Trends in South-South Cooperation

South-South Cooperation (SSC) is being impacted by the emergence of economic behemoths?India, Brazil, China and South Africa. In 2006 alone, about US$3 billion in development assistance came from Southern contributors (Johnson, Versailles and Martin, 2008). What comes next? What are the trends and pressing demands in SSC?Trends in South-South Cooperation

On robust network coding subgraph construction under uncertainty

We consider the problem of network coding subgraph construction in networks where there is uncertainty about link loss rates. For a given set of scenarios specified by an uncertainty set of link loss rates, we provide a robust optimization-based formulation to construct a single subgraph that would work relatively well across all scenarios. We show that this problem is coNP-hard in general for both objectives: minimizing cost of subgraph construction and maximizing throughput given a cost constraint. To solve the problem tractably, we approximate the problem by introducing path constraints, which results in polynomial time-solvable solution in terms of the problem size. The simulation results show that the robust optimization solution is better and more stable than the deterministic solution in terms of worst-case performance. From these results, we compare the tractability of robust network design problems with different uncertain network components and different problem formulations

Abstract

Emotion regulation plays an essential role in an individual’s well being. Recent research on regulation of positive emotions has linked savoring to better mental health outcomes, such as fewer depressive symptoms. In light of gender difference in depression, the current study aimed to examine the degree to which a certain savoring strategy (i.e., positive mental time travel) influences depression, and whether gender plays a role in this association. In this study, the sample size consisted of 546 college students (135 males; 411 females) who completed online questionnaires about their reactions to different emotional situations and their depressive symptoms. Our results showed there was no gender difference in depression. Higher levels of positive mental time travel were associated lower levels of depression, after controlling for age and social economic status. The results also indicated that gender did not moderate the association between the use of Positive mental time travel and depression. Overall, the findings suggest that using positive mental time travel is protective for depression and may help decrease depression for those who use it

What Triggers Impulse Purchase Behavior: The Moderating Effects of User Expertise and Product Type

Exposing consumers to persuasive cues can cause them to make impulse purchases. Persuasive cues can be heuristic cue or systematic cue. Heuristic cue uses simple rules to process the information such as identity of the source or other non-content cues. Systematic cue emphasizes detailed processing of message content and uses message-relevant content or arguments to assist in decision making. The features of heuristic cue and systematic cue are investigated to see how they can impact one’s impulse purchase behavior. The amount of expertise a consumer has in a specific product type (search or experience) will shape the relationships between persuasive cues and impulse purchase. The findings contribute to the impulse purchase literature and help merchants and website designers decide on what persuasive cues to provide consumers without overloading them with unnecessary information. To consumers, they will have better grip on their own impulse purchase behavior when exposed to persuasive cues

Exploring Factors Influencing the Willingness to Communicate among English-as-a-Second Language University Students

This present study anchored its inquiry in English oral communication and learning English as a second language. The purpose of the study was to explore the factors that influence the willingness to communicate (WTC) of ESL university students from the perspectives of both the students and their oral communication professor. Since the 1980s, WTC among ESL university students has attracted increasing attention because helping them communicate authentically is essential. WTC is correlated with overall English language proficiency because of its equal weight with the other language skills. Therefore, ESL students have targeted WTC as a vital skill. However, research on factors that influence WTC of ESL university students draws largely from the perspective of the students, with little attention to the perspective of the professors. Moreover, no research focuses on the perspectives of the ESL university students and their professor. To fill in the gap, the current study has set out to explore factors influencing the WTC of ESL university students from the perspectives of students and their professor, by means of class observations, one-on-one and focus group interviews with students, as well as a narrative interview with course professor. The data were collected from ESL university students at the low intermediate level and their oral communication professor at a Northern California university. Thirteen out of 14 students participated in the one-on-one interviews; 11 out of the 13 students participated in the focus group interviews, along with a narrative interview with the professor. The student participants reported six factors influencing their WTC while the course professor identified four factors influencing his students\u27 WTC. The researcher integrated the factors from the students and professor, and five themes emerged from the study, which mostly centered on the sociocultural theory and social constructivism of Vygotsky. The results of this study have implications for the fields of second language teaching pedagogy, teacher knowledge, second language training, classroom and cultural dynamics, and research methods. More studies on factors influencing the WTC of ESL university students would improve the WTC of ESL university students coupled with an increase in English proficiency

Early Maladaptive Schemas and Mental Disorders in Adulthood: a Systematic Review and Meta-analysis

Early maladaptive schemas (EMSs) are broad and pervasive themes regarding oneself and one’s relationships with others originating from adverse childhood experiences. Although the concept of EMSs was initially developed for the treatment of personality disorders, the associations of EMSs with a variety of other mental disorders have been investigated. The goal of the present study was to summarize and analyze the EMSsdisorder associations in studies in which patients with specifc psychiatric diagnoses were compared to healthy controls. Of the 28 studies that met the inclusion criteria, 27 were included in a meta-analysis. Across diagnoses, all EMSs were elevated in the clinical groups. The largest efect sizes were observed for the social isolation, the negativity/pessimism, the defectiveness/shame, and social undesirability schemas. Depression (n=8), borderline personality disorder (n=5), and obsessive–compulsive disorder (n=5) were the most frequently studied mental disorders. Heterogeneity between studies was high. Results suggest that mental disorders are not characterized by specifc EMSs

