Approaches and methods used for measuring organizational performance in national sport governing bodies from 1986 to 2014. A systematized review

In a changing environment, new challenges and demands facing management in sports associations and sports politics are emerging, including the question of how to measure/assess the organizational performance (OP) in national sport governing bodies (NSGB). The characterization of NSGB shows that they are not to be understood as rational systems, but rather as natural and open ones. An examination of existing approaches for measuring OP in private non-profit organizations, which have the central characteristics of NSGB, reveals several problems/deviations, with regard to how organizations are (and should be) understood and analyzed. Based on a systematic review, the paper presents the theoretical approaches and the methods used for measuring OP in NSGB. 20 studies could be identified, and in the vast majority of them, a multi-dimensional approach is applied. The strategic constituencies approach is the one most often used, but interestingly, further analysis shows that most assessments are carried out only by internal stakeholders. The identification of the fact that, in most cases, (internal) individuals assess the variables at organizational/macro level, underlines the need to pay more attention to potential measurement bias. Giving greater consideration to the micro level is not only required in the attempt to detect potential bias, but also due to the necessity of considering agents’ discretionary decision, thereby enabling NSGB to be considered as open and natural systems. Therefore, approaches that can consider both levels (e.g., multi-level modelling) seem to be promising, not only in providing more reliable results, but also in enhancing our understanding of OP, and thus also how to manage it. A further important development is the consideration of the (public) value that organizations contribute to society within the concept of OP

Complete and easy type Inference for first-class polymorphism

The Hindley-Milner (HM) typing discipline is remarkable in that it allows statically typing programs without requiring the programmer to annotate programs with types themselves. This is due to the HM system offering complete type inference, meaning that if a program is well typed, the inference algorithm is able to determine all the necessary typing information. Let bindings implicitly perform generalisation, allowing a let-bound variable to receive the most general possible type, which in turn may be instantiated appropriately at each of the variable’s use sites. As a result, the HM type system has since become the foundation for type inference in programming languages such as Haskell as well as the ML family of languages and has been extended in a multitude of ways. The original HM system only supports prenex polymorphism, where type variables are universally quantified only at the outermost level. This precludes many useful programs, such as passing a data structure to a function in the form of a fold function, which would need to be polymorphic in the type of the accumulator. However, this would require a nested quantifier in the type of the overall function. As a result, one direction of extending the HM system is to add support for first-class polymorphism, allowing arbitrarily nested quantifiers and instantiating type variables with polymorphic types. In such systems, restrictions are necessary to retain decidability of type inference. This work presents FreezeML, a novel approach for integrating first-class polymorphism into the HM system, focused on simplicity. It eschews sophisticated yet hard to grasp heuristics in the type systems or extending the language of types, while still requiring only modest amounts of annotations. In particular, FreezeML leverages the mechanisms for generalisation and instantiation that are already at the heart of ML. Generalisation and instantiation are performed by let bindings and variables, respectively, but extended to types beyond prenex polymorphism. The defining feature of FreezeML is the ability to freeze variables, which prevents the usual instantiation of their types, allowing them instead to keep their original, fully polymorphic types. We demonstrate that FreezeML is as expressive as System F by providing a translation from the latter to the former; the reverse direction is also shown. Further, we prove that FreezeML is indeed a conservative extension of ML: When considering only ML programs, FreezeML accepts exactly the same programs as ML itself. # We show that type inference for FreezeML can easily be integrated into HM-like type systems by presenting a sound and complete inference algorithm for FreezeML that extends Algorithm W, the original inference algorithm for the HM system. Since the inception of Algorithm W in the 1970s, type inference for the HM system and its descendants has been modernised by approaches that involve constraint solving, which proved to be more modular and extensible. In such systems, a term is translated to a logical constraint, whose solutions correspond to the types of the original term. A solver for such constraints may then be defined independently. To this end, we demonstrate such a constraint-based inference approach for FreezeML. We also discuss the effects of integrating the value restriction into FreezeML and provide detailed comparisons with other approaches towards first-class polymorphism in ML alongside a collection of examples found in the literature

Evaluation of sporting success in Austria. An institutional economics analysis

In analysis of Austrian elite sport, a distinction can be made between hierarchical and market organization. Following Williamson, the question of a superiority of governance form caused by the factor specificity of investments is being investi-gated. The results from an applied logit-loglinear model on data from survey with Austrian ‘squad-athletes’ show that apparently there exists no such superiority. Further investigation of data shows that these results appear to be caused by Aus-tria’s “pre-conditions”. In a hybrid form of organization like in Austria centraliza-tion might have exceeded the optimal extend and congruency of different products seem to be overemphasized

Neuronal correlates of ADHD in adults with evidence for compensation strategies – a functional MRI study with a Go/No-Go paradigm

Objective: Response inhibition impairment is one of the most characteristic symptoms of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Thus functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) during a Go/No-Go task seems to be an ideal tool for examining neuronal correlates of inhibitory control deficits in ADHD. Prior studies have shown frontostriatal abnormalities in children and adolescents. The aim of our study was to investigate whether adults with ADHD would still show abnormal brain activation in prefrontal brain regions during motor response inhibition tasks

