Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Multiple Managers, Competing Strategies and Business Unit Performance: A Case Study of PINDAD Company, Indonesia

The existence of PT PINDAD (PERSERO) is very important in an effort to realize the independence of the industry, especially for the growth of high-tech industry that is strategic. However, the phenomenon that occurred since the monetary crisis to date that the business performance of PT PINDAD (PERSERO) tends to be unstable and the contribution of dividends to the state is still low. This is thought to still have weaknesses in the competitive strategy implemented and not fully utilize multi roles manager on business unit well. This paper presents a study of multiple managers, competing strategies and business unit performance at PINDAD Company, Indonesia. This work needs to be done as an effort to improve the performance and sustainability of PT PINDAD (PERSERO) business in the future. Explanatory survey research method has been used, where the subject of this research is middle manager and research object covering all the characteristics related to multi role manager, competitive strategy, and business unit performance at PT PINDAD (PERSERO). Hypothesis analysis and test using Regression and Correlation Analysis. The results revealed that multi-manager managers dominated by change agent strategies, competitive strategies dominated by cost leadership strategies have been well implemented, and business unit performance showed excellent performance. The performance of PT PINDAD (PERSERO) business unit is influenced by Multi roles managers (as strategic partners, administrative experts, superior employee drivers, agents of change) and competitive strategies (Cost Leadership, Differentiation, Focus and Speed). Multi roles managers have a higher impact than the implementation of competitive strategies on performance (financial, customers, internal business processes, learning and growth of the company) PT PINDAD (PERSERO) business unit.
Estimating Portfolio and Consumption Choice: A Conditional Euler Equations Approach

This paper develops a nonparametric approach to examine how portfolio and consumption choice depends on variables that forecast time-varying investment opportunities. I estimate single-period and multiperiod portfolio and consumption rules of an investor with constant relative risk aversion and a one-month to twenty-year horizon. The investor allocates wealth to the NYSE index and a 30-day Treasury bill. I find that the portfolio choice varies significantly with the dividend yield, default premium, term premium, and lagged excess return. Furthermore, the optimal decisions depend on the investor's horizon and rebalancing frequency.
A Uniform Circuit Lower Bound for the Permanent

The authors show that uniform families of ACC circuits of subexponential size cannot compute the permanent function. This also implies similar lower bounds for certain sets in PP. This is one of the very few examples of a lower bound in circuit complexity whose proof hinges on the uniformity condition; it is still unknown if there is any set in Ntime ($2^{n^{O(1)}}$) that does not have nonuniform ACC circuits.
Disentangling the Relationship between News Media and Consumers' Inflation Sentiment: the Case of Croatia

Apart from phenomenon of the “euro-induced price perception gap” in the euro area in 2002, the impact of media reporting on inflation tendencies is underexplored in the literature. Therefore, this paper tries to examine the influence of media content on the accuracy of consumers’ inflation perceptions and expectations in Croatia during the period 2007–2014. The authors obtain a unique database of articles from the archives of three leading Croatian news websites. The authors find that the content and tone of inflation-related articles significantly influence consumers’ ability to assess inflation accurately. The evidence is the most convincing in the aftermath of Croatian EU accession, when a considerable gap has emerged between consumers’ inflation sentiment and the official inflation rates. This is strikingly similar to the “euro-induced price perception gap” in 2002.
Self-Validated and Spatially Coherent Clustering with Net-Structured MRF and Graph Cuts

Self-validation and efficient global optimization are two important objectives for feature space clustering. The Gibbs energy minimization of Markov random field (MRF) provides a general framework for the clustering problem. However, the large computational burden makes most MRF-based methods cannot efficiently achieve these two targets simultaneously. In this paper, we propose a fast clustering approach which is self-validated and guarantees stepwise global optimum. We use the net-structured MRF (NS-MRF) to model the feature space and present an iterative cluster evolution algorithm. For each iteration, the cluster evolving is chosen from three hypotheses, i.e., cluster remaining, cluster merging or cluster splitting, in terms of energy minimization. Graph cuts are used to obtain the optimal binary splitting while taking spatial coherence into account. We terminate the evolution process when the whole energy of NS-MRF stops decreasing, thus solve the validation problem. We also provide experimental results and compare our approach with the state of arts
Synthesis and characterization of kaolinite-based geopolymer : Alkaline activation effect on calcined kaolinitic clay at different temperatures

