The impact of gender differences in social networks on microenterprise performance

This study examined how gender differences in social networks affect microenterprise performance. Microenterprise is defined as small-scale businesses that hire fewer than five employees, including the owner. Microenterprise development programs (MDPs), which provide capital, business training, technical support, and access to social networks, were introduced to the United States as an alternative strategy for providing low-income women with economic opportunities. One of the important strategies for U.S. Microenterprise Development Programs (MDPs) is to improve female participants’ social networks for microenterprise start-up and maintenance by providing mentoring, networking services, and referrals to specialized business professionals. However, from the perspective of evidence-based practice, the social networking intervention programs of U.S. MDPs need to be based on rigorous evidence from empirical research. This study sampled 979 nascent micro-entrepreneur cases from the Panel Study of Entrepreneurial Dynamic (PSED) Wave II (2005-2011), which is a longitudinal dataset. This study tested two research models: A) the mediation effect of social networks on the relationship between gender and microenterprise performance, B) the moderation effect of gender on the relationship between social networks and microenterprise performance. This study measured social networks as network size, strength (weak/strong ties), and gained network resources. Microenterprise performance was measured by business profitability and survival. This study found that gender functions as a moderator on the relationship between gained network resources and microenterprise performance (i.e. business profitability and survival). While male micro-entrepreneurs receive significant benefits from their weak ties and gained network resources for improving business performance, female micro-entrepreneurs do not gain enough benefits from their networks to improve their business performance. In addition, this study found that while network structure (i.e. size and strength) is not associated with business performance (i.e. profitability and survival), gained network resources is significantly associated with business performance (i.e. business profitability and survival). However, since there was no association between gender and social network structure and gained network resources, this study did not find a mediation effect of social networks on the relationship between gender and microenterprise performance. The findings of this study mainly imply that a gender-sensitive social networking intervention in a U.S. context should concentrate on creating good-quality social networks that can provide valuable business resources for female participants. In addition, this research also asks government to supply funds for U.S. MDPs to develop gender-sensitive social networking intervention programs for women in order to improve female participants’ microenterprise survival rate

NFTs to MARS: Multi-Attention Recommender System for NFTs

Recommender systems have become essential tools for enhancing user experiences across various domains. While extensive research has been conducted on recommender systems for movies, music, and e-commerce, the rapidly growing and economically significant Non-Fungible Token (NFT) market remains underexplored. The unique characteristics and increasing prominence of the NFT market highlight the importance of developing tailored recommender systems to cater to its specific needs and unlock its full potential. In this paper, we examine the distinctive characteristics of NFTs and propose the first recommender system specifically designed to address NFT market challenges. In specific, we develop a Multi-Attention Recommender System for NFTs (NFT-MARS) with three key characteristics: (1) graph attention to handle sparse user-item interactions, (2) multi-modal attention to incorporate feature preference of users, and (3) multi-task learning to consider the dual nature of NFTs as both artwork and financial assets. We demonstrate the effectiveness of NFT-MARS compared to various baseline models using the actual transaction data of NFTs collected directly from blockchain for four of the most popular NFT collections. The source code and data are available at https://anonymous.4open.science/r/RecSys2023-93ED

Indoor Environmental Quality of Classrooms and Student Outcomes: A Path Analysis Approach

The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between indoor environmental quality (IEQ) in a set of university classrooms and students' outcomes, i.e., satisfaction with IEQ, perceived learning, and course satisfaction. Data collected from students (N = 631) of a Midwestern university were analyzed to test a hypothesized conceptual model by conducting a path analysis. Findings suggested that IEQ of the classrooms, such as thermal conditions, indoor air quality, acoustic conditions, lighting conditions, furnishings, aesthetics, technology, and view conditions, was associated with positive student outcomes. Implications for classroom design were discussed with suggestions for future research

The amount of astrocytic GABA positively correlates with the degree of tonic inhibition in hippocampal CA1 and cerebellum

A tonic form of synaptic inhibition occurs in discrete regions of the central nervous system and has an important role in controlling neuronal excitability. Recently, we reported that GABA present in astrocyte is the major source of tonic inhibition in cerebellum and that GABA is released through Bestrophin-1 channel by direct permeation. In this study, we screened for the presence of astrocytic GABA in various brain regions such as hippocampus, thalamus, hypothalamus and cerebellum using immunohistochemistry. We found that astrocytic GABA was present in the regions that were reported to show tonic inhibition. Because the existence of tonic inhibition in hippocampal CA1 is somewhat controversial, we compared the amount of astrocytic GABA and tonic inhibition between the hippocampal CA1 pyramidal cell layer and the cerebellar granule cell layer. Unlike cerebellar glial cells, hippocampal astrocytes did not contain GABA. The tonic inhibition was also much lower in the pyramidal neurons of hippocampal CA1 compared to the granule cells of cerebellum. Nevertheless, most of the hippocampal astrocytes expressed Bestrophin-1 channel. These data indicate that the absence of astrocytic GABA results in a low level of tonic inhibition in hippocampal CA1 region

Toward Green Synthesis of Graphene Oxide Using Recycled Sulfuric Acid via Couette-Taylor Flow

Developing eco-friendly and cost-effective processes for the synthesis of graphene oxide (GO) is essential for its widespread industrial applications. In this work, we propose a green synthesis technique for GO production using recycled sulfuric acid and filter-processed oxidized natural graphite obtained from a Couette-Taylor flow reactor. The viscosity of reactant mixtures processed from Couette-Taylor flow was considerably lower (???200 cP at 25 ??C) than that of those from Hummers' method, which enabled the simple filtration process. The filtered sulfuric acid can be recycled and reused for the repetitive GO synthesis with negligible differences in the as-synthesized GO qualities. This removal of sulfuric acid has great potential in lowering the overall GO production cost as the amount of water required during the fabrication process, which takes a great portion of the total production cost, can be dramatically reduced after such acid filtration. The proposed eco-friendly GO fabrication process is expected to promote the commercial application of graphene materials into industry shortly

