Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Should pharmaceutical companies engage in corporate social responsibility

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to investigate whether corporate social responsibility (CSR) really adds value to corporate financial performance (CFP) in the pharmaceutical industry. Most pharmaceutical companies currently practice CSR by taking a “triple bottom line” approach of environmental, social, and economic strategies to manage their businesses and produce an overall positive impact. Design/methodology/approach A survey was developed based on professional experience, Carroll’s construct, the study’s hypotheses, and industry studies. The survey, composed of 45 questions using a seven-point Likert scale, was conducted among pharmaceutical professionals to evaluate whether CSR affects performance. Responses totaling 140, including 20 companies, were coded, taking into account the respondent’s corporate position and firm size. Findings Survey respondents strongly agreed that CSR adds value to CFP and should be viewed as a long-term investment. CSR programs should be implemented regardless of company size. CSR is effective because it invests in stakeholder management, such as with customers, government, investors, and activists, creating positive relationships which improve reputation and profitability. Research limitations/implications This perception study shows the need for further quantitative analysis of CSR and CFP metrics specific to the pharmaceutical industry. Practical implications CSR programs should be implemented regardless of company size, and sheer size does not dictate whether CSR programs can be successful. This paper also sheds light on potential managerial implications that originate from these findings that may help pharmaceutical companies manage their scarce resources more effectively. Social implications In today’s competitive economic environment, where increasingly stakeholders including investors scrutinize pharmaceutical firms’ environmental and social performance, CSR is a crucial strategy. The findings can help corporate managers make strategic CSR decisions to optimize benefits for their organization. Originality/value While numerous studies have addressed the link between CSR and corporate performance across industries, definitive studies have not examined the pharmaceutical industry.
Multiple Frequencies Sequential Coding for SSVEP-Based Brain-Computer Interface

Background Steady-state visual evoked potential (SSVEP)-based brain-computer interface (BCI) has become one of the most promising modalities for a practical noninvasive BCI system. Owing to both the limitation of refresh rate of liquid crystal display (LCD) or cathode ray tube (CRT) monitor, and the specific physiological response property that only a very small number of stimuli at certain frequencies could evoke strong SSVEPs, the available frequencies for SSVEP stimuli are limited. Therefore, it may not be enough to code multiple targets with the traditional frequencies coding protocols, which poses a big challenge for the design of a practical SSVEP-based BCI. This study aimed to provide an innovative coding method to tackle this problem. Methodology/Principal Findings In this study, we present a novel protocol termed multiple frequencies sequential coding (MFSC) for SSVEP-based BCI. In MFSC, multiple frequencies are sequentially used in each cycle to code the targets. To fulfill the sequential coding, each cycle is divided into several coding epochs, and during each epoch, certain frequency is used. Obviously, different frequencies or the same frequency can be presented in the coding epochs, and the different epoch sequence corresponds to the different targets. To show the feasibility of MFSC, we used two frequencies to realize four targets and carried on an offline experiment. The current study shows that: 1) MFSC is feasible and efficient; 2) the performance of SSVEP-based BCI based on MFSC can be comparable to some existed systems. Conclusions/Significance The proposed protocol could potentially implement much more targets with the limited available frequencies compared with the traditional frequencies coding protocol. The efficiency of the new protocol was confirmed by real data experiment. We propose that the SSVEP-based BCI under MFSC might be a promising choice in the future.
Speech Intelligibility of Flemish Children as Judged by Their Parents

Objective: Reduced intelligibility is a central concern in speech-impaired children, especially for parents. The main purpose of this study was to develop normative data for the intelligibility of Flemish-speaking boys and girls (age 2;06–5;0 years) as judged by their parents. Additionally, the influence of familiarity, gender and age of the child was determined. Patients and Methods: Word, sentence and story productions of 163 healthy children (83 boys and 80 girls) between 2;06 and 5;0 years were transcribed by their own parents. Speech intelligibility was determined according to the intelligibility index described by Shriberg. Additionally, a panel of 12 unfamiliar judges listened to the recordings of a subgroup of 24 randomly selected children. Results: Speech intelligibility improved with increasing age and was around 90% for children aged 4;6–5;0 years. Boys and girls performed equally on the task. For the intelligibility of words, mothers scored significantly better than unfamiliar listeners did. Conclusion: The reported normative speech intelligibility data provide important reference information for speech pathologists who assess child speech. Moreover, it enables them to measure the effect of a specific therapeutic approach and the spontaneous transfer to daily speech.
The RNA Export Factor, Nxt1, Is Required for Tissue Specific Transcriptional Regulation

The highly conserved, Nxf/Nxt (TAP/p15) RNA nuclear export pathway is important for export of most mRNAs from the nucleus, by interacting with mRNAs and promoting their passage through nuclear pores. Nxt1 is essential for viability; using a partial loss of function allele, we reveal a role for this gene in tissue specific transcription. We show that many Drosophila melanogaster testis-specific mRNAs require Nxt1 for their accumulation. The transcripts that require Nxt1 also depend on a testis-specific transcription complex, tMAC. We show that loss of Nxt1 leads to reduced transcription of tMAC targets. A reporter transcript from a tMAC-dependent promoter is under-expressed in Nxt1 mutants, however the same transcript accumulates in mutants if driven by a tMAC-independent promoter. Thus, in Drosophila primary spermatocytes, the transcription factor used to activate expression of a transcript, rather than the RNA sequence itself or the core transcription machinery, determines whether this expression requires Nxt1. We additionally find that transcripts from intron-less genes are more sensitive to loss of Nxt1 function than those from intron-containing genes and propose a mechanism in which transcript processing feeds back to increase activity of a tissue specific transcription complex.
Management of child and adolescent obesity: study design and practitioner characteristics.

OBJECTIVE A study was undertaken to examine the attitudes and practices of health care providers in the assessment and treatment of overweight and obese children and adolescents. This study describes the study design and the practice settings and person characteristics of the practitioners included in this study. METHODS A needs assessment questionnaire was developed by a working group consisting of researchers, clinicians, educators, and representatives of the Maternal and Child Health Bureau, Health Resources and Services Administration (Department of Health and Human Services), National Center for Education in Maternal and Child Health, International Life Sciences Institute, and Harris Interactive, Inc. The questionnaire consisted of 35 questions divided into 3 topic areas and was disseminated to a sample of pediatricians (n = 1088), pediatric nurse practitioners (n = 879), and registered dietitians (n = 1652