Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Antecedents and Consequences of Channel Alienation: An Empirical Investigation within Franchised Channels of Distribution

Investigating an important overlooked phase of interorganizational relationship evolution, which is currently hypothesized to progress through five stages of awareness, exploration, expansion, commitment, and dissolution, this dissertation proposes that in the long road between commitment and dissolution, the quintessential interfirm relationship is likely to be characterized by a prolonged period of relationship alienation, which then becomes the immediate precursor to the dissolution stage. The dissertation utilizes social learning theory, behavior constraint theory, and alienation theory to explain apathetic behaviors of franchisees. The principal proposition is that certain characteristics of the franchise system’s operating environment inadvertently condition franchisee estrangement and failure, and the maladaptive behaviors persist even after environmental changes make success possible again. The dissertation proposes and empirically tests a conceptual model of franchisee alienation. Data from dyadic franchisee-franchisor relationships (N=185) across a wide variety of industries were obtained through a survey of franchisee organizations that were members of the Franchise Council of Australia (FCA). The results render support to the central hypothesis that franchisee alienation occurs as a result of the franchisee organization disconnecting its own actions from the outcomes of its interactions with the franchisor. Franchisee alienation is shown as a phenomenon that is extremely toxic for the franchise system as a whole, as the alienated franchisee is likely to engage in
Interactive Relationships Among Multiple Dimensions of Professional Commitment

The purpose of this study was to examine the main and interactive effects of four dimensions of professional commitment on strain (i.e., depression, anxiety, perceived health status, and job dissatisfaction) for a sample of 176 law professionals. The study utilized a two-wave design in which professional commitment and strain were measured at Time 1 and strain was measured again at Time 2 (T2), 2 months later. A significant two-way interaction indicated that high affective commitment was related to less T2 job dissatisfaction only for lawyers with low accumulated costs. A significant four-way interaction indicated that high affective professional commitment was only related to fewer symptoms of T2 anxiety for lawyers with high normative professional commitment and both low limited alternatives and accumulated costs. A similar pattern of results emerged in regard to T2 perceived health status. The theoretical and practical implications of these results for career counselors are discussed.
Oxygen abundances in metal-poor subgiants as determined from [o i], o I and oh lines

The debate on the oxygen abundances of metal-poor stars has its origin in contradictory results ob- tained using different abundance indicators. To achieve a better understanding of the problem we have acquired high quality spectra with the Ultraviolet and Visual Echelle Spectrograph at VLT, with a signal-to-noise of the order of 100 in the near ultraviolet and 500 in the optical and near infrared wavelength range. Three different oxygen abundance indicators, OH ultraviolet lines around 310.0 nm, the (O i) line at 630.03 nm and the O i lines at 777.1-5 nm were observed in the spectra of 13 metal-poor subgiants with 3.0 � (Fe/H) � 1.5. Oxygen abun- dances were obtained from the analysis of these indicators which was carried out assuming local thermodynamic equilibrium and plane-parallel model atmospheres. Abundances derived from O i were corrected for departures from local thermodynamic equilibrium. Stellar parameters were computed using Teff-vs-color calibrations based on the infrared flux method and Balmer line profiles, Hipparcos parallaxes and Fe ii lines. (O/Fe) values derived from the forbidden line at 630.03 nm are consistent with an oxygen/iron ratio that varies linearly with (Fe/H) as (O/Fe) = 0.09(±0.08)(Fe/H) + 0.36(±0.15). Values based on the O i triplet are on average 0.19 ± 0.22dex(s.d.) higher than the values based on the forbidden line while the agreement between OH ultraviolet lines and the forbidden line is much better with a mean difference of the order of 0.09 ±0.25 dex(s.d.). In general, our results follow the same trend as previously published results with the exception of the ones based on OH ultraviolet lines. In that case our results lie below the values which gave rise to the oxygen abundance debate for metal-poor stars.
Risks and Portfolio Decisions involving Hedge Funds Vikas Agarwal

Hedge funds are known to exhibit non-linear option-like exposures to standard asset classes and therefore the traditional linear factor model provides limited help in capturing their risk-return tradeoffs. We address this problem by augmenting the traditional model with option-based risk factors. Our results show that a large number of equity-oriented hedge fund strategies exhibit payoffs resembling a short position in a put option on the market index, and therefore bear significant left-tail risk, risk that is ignored by the commonly used mean-variance framework. Using a mean-conditional Value-at-Risk framework, we demonstrate the extent to which the mean-variance framework underestimates the tail risk. Working with the underlying systematic risk factors, we compare the long-run performance with the recent performance of hedge funds and find that their recent performance appears significantly better than their long-run performance. Our analysis provides important insights that can be helpful in addressing issues like construction of fund of funds, risk management, benchmark design and manager compensation involving hedge funds.
Automated robotic manipulation of individual sub-micro particles using a dual probe setup inside the scanning electron microscope

