Importance Of Specialization Research Articles

Attitudes and beliefs of little league baseball parents regarding sport specialization and college scholarship availability

ABSTRACT Objectives Previous studies of parents of adolescent athletes identified a belief among parents of the importance of early specialization for skill development. However, it is unclear if these attitudes and beliefs are also held among parents of baseball athletes, which is the second-most popular boy’s sport in the United States. The purpose of this study was to describe the knowledge, attitudes, and beliefs of parents of Little League baseball players regarding sport specialization and college scholarships. Methods Two-hundred and forty-four parents of Little League baseball players (female parents: 60.7%, parent age: 41.1 ± 6.2 years old, male children: 98.0%, child age: 9.5 ± 1.6 years old) completed an anonymous online questionnaire regarding parent attitudes and beliefs on sport specialization and college scholarships. Results Most parents (72.4%) felt that specialization would increase their child’s baseball ability either ‘quite a bit’ or ‘a great deal.’ Fewer than half of all parents (42.0%) reported that specialization was either ‘quite a bit’ or ‘a great deal’ of a problem. Parents underestimated the availability of Division I college baseball scholarship availability (median [IQR]: 5 [4–10]), compared to the actual value of 11.7 scholarships per Division I roster. Only 10.2% of parents (N = 25) reported that they believed it was ‘somewhat’ or ‘very’ likely that their child would receive a college baseball scholarship. Conclusion Further efforts are needed to understand parent attitudes and beliefs regarding sport specialization and college scholarships in various sports to better understand current trends in youth sport participation.

The economic importance of specialization in construction

The economic importance of specialization in construction

Education as a destructor of social order

Introduction. The article examines the problem of the interdependence of the state and processes of changing the social order from the state and processes of changing social institutions designed to guarantee its stability. As one of such institutions, the educational system is considered, which in its traditional state actively performed a protective function, acting as a guarantor of the stability of the social order. In the context of the fourth industrial Revolution, the content and form of educational practices and the entire educational space have changed so much that education as a social institution loses the prerogative of protecting and guaranteeing the stability of the social order. The purpose of the article is to determine the main substrates underlying the social order on the basis of the historical and philosophical classification of the social order concepts, to show which turbulent phenomena in education most deform these substrates and thereby disqualify education in its function as a guarantor of the stability of both the social order and society as a whole. Materials and Methods. The historical and philosophical approach made it possible to form and classify the main concepts in the understanding of the social order and to differentiate its substrate bases using the tabular method. The activity-based and structural-functional approaches allowed us to identify the deforming phenomena that occur today in Russian education and have the greatest impact on the destabilization of the social order. To substantiate the conceptual and methodological basis of the study, the method of critical analysis of current research literature and the interpretation of the results obtained in it is used. Results. Historical and philosophical analysis has shown that the underlying foundations of the stability of the social order are (both in historical and modern explication) coercion, interests, values and norms, as well as cultural inertia. Social institutions (education, science, religion, law, etc.) ensure the functioning of the substrate bases, their correction in the direction of compliance with state needs, and thereby stabilize the existing social order as a system of governance and power mechanisms. However, the fourth technological revolution, which began in the second half of the XX – beginning of the XXI century, radically changed the functionality of social institutions. This historical period, due to the significance of the changes, was called the “era of turbulence” (A. Greenspan's term). This could not but affect the stability and foundations of the social order. The most pronounced deformations in the era of turbulence are those of education and science, that is, precisely those social institutions that, along with law and culture, in traditional societies served as a guarantor of the stability of the state. The greatest destabilizing effect of education on the social order is: the ongoing change in organizational paradigms of interaction between education and other spheres of public life (from “education-science-production” to “university – government – business”); the change in the status of subjects of educational interactions: the main object of educational interactions is the individual, business systems and the family, and not the state; fictivization of education (especially higher education) in its classical form, which manifests itself in the growing importance of virtual learning, narrow specialization and massization; the growth of educational inequality with its development into a social one. These phenomena really destabilize the social order both as values/norms, as cultural traditions, and as dialectically combined interests of the authorities and individuals. Conclusions. The study of the interactions of the social order has shown that the turbulent phenomena occurring in the social institutions of society can radically affect the stability of the social order. This, in turn, increases the turbulence in society as a whole.

