Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Intellectual Capital and Business Performance: An Empirical Study for the Greek Listed Companies

The aim of this study is to empirically examine the four elements of intellectual capital (human capital, customer capital, structural capital and innovation capital) and their relationship with business performance in the Athens Stock Exchange (ASE). This study was conducted based on a psychometrically validated questionnaire developed and launched by Bontis (1997) and Bontis et al. (2000). Confirmatory Factor Analysis and Structural Equation Model have been used as statistical methods to analyse the five hypotheses developed. Our results are designed to extend it to degrees consistent with those revealed by Bontis et al. (2000) for a Malaysian set of industries. In particularly, we found that: (a) human capital is important and positively associated to customer capital in both service and non-service industries; (b) customer capital has an influence in structural capital rather than in non-service industries; (c) innovation capital seems to have an important and positive relationship to structural capital, regardless of the industry type; and (d) structural capital has a positive relationship to business performance in both industry types, and especially in non-service industries.
Adapting SVM for data sparseness and imbalance: a case study in information extraction

Abstract Support Vector Machines (SVM) have been used successfully in many Natural Language Processing (NLP) tasks. The novel contribution of this paper is in investigating two techniques for making SVM more suitable for language learning tasks. Firstly, we propose an SVM with uneven margins (SVMUM) model to deal with the problem of imbalanced training data. Secondly, SVM active learning is employed in order to alleviate the difficulty in obtaining labelled training data. The algorithms are presented and evaluated on several Information Extraction (IE) tasks, where they achieved better performance than the standard SVM and the SVM with passive learning, respectively. Moreover, by combining SVMUM with the active learning algorithm, we achieve the best reported results on the seminars and jobs corpora, which are benchmark data sets used for evaluation and comparison of machine learning algorithms for IE. In addition, we also evaluate the token based classification framework for IE with three different entity tagging schemes. In comparison to previous methods dealing with the same problems, our methods are both effective and efficient, which are valuable features for real-world applications. Due to the similarity in the formulation of the learning problem for IE and for other NLP tasks, the two techniques are likely to be beneficial in a wide range of applications1.
An IT Support Capstone: Just Another Brick in the Wall

of Technology is a two-year undergraduate programme of study aimed at producing effective graduates in the areas of technical and user support. The programme has progressively developed from early origins in the NACCQ national curriculum's " blue book " to a fully internal programme accredited through the standard New Zealand university quality approval processes. A recent innovation in the programme has been the development of a capstone mini-project, with an " Information Technology (IT) support " focus. This paper outlines the motivation for the capstone project, its design and implementation, and the constraints within which it has had to operate. The paper also discusses key issues identified by the teaching team, together with the lessons learnt for overall programme design and review. A rationale for proposed changes at both the paper and programme level is presented and the case is made for the critical role of a capstone paper in an IT support diploma.
CD95 Ligand (Fas-L/APO-1L) and Tumor Necrosis Factor-Related Apoptosis-Inducing Ligand Mediate Ischemia-Induced Apoptosis in Neurons

Programmed cell death plays an important role in the neuronal degeneration after cerebral ischemia, but the underlying mechanisms are not fully understood. Here we examined, in vivo andin vitro, whether ischemia-induced neuronal death involves death-inducing ligand/receptor systems such as CD95 and tumor necrosis factor-related apoptosis-inducing ligand (TRAIL). After reversible middle cerebral artery occlusion in adult rats, both CD95 ligand and TRAIL were expressed in the apoptotic areas of the postischemic brain. Further recombinant CD95 ligand and TRAIL proteins induced apoptosis in primary neurons and neuron-like cells in vitro. The immunosuppressant FK506, which most effectively protects against ischemic neurodegeneration, prevented postischemic expression of these death-inducing ligands both in vivo and in vitro. FK506 also abolished phosphorylation, but not expression, of the c-Jun transcription factor involved in the transcriptional control of CD95 ligand. Most importantly, in lpr mice expressing dysfunctional CD95, reversible middle cerebral artery occlusion resulted in infarct volumes significantly smaller than those found in wild-type animals. These results suggest an involvement of CD95 ligand and TRAIL in the pathophysiology of postischemic neurodegeneration and offer alternative strategies for the treatment of cardiovascular brain disease.
Competition increases with abiotic stress and regulates the diversity of biological soil crusts