Micro- and nanosized objects aligned in specific spatial order are of great interest for applications in photonics and nanoelectronics. In particular, piezo-actuated robotic setups are promising tools to arrange and manipulate these objects individually. However, automated robotic processing on the sub-micron scale remains challenging due to the force scaling laws and the limited possibilities in terms of control. This paper presents the current progress on fully-automated pick-and-place routines of individual colloidal particles using a dedicated dual-probe setup inside a scanning electron microscope. Applying tailored probes in combination with image processing of the visual feedback provided by the microscope allow for complex automation sequences. The limits of the current technique are highlighted and the challenges for automated processing of progressively smaller particles are discussed.
The Impact of Firm Learning on Value Creation in Strategic Outsourcing Relationships

Abstract Information technology (IT) is central to the process execution and management of an ongoing relationship in outsourcing, both of which are fraught with challenges, and often lead to poor business outcomes. Thus, it is important for IT groups in organizations to understand how to deal with such difficulties for improved outsourcing performance. We study whether firms learn over time to deal with these two related but distinct issues in IT and business process outsourcing. Does such learning affect financial value appropriation through outsourcing? We build on the literature in information systems and strategy to investigate whether value creation in outsourcing depends on relational learning that results from prior association with the vendor, and procedural learning that results from prior experience in managing interfirm relationships. We estimate value in terms of long-term abnormal stock returns to the client relative to an industry, size, and book-to-market matched sample of control firms following the implementation of the outsourcing contract. We also analyze announcement period returns and allied wealth effects. Using data from the hundred largest outsourcing deals between 1996 and 2005, we find that whereas relational learning influences value creation in both simple and complex outsourcing engagements, procedural learning impacts value only in complex initiatives. Financial markets are slow to price the value of learning. The results suggest that caution should be exercised when firms without the experience of managing interfirm relationships externalize complex tasks to vendors they have not worked with in the past. Furthermore, IT groups can help improve learning-based outcomes by developing processes and systems that enable a firm to improve outsourcing procedures in a cumulative manner and also to coordinate and collaborate with the vendor.
Influence of extraction methods on antioxidant and antimicrobial properties of essential oil from Thymua danesis subsp. Lancifolius

Abstract The essential oil (EO) from dried ground powder leaves and stems of Thymua danesis was extracted using hydrodistillation (HD), ohmic extraction (OE), ultrasound‐assisted HD and ultrasound‐assisted OE methods. Then, the antioxidant, antimicrobial, and sensory properties of the EO were investigated both in vitro and in food systems. Thyme EO extracted by ultrasound‐assisted HD method had promising antibacterial activities against Escherichia coli and Staphylococcus aureus and had the best antioxidant properties when tested in vitro. In food systems, higher concentrations of the EO were needed to exert similar antibacterial and antioxidant effects. Furthermore, thyme EO added yogurt and drink yogurt revealed better sensory properties than the control and fresh samples. Essential oil from Thymua danesis has a good potential to be used as an antioxidant, antimicrobial, and flavoring agent in food systems and the extraction method effects on the antioxidant and antimicrobial properties of the thyme extract.
Creativity and knowledge: A challenge to theories.

An important component of research in creativity has been the development of theories concerning the mechanisms underlying creative thinking. Modern theories of creative thinking have been advanced from many different viewpoints, ranging from Guilford's pioneering psychometric theory (e.g., 1950; see also Runco, 1991) to those developing out of clinical interests, broadly conceived (e.g., Eysenck, 1993). Other theories have developed out of Gestalt psychology (e.g., Wertheimer, 1982), traditional associationistic experimental psychology (e.g., Mednick, 1962), Darwinian theory (e.g., Campbell, 1960; Simonton, 1988, 1995); social-psychological perspectives (e.g., Amabile, 1983), investment perspectives (e.g., Sternberg & Lubart, 1995), and modern cognitive science (e.g., Martindale, 1995). In this chapter, I examine one critical issue confronting all such theories: the role of knowledge in creativity. Although the various theoretical views proposed by psychologists appear on the surface to be very different, there is among many of them, including all those just cited, one critical assumption concerning the relationship between knowledge and creativity. Since creative thinking by definition goes beyond knowledge, there is implicitly or explicitly assumed to be a tension between knowledge and creativity. Knowledge may provide the basic elements, the building blocks out of which are constructed new ideas, but in order for these building blocks to be available, the mortar holding the old ideas together must not be too strong.
Depression of Older Adults With Cancer in Korea