Floristics of forests across low nutrient soils in Sulawesi, Indonesia

AbstractThe island of Sulawesi formed from the joining of proto‐islands roughly three million years ago. Regions of zoological endemism, corresponding to the proto‐islands, have been reported. Sulawesi's tree communities, however, remain poorly documented. In better‐studied tropical regions, soil types similar to those found in Sulawesi often have distinctive tree communities. To gather data on Sulawesi's tree communities, we established ten (0.25 ha) plots on four soil types across three regions. We documented diversity, endemism, dominance, and species composition. Linear models of species composition showed greater influence of geographic distance rather than soil, and no relationship with climate. This suggests that the legacy of Sulawesi's formation may have influenced tree communities more so than the soil types we sampled. Most of our plots were on stressful soil types making it difficult to conclude on the importance of edaphic specialization in the Sulawesi tree flora. The lack of climatic effects reflects Sulawesi's position within the wet tropics where the small climatic differences are unlikely to have large influence on tree communities.Abstract in Indonesian is available with online material.

Effects of dispersal- and niche-based factors on tree recruitment in tropical wet forest restoration.

Both dispersal- and niche-based factors can impose major barriers on tree establishment. Our understanding of how these factors interact to determine recruitment rates is based primarily on findings from mature tropical forests, despite the fact that a majority of tropical forests are now secondary. Consequently, factors influencing seed limitation and the seed-to-seedling transition (STS) in disturbed landscapes, and how those factors shift during succession, are not well understood. We used a 3.5-yr record of seed rain and seedling establishment to investigate factors influencing tree recruitment after a decade of recovery in a tropical wet forest restoration experiment in southern Costa Rica. We asked (1) how do a range of restoration treatments (natural regeneration, applied nucleation, plantation), canopy cover, and life-history traits influence the STS and (2) how do seed and establishment limitation (lack of seed arrival or lack of seedling recruitment, respectively) influence vegetation recovery within restoration treatments as compared to remnant forest? We did not observe any differences in STS rates across restoration treatments. However, STS rates were lowest in adjacent later successional remnant forests, where seed source availability did not highly limit seed arrival, underscoring that niche-based processes may increasingly limit recruitment as succession unfolds. Additionally, larger-seeded species had consistently higher STS rates across treatments and remnant forests, though establishment limitation for these species was lowest in the remnant forests. Species were generally seedlimited and almostall were establishment limited; these patterns were consistent across treatments. However, our results suggest that differences in recruitment rates could be driven by differential dispersal to treatments with higher canopy cover. We found evidence that barriers to recruitment shift during succession, with the influence of seed limitation, mediated by species-level seed deposition rates, giving way to niche-based processes. However, establishment limitation was lowest in the remnant forests for large-seeded and late successional species, highlighting the importance of habitat specialization and life-history traits in dictating recruitment dynamics. Overall, results demonstrate that active restoration approaches such as tree planting catalyze forest recovery, not only by decreasing components of seed limitation, but also by developing canopy cover that increases establishment rates of larger-seeded species.

The Impact of Socio-Economic Changes in Tourism on the Business Specialization of Travel Agencies

In response to new trends in the behavior of tourists when choosing tourism products (packages) that are in fact determined by social and economic factors in the environment, travel agencies need to adapt their operations and business functions to new terms. Specialization seems possible response to new trends in consumer behavior. In order to study the significance of the hypothesis according to which socio-economic changes in tourism result in the need for the frequent and extremely narrow specialization of operations of travel agencies, for the purpose of this paper primary research was conducted in Croatia. Empirical research was conducted using a sample survey of 200 travel agencies in Croatia and the method of inferential statistics with multiple logistic regression models. Results of the survey on a sample of travel agencies show that managers recognize the importance of specialization for their operations, and socio-economic changes represent "an incentive to the business specialization. Managers of travel agencies undergoing the specialization process take into account specific tourist motives (adventures, new experiences, culture), as well as economic changes reflected in purchasing power. The study shows that socio-economic changes in tourism result in a need for frequent and very narrow business specialization of travel agencies.

