Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
People and profits? : the search for a link between a company's social and financial performance

Contents: A.P. Brief, J.P. Walsh, Series Editors' Foreword. Part I:Introduction. Part II:A Brief Orientation to the Question. Constructing the Business Case for Corporate Social Performance. Academic Debate. Purpose of This Compendium. Part III:An Integrated Portrait of the Empirical Literature. Method. Corporate Samples. Measuring Financial Performance. Measuring Social Performance. Summary of Results. Mechanisms and Control Variables. Conclusions.
Soil seed bank composition along a forest chronosequence in seasonally moist tropical forest, Panama

We used a forest chronosequence at the Barro Colorado Nature Monument (BCNM) to examine changes in the abundance and species composition of seeds in the soil during forest succession. At each of eight sites varying from 20 yr to 100 yr since abandonment, and at two old-growth (> 500 yr) forest stands, we established two 160-m transects and sampled the surface 0–3 cm of soil in cores collected at each 5 m interval. Seed densities were estimated from the number of seedlings germinated from the soil over a six-week period. Contrary to expectation, neither the density of the soil seed bank, nor species richness or diversity were directly related to age since abandonment, but the density of the soil seed bank was correlated with the abundance of seed-bank-forming species in the standing vegetation. In marked contrast to published studies, herbaceous taxa were rare even in the youngest stands, and the common tree species, which accounted for most seeds in the soil, were present in all stands. The pioneer tree Miconia argentea (Melastomataceae) was the single most common species in the seed bank, accounting for 62% of seeds and present in 92% of soil samples. Rapid recovery of the vegetation of young regrowth stands on BCNM, when compared to sites elsewhere may be partly due to allochthonous seed rain from nearby mature forest stands and the lack of seed inputs of weeds and grasses from agricultural and pasture lands which may inhibit forest succession.
Neurohumors and Other Pharmacologically Active Substances in Cerebrospinal Fluid: A Review of the Literature **

There has been a considerable resurgence of interest in recent years in analysis of cerebrospinal fluid in neurological and psychiatric disorders. Four monographs and a review article have summarized much of the pertinent literature. "' '5'° The purpose of this review is to call attention to an area that has not been adequately described in the publications referred to above. It will comprehensively summarize the literature since 1910 dealing with neurohumors and other pharmacologically active substances in cerebrospinal fluid. An attempt will be made to organize in a critical manner some of this material, and to discuss further avenues of investigation.
Forest stand characteristics and reproduction of northern spotted owls in managed North-Coastal California forests

We monitored reproductive success of northern spotted owls (Strix identalis caurina) at 51 sites on Simpson Timber Company's (STC) managed, young-growth forests in northwestern California from 1991 to 1995. We compared habitat characteristics between sites with high and low fecundity at 5 spatial scales (concentric circles of 7. 50, 114, 203, and 398 ha), using 2 stratifications of annual reproductive success (upper 50% vs. lower 50% and upper 25% vs. lower 75% of the proportion of years when ≥1 owlet fledged). Habitat features included number of residual trees per hectare and mean proportion of 6 categories of stand age and 4 categories of basal area. Using the 50th percentile categories, we found there were higher proportions of age class 21-40 years and basal area classes 23-45 and 46-69 m 2 /ha (P ≤ 0.05), but lower proportions of recent clearcuts (0-5 yr) and basal area >69 m 2 /ha (P ≤ 0.05) at sites with high reproductive success. Using the upper 25% and lower 75% categories, we found there were higher proportions of basal area class 23-45 m 2 /ha, lower proportions of 61-80-year-old stands and more residua trees per hectare at sites with high reproductive success (P ≤ 0.05). We also compared random sites to occupied sites via the above parameters, Spotted owl sites contained lower proportions of basal area class 69 m 2 /ha than did random sites (P < 0.05). There was less young forest (6-40 vr) and more forest of age class 41-60 vears at spotted owl than at random sites (P < 0.05). Low prey abundance around spotted owl nest sites, roost sites, or both mav explain why older stands with more basal area were found in higher proportions at sites with lower fecundity. Spotted owls that chose younger stands with smaller trees mav have benefited from higher woodrat (Neotoma fuscipes) availability in young stands. Managing habitat by retaining residual trees and limiting clearcutting to at least 1.1 km bevond lest sites may prove useful in increasing reproductive success of northern spotted owls.
Wage Differentials between Temporary and Permanent Workers in Italy