The study examines the depression of older adults with the level of depressive symptoms in Korean older adults (N = 319) who have cancer and are currently receiving treatment. Level of depressive symptoms was measured using the Korean version of the Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale (K-CES-D). Other factors under consideration were socio-demographic variables (gender, age, education, living with spouse, and perceived economic status), cancer/treatment variables (cancer stage at diagnosis, number of treatment, recurrence, and level of functional capability), internal resources (optimism and cancer-related health worries), and external resources (perceived support from family, friends, and medical professionals, other life stressors, and financial burden on medical costs). Data were analyzed using a hierarchical regression model with these variables entered as predictors and level of depressive symptoms as the dependent variable. The results showed a higher prevalence of depressive symptoms among patients with lower economic status, lower functional capabilities, less optimism, more cancer-related health worries, and less family supports. The findings suggest that efforts to enhance optimism and family support, and reduce cancer-related health worries should be emphasized in interventions for older adults with cancer.
Mining Gene Regulatory Networks by Neural Modeling of Expression Time-Series

Discovering gene regulatory networks from data is one of the most studied topics in recent years. Neural networks can be successfully used to infer an underlying gene network by modeling expression profiles as times series. This work proposes a novel method based on a pool of neural networks for obtaining a gene regulatory network from a gene expression dataset. They are used for modeling each possible interaction between pairs of genes in the dataset, and a set of mining rules is applied to accurately detect the subjacent relations among genes. The results obtained on artificial and real datasets confirm the method effectiveness for discovering regulatory networks from a proper modeling of the temporal dynamics of gene expression profiles.
CTLA-4 blockade with ipilimumab: biology, safety, efficacy, and future considerations

Melanoma remains a critical public health problem worldwide. Patients with stage IV disease have very poor prognosis and their 1‐year survival rate is only 25%. Until recently, systemic treatments with a positive impact on overall survival (OS) had remained elusive. In recent years, the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) – approved several novel agents targeting the RAS/RAF/MEK/ERK pathway (vemurafenib, dabrafenib, and trametinib) – critical in cell division and proliferation of melanoma, and an immune checkpoint inhibitor (ipilimumab) directed against the cytotoxic T lymphocyte Antigen ‐ (CTLA‐4). Moreover, recent reports of clinical trials studying other immune checkpoint modulating agents will most likely result in their FDA approval within the next months. This review focuses on ipilimumab, its safety and efficacy, and future considerations. Ipilimumab has demonstrated a positive OS impact after a several‐year follow‐up. It is also recognized that due to its mechanism of action, the response patterns to ipilimumab can differ from those observed in patients following treatment with conventional cytotoxic agents and even the most recently approved BRAF inhibitors. Most patients (84.8%) experience drug‐related adverse events (AEs) of any grade; most of these are mild to moderate and immune mediated. However, a minority of patients may also experience severe and life‐threatening AEs. In clinical studies, AEs were managed according to guidelines that emphasized close clinical monitoring and early use of corticosteroids when appropriate. Preliminary results have taught us the potential greater toxicity when in combination with vemurafenib, and the greater antitumor efficacy when combined with nivolumab, a monoclonal antibody directed against programmed death receptor‐1 (PD‐1), another immune checkpoint inhibitor. Future challenges include the optimization of dosing and toxicities when used as a single agent, and studying the safety and efficacy of combinations with targeted small molecules and other monoclonal antibodies to treat patients with melanoma and other malignancies.
Mobile Adaptation and Sticky Experiments: Circulating Best Practices and Lessons Learned in Climate Change Adaptation

This article engages with the recent geographical literature on policy mobilities in order to examine how the World Bank mobilizes climate change adaptation 'best practices'. Drawing from the relational case study of the Kiribati Adaptation Project and the Community Resilience to Climate Change and Disaster Risk in Solomon Islands Project, the article explores the complex and intensive work required for mobilizing lessons and practices. The analytical work required in building the Kiribati Adaptation Project as a World Bank success story and policy model worthy of replication in new sites is demonstrated. However, heeding calls within the policy mobilities literature to avoid fetishizing mobility and attending to the contradictions between global flows and local institutional specificity, the article finds limited evidence of replication in noted sites of emulation. Instead, there is compulsive citation, publication, and circulation of experiences and successes within the World Bank, which operates to build internal and external legitimacy.
Bilateral Resource Redeployment and Capabilities Improvement Following Horizontal Acquisitions

This paper studies the incidence and impact of bilateral redeployment of resources between target and acquiring firms following 253 horizontal acquisitions involving North American and European firms between 1988 and 1992. The resources include ten types of technical, commercial, administrative and financial resources. We find that acquisitions often involve substantial technical and commercial integration of the resources of the acquirer and target, while representing managerial and financial expansion of the acquirer rather than the target. In turn, we show that bilateral redeployment improves five types of capabilities of the acquiring and target businesses, including R&D capabilities, time to market, product quality, product cost and output flexibility. The empirical implications support the conceptual argument that acquisitions play a key role in business adaptation. Copyright 1998 by Oxford University Press.
QTL analysis for some quantitative traits in bread wheat

