Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The effects of different types of trust on consumer perceptions of food safety: An empirical study of consumers in Beijing Municipality, China

Purpose - The aim of this research is to empirically investigate how different types of trust relate to consumer perceptions of food safety. Design/methodology/approach - After a review of trust literature this study classifies trust into three distinct types: supplier-level specific trust, industry-level specific trust and general trust. The direct and indirect relationships between three types of trust and consumer perceptions of food safety were studied through a survey of 1165 consumers from Beijing municipality, China using structural equation model as an analytical tool. Findings - The results indicate that trust in manufacturers and trust in retailers are directly positively related to food safety perceptions. Trust in farmers is not directly related to food safety perceptions. Industry-level specific trust is not related to food safety perceptions directly, but it is positively related to supplier-level specific trust, which in turn is positively related to food safety perceptions. Finally, general trust has only a weak indirect positive effect through its effect on trust in food manufacturers. Practical implications - The results imply that consumer perceived safety of food products might be enhanced by improving consumer trust in manufacturers and trust in retailers. The results also suggest that food suppliers are more difficult to build consumer trust when industry-level specific trust is low and declining. In addition, food suppliers also get potential benefits through influencing and improving industry-level specific trust. At last, the results suggest that some concerns about food safety are related to individuals' world reviews and maybe beyond the control of the food system. Originality/value - This study is the first to investigate the relationship between different types of specific trust in the context of food safety. Accordingly, it complements existing trust models and helps predict and explain how trust relates to food safety perceptions directly and indirectly through interactions between different types of trust.
The Hierarchy of Management Skills

During the past thirty years there has been substantial growth in management development activity in corporations within the United States and, for that matter, throughout the world. Drucker has said that in the mid‐40s there were few if any corporations that were concerned with management development, but by mid‐1970 there were literally thousands. The reason for the growth in management development programmes appears to be the rapidity with which knowledge is changing. Thus, much of today's knowledge will be obsolete in just a few years.
Kinetic and Structural Evolution of Self-gravitating, Magnetized Clouds: 2.5-Dimensional Simulations of Decaying Turbulence

The molecular component of the Galaxy is comprised of turbulent, magnetized clouds, many of which are self-gravitating and form stars. To develop an understanding of how these clouds' kinetic and structural evolution may depend on their level of turbulence, mean magnetization, and degree of self-gravity, we perform a survey of direct numerical MHD simulations in which three parameters are independently varied. Our simulations consist of solutions to the time-dependent MHD equations on a two-dimensional grid with periodic boundary conditions; an additional "half" dimension is also incorporated as dependent variables in the third Cartesian direction. Two of our survey parameters, the mean magnetization parameter β≡c2sound/v2Alfven and the Jeans number nJ≡Lcloud/LJeans, allow us to model clouds that either meet or fail conditions for magneto-Jeans stability and magnetic criticality. Our third survey parameter, the sonic Mach number ℳ≡σvelocity/csound, allows us to initiate turbulence of either sub- or super-Alfvénic amplitude; we employ an isothermal equation of state throughout. We evaluate the times for each cloud model to become gravitationally bound and measure each model's kinetic energy loss over the fluid-flow crossing time. We compare the evolution of density and magnetic field structural morphology and quantify the differences in the density contrast generated by internal stresses for models of differing mean magnetization. We find that the values of β and nJ, but not the initial Mach number ℳ, determine the time for cloud gravitational binding and collapse: for mean cloud density nH2=100 cm-3, unmagnetized models collapse after ~5 Myr, and magnetically supercritical models generally collapse after 5-10 Myr (although the smallest magneto-Jeans stable clouds survive gravitational collapse until t~15 Myr), while magnetically subcritical clouds remain uncollapsed over the entire simulations; these cloud collapse times scale with the mean density as tg∝n−½H2. We find, contrary to some previous expectations, less than a factor of 2 difference between turbulent decay times for models with varying magnetic field strength; the maximum decay time, for B~14 μG and nH2=100 cm-3, is 1.4 flow crossing times tcross=L/σvelocity (or 8 Myr for typical giant molecular cloud parameters). In all models we find turbulent amplification in the magnetic field strength up to at least the level βpert≡c2sound/δv2Alfven=0.1, with the turbulent magnetic energy between 25% and 60% of the turbulent kinetic energy after one flow crossing time. We find that for non-self-gravitating stages of evolution, when clouds have ℳ=5-10, the mass-averaged density contrast magnitudes ⟨log(ρ/ρ̄)⟩ are in the range 0.2-0.5, with the contrast increasing both toward low and high β. Although our conclusions about density statistics may be affected by our isothermal assumption, we note that only the more strongly magnetized models appear to be consistent with estimates of clump/interclump density contrasts inferred in Galactic giant molecular clouds.
Performance Analysis of All-Optical Multicast Routing Algorithms with Sparse Splitting