Heterogeneous nitrogen fixation rates confer energetic advantage and expanded ecological niche of unicellular diazotroph populations

Nitrogen fixing plankton provide nitrogen to fuel marine ecosystems and biogeochemical cycles but the factors that constrain their growth and habitat remain poorly understood. Here we investigate the importance of metabolic specialization in unicellular diazotroph populations, using laboratory experiments and model simulations. In clonal cultures of Crocosphaera watsonii and Cyanothece sp. spiked with 15N2, cellular 15N enrichment developed a bimodal distribution within colonies, indicating that N2 fixation was confined to a subpopulation. In a model of population metabolism, heterogeneous nitrogen (N2) fixation rates substantially reduce the respiration rate required to protect nitrogenase from O2. The energy savings from metabolic specialization is highest at slow growth rates, allowing populations to survive in deeper waters where light is low but nutrients are high. Our results suggest that heterogeneous N2 fixation in colonies of unicellular diazotrophs confers an energetic advantage that expands the ecological niche and may have facilitated the evolution of multicellular diazotrophs.

Integration conditions and „new” development and management possibilities of regional structures – the importance of smart specialization

Purpose: The main goal of the study is to document and attempt to assess the impact of the latest European Union development strategy, i.e. Europe 2020 Strategy. It is inextricably linked to smart specialization, development and competitive capabilities of regions of EU member states. The partial goals are:  presenting Europe 2020 Strategy in the context of setting goals and management areas for regional policy which is part of multi-level transnational structure management in EU the Europe 2020 Strategy setting goals and management for regional policy and region will be described;  presenting smart specialization as a result of the development of integration conditions and determining new opportunities, challenges, decision-management orders for EU regions. Design/methodology/approach: At work, the authors mainly use source materials of European Commission, as well as foreign language studies which are also based on source material from EU institutions. Sometimes the authors had to use archival materials to take into account the value and sense of the latest integration conditions. Findings: The work mainly shows the links between: Europe 2020 Strategy, regional policy, regions of member states, smart specialization, guidelines for multi-level management in an international structure, and practicalisation of a development strategy. Practical implications: A member country of an integration group (EU) should be viewed in the context of an international structure and multi-level governance (including decision29 making). The consequences of that concern the impact on the member state, on the regions, on other entities in the regions. This is mainly about implementation of knowledge, environmental protection, quality of human capital. Changes (or actually adaptations) also apply to socio32 economic development. Social implications: The analyzes, documentation and authors’ suggestions regarding mutual dependencies and connections carried out here, have an undoubted impact on society. Europe 2020 Strategy has a social dimension in all its assumptions. And they concern intelligent growth, sustainable growth, but also (above all) the growth of social integration.Originality/value: The study has values of originality because it goes beyond the collected materials and their presentation. The collected materials were used to capture relationships and interrelationships. A development strategy and smart specialization were used to present the latest integration conditions. Then, these conditions were presented as guidelines for multi-level governance and, consequently, for the competitiveness of European Union and its regions in the global economy

Disruptions in Spatial Networks: a Comparative Study of Major Shocks Affecting Ports and Shipping Patterns

In this research, the effect of local exogenous shocks on seaports and maritime networks is assessed throughout three case-studies. The Hanshin-Awaji earthquake, the 9/11 World Trade Center attack and hurricane Katrina triggered a shock on Kobe, New York and New Orleans respectively and led to temporary port failures. A global database on vessel movements is computed to gauge the intensity, duration and scope of these shocks with descriptive statistics. Port-centered analyses of the disrupted ports and their geographic as well as topological neighbors are conducted to assess the resilience of local port systems using traffic volumes, distances, and graph-theoretical methods at various time scales, from daily to yearly evolutions. Main results demonstrate certain similarities between the three cases given the importance of traffic specialization and of the spatial range of disruption.

Injury Risk Associated With Sports Specialization and Activity Volume in Youth.