The focus of this paper is to estimate the wage differentials between temporary and permanent workers using the 2002 wave of the Survey of Italian Households' Income and Wealth (SHIW) carried out by the Bank of Italy. A standard Mincer equation extended to a dummy variable for fied term contracts, interaction terms, and further explanatory variables will be estimated. Two hypothetical sources of misspecification may arise. Firstly, the potential endogeneity of the dummy variable for the contract type. Indeed, it seems plausible that those who end up in temporary jobs are not a random draw from the population and that this selection generates biased estimates. We will propose two methods to overcome the self-selectivity bias: the first one is an instrumental variables approach, the second one consists in the Heckman's (1978) dummy endogenous variable model estimator. The second possible source of misspecification is the "classical" Heckman's (1979) sample selection bias. We will present a procedure in order to test the presence of such a sample selection bias taking into account the endogeneity of the dummy variable for the contract type.
The Cluster Magnetic Field Investigation: overview of in-flight performance and initial results

Abstract. The accurate measurement of the magnetic field along the orbits of the four Cluster spacecraft is a primary objective of the mission. The magnetic field is a key constituent of the plasma in and around the magnetosphere, and it plays an active role in all physical processes that define the structure and dynamics of magnetospheric phenomena on all scales. With the four-point measurements on Cluster, it has become possible to study the three-dimensional aspects of space plasma phenomena on scales commeasurable with the size of the spacecraft constellation, and to distinguish temporal and spatial dependences of small-scale processes. We present an overview of the instrumentation used to measure the magnetic field on the four Cluster spacecraft and an overview the performance of the operational modes used in flight. We also report on the results of the preliminary in-orbit calibration of the magnetometers; these results show that all components of the magnetic field are measured with an accuracy approaching 0.1 nT. Further data analysis is expected to bring an even more accurate determination of the calibration parameters. Several examples of the capabilities of the investigation are presented from the commissioning phase of the mission, and from the different regions visited by the spacecraft to date: the tail current sheet, the dusk side magnetopause and magnetosheath, the bow shock and the cusp. We also describe the data processing flow and the implementation of data distribution to other Cluster investigations and to the scientific community in general. Key words. Interplanetary physics (instruments and techniques) – magnetospheric physics (magnetospheric configuration and dynamics) – space plasma physics (shock waves)
Islamic Banking Sectors in Gulf Cooperative Council Countries: Analysis on Revenue, Cost and Profit Efficiency Concepts

This paper examines the revenue efficiency and the others efficiencies concepts profit and cost efficiency levels of 74 banks (47 conventional and 27 Islamic banks) in Gulf Cooperative Council (GCC) countries over the periods 2007 to 2011. The level of efficiencies was measured using Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) method which applied the intermediation approach. We find that, that the Islamic banks have exhibited a lower efficiency levels for all three efficiencies measures rather than conventional banks. This study seems to suggest revenue efficiency seems to play the main factor leading to the lower or higher profit efficiency levels. The determinants that could improve the revenue efficiency in GCC Islamic banks were identified using Multiple Regression Analysis (MRA). Four bank specific determinants were found to influence the improvement of revenue efficiency: asset quality, non-traditional activities, management quality and liquidity. The improvement of the revenue efficiency in GCC Islamic banks was also influenced by the macroeconomic variable inflation and concentration ratio of the three largest banks.
Data triangulation: Using multiple methods to estimate and validate abortion incidence and prevalence.

This chapter builds further on the validation efforts just mentioned. The strategy of data triangulation emphasizes the importance of using multiple estimation methodologies -- qualitative quantitative direct and indirect -- to enhance confidence in the final results. A triangulation strategy is useful in all regions of the world and in all legal settings because abortions are universally underreported. Triangulation overcomes some of each individual methods limitations by using two or more research techniques and cross-checking the results for consistency. The strategy helps researchers determine which methodologies yield the most accurate estimates in a given setting or population. The chapter summarizes findings from several studies that incorporated multiple estimation techniques including studies conducted in Argentina Bangladesh Mexico and the United States.
Functional correlation between cell adhesive properties and some cell surface proteins

The adhesive properties of Chinese hamster V79 cells were analyzed and characterized by various cell dissociation treatments. The comparisons of aggregability among cells dissociated with EDTA, trypsin + Ca2+, and trypsin + EDTA, revealed that these cells have two adhesion mechanisms, a Ca2+-independent and a Ca2+-dependent one. The former did not depend on temperature, whereas the latter occurred only at physiological temperatures. Both mechanisms were trypsin sensitive, but the Ca2+- dependent one was protected by Ca2+ against trypsinization. In morphological studies, the Ca2+-independent adhesion appeared to be a simple agglutination or flocculation of cells, whereas the Ca2+- dependent adhesion seemed to be more physiological, being accompanied by cell deformation resulting in the increase of contact area between adjacent cells. Lactoperoxidase-catalyzed iodination of cell surface proteins revealed that several proteins are more intensely labeled in cells with Ca2+-independent adhesiveness than in cells without that property. It was also found that a cell surface protein with a molecular weight of approximately 150,000 is present only in cells with Ca2+-dependent adhesiveness. The iodination and trypsinization of this protein were protected by Ca2+, suggesting its reactivity to Ca2+. Possible mechanisms for each adhesion property are discussed, taking into account the correlation of these proteins with cell adhesiveness.
Stimulation of neural regeneration in the mouse retina