In this paper we study the multicast routing problem in all-optical WDM networks with sparse splitting capacity. In the literature, there are several proposals on ﬁnding the best way to construct multicast light-trees (or light-forests) with the objective of minimizing the number of wavelengths (link stress), the maximum end-to-end delay from the source to the destinations (maximum delay) and/or the total number of wavelength channels used (total cost) of the light-forests. However, balancing all these criteria is very difﬁcult. Particularly, end-to-end delay and link tress cannot be minimized simultaneously. Hence, it is interesting to ﬁnd a good approach that can provide a trade-off solution. Putting this into practice, we propose a comparative study of the most known algorithms and introduce a new one which can provide a good trade-off among those three criteria. Simulation results and comparison point out that our proposal provides the best link stress, a low maximum delay and low total cost of the multicast forest among considered algorithms. Especially, our proposal works best in dense networks, and/or with a large multicast group size in comparison to the classical algorithms.
BILATERAL COUNTERPARTY RISK UNDER FUNDING CONSTRAINTS—PART II: CVA

The correction in value of an over‐the‐counter derivative contract due to counterparty risk under funding constraints is represented as the value of a dividend‐paying option on the value of the contract clean of counterparty risk and excess funding costs. This representation allows one to analyze the structure of this correction, the so‐called Credit Valuation Adjustment (CVA for short), in terms of replacement cost/benefits, credit cost/benefits, and funding cost/benefits. We develop a reduced‐form backward stochastic differential equations (BSDE) approach to the problem of pricing and hedging the CVA. In the Markov setup, explicit CVA pricing and hedging schemes are formulated in terms of semilinear partial differential equations.
Essays on Russia's Economic Transition

This study comprises an introductory section and three essays analysing Russia's economic transition from the early 1990s up to the present.The papers present a combination of both theoretical and empirical analysis on some of the key issues Russia has faced during its somewhat troublesome transformation from state-controlled command economy to market-based economy. The first essay analyses fiscal competition for mobile capital between identical regions in a transition country.A standard tax competition framework is extended to account for two features of a transition economy: the presence of two sectors, old and new, which differ in productivity; and a non-benevolent regional decision-maker.It is shown that in very early phase of transition, when the old sector clearly dominates, consumers in a transition economy may be better off in a competitive equilibrium. Decision-makers, on the other hand, will prefer to coordinate their fiscal policies. The second essay uses annual data for 1992- 2003 to examine income dispersion and convergence across 76 Russian regions.Wide disparities in income levels have indeed emerged during the transition period.Dispersion has increased most among the initially better-off regions, whereas for the initially poorer regions no clear trend of divergence or convergence could be established.Further, some albeit not highly robust evidence was found of both unconditional and conditional convergence, especially among the initially richer regions.Finally, it is observed that there is much less evidence of convergence after the economic crisis of 1998. The third essay analyses industrial firms' engagement in provision of infrastructure services, such as heating, electricity and road maintenance.Using a unique dataset of 404 large and medium-sized industrial enterprises in 40 regions of Russia, the essay examines public infrastructure provision by Russian industrial enterprises. It is found that to a large degree engagement in infrastructure provision, as proxied by district heating production, is a Soviet legacy.Secondly, firms providing district heating to users outside their plant area are more likely to have close and multidimensional relations with the local public sector. Key words: Russia, transition, regional issues, tax competition, infrastructure
Mobile business intelligence adoption (case of croatian SMEs)

The mobile business intelligence system (MBI) provides users with necessary information and content, regardless of their location and time, in order to gain business insights through information analysis using applications optimized for mobile devices. Although in recent years the business intelligence and analytics has gained an increasing amount of interest among researchers and practitioners, there is a little available academic literature available related on MBI's specific topic. We suppose that the importance and benefits of using mobile business intelligence systems are not recognized in small and medium enterprises (SME) in Croatia and the main obstacle for their adoption is the lack of funds and knowledge of the executives and users. The aim of this research is to explore the level of mobile business intelligence systems adoption in SME in Croatia, compare the obtained results with those founded in existing literature and to explore the ways that the executives perceive the specificities of MBI.
Democracy by Disclosure: The Rise of Technopopulism