1. The stress‐gradient hypothesis (SGH) predicts that the frequency of facilitative and competitive interactions will vary inversely across abiotic stress gradients, with facilitation being more common when abiotic stress is high. The effect of competition intensity on species richness is generally thought to be negative, but tests along true stress gradients are lacking. This body of research has primarily focused on vascular plants and could be well informed by broadening to other communities.
Predicting Negotiation Performance from Personality Traits: A field Study across Multiple Occupations

ABSTRACT Based on decades-old reviews, many negotiation researchers have expressed doubts about the effect of personality on negotiation outcomes. More recent reviews have found significant associations between traits and outcome measures. Existing research has primarily used laboratory experiments; field studies are rare. In this study, we aim to fill that important gap. Traits measured using the Hogan Personality Inventory were correlated with supervisor ratings of negotiation performance across three occupations: marketing managers, lawyers, and construction supervisors. Ambition and likability independently predicted greater negotiation performance. Results generalized across these three samples with evidence for an interaction effect in the lawyer sample. For attorneys, greater ambition was not additionally helpful for those who were relatively more likable. Results establish the importance of negotiation effectiveness as a distinct component of overall job performance. Practical implications are considered in terms of division of labor, person–job fit, and the state-trait distinction.
A discussion of practices for enhancing diversity in software designs

This report discusses the practices which have been used or recommended for increasing the degree of diversity between redundant implementations of software or software-based systems. Its purpose is to give useful indications for designers, project managers and safety/reliability assessors in deciding about how great an advantage should be expected from the use of these practices, in absolute and in comparative terms. Existing knowledge does not allow one to state any strong general recommendations, but it is possible to improve on the intuitive justifications usually given for these various practices. This report clarifies the ways the various practices are conjectured to aid system reliability, the factors that should affect their efficacy, and thus, for a practitioner, the aspects of a specific project situation that need to be considered to inform decisions. Thus this report is meant to improve on the many recommendations available in the literature by a more rigorous analysis of the support available for individual recommendations and for decision between them, on the basis of existing known evidence about diversity, of general experience in software engineering and of the result of our reliability modelling work. An executive summary gives the highlights of the report and a guide to the topics treated. The other sections are an introduction giving the scope and background of the work; a general analysis of the factors affecting the achievement of useful diversity and the criteria for choosing among possible "diversity-seeking decisions" to this end, and a summary table of the considerations applying to each category of "diversity-seeking decisions", with explanations of detail in an appendix. This report updates and supersedes the previous DISPO project report AT_DI-D-01-v1.7, "A list of intuitive diversity enhancing measures/practices", 20 February 1998, which was produced at the beginning of the DISPO project, to reflect our changed understanding at the end of the project. Parts of the old report have been eliminated as the corresponding topics are now covered by separate DISPO documents. The information contained in this report has been produced for BEG(UK) Ltd on behalf of the Industry Management Committee (IMC). thus is the joint property of British Energy Generation Ltd, British Energy Generation (UK) Ltd, British Nuclear Fuels Limited and British Nuclear Fuels Magnox Generation Ltd, and their successor companies. Any intellectual property rights arising from or contained in the report are the joint property of British Energy Generation Ltd, British Energy Generation (UK) Ltd, British Nuclear Fuels Limited and British Nuclear Fuels Magnox Generation Ltd, and their successor companies.
Tradeoffs and Constraints on Neural Representation in Networks of Cortical Neurons

Neural representation is pivotal in neuroscience. Yet, the large number and variance of underlying determinants make it difficult to distinguish general physiologic constraints on representation. Here we offer a general approach to the issue, enabling a systematic and well controlled experimental analysis of constraints and tradeoffs, imposed by the physiology of neuronal populations, on plausible representation schemes. Using in vitro networks of rat cortical neurons as a model system, we compared the efficacy of different kinds of “neural codes” to represent both spatial and temporal input features. Two rate-based representation schemes and two time-based representation schemes were considered. Our results indicate that, by large, all representation schemes perform well in the various discrimination tasks tested, indicating the inherent redundancy in neural population activity; Nevertheless, differences in representation efficacy are identified when unique aspects of input features are considered. We discuss these differences in the context of neural population dynamics.
Perceiving active listening activates the reward system and improves the impression of relevant experiences