Müller glia can serve as a source of new neurons after retinal damage in both fish and birds. Investigations of regeneration in the mammalian retina in vitro have provided some evidence that Müller glia can proliferate after retinal damage and generate new rods; however, the evidence that this occurs in vivo is not conclusive. We have investigated whether Müller glia have the potential to generate neurons in the mouse retina in vivo by eliminating ganglion and amacrine cells with intraocular NMDA injections and stimulating Müller glial to re-enter the mitotic cycle by treatment with specific growth factors. The proliferating Müller glia dedifferentiate and a subset of these cells differentiated into amacrine cells, as defined by the expression of amacrine cell-specific markers Calretinin, NeuN, Prox1, and GAD67-GFP. These results show for the first time that the mammalian retina has the potential to regenerate inner retinal neurons in vivo.
Parallel Computation of RBF Kernels for Support Vector Classifiers

While kernel support vector machines are powerful classification algorithms, their computational overhead can be significant, especially for large and high-dimensional data sets. A recent biomedical dataset, for instance, could take as long as 3 weeks to compute its RBF kernel matrix on a modern, single-processor workstation. In this paper, we develop methods for high-performance parallel computation of kernel matrices. There are two key components to a parallel implementation: distribution of the computation across nodes and communication to combine the results. To address the first, we employ a dimension-wise data partition that yields efficient computation and low communication overhead during the initial phase. This partition provides dramatic speedups on large and high-dimensional data, applies to a wide variety of kernel functions, and is an exact computation, producing the same kernel matrix as its sequential implementation. To address communication needs during the second phase, we introduce an approximation specific to the Gaussian RBF kernel that yields sparse partial kernel matrices and, thus, efficient communication. We analyze the approximation error of this method, demonstrating that it falls off exponentially with N , the parameter of the approximation. We also examine the positive definiteness of the approximation with respect to Mercer’s condition and show that (a) in the limit of N our approximation becomes positive definite for any data set and (b) for a fixed data set, there exists a finite N yielding a positive definite kernel matrix. We also give a simple iterative method for selecting N to yield a positive definite kernel matrix on any fixed data set. In practice, we find that positive definiteness is achieved on all of the data sets we examine with very small N (2–5). Finally, we test the empirical performance of our two methods on a variety of large, real-world data sets, demonstrating large computational speedups with little or no impact on accuracy.
Improved Dual-Luciferase Reporter Assays for Nuclear Receptors

Nuclear receptors play important roles in many cellular functions through control of gene transcription. It is also a large target class for drug discovery. Luciferase reporter assays are frequently used to study nuclear receptor function because of their wide dynamic range, low endogenous activity, and ease of use. Recent improvements of luciferase genes and vectors have further enhanced their utilities. Here we applied these improvements to two reporter formats for studying nuclear receptors. The first assay contains a Murine Mammary Tumor Virus promoter upstream of a destabilized luciferase. The presence of response elements for nuclear hormone receptor in this promoter allows the studies of endogenous and/or exogenous full length receptors. The second assay contains a ligand binding domain (LBD) of a nuclear receptor fused to the GAL4 DNA binding domain (DBD) on one vector and multiple Gal4 Upstream Activator Sequences (UAS) upstream of luciferase reporter on another vector. We showed that codon optimization of luciferase reporter genes increased expression levels in conjunction with the incorporation of protein destabilizing sequences into luciferase led to a larger assay dynamic range in both formats. The optimum number of UAS to generate the best response was determined. The expression vector for nuclear receptor LBD/GAL4 DBD fusion also constitutively expresses a Renilla luciferase-neoR fusion protein, which provides selection capability (G418 resistance, neoR) as well as an internal control (Renilla luciferase). This dual-luciferase format allowed detecting compound cytotoxicity or off-target change in expression during drug screening, therefore improved data quality. These luciferase reporter assays provided better research and drug discovery tools for studying the functions of full length nuclear receptors and ligand binding domains.
Energetics of ciliary movement in Sabellaria and Mytilus.