In December 1999, the Institute of Medicine shocked the nation by reporting that as many as 98,000 Americans died each year from mistakes in hospitals--twice the number killed in auto accidents. Instead of strict rules and harsh penalties to reduce those risks, the Institute called for a system of standardized disclosure of medical errors. If it worked, it would create economic and political pressures for hospitals to improve their practices. Since the mid-1980s, Congress and state legislatures have approved scores of new disclosure laws to fight racial discrimination, reduce corruption, and improve services. The most ambitious systems aim to reduce risks in everyday life--risks from toxic pollution, contaminants in drinking water, nutrients in packaged foods, lead paint, workplace hazards, and SUV rollovers. Unlike traditional government warnings, they require corporations and other organizations to produce standardized factual information at regular intervals about risks they create. Legislated transparency has become a mainstream instrument of social policy. Mary Graham argues that these requirements represent a remarkable policy innovation. Enhanced by computers and the Internet, they are creating a new techno-populism--an optimistic conviction that information itself can improve the lives of ordinary citizens and encourage hospitals, manufacturers, food processors, banks, airlines, and other organizations to further public priorities. Drawing on detailed profiles of disclosure systems for toxic releases, nutritional labeling, and medical errors, Graham explains why the move toward greater transparency has flourished during a time of regulatory retrenchment and why corporations have often supported these massive raids on proprietary information. However, Democracy by Disclosure , sounds a cautionary note. Just as systems of financial disclosure have come under new scrutiny in the wake of Enron's collapse, systems of social disclosure deserve careful examination. Behind the seemingly simple idea of transparency, political battles rage over protecting trade secrets, minimizing regulatory burdens, and guarding national security. Like other forms of regulation, disclosure systems can be distorted by narrow scope, flawed metrics, minimal enforcement, or failure to adapt to changing markets and public priorities. Graham urges designers of future systems to heed lessons from early experience to avoid misleading the public.
Guyana - Norway REDD+ agreement Payments based on performance - or politics?

The second audit of Guyana’s progress under the Norway-Guyana REDD+ agreement was completed in December 2012. It found that seven out of ten verification indicators were not or only partially met. Nevertheless, the Norwegian government allocated additional funds of 45 million USD to Guyana due to “continued improvements”. Focali has written about the debated bilateral agreement between Norway and Guyana earlier (Focali Brief 2010:01 & 2011:01) and is now revisiting the process.
ANTIGENIC STRUCTURE OF CELL SURFACES and leukemic

Of various labels that have been attached to antibody, ferritin is the most useful visual marker for locating antigens at the high degree of resolution permitted by electron microscopy, and ferritin-labeled antibody has been used extensively to study the surface structure of viruses, bacteria, and cells of various sorts (1). The technique developed by Singer involves the coupling of ferritin to the antibody by metaxylylene diisocyanate or toluene 2,4-diisocyanate (2, 3). Alternatively, ferritin may be coupled to an anti-q,-globulin antibody, providing an "indirect" immunoferritin method based on the same principle as the indirect immunofluorescence test; in both instances there is the advantage that a single labeled antiserum suffices for the recognition of more than one antigen. Recently, Hiimmerling et al. (4) devised a new method of ferritin labeling that avoids undesirable consequences of coupling ferritin to antibody chemically. Hybrid F(ab')~ antibody is prepared according to Nisonoff and Rivers (5) from two sera, rabbit anti-mouse "l~G and rabbit anti-ferritin, each hybrid molecule having two different combining sites, one for mouse ~G and the other for ferritin. To locate, for instance, a cell surface alloantigen, the cells are first exposed to the relevant alloantibody (mouse ~'G), then to the hybrid antibody anti-mouse q~G/ anti-ferritin, and finally to ferritin. The new method has been used so fax only in this indirect form, although it is equally applicable in the direct form (e.g. with anti-alloantigen/antiferritin hybrid antibody). Its outstanding advantage is that it opens the way to the use of a variety of visual markers, such as viruses, the only requirements being that these be morphologically distinguishable, of suitable size, and immunogenic in the species in which the hybrid partner antibody is to be prepared. Exemplifying the application of immunoferritin methods to the study of cell surface structure, ABO group alloantigens have thus been found to cover all or most of the human erythrocyte, while Rh alloantigens are confined to limited areas (6, 7). Among nucleated cells, many surface antigens of mouse lymphoid cells, both normal
What is good and what is right: An investigation of the outcomes of a comprehensive ethics program in municipal government