In the present work we sought to determine the most convenient calcination temperature of Tunisian kaolinitic clay in order to produce a more reactive metakaolin and to determine the most suitable potassium hydroxide (KOH) and sodium hydroxide (NaOH) concentration to produce geopolymer cements with good physical and mechanical performance, less energy consumption and low carbon dioxide emission. This product would play the role of a construction material able to replace Portland cement. The kaolinitic clay fractions collected from Tabarka (Tunisia) were first calcined at different temperatures ranging from 550 °C to 1 100 °C. Calcined fractions were then activated by potassium hydroxide and sodium hydroxide solutions with concentrations of between 5 M to 18 M. The mineral and chemical composition of raw and geopolymer samples was characterized by X-ray diffraction, infrared spectroscopy and thermal analysis, whereas the mechanical and physical properties of hardened samples were characterized respectively by compressive strength, porosity and water absorption. The results obtained showed that the temperature required to obtain a metakaolin with the highest degree of reactivity is approximately 700 °C. The various physical properties reached optimum values at this temperature and for base concentration equal to 13 M. These values decreased at higher temperature and concentration. Received 13 Mar2016, Revised 24 May 2016, Accepted 06 Jun 2016
Efficacy of contingency management in improving retention and compliance to methadone maintenance treatment: a random controlled study

Background Compliance with methadone maintenance treatment (MMT) in China is poor. Objective To evaluate the effects of adjunctive contingency management (CM) on the efficacy of methadone maintenance treatment (MMT) in patients with opioid dependence. Hypothesis A 12-week prize-based contingency management (CM) intervention can increase the retention and compliance of heroin abusers to standardized MMT programs in Shanghai. Methods 160 heroin-dependent patients from three voluntary MMT clinics in Shanghai were randomly assigned to a treatment as usual group (MMT, n=80) and an intervention group (MMT+CM, n=80). Daily use of methadone was recorded and urine drug tests were conducted weekly during the first 12 weeks and then at week 16, week 20 and week 24. Results The 12-week retention rates for the intervention (MMT+CM) and treatment-as-usual (MMT) groups were both quite high: 87.5% and 86.2%, respectively. The average durations of using methadone in the two groups were equal (70 days versus 71 days, respectively). There was a non-significant increase in the mean longest drug-free period (7.4 weeks versus 6.5 weeks) and in the mean number of negative urine tests (7.9 versus 7.6). Secondary analysis of the 24-week outcomes (12 weeks after termination of the adjunctive CM treatment) also found no significant differences between the groups. Among those who remained in the program the severity of addiction as assessed by the Addiction Severity Index decreased dramatically over the 24 weeks but, again, there were no significant differences in the addiction measures between those in the intervention group and those in the treatment-as-usual group. Conclusion Prize-based CM is not effective in improving the retention and compliance of heroin abusers to MMT in Shanghai. The main reasons for failure to replicate western studies were the unexpectedly high baseline rates of compliance in this sample (86%) and the relatively weak financial incentives provided by the CM program. CM programs are context dependent so a careful preliminary situational analysis is needed to determine their potential effectiveness at a particular site and to identify the types of incentives (prizes) that will effectively encourage behavioral change in the target participants.
Hospital Mergers : Foundation for a Modern , Efficient and High-Performing Health Care System of the Future Executive Summary

Extending the prior research found that mergers of hospitals within 30 miles resulted in greater cost savings, equating to more than $6.6 million (or a 2.8 percent reduction) in annual operating expenses at acquired hospitals. Similar to the prior study, there was a statistically significant decline in revenue per admissions for mergers of nearby hospitals as well as those located further apart. These results run counter to research linking hospital mergers with higher prices paid by health plans. Lastly, the study found evidence of an upward trajectory in quality measured by reduced readmission rates.
Standardization in Clinical Enzymology

The goal of standardization in Laboratory Medicine is to achieve comparable results in human samples, independent of the reagent kits, instruments, and laboratory where the assay is carried out. To pursue this objective in clinical enzymology, the IFCC has established reference measurement systems for the most important clinical enzymes. These systems are based on the following requirements: a) reference methods, well described in procedures that are extensively evaluated; b) suitable reference materials; and c) reference laboratories operating in a highly controlled manner. Using these reference systems and the manufacturer’s standing procedures, industry can assign traceable values to commercial calibrators. Clinical laboratories, which use routine procedures with validated calibrators to measure enzymes in human specimens, can finally obtain values which are traceable to higher-order reference procedures. These reference systems constitute the structure of the traceability chain to which the enzyme routine methods can be linked via an appropriate calibration process, provided that they have a comparable specificity (i.e. they are measuring the same quantity).
A New QoS Routing Framework for Solving MCP

SUMMARY One purpose of Quality-of-Service (QoS) routing is to develop polynomial-time heuristic algorithms to tackle the MCP(multi-constrained-path) problem, which is NP complete. In this paper, we introduce a new QoS routing heuristic framework, which focuses on how to increase the success ratio for finding a feasible path subject to multiple additive constraints. The key issue of this framework is to transform the single source single destination QoS routing problem to a single source multidestination problem by expanding the destination vertex to its neighboring vertices. After that, the modified problem can be solved by existing source routing heuristic algorithms. The analysis and simulation results demonstrate that the framework can achieve a higher success ratio of finding a feasible path without increasing the computational complexity by setting the expansion
Limit Cycle Oscillations of an Airfoil Including a Control Surface with Freeplay : High Order Harmonic Balance Prediction