1. High-speed cinephotography has been used to study the movements performed by compound cilia from the segmental gills of Sabellaria and from the abfrontal face of the gill filaments of Mytilus . 2. The two types of cilium have distinctly different beat patterns. 3. Equations are derived which allow the calculation of the energy necessary to overcome viscous resistance during the effective and recovery strokes of a cilium in terms of its dimensions and angular frequency. 4. In Sabellaria cilia the energy needed to overcome viscous forces is greater for the effective stroke than for the recovery stroke, but the reverse is true for Mytilus abfrontal cilia. 5. Estimates of the work done to overcome elastic forces are probably too high, but it appears that the elastic work done in the recovery stroke is greater than that in the effective stroke for cilia of both types if the stiffness remains constant throughout the beat. 6. The energy released if each fibrillar arm causes the breakdown of one ATP molecule per beat cycle is greater than that required to overcome viscous resistance to ciliary motion.
Measuring Semantic Closeness of Ontologically Demarcated Resources

In our work, an agent-based system supporting workers in an organization is centered around utilization of ontologically demarcated data. In this system, ontological matchmaking, understood as a way of establishing closeness between resources, is one of key functionalities. Specifi- cally, it is used to autonomously provide recommendations to the user, who is represented by her/his personal agent. These recommendations specify, which among available resources are relevant/of interest to the worker. In this paper, we discuss our approach to measuring semantic closeness between ontologically demarcated information objects, while a Duty Trip Support application is used as a case study. General description of the algorithm is followed by a recommendation example based on support for a worker who is seeking advice in planning a duty trip.
The impact of plant size and type of industry on manufacturing competitive priorities: An empirical investigation

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to report and discuss the manufacturing competitive priorities (cost, delivery, quality, flexibility, and innovativeness) practiced by Kuwaiti manufacturers. It also investigates the possible impact of plant size and type of industry on the level of focus at different priorities. In addition, the level of association between different pairs of competitive priorities was investigated. This allowed testing the traditional competitive priorities trade‐off model which was frequently argued by early operations strategy researchers.Design/methodology/approach – The data collection method used in this study is that of the questionnaire that was administrated in 62 Kuwaiti plants working in two different industries, food processing and refractors. Level of focus (on a five‐point Likert scale) at each of the five competitive priorities, type of industry and number of employees were the main research variables. Since ordinal scales are used in the current study to measure the .
Exporters and Importers of Services: Firm-Level Evidence on Italy

This work contributes to the small but growing body of literature on international trade in services at firm level. Our dataset, based on a new Bank of Italy survey, provides information on exports and imports of services (excluding transportation and travel) in 2008-09 for almost 3,000 Italian industrial and services firms, divided by partner country and type of service. We report a set of stylized facts on trade in services. We also analyze the choice between export and foreign direct investment in services at the firm level, thus innovating with respect to the previous literature using industry data. The main findings are as follows: the export and import of services is highly concentrated in just a few firms; firm-level variation in trade is positively correlated with firm size and productivity; country-level variation is to a large extent explained by the standard gravity variables; distance strongly reduces trade in services in spite of their intangibility; smaller and less productive firms choose to export rather than sell through foreign affiliates.
How Unexpected Events Produce An Escalation Of Cognitive And Coordinative Demands

Each round of technological development promises to aid the people engaged in various fields of practice. After these promises result in the development of prototypes and fielded systems, those researchers who examine the reverberations of technology change have observed a mixed bag of effects, most quite different from the expectations of the technology advocates. Often the message practitioners send with their performance, their errors, and their adaptations is one of technology-induced complexity. In these cases, technological possibilities are used clumsily so that systems intended to serve the user turn out to add new burdens that congregate at the busiest times or during the most critical phases of the task (e.g., Woods, Johannesen, Cook, & Sarter, 1994, chapter 5, Woods & Watts, 1997).
On Multiple Discount Rates

We study the problem of resolving conflicting discount rates via a social choice approach. We introduce several axioms, seeking to capture the tension between allowing for intergenerational comparisons of utility, and imposing intergenerational fairness. Depending on which axioms are judged appropriate, we are led to one of several conclusions: a utilitarian, maxmin, or a multi‐utilitarian rule, whereby a utility stream is judged by the worst in a set of utilitarian weighting schemes across discount rates.
Artificial neural networks for daily rainfall—runoff modelling

Abstract The application of artificial neural network (ANN) methodology for modelling daily flows during monsoon flood events for a large size catchment of the Narmada River in Madhya Pradesh (India) is presented. The spatial variation of rainfall is accounted for by subdividing the catchment and treating the average rainfall of each subcatchment as a parallel and separate lumped input to the model. A linear multiple-input single-output (MISO) model coupled with the ANN is shown to provide a better representation of the rainfall-runoff relationship in such large size catchments compared with linear and nonlinear MISO models. The present model provides a systematic approach for runoff estimation and represents improvement in prediction accuracy over the other models studied herein.