System of integrating biosignals during hemodialysis: the CONTINUAL (Continuous mOnitoriNg viTal sIgN dUring hemodiALysis) registry

Background Appropriate monitoring of intradialytic biosignals is essential to minimize adverse outcomes because intradialytic hypotension and arrhythmia are associated with cardiovascular risk in hemodialysis patients. However, a continuous monitoring system for intradialytic biosignals has not yet been developed. Methods This study investigated a cloud system that hosted a prospective, open-source registry to monitor and collect intradialytic biosignals, which was named the CONTINUAL (Continuous mOnitoriNg viTal sIgN dUring hemodiALysis) registry. This registry was based on real-time multimodal data acquisition, such as blood pressure, heart rate, electrocardiogram, and photoplethysmogram results. Results We analyzed session information from this system for the initial 8 months, including data for some cases with hemodynamic complications such as intradialytic hypotension and arrhythmia. Conclusion This biosignal registry provides valuable data that can be applied to conduct epidemiological surveys on hemodynamic complications during hemodialysis and develop artificial intelligence models that predict biosignal changes which can improve patient outcomes

Measured sodium excretion is associated with cardiovascular outcomes in non-dialysis CKD patients: results from the KNOW-CKD study

BackgroundThere are insufficient studies on the effect of dietary salt intake on cardiovascular (CV) outcomes in chronic kidney disease (CKD) patients, and there is no consensus on the sodium (Na) intake level that increases the risk of CV disease in CKD patients. Therefore, we investigated the association between dietary salt intake and CV outcomes in CKD patients.MethodsIn the Korean cohort study for Outcome in patients with CKD (KNOW-CKD), 1,937 patients were eligible for the study, and their dietary Na intake was estimated using measured 24h urinary Na excretion. The primary outcome was a composite of CV events and/or all-cause death. The secondary outcome was a major adverse cardiac event (MACE).ResultsAmong 1,937 subjects, there were 205 (10.5%) events for the composite outcome and 110 (5.6%) events for MACE. Compared to the reference group (urinary Na excretion< 2.0g/day), the group with the highest measured 24h urinary Na excretion (urinary Na excretion ≥ 8.0g/day) was associated with increased risk of both the composite outcome (hazard ratio 3.29 [95% confidence interval 1.00-10.81]; P = 0.049) and MACE (hazard ratio 6.28 [95% confidence interval 1.45-27.20]; P = 0.013) in a cause-specific hazard model. Subgroup analysis also showed a pronounced association between dietary salt intake and the composite outcome in subgroups of patients with abdominal obesity, female, lower estimated glomerular filtration rate (< 60 ml/min per 1.73m2), no overt proteinuria, or a lower urinary potassium-to-creatinine ratio (< 46 mmol/g).ConclusionA high-salt diet is associated with CV outcomes in non-dialysis CKD patients

A Toolkit for Teaching the Design Process: A Case of Korean Elementary School Students

South Korean elementary schools mainly focus on increasing students??? proficiency in subjects related to science and engineering, while early education in design is ignored entirely. As a result, the concept of design and its value have become unpopular among the general public. Creative, young students are not exposed to environments that use design to develop problem solving approaches to improve integrated creativity. The present study demonstrates the design of a toolkit for teaching elementary school students the design process. The purpose of the proposed toolkit is to help students learn the concept of design with in-class problem-solving activities that can improve integrated creative thinking. We conducted a problem-solving activity with elementary school students based on the existing creative thinking models we incorporated in our proposed toolkit. Initially, we found that the proposed toolkit???s instructions were too complicated for the students to understand the context of the activity, and the entire process was observed as difficult. Based on our initial experiment, we revised the toolkit to minimize the difficulties students faced. We hope that the proposed toolkit will allow students to experience a problem-solving design process to enhance their integrated creative thinking

Adsorption of Lead and Nickel on to Expanded Graphite Decorated with Manganese Oxide Nanoparticles

In this study, expanded graphite (EG) was decorated with manganese oxide nanoparticles (MONPs) by the hydrothermal method, and the newly formed composite (MONPs-EG) was applied as adsorbent for the removal of heavy metals from aqueous solutions. The comparative and competitive adsorption of Pb2+ and Ni2+ (0.01–1.00 mM) on MONPs-EG was investigated. Data from isothermal adsorption of single and binary systems suggested that both Pb2+ and Ni2+ were well described by the Langmuir isotherm, and the maximum adsorption capacities at 298 K were calculated at 0.278 and 0.113 mmol/g for Pb2+ and Ni2+, respectively. In binary systems, a dramatic decrease in adsorption capacity of Ni2+ was observed, while the adsorption capacity of Pb2+ was almost stable, indicating the favorable adsorption of Pb2+ over Ni2+ onto the prepared adsorbent. Kinetics studies of single and binary systems showed that a pseudo-second order model could explain the adsorption processes well. Thermodynamic analysis results demonstrated that the adsorption of these metal ions on the prepared adsorbent is spontaneous and exothermic in nature. The adsorption capacity of MONPs-EG increased significantly in the presence of humic acids. Overall, the results of this study suggest that MONPs-EG can be used effectively as an adsorbent for heavy metals removal from aqueous solutions