial groups, are examined.

Russian

The paper is concerned with the four big groups of strategies, aimed at the attraction of guests and residents, export of regional goods or industry development, in particular: marketing of image, attractiveness, infrastructure and population (personnel).

J35 Clinical Forms Of Huntington's Disease In The Patients From Republic Of Bashkortostan

<h3>Background</h3> Motor disturbances in Huntington’s disease (HD) can be subdivided into hyperkinetic (choreatic) or hypokinetic-rigid form. Patients with juvenile HD (JHD) also have bradykinesia and dystonia at an early stage of the illness. In different populations the clinical characteristics of patients with HD are similar, but may be a difference in the incidence of clinical forms. <h3>Aim</h3> Our aim was to analyse motor disturbances in patients with HD from Republic of Bashkortostan of various ethnic origins. <h3>Materials and methods</h3> The population of Bashkortostan is 4.07 million people. The population of Bashkirs is 1.2 million (29.5%) according to the 2010 census. Two other big ethnic groups are Russians (36.0%) and Tatars (25.4%). The prevalence of HD in Bashkortostan is 3.6 per 100.000 that compared to other populations. <h3>Results</h3> The majority of patients with HD had the hyperkinetic form of the disease. All groups (patients with HD from Bashkir, Russian, Tatar ethnic groups) showed no differences in the motor age of onset (p &gt; 0.02). Cases of JHD were observed in two families: Russian and Tatar ethnicities. Cases of HD with hypokinetic-rigid form were often observed in Bashkir families with HD (motor age of onset ranged from 27 to 32 years of life, number of CAG-repeats in HTT-gene varied from 43–47). <h3>Conclusion</h3> Analysis of the clinical features of HD and DNA-diagnostics will help to early diagnosis and effective genetic counselling in the families with HD.

INTEGRATION OF CLOUD COMPUTING PLATFORM TO GRID INFRASTRUCTURE

Both grid and cloud are used to organize large scale calculations and data processing on remote computers. Grid which became a basic computing infrastructure for the Large Hadron Collider experiments provides unified technical solutions for sharing and merging distributed heterogeneous computing resources within big collaboration groups. Cloud became popular among data centers and computing service providers because of flexibility, manageability and efficient hardware utilization. Both share common ideology “computing as a service”, so one can expect additional benefits from their integration. The paper describes our approach to the integration. We propose to use cloud within grid sites for acceleration of application deployment and easy support of multiple virtual organizations by grid sites. The cloud in grid approach has been implemented and tested in Ukrainian National Grid, a part of European Grid Infrastructure.

Effects of wildfire on sea otter (Enhydra lutris) gene transcript profiles

AbstractWildfires have been shown to impact terrestrial species over a range of temporal scales. Little is known, however, about the more subtle toxicological effects of wildfires, particularly in downstream marine or downwind locations from the wildfire perimeter. These down‐current effects may be just as substantial as those effects within the perimeter. We used gene transcription technology, a sensitive indicator of immunological perturbation, to study the effects of the 2008 Basin Complex Fire on the California coast on a sentinel marine species, the sea otter (Enhydra lutris). We captured sea otters in 2008 (3 mo after the Basin Complex Fire was controlled) and 2009 (15 mo after the Basin Complex Fire was controlled) in the adjacent nearshore environment near Big Sur, California. Gene responses were distinctly different between Big Sur temporal groups, signifying detoxification of PAHs, possible associated response to potential malignant transformation, and suppression of immune function as the primary responses of sea otters to fire in 2008 compared to those captured in 2009. In general, gene transcription patterns in the 2008 sea otters were indicative of molecular reactions to organic exposure, malignant transformation, and decreased ability to respond to pathogens that seemed to consistent with short‐term hydrocarbon exposure.