Although active listening is an influential behavior, which can affect the social responses of others, the neural correlates underlying its perception have remained unclear. Sensing active listening in social interactions is accompanied by an improvement in the recollected impressions of relevant experiences and is thought to arouse positive feelings. We therefore hypothesized that the recognition of active listening activates the reward system, and that the emotional appraisal of experiences that had been subject to active listening would be improved. To test these hypotheses, we conducted functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) on participants viewing assessments of their own personal experiences made by evaluators with or without active listening attitude. Subjects rated evaluators who showed active listening more positively. Furthermore, they rated episodes more positively when they were evaluated by individuals showing active listening. Neural activation in the ventral striatum was enhanced by perceiving active listening, suggesting that this was processed as rewarding. It also activated the right anterior insula, representing positive emotional reappraisal processes. Furthermore, the mentalizing network was activated when participants were being evaluated, irrespective of active listening behavior. Therefore, perceiving active listening appeared to result in positive emotional appraisal and to invoke mental state attribution to the active listener.
The life cycle of scholars and papers in economics – the ‘citation death tax’

The information content of academic citations is a subject to debate. This article views premature death as a tragic ‘natural experiment’, outlining a methodology identifying the ‘citation death tax’ – the impact of the death of productive economists on the patterns of their citations. We rely on a sample of 428 papers written by 16 well-known economists who died well before retirement, during the period 1975 to 1997. The news is mixed: for half of the sample, we identify a large and significant ‘citation death tax’ for the average paper written by these scholars. For these authors, the estimated average missing citations per paper attributed to premature death ranges from 40% to 140% (the overall average is about 90%), and the annual costs of lost citations per paper are in the range 3–14%. Hence, a paper written 10 years before the author's death avoids a citation cost that varies between 30% and 140%. For the other half of the sample, there is no citation death tax; and for two Nobel Prize-calibre scholars in this second group, Black and Tversky, citations took off over time, reflecting the growing recognitions of their seminal works.
American Journal of Epidemiology Original Contribution Is There an Association between Low-to-moderate Alcohol Consumption and Risk of Cognitive Decline?

The authors evaluated the association of low-to-moderate alcohol consumption with risk of cognitive decline in a census-based cohort study of men and women aged ! 55 years conducted in Zaragoza, Spain (1994–1999). Participants free of dementia at baseline (N ¼ 3,888) were examined after 2.5 and 4.5 years of follow-up. Information on alcohol intake was collected with the EURODEM Risk Factors Questionnaire and the History and Aetiology Schedule. The study endpoint was severe cognitive decline, defined as loss of ! 1 point/year on the Mini-Mental State Examination or a diagnosis of incident dementia (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders: DSM-IV, Text Revision criteria). Compared with those for abstainers, the multivariate-adjusted odds ratios for severe cognitive decline for male drinkers of <12 g alcohol/day, drinkers of 12–24 g alcohol/day, and former drinkers were 0. This study did not support the hypothesis that low-to-moderate alcohol consumption prevents cognitive decline. The inverse association between low-to-moderate alcohol intake and cognitive decline observed in other studies may have been due to inclusion of former drinkers in the abstainers reference category. Heavy alcohol consumption impairs cognitive performance (1–3) and is related to clinical dementia (4). However, low-to-moderate alcohol intake may protect against demen-tia (5–9) and cognitive deterioration (10–13). A number of biologic mechanisms have been proposed to explain this potential beneficial effect of moderate alcohol consumption on the brain, including the antioxidant properties of wine flavonoids (14) and alcohol-related prevention of ischemia or stroke (15). A recent systematic review also suggested that limited alcohol intake in early adult life may protect against incident dementia, although these findings were difficult to interpret because of high between-study heterogeneity (16). The protective effect of moderate alcohol consumption is still controversial, however, and some studies have reported harmful effects of moderate alcohol intake (17). Indeed, the evidence for a protective effect may have been overestimated because of inclusion of former drinkers in the non-drinkers comparator group in most studies. For example, Ganguli et al. (18) reported that mild-to-moderate drinking, compared with no drinking, was associated with a lower average decline in cognitive domains. Much of this difference was explained by lower declines among current drinkers when compared with former drinkers, whereas lifelong abstainers did not differ from current moderate drinkers. Other potential methodological issues in studies of moderate alcohol intake and cognitive decline include lack of standardization in the definition of alcohol drinking categories (19), problems related to missing observations
Blast Cells with Monoclonal Surface Immunoglobulin in Two Cases of Acute Blast Crisis Supervening on Chronic Lymphocytic Leukaemia

Acute blast crisis occurred in two patients with previously well-confirmed chronic lymphocytic leukaemia. The finding by direct immunofluorescence of membrane-bound monoclonal immunoglobulins on the surface of the blast cells showed that they were related to B cells in the same way as the proliferating lymphocytes in most patients with chronic lymphocytic leukaemia. In one patient the surface monoclonal IgM detected on both the lymphocytes and the blast cells had the same rheumatoid antibody activity, supporting the concept that the leukaemic cells found during the acute and chronic phases of the disease originated from the same clone.
Between love and behaviour management: the psychodynamic reflective milieu at the Mulberry Bush School