Background:Sports specialization has become increasingly common among youth.Purpose/Hypothesis:To investigate the relative importance of specialization vs volume of activity in increasing risk of injury. Hypotheses were that specialization increases the risk of injury and that risk varies by sport.Study Design:Cohort study; Level of evidence, 2.Methods:A prospective analysis was conducted with data collected from 10,138 youth in the Growing Up Today Study—a prospective cohort study of youth throughout the United States—and their mothers. Activity was assessed via questionnaires in 1997, 1998, 1999, and 2001. Sports specialization was defined as engaging in a single sport in the fall, winter, and spring. Injury history was provided by participants’ mothers via questionnaire in 2004. The outcome was incident stress fracture, tendinitis, chondromalacia patella, anterior cruciate ligament tear, or osteochondritis dissecans or osteochondral defect.Results:Females who engaged in sports specialization were at increased risk of injury (hazard ratio [HR], 1.31; 95% CI, 1.07-1.61), but risk varied by sport. Sports specialization was associated with greater volume of physical activity in both sexes (P < .0001). Total hours per week of vigorous activity was predictive of developing injury, regardless of what other variables were included in the statistical model (males: HR, 1.04; 95% CI, 1.02-1.06; females: HR, 1.06; 95% CI, 1.05-1.08). Among females, even those engaging in 3 to 3.9 hours per week less than their age were at a significantly increased risk of injury (HR, 1.93; 95% CI, 1.34-2.77). In males, there was no clear pattern of risk.Conclusion:Sports specialization is associated with a greater volume of vigorous sports activity and increased risk of injury. Parents, coaches, and medical providers need to be made aware of the volume threshold above which physical activity is excessive.

The alternative regenerative strategy of bearded dragon unveils the key processes underlying vertebrate tooth renewal

Deep understanding of tooth regeneration is hampered by the lack of lifelong replacing oral dentition in most conventional models. Here, we show that the bearded dragon, one of the rare vertebrate species with both polyphyodont and monophyodont teeth, constitutes a key model for filling this gap, allowing direct comparison of extreme dentition types. Our developmental and high-throughput transcriptomic data of microdissected dental cells unveils the critical importance of successional dental lamina patterning, in addition to maintenance, for vertebrate tooth renewal. This patterning process happens at various levels, including directional growth but also gene expression levels, dynamics, and regionalization, and involves a large number of yet uncharacterized dental genes. Furthermore, the alternative renewal mechanism of bearded dragon dentition, with dual location of slow-cycling cells, demonstrates the importance of cell migration and functional specialization of putative epithelial stem/progenitor niches in tissue regeneration, while expanding the diversity of dental replacement strategies in vertebrates.

The Impact of Heterogeneity on Single-Cell Sequencing.

The importance of diversity and cellular specialization is clear for many reasons, from population-level diversification, to improved resiliency to unforeseen stresses, to unique functions within metazoan organisms during development and differentiation. However, the level of cellular heterogeneity is just now becoming clear through the integration of genome-wide analyses and more cost effective Next Generation Sequencing (NGS). With easy access to single-cell NGS (scNGS), new opportunities exist to examine different levels of gene expression and somatic mutational heterogeneity, but these assays can generate yottabyte scale data. Here, we model the importance of heterogeneity for large-scale analysis of scNGS data, with a focus on the utilization in oncology and other diseases, providing a guide to aid in sample size and experimental design.

Asymmetrical habitat coupling of an aquatic predator-The importance of individual specialization.

Predators should stabilize food webs because they can move between spatially separate habitats. However, predators adapted to forage on local resources may have a reduced ability to couple habitats. Here, we show clear asymmetry in the ability to couple habitats by Eurasian perch—a common polymorphic predator in European lakes. We sampled perch from two spatially separate habitats—pelagic and littoral zones—in Lake Erken, Sweden. Littoral perch showed stronger individual specialization, but they also used resources from the pelagic zone, indicating their ability to couple habitats. In contrast, pelagic perch showed weaker individual specialization but near complete reliance on pelagic resources, indicating their preference to one habitat. This asymmetry in the habitat coupling ability of perch challenges the expectation that, in general, predators should stabilize spatially separated food webs. Our results suggest that habitat coupling might be constrained by morphological adaptations, which in this case were not related to genetic differentiation but were more likely related to differences in individual specialization.