EFFECTS OF THE SCATTER IN SUNSPOT GROUP TILT ANGLES ON THE LARGE-SCALE MAGNETIC FIELD AT THE SOLAR SURFACE

The tilt angles of sunspot groups represent the poloidal field source in Babcock-Leighton-type models of the solar dynamo and are crucial for the build-up and reversals of the polar fields in Surface Flux Transport (SFT) simulations. The evolution of the polar field is a consequence of Hale's polarity rules, together with the tilt angle distribution which has a systematic component (Joy's law) and a random component (tilt-angle scatter). We determine the scatter using the observed tilt angle data and study the effects of this scatter on the evolution of the solar surface field using SFT simulations with flux input based upon the recorded sunspot groups. The tilt angle scatter is described in our simulations by a random component according to the observed distributions for different ranges of sunspot group size (total umbral area). By performing simulations with a number of different realizations of the scatter we study the effect of the tilt angle scatter on the global magnetic field, especially on the evolution of the axial dipole moment. The average axial dipole moment at the end of cycle 17 (a medium-amplitude cycle) from our simulations was 2.73G. The tilt angle scatter leads to an uncertainty of 0.78 G (standard deviation). We also considered cycle 14 (a weak cycle) and cycle 19 (a strong cycle) and show that the standard deviation of the axial dipole moment is similar for all three cycles. The uncertainty mainly results from the big sunspot groups which emerge near the equator. In the framework of Babcock-Leighton dynamo models, the tilt angle scatter therefore constitutes a significant random factor in the cycle-to-cycle amplitude variability, which strongly limits the predictability of solar activity.

Selling Services IS Different from Selling Soup – A Thought Leader Interview with Professor Leonard Berry

In this our fourth special issue based on service management papers presented at QUIS we changed the format of having an interview with a prominent service executive to interviewing a service thought leader. This change allows us to introduce leading contributors to service management from the academic world to readers of JAME. Thus we use this interview feature to introduce readers to Len Berry, not only a leading contributor to the theory and research on services marketing and management, but also an individual who helped develop the field of services marketing. Len has not only created some important tools for measuring service quality but has also expanded his early work in marketing to include the study of how management practices and systems influence service excellence. He has published three major books assessing the characteristics of service exemplars and written numerous articles in both marketing and management journals reporting the findings of his extensive field studies of these organizations. We are delighted to share his thoughts with you in this special issue and hope you are as intrigued with his ideas as we are.Authors: Thanks for taking the time to talk to us today. You have had a remarkable career and certainly can be considered one of the key pioneers responsible for developing the relatively new discipline of services marketing and management. Let us begin with an obvious question. What sparked your initial curiosity into the largely unexplored academic area that we now call 'services marketing?'LB: When I was a brand new assistant professor, 2 or 3 years after earning my PhD in marketing at Arizona State University in 1968, the phone rang one day and it was the American Bankers Association in Washington D.C. calling. Why they called me, I'll never know. They wanted to know if I would be interested in collaborating on a textbook on bank marketing. They had identified another marketing professor at the University of Kentucky, Jim Donnelly, who was interested and they wondered if I would also be interested in collaborating with Jim on this. field of banking did not have a marketing textbook at that time. American Bankers Association has an educational arm called The American Institute of Banking (AIB) which puts on various banking related courses in schools. And they needed a textbook for a new marketing course that they were going to offer through the AIB. So I said yes even though I didn't know Jim! We met, talked about it, and wrote our book. And the book was successful. That launched a mini career for Jim and me in that period of time in the 1970s. We spent considerable time traversing the country and giving seminars to state banking associations and other groups about bank marketing based on the research and marketing ideas from our book. I spent most of the 70s studying financial services marketing and interacting with bankers and then teaching bank marketing to big groups of bankers, which was totally unexpected when I had finished my doctorate and started my career. I was going along happily not really thinking what else I was going to do. I was not a strategic career planner at the time - I was a rookie professor. I was getting paid. I was getting published. It occurred to me in that period that what I was teaching in bank marketing, what was in our book, was quite different from what I learned as a PhD student in marketing. What I really learned in my classwork was manufactured goods marketing - services marketing is different. That time with the bankers and doing bank marketing, which extended into the early 80s, is what sparked my interest in services marketing.Authors: In your own career, was there a watershed moment/research project/consulting job/influential person that changed the direction of your thinking on service management?LB: One watershed moment was reading a book in 1975 by Stanley Marcus called Minding the Store (Neiman Marcus Stores). It was a beautifully crafted, compelling book about the service philosophy that separated Neiman Marcus from other retailers of its era. …