On the utility of network coding in dynamic environments

Many wireless applications, such as ad-hoc networks and sensor networks, require decentralized operation in dynamically varying environments. We consider a distributed randomized network coding approach that enables efficient decentralized operation of multi-source multicast networks. We show that this approach provides substantial benefits over traditional routing methods in dynamically varying environments. We present a set of empirical trials measuring the performance of network coding versus an approximate online Steiner tree routing approach when connections vary dynamically. The results show that network coding achieves superior performance in a significant fraction of our randomly generated network examples. Such dynamic settings represent a substantially broader class of networking problems than previously recognized for which network coding shows promise of significant practical benefits compared to routing

Evolutionary Approaches to Minimizing Network Coding Resources

We wish to minimize the resources used for network coding while achieving the desired throughput in a multicast scenario. We employ evolutionary approaches, based on a genetic algorithm, that avoid the computational complexity that makes the problem NP-hard. Our experiments show great improvements over the sub-optimal solutions of prior methods. Our new algorithms improve over our previously proposed algorithm in three ways. First, whereas the previous algorithm can be applied only to acyclic networks, our new method works also with networks with cycles. Second, we enrich the set of components used in the genetic algorithm, which improves the performance. Third, we develop a novel distributed framework. Combining distributed random network coding with our distributed optimization yields a network coding protocol where the resources used for coding are optimized in the setup phase by running our evolutionary algorithm at each node of the network. We demonstrate the effectiveness of our approach by carrying out simulations on a number of different sets of network topologies.Comment: 9 pages, 6 figures, accepted to the 26th Annual IEEE Conference on Computer Communications (INFOCOM 2007

Factors Related to Intra-Tendinous Morphology of Achilles Tendon in Runners

The purpose of this study was to determine and explore factors (age, sex, anthropometry, running and injury/pain history, tendon gross morphology, neovascularization, ankle range of motion, and ankle plantarflexor muscle endurance) related to intra-tendinous morphological alterations of the Achilles tendon in runners. An intra-tendinous morphological change was defined as collagen fiber disorganization detected by a low peak spatial frequency radius (PSFR) obtained from spatial frequency analysis (SFA) techniques in sonography. Ninety-one runners (53 males and 38 females; 37.9 ± 11.6 years) with 8.8 ± 7.3 years of running experience participated. Height, weight, and waist and hip circumferences were recorded. Participants completed a survey about running and injury/pain history and the Victorian Institute of Sport Assessment-Achilles (VISA-A) survey. Heel raise endurance and knee-to-wall composite dorsiflexion were assessed. Brightness-mode (B-mode) sonographic images were captured longitudinally and transversely on the Achilles tendon bilaterally. Sonographic images were analyzed for gross morphology (i.e., cross-sectional area [CSA]), neovascularization, and intra-tendinous morphology (i.e., PSFR) for each participant. The factors associated with altered intra-tendinous morphology of the Achilles tendon were analyzed using a generalized linear mixed model. Multivariate analyses revealed that male sex was significantly associated with a decreased PSFR. Additionally, male sex and the presence of current Achilles tendon pain were found to be significantly related to decreased PSFR using a univariate analysis. Our findings suggested that male sex and presence of current Achilles tendon pain were related to intra-tendinous morphological alterations in the Achilles tendon of runners

Patellar Tendon Morphology in Trans-tibial Amputees Utilizing a Prosthesis with a Patellar-tendon- Bearing Feature

A patellar-tendon-bearing (PTB) bar is a common design feature used in the socket of trans-tibial prostheses to place load on the pressure-tolerant tissue. As the patellar tendon in the residual limb is subjected to the perpendicular compressive force not commonly experienced in normal tendons, it is possible for tendon degeneration to occur over time. The purpose of this study was to compare patellar tendon morphology and neovascularity between the residual and intact limbs in trans-tibial amputees and healthy controls. Fifteen unilateral trans-tibial amputees who utilized a prosthesis with a PTB feature and 15 age- and sex- matched controls participated. Sonography was performed at the proximal, mid-, and distal portions of each patellar tendon. One-way ANOVAs were conducted to compare thickness and collagen fber organization and a chi-square analysis was used to compare the presence of neovascularity between the three tendon groups. Compared to healthy controls, both tendons in the amputees exhibited increased thickness at the mid- and distal portions and a higher degree of collagen fber disorganization. Furthermore, neovascularity was more common in the tendon of the residual limb. Our results suggest that the use of a prosthesis with a PTB feature contributes to morphological changes in bilateral patellar tendons