Quantitative trait loci (QTL) analysis was conducted in bread wheat for 14 important traits utilizing data from four different mapping populations involving different approaches of QTL analysis. Analysis for grain protein content (GPC) suggested that the major part of genetic variation for this trait is due to environmental interactions. In contrast, pre-harvest sprouting tolerance (PHST) was controlled mainly by main effect QTL (M-QTL) with very little genetic variation due to environmental interactions; a major QTL for PHST was detected on chromosome arm 3AL. For grain weight, one QTL each was detected on chromosome arms 1AS, 2BS and 7AS. QTL for 4 growth related traits taken together detected by different methods ranged from 37 to 40; nine QTL that were detected by single-locus as well as two-locus analyses were all M-QTL. Similarly, single-locus and two-locus QTL analyses for seven yield and yield contributing traits in two populations respectively allowed detection of 25 and 50 QTL by composite interval mapping (CIM), 16 and 25 QTL by multiple-trait composite interval mapping (MCIM) and 38 and 37 QTL by two-locus analyses. These studies should prove useful in QTL cloning and wheat improvement through marker aided selection.
Student-faculty interactions and college adjustment as predictors of academic achievement

Student-faculty interactions and college adjustment were analyzed as predictors of academic achievement. Participants included undergraduate freshmen enrolled in an Introduction to Psychology course (N = 86) from a large university in the southeastern United States. It was hypothesized that student-faculty interactions and college adjustment would predict academic achievement and that student-faculty interactions would be a greater predictor than college adjustment. A hierarchical multiple regression model was analyzed and the model was not significant as a predictor of academic achievement. Further analysis determined that a significant correlation existed between college adjustment and academic achievement. Together these findings suggest that student-faculty interactions and college adjustment combined are not predictors of academic achievement. However college adjustment was a significant contributor to academic achievement within this study.
On the atmospheric limitations of ground-based submillimetre astronomy using array receivers

The calibration of ground-based submillimetre observations has always been a difficult process. We discuss how to overcome the limitations imposed by the submillimetre atmosphere. Novel ways to improve line-of-sight opacity estimates are presented, resulting in tight relations between opacities at different wavelengths. The submillimetre camera SCUBA, mounted on the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope (JCMT), is the first large-scale submillimetre array, and as such is ideal for combating the effects of the atmosphere. For example, we find that the off-source pixels are crucial for removing sky noise. Benefiting from several years of SCUBA operation, a data base of deep SCUBA observations has been constructed to help us understand better the nature of sky noise and the effects of the atmosphere on instrument sensitivity. This has revealed several results. First, there is evidence for positive correlations between sky noise and seeing and sky noise and sky opacity. Furthermore, 850-μm and 450-μm sky noise are clearly correlated, suggesting that 450-μm data may be used to correct 850-μm observations for sky noise. Perhaps most important of all: if off-source bolometers are used for sky noise removal, there is no correlation between instrument sensitivity and chop throw, for chop throws out to 180 arcsec. Understanding the effects of submillimetre seeing is also important, and we find that the JCMT beam is not significantly broadened by seeing, nor is there an obvious correlation between seeing and pointing excursions.
Two-Fold Filtering for Chinese Subcategorization Acquisition with Diathesis Alternations Used as Heuristic Information

Automatically acquired lexicons with subcategorization information have been shown to be accurate and useful for some purposes, but their accuracy still shows room for improvement and their usefulness in many applications remains to be investigated. This paper proposes a two-fold filtering method, which in experiments improved the performance of a Chinese acquisition system remarkably, with an increased precision rate of 76.94% and a recall rate of 83.83%, making the acquired lexicon much more practical for further manual proofreading and other NLP uses. And as far as we know, at the present time, these figures represent the best overall performance achieved in Chinese subcategorization acquisition and in similar researches focusing on other languages.
Modeling Free-Surface Flow in Part-Filled Rotating Vessels: Vertical and Horizontal Orientations

We report on the numerical simulation of rotating flows with free surfaces, typically that arise in dough-kneading situations found within the food processing industry. Free-surface flow in a rotating cylinder is investigated when a fluid is stirred in a cylindrical-shaped vessel with a stirrer attached to its lid. The problem is posed in a three-dimensional cylindrical polar frame of reference. Numerical predictions are based on a Taylor.Galerkin/pressure-correction finite element formulation, with particle tracking to accommodate free-surface movement. Peeling and wetting conditions are incorporated to predict fluid-surface movement in contact with solid boundaries. Free-surface profiles are presented for different speeds of rotation and predictions compare closely to equivalent experimental results. The algorithmic implementation is validated against Newtonian analytical solutions. Typical results are presented to demonstrate the difference between Newtonian and inelastic model fluids