To build public trust in government through ethical management of citizen resources, leaders of agencies should be intentional in their adoption of a Comprehensive Ethics Program (CEP) and in measuring the impact the program has on the ethical climate, observations of misconduct and reporting of misconduct. The purpose of this study was to investigate the outcomes of a CEP within a municipal government, five years after implementation. This was a mixed methods study where an electronic survey first measured perceptions of ethical climate followed by interviews with ethics administrators and anonymous employees. After five years, the municipal employees rated their environment as somewhat ethical through two measures; an overall ethics score (an average of 35 items from an ethical climate assessment), and a single item rating of the ethical climate by employees. Both measures can be used as a benchmark of organizational ethics health. Observations of misconduct were low in comparison to national statistics and reporting of misconduct was low in comparison to national statistics. Binary logistic regression was conducted on the overall ethics score and observations of misconduct and was statistically significant in distinguishing between employees who observe misconduct from those who do not. One ethics factor, ethical leadership, was also statistically significant in distinguishing between employees who observe misconduct and those who do not. Ethics factors that were not reliable predictors of observations of misconduct included the code of ethics, ethics resources, independent ethics commission, ethical decision-making, and informal ethical norms. Employees also rated the most effective components of the ethics program. Role modeling by peers, role modeling by supervisors, talking about ethics on the job, annual ethics training, the code of ethics, and the ethics handbook were rated as the most effective components. Six interviews with employees deepened the understanding of the quantitative data. Key themes of leadership and concerns about reporting and retaliation emerged through the interviews. CEP outcomes identified in the interviews included enhanced awareness and talking about ethics, seeking advice for ethical dilemmas, cross-departmental conversations, ethics code revisions, ethics resources for employees, and learning from training examples and interactive discussions.
Partitional clustering of tick data to reduce storage space

Tick data is one of the most prominent types of temporal data, as it can be used to represent data in various domains such as geophysics or finance. Storage of tick data is a challenging problem because two criteria have to be fulfilled simultaneously: the storage structure should allow fast execution of queries and the data should not occupy too much space on the hard disk or in the main memory. In this paper, we present a clustering-based solution, and we introduce a new clustering algorithm, SOPAC, that is designed to support the storage of tick data. Our approach is based on the search for a partitional clustering that optimizes storage space. We evaluate our algorithm both on publicly available real-world datasets, as well as real-world tick data from the financial domain. We also investigate on task-specific benchmarks, how well our approach estimates the optimum. Our experiments show that, for the tick data storage problem, our algorithm substantially outperforms - both in terms of statistical significance and practical relevance - state-of-the-art clustering algorithms.
A two stage selective averaging LDPC decoding

Low density parity-check (LDPC) codes are a class of linear block codes that are decoded by running belief propagation (BP) algorithm or log-likelihood ratio belief propagation (LLR-BP) over the factor graph of the code. One of the disadvantages of LDPC codes is the onset of an error floor at high values of signal to noise ratio caused by trapping sets. In this paper, we propose a two stage decoder to deal with different types of trapping sets. Oscillating trapping sets are taken care by the first stage of the decoder and the elementary trapping sets are handled by the second stage of the decoder. Simulation results on the regular PEG (504,252,3,6) code and the irregular PEG (1024,518,15,8) code shows that the proposed two stage decoder performs significantly better than the standard decoder.
Hippocampal and Prefrontal Projections to the Basal Amygdala Mediate Contextual Regulation of Fear after Extinction

Knowing when and where to express fear is essential to survival. Recent work in fear extinction paradigms reveals that the contextual regulation of fear involves a neural network involving the hippocampus, medial prefrontal cortex, and amygdala. The amygdaloid basal nuclei (BA) receive convergent input from the ventral hippocampus (VH) and prelimbic (PL) prefrontal cortex and may integrate VH and PL input to regulate fear expression. To examine the functional organization of this neural circuit, we used cellular imaging of c-fos expression in anatomically defined neuronal populations and circuit disconnections to identify the pathways involved in the contextual control of extinguished fear. Before behavioral testing, we infused a retrograde tracer into the amygdala to label BA-projecting neurons in VH and PL. Rats then underwent fear conditioning and extinction and were tested for their fear to the extinguished conditioned stimulus (CS) in either the extinction context or in another context; freezing behavior served as the index of conditional fear. CS presentation outside the extinction context renewed conditional freezing and was associated with significantly more c-fos expression in BA-projecting neurons in the VH and PL than that induced by CS presentation in the extinction context. We next examined whether direct or indirect projections of VH to BA mediate fear renewal. Interestingly, disconnections of the VH from either the BA or PL eliminated renewal. These findings suggest that convergent inputs from both the VH and PL in the BA mediate the contextual control of fear after extinction.