Abstract Limit cycle oscillations (LCOs) and bifurcations arising from a concentrated structural nonlinearity in the restoring forces were first studied in [1] and [2]. A comprehensive review of the bifurcations and chaos of the three basic nonlinearities, namely, cubic, freeplay and hysteresis has been reported recently in [3]. The first order Harmonic Balance (HB) method (including one dominant harmonic in the analysis) often referred to as the Describing Function (DF) approach or the equivalent linearization technique cannot predict high harmonic response (e.g. [4]). A major finding of the study in [5] is that a surprisingly large number of harmonics is needed to describe the secondary bifurcation for an airfoil with a cubic spring in the pitch degree of freedom. The present study focuses on a two dimensional airfoil including a control surface with freeplay placed in an incompressible flow. The theoretical model is formulated as a set of first order ordinary differential equations. The high harmonics of the airfoil motions are investigated by a high order HB method. The analytical prediction is verified by comparison to results from a numerical time marching integration for some cases and also by comparison to results from a previous experiment. A schematic of the typical airfoil section with a control surface at the trailing-edge of the main wing is shown in Figure 1(a) and a freeplay structural nonlinearity of the control surface is shown in Figure 1(b). There are three degrees of freedom: plunge, h ; pitch, α ; and flap, β . Figure 1(a) depicts one of the classical problems in nonlinear aeroelasticity. Using standard procedures the equations of motion can be written as [6]:
ON THE DESIGN OF ROBUST MULTIBAND OFDM ULTRA-WIDEBAND RECEIVERS

This paper analyzes the effects of narrowband interferences (NBI) on the performance of a multi-band orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (MB-OFDM) Ultra-wideband (UWB) receiver and proposes efficient schemes for signal reception and extraction of information in the presence of NBI. A study to assess the effects of NBI on the quantization noise in the analog to digital converter (ADC) is conducted. It is found that a reduced-complexity digital frequency excision method is sufficient to compensate weak NBI (with signal-to-interference ratio (SIR) larger than 0 dB). To combat efficiently strong NBI (with SIR less than 0 dB), this paper proposes a novel mixed interference suppression scheme that relies on the joint cooperation between a digital NBI detector and an adaptive analog notch filter. Simulation results show that the proposed mixed suppression scheme improves the performance of the digital frequency excision scheme by as much as 9 dB.
Axino dark matter and the CMSSM

If the axino is the lightest superpartner and satisfies cosmological bounds, including a preferred range of the relic abundance of cold dark matter, then the usual stringent constraints on the parameter space of the CMSSM become greatly relaxed. The lightest superpartner of the usual CMSSM spectrum will appear to be stable in collider experiments but will not necessarily obey relic abundance constraints. It may be either neutral (lightest neutralino) or charged (typically a stau). With the axino as cold dark matter, large regions of the CMSSM, often corresponding to heavy superpartners, become allowed, depending on the axino mass and the reheating temperature.
What is the contribution of food self-provisioning towards environmental sustainability? A case study of active gardeners

Food self-provisioning, also labelled as household food production, is a traditional activity persisting in the countries of the Global North. Recently, it has become an object of sustainability oriented research due to the positive social, health and environmental outcomes. However, little is known about the rate of self-sufficiency of the food self-provisioners and about environmental context of this kind of food production, including its actual potential for the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. To clarify these topics, we analysed sociological data from a quantitative research study carried out in the Czech Republic in 2015. The data from 775 food growing households were used. The combined rate of self-sufficiency of the households was calculated as the share of home grown fruit, vegetables and potatoes in the overall consumption of the household. The rate of self-sufficiency (33%) was then compared with average food consumption and multiplied by the different values of greenhouse gas
INTERACTIVE EFFECT OF DEFICIT IRRIGATION AND MULCHING ON SUGAR BEET PRODUCTIVITY IN PAKISTAN

In dry regions, irrigated agriculture is facing increasing demand for decreasing water resources. For sustainable and efficient use of the available water resources, field scale water saving strategies must be applied to enhance water productivity and crop yield. Deficit irrigation application along with suitable soil moisture conservation technique is one of the strategies and its successful application depends on crop response to different water stress levels. This research paper presents results of two years (2011–12 and 2012–13) study carried out at Sugar Crops Research Institute (SCRI) Mardan, to determine the effect of different irrigation deficit levels applied throughout the crop growing season and different types of mulching on productivity of sugar beet. The field experiments included four water stress levels designated as FI (full irrigation), DI20, DI40, DI60 (20, 40 and 60 percent deficit irrigation levels) and three moisture conservation practices; No mulch (NM), black polyethylene film mulch (BFM) and straw mulch (SM), respectively. Results revealed that different water stress levels and mulching combination produced significant effects on yield of sugar beet and its water productivity. The highest mean root yield was produced by FI– BFM combination and the highest mean sugar yield by DI20–BFM treatment. Results further revealed that the relative amounts of irrigation water saved by irrigation regimes and mulching interaction was ranged from 5.83 to 66.53% and the relative reduction in seasonal water used was ranged between 2 and 47%, respectively. The mean root and sugar water productivities observed in this study were lowest for FI and NM combination and the highest for DI60 and BFM. Overall finding of this study is that deficit irrigation and mulching can save water and improve its water productivity significantly.
Women Politicians, Institutions, and Perceptions of Corruption

Why do people assume female politicians are less likely than men to engage in the illegal use of public positions for private gain? We argue that voters may perceive women as marginalized within political institutions, or as more risk averse and consequently more constrained by institutional oversight, which could lead to perceptions of women as less likely to engage in corruption. Using an original survey experiment, we test these mechanisms against conventional wisdom that women are seen as more honest. We find strong support for the risk aversion explanation, as well as heterogeneous effects by respondent sex for both the marginalization and honesty mechanisms. These findings suggest that the institutional contexts in which women are operating can help explain why people perceive them as less likely to engage in corruption. Identifying these mechanisms is critical to understanding the role of women in politics and for improving trust in government.
Migration regulation contagion

This article examines the political economy of selective immigration policy in a model where decision makers are uncertain about the characteristics of migrants. The analysis focuses on two questions: first, how does a selective immigration policy affect the number of immigrants who are admitted by the receiving country; second, how does a selective immigration policy in one country affect immigration policies in other countries. We find (i) that countries with selective immigration policies ceteris paribus tend to admit more migrants than countries without such policies, and (ii) that neighbouring countries will follow each other in implementing selective immigration policies, i.e. there is diffusion. These theoretical findings are supported by evidence from an econometric panel analysis of immigration policies in 15 Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries in the period from 1980 to 2005.
Human Capital and Labour Productivity A Case Study of District Lahore

Human capital is an intangible asset of an organization. Firms always try to properly utilize their workforce through comprehensive human capital development.The main concern of an entrepreneur is not only to achieve business goals but also achieve long term survival and sustainability. This study is designed to investigate the role of human capital in labour productivity in district Lahore. For analyzing this relationship, cross sectional study is conducted and data is collected from 243 firms, which include manufacturing, trading and service sector.The empirical analysis reveals that all the sectors have heterogeneous effect of human capital on labour productivity. Education appears to be significant and positively related to labour productivity in all the sectors with greater effect in manufacturing sector. Skills and training have also noticeable effect on labour productivity. The descriptive analysis shows heterogeneous results in different sectors. Moreover, variance inflated factors and correlation matrix is also determined to detect the multicollinearity problem and there is no correlation among variables. The results of the study suggest that firms as well as government should invest more in human capital is developing skills in labour force so that it can become more productive. The study recommends that government should also provide more funds for the promotion of technical education in these countries.
Degeneration in Different Parkinsonian Syndromes Relates to Astrocyte Type and Astrocyte Protein Expression

The reactive changes in different types of astrocytes were analyzed in parkinsonian syndromes in order to identify common reactions and their relationship to disease severity. Immunohistochemistry was used on formalin-fixed, paraffin-embedded sections from the putamen, pons, and substantia nigra from 13 Parkinson disease (PD), 29 multiple-system atrophy (MSA), 34 progressive supranuclear palsy (PSP), 10 corticobasal degeneration(CBD), and 13 control cases. Classic reactive astrocytes were observed in MSA, PSP, and CBD, but not PD cases; the extent of reactivity correlated with indices of neurodegeneration and disease stage. Approximately 40% to 45% of subcortical astrocytes in PD and PSP accumulated &agr;-synuclein and phospho-tau, respectively; subcortical astrocytes in MSA and CBD cases did not accumulate these proteins. Protoplasmic astrocytes were identified from fibrous astrocytes by their expression of parkin coregulated gene and apolipoprotein D, and accumulated abnormal proteins in PD, PSP, and CBD, but not MSA. The increased reactivity of parkin coregulated gene-immunoreactive protoplasmic astrocytes correlated with parkin expression in PSP and CBD. Nonreactive protoplasmic astrocytes were observed in PD and MSA cases; in PD, they accumulated &agr;-synuclein, suggesting that the attenuated response might be due to an increase in the level of &agr;-synuclein. These heterogenous astroglial responses in PD, MSA, PSP, and CBD indicate distinct underlying pathogenic mechanisms in each disorder.