ABSTRACT This article presents findings from a qualitative research study of the Mulberry Bush School (MBS), a therapeutic residential primary school caring for children with severe social, emotional and behavioural difficulties. The article notes the challenges of working with children who have experienced traumatic relationship breakdown, and reviews ideas and practices developed at MBS to support the children’s development. There is a discussion of the research study’s methodology and main findings. The researchers argue that the therapeutic milieu at MBS maintains a creative tension between a secure, playful context and one where emotional disorder and disturbance are not suppressed. The study describes how a particular psychodynamic model of reflective practice has been successfully instituted at MBS to create a ‘staff therapeutic milieu’ supporting the group living and group learning through which therapy principally occurs. The article closes with comments on the applicability of this model to residential child care practice generally.
Optical Sky Brightness at Cerro Tololo Inter‐American Observatory from 1992 to 2006

We present optical (UBVRI) sky brightness measurements from 1992 through 2006. The data are based on CCD imagery obtained with the CTIO 0.9, 1.3, and 1.5 m telescopes. The B‐ and V‐band data are in reasonable agreement with measurements previously made at Mauna Kea, although on the basis of a small number of images per year, there are discrepancies for the years 1992 through 1994. Our CCD‐based data are not significantly different than values obtained at Cerro Paranal. We find that the yearly averages of V‐band sky brightness are best correlated with the 10.7 cm solar flux taken 5 days prior to the sky brightness measurements. This implies an average speed of 350 km s−1 for the solar wind. While we can measure an enhancement of the night‐sky levels over La Serena 10° above the horizon, at elevation angles above 45°, we find no evidence that the night‐sky brightness at Cerro Tololo is affected by artificial light of nearby towns and cities.
Interactive Simulation in Crisis Management

Experiments in crisis management are expensive and difficult to realize. There is also a lack of training facilities in real crisis environments. Serious games and simulation can provide an alternative. We developed a system which enables interactive simulation for crisis management. It is called IMACSIM (Interactive Multi Agent Crisis Simulator Interpreter and Monitor). It is composed of the following components: First a software based platform for dynamic simulating of disasters. Next an event generator which can generate different crises situations. We designed a communication infrastructure that allows agents participants in the simulation to exchange messages. Every agent is able to observe the results of crisis events, process these events and initiate appropriate actions via a waypoint system. The decision making process is distributed among autonomous agents. Some actions may have an impact on the event generator, so there is an interaction between agents and event generator. We developed a first prototype. The design and test results will be described in this paper.
Dysfunction of the CNS-Heart Axis in Mouse Models of Huntington's Disease

Cardiac remodelling and contractile dysfunction occur during both acute and chronic disease processes including the accumulation of insoluble aggregates of misfolded amyloid proteins that are typical features of Alzheimer's, Parkinson's and Huntington's disease (HD). While HD has been described mainly as a neurological disease, multiple epidemiological studies have shown that HD patients exhibit a high incidence of cardiovascular events leading to heart failure, and that this is the second highest cause of death. Given that huntingtin is ubiquitously expressed, cardiomyocytes may be at risk of an HD-related dysfunction. In mice, the forced expression of an expanded polyQ repeat under the control of a cardiac specific promoter led to severe heart failure followed by reduced lifespan. However the mechanism leading to cardiac dysfunction in the clinical and pre-clinical HD settings remains unknown. To unravel this mechanism, we employed the R6/2 transgenic and HdhQ150 knock-in mouse models of HD. We found that pre-symptomatic animals developed connexin-43 relocation and a significant deregulation of hypertrophic markers and Bdnf transcripts. In the symptomatic animals, pronounced functional changes were visualised by cardiac MRI revealing a contractile dysfunction, which might be a part of dilatated cardiomyopathy (DCM). This was accompanied by the re-expression of foetal genes, apoptotic cardiomyocyte loss and a moderate degree of interstitial fibrosis. To our surprise, we could identify neither mutant HTT aggregates in cardiac tissue nor a HD-specific transcriptional dysregulation, even at the end stage of disease. We postulate that the HD-related cardiomyopathy is caused by altered central autonomic pathways although the pathogenic effects of mutant HTT acting intrinsically in the heart may also be a contributing factor.