Lichens Bite the Dust : A Bioweathering Scenario in the Atacama Desert

Bioweathering mediated by microorganisms plays a significant role in biogeochemical cycles on global scales over geological timescales. Single processes induced by specific taxa have been described but could rarely be demonstrated for complex communities that dominate whole landscapes. The recently discovered grit crust of the coastal Atacama Desert, which is a transitional community between a cryptogamic ground cover and a rock-bound lithic assemblage, offers the unique chance to elucidate various bioweathering processes that occur simultaneously. Here, we present a bioweathering scenario of this biocenosis including processes such as penetration of the lithomatrix, microbial responses to wet-dry cycles, alkalinolysis, enzyme activity, and mineral re-localization. Frequently occurring fog, for example, led to a volume increase of microorganisms and the lithomatrix. This, together with pH shifts and dust accumulation, consequently results in biophysical breakdown and the formation of a terrestrial protopedon, an initial stage of pedogenesis fueled by the grit crust. © 2020 The Author(s

Breakpoint structure of the Anopheles gambiae 2Rb chromosomal inversion

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Alternative arrangements of chromosome 2 inversions in <it>Anopheles gambiae </it>are important sources of population structure, and are associated with adaptation to environmental heterogeneity. The forces responsible for their origin and maintenance are incompletely understood. Molecular characterization of inversion breakpoints provides insight into how they arose, and provides the basis for development of molecular karyotyping methods useful in future studies.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Sequence comparison of regions near the cytological breakpoints of 2Rb allowed the molecular delineation of breakpoint boundaries. Comparisons were made between the standard 2R<it>+</it>^{<it>b </it>}arrangement in the <it>An. gambiae </it>PEST reference genome and the inverted 2R<it>b </it>arrangements in the <it>An. gambiae </it>M and S genome assemblies. Sequence differences between alternative 2R<it>b </it>arrangements were exploited in the design of a PCR diagnostic assay, which was evaluated against the known chromosomal banding pattern of laboratory colonies and field-collected samples from Mali and Cameroon.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>The breakpoints of the 7.55 Mb 2R<it>b </it>inversion are flanked by extensive runs of the same short (72 bp) tandemly organized sequence, which was likely responsible for chromosomal breakage and rearrangement. Application of the molecular diagnostic assay suggested that 2R<it>b </it>has a single common origin in <it>An. gambiae </it>and its sibling species, <it>Anopheles arabiensis</it>, and also that the standard arrangement (2R<it>+</it>^<it>b</it>) may have arisen twice through breakpoint reuse. The molecular diagnostic was reliable when applied to laboratory colonies, but its accuracy was lower in natural populations.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>The complex repetitive sequence flanking the 2R<it>b </it>breakpoint region may be prone to structural and sequence-level instability. The 2R<it>b </it>molecular diagnostic has immediate application in studies based on laboratory colonies, but its usefulness in natural populations awaits development of complementary molecular tools.</p

The Evolution of the Anopheles 16 Genomes Project

We report the imminent completion of a set of reference genome assemblies for 16 species of Anopheles mosquitoes. In addition to providing a generally useful resource for comparative genomic analyses, these genome sequences will greatly facilitate exploration of the capacity exhibited by some Anopheline mosquito species to serve as vectors for malaria parasites. A community analysis project will commence soon to perform a thorough comparative genomic investigation of these newly sequenced genomes. Completion of this project via the use of short next-generation sequence reads required innovation in both the bioinformatic and laboratory realms, and the resulting knowledge gained could prove useful for genome sequencing projects targeting other unconventional genomes

Overcoming real-world obstacles in 21 cm power spectrum estimation: A method demonstration and results from early Murchison Widefield Array data

We present techniques for bridging the gap between idealized inverse covariance weighted quadratic estimation of 21 cm power spectra and the real-world challenges presented universally by interferometric observation. By carefully evaluating various estimators and adapting our techniques for large but incomplete data sets, we develop a robust power spectrum estimation framework that preserves the so-called "Epoch of Reionization (EoR) window" and keeps track of estimator errors and covariances. We apply our method to observations from the 32-tile prototype of the Murchinson Widefield Array to demonstrate the importance of a judicious analysis technique. Lastly, we apply our method to investigate the dependence of the clean EoR window on frequency—especially the frequency dependence of the so-called “wedge" feature—and establish upper limits on the power spectrum from z ¼ 6.2 to z ¼ 11:7. Our lowest limit is ?ðkÞ &lt; 0.3 Kelvin at 95% confidence at a comoving scale k ¼ 0.046 Mpc-1 and z ¼ 9.5

Serendipitous discovery of a dying Giant Radio Galaxy associated with NGC 1534, using the Murchison Widefield Array

This article has been accepted for publication in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. © 2015 The Authors. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Royal Astronomical Society.Recent observations with the Murchison Widefield Array at 185~MHz have serendipitously unveiled a heretofore unknown giant and relatively nearby ($z = 0.0178$) radio galaxy associated with NGC\,1534. The diffuse emission presented here is the first indication that NGC\,1534 is one of a rare class of objects (along with NGC\,5128 and NGC\,612) in which a galaxy with a prominent dust lane hosts radio emission on scales of $\sim$700\,kpc. We present details of the radio emission along with a detailed comparison with other radio galaxies with disks. NGC1534 is the lowest surface brightness radio galaxy known with an estimated scaled 1.4-GHz surface brightness of just 0.2\,mJy\,arcmin$^{-2}$. The radio lobes have one of the steepest spectral indices yet observed: $\alpha=-2.1\pm0.1$, and the core to lobe luminosity ratio is $Peer reviewe