Identification of Smart Regions with Resilience, Specialisation and Labour Intensity of globally Competitive Sector – The Examination of the LAU-1 Regions in Finland

The purpose of the study is to construct smart specialization indicators for LAU-1 regions in Finland. Established indices are based on indicators on region’s revealed comparative advantage, and the degree of diversification in its sub-regional industrial structure. Further, we introduce a measure that can be used to assess the socio-economic importance (employment) of diversification and specialization for a region. The data of indices is based on the Statistic Finland (2015) with Local Administrative Unit level 1 (LAU1), 70 regions in Finland. The potential S3 Indices measured here reveal sub-region’s Smart specialization position within 70 sub-region in Finland in 2015. The common economic knowledge states that manufacturing industries are the most export-oriented, highly productive, and thus, can approximate the region’s success in international trade and competitive advantages. The study is based on smart specialization indices: the Herfindahl-Hirschman Index for regional resilience (HHI), regional relative specialization index (RRSI) based on Balassa-Hoover Index (B-H), and the relative employment volume index in manufacturing sector (LIMI). By index examination, we can obtain knowledge about a region’s smart specialization status and potentials. Results reveal that, firstly, each sub-region has its own smart specialization characters with different risk profile. Secondly, specialization strategy (RRSI) in smart specialization has yielded more secure strategy than sub-regional resilience strategy in Finland. Sub-regions like Helsinki and Tampere have similar industrial structure like Finland as whole and they are resilient: they will benefit from nation-wide economic and industrial policy, and they have good ability to resist economic shocks. Our study reveals that there are some other similar smaller (LAU-1) sub-regions in Finland – like Rauma. As such, this kind of research based basic information is critical to been taken into account while constructing sustainable strategies for regional development. Similar calculations can be performed for all regions in Europe. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5755/j01.eis.0.12.21872

Economic Prospects of Balanced Development of International Relations

The article deals with the systematization of economic prospects of balanced development of international relations. It is established that the prerequisites for rapid development are special conditions of certain factors, which acquire different acuteness or form as institutional determinants of development. It is proved that the balanced development of international relations is associated not only with economic issues, but also with social features, political conflicts, and history. Globalization, which has originally manifested itself as liberalization, and then as the integration of capital, goods, and labor into a single world market also complicates the problem. The article highlights the importance of specialization because it is specialization that provides an opportunity to increase efficiency at the level of individuals, organizations, regions, and countries through the effect of scale, comparative advantages, and technological changes.

Stakeholder perspectives on integrated services for people who experience chronic homelessness

ABSTRACTThis article concerns a SAMHSA-funded service intervention, Pathways to Independence, that combined the use of SAMHSA’s SSI/SSDI Outreach, Access, and Recovery approach to facilitating disability entitlement claims with financial management classes, mental health assessment and referral, and access to employment and housing for people experiencing chronic homelessness. The purpose of this study was to explore perceptions of this form of service delivery and the benefits and challenges of the program model from the perspective of those who experienced it. Focus groups were conducted with a total of 17 program stakeholders, including program participants, program staff, collaborating case management staff of the parent agency, and a landlord and an employer, with questions to each regarding the program and its impact. Focus groups were analyzed through independent coding followed by discussion to reach consensus on key themes. Five themes were identified across the groups: (a) the importance of relationships, (b) staff specialization and provision of individualized services, (c) an orientation to outcomes, (d) comprehensiveness of services and facilitation of connections to community resources, and (e) systems challenges. The Pathways to Independence program provides a working model for integrated employment, entitlement assessment and application, housing, and behavioral health treatment for persons experiencing chronic homelessness.

C-Maf and STAT3 are essential but distinct regulators of RORγt+ and follicular regulatory T cells

Abstract Foxp3+ regulatory T cells (Tregs) must adapt to function within a wide range of tissue environments and types of immune response. This flexibility is achieved through specialization, whereby context-dependent transcriptional changes integrate unique functionality into general Treg programming. In the most well-studied examples, this involves the co-expression of Foxp3 and another “lineage-defining” transcription factor (TF) which confers expression of specific functional genes. Two such specialized populations are RORγt+ Tregs and Bcl-6+ T follicular regulatory (Tfr) cells, which have important functions in regulating colitis and humoral immune responses, respectively. Although the importance of Treg specialization is now clear, the underlying network of signals and TFs driving this process is largely undefined. Here, we identify the TF c-Maf as an essential regulator of Treg specialization for both RORγt+ Tregs and Tfr cells. Importantly, the role of c-Maf in these subsets is highly specific, because deletion of Maf does not affect general Treg development, generation of other specialized Tregs, or expression of suppressive molecules. In vitro, we show that addition of IL-6 to Treg-promoting conditions is sufficient to drive both c-Maf expression and c-Maf-dependent conversion of naïve T cells to RORγt+ Tregs, suggesting that IL-6 might drive c-Maf in vivo. Surprisingly, although STAT3 – the primary downstream effector of IL-6 – is required for development of both RORγt+ Tregs and Tfr cells, we find that Stat3 deletion in vivo does not ablate c-Maf expression and results in Treg defects distinct from Maf deletion. Therefore, c-Maf and STAT3 are cooperative, but distinct regulators of RORγt+ and follicular Treg development.

The Effect of Venture Capitalists Straying from Their Industry Comfort Zones

I analyze the effect on venture capitalist exit performance of investments made outside of a venture capitalist’s preferred investment industry. My findings are as follows: Venture backed investments are significantly more likely to have successful exits when the backing venture capitalists makes an in an investment in a firm within their preferred investment industry. I also show that when a venture capitalists invests outside of their preferred investment industry the negative effect of doing so can at least be partially overcome by co-investing with another venture capitalist that has the same investment focus as the investment firm. The negative effect of an investment outside of the venture capitalists preferred investment industry is also shown to be more pronounced the greater the difference between the venture capital’s industry investment focus and the industry of the investment firm. An out of industry comfort zone investment is also shown to have a deferential effect depending on the investment industry, more specifically, a positive effect is shown in less specialized industries and a negative effect in more specialized industries. I also show that as venture capitalist become more experienced the cost of investing outside of their industry specialization becomes greater. Using yearly changes in venture capital dry powder as an exogenous shock to a venture capitalist’s willingness to invest outside of their industry comfort zone, additional support is given to the negative effect of investing outside a venture capitalist’s industry comfort zone. Overall, my results indicate the importance of venture capital industry specialization and that those venture capitalists that invest outside of their industry focus will have a negative effect on exit success likelihoods, which becomes more severe the more specialized the industry is and the greater the difference between the investment industry and the preferred investment industry.

Learning about individual managers’ performance in UK pension funds: The importance of specialization

This study examines the performance of managers over time, as well as its persistence, taking into account both manager characteristics and market conditions. Applying parametric and non-parametric methodologies, we examine a sample of UK equity pension fund managers. Our results help to understand the importance of manager assignments in the industry and reveal the importance and benefits of management specialization. We find certain manager performance persistence, revealing that some managers are better than others and possess superior investment skills. Additionally, we find that managers achieve better results when they run a single fund or one investment-objective funds, which allows managers to focus on specific tasks. Nonetheless, manager performance varies with market conditions and highlights managers’ different skills. Specialist managers perform better in bullish markets, and generalists perform better in bearish periods.

Mapping the nursing competences in neonatology: a qualitative research.

There are several studies that support the importance of advanced expertise and specialization of the neonatal pediatric nurse. However, proceeding with a analysis of the scientific literature regarding the nursing advanced competence in neonatology, very few studies specify and define these competences. The aim of the study is investigate and analyze skills, tasks and responsibilities of the neonatal pediatric nurse, to map a "neonatal nurse competence profile", offered from the points of view of the Neonatology Units professionals. 32 professionals (nurses, physicians, psychologists, healthcare assistants) operating in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit of two Italian Hospitals were interviewed. The semi-structured interviews have been performed, transcribed and analyzed following the Levati's model (based on Activity, Expectations and Evaluation system). About the nurses activities, the participants underlined the newborn care, the care of the caregiver and the "bureaucratic" activities. About the system of expectations, the participants marked on specific skills but those are described only comprehensively. About the evaluation system there are different perceptions among the professionals, but the nurses themselves feel that they have to answer for their actions primarily to infants and families, indicating a sense of responsibility towards the patients. On the basis of the interviews a profile of a neonatal nurse competences has been drawn up. This consists of 42 competences that future studies can further specify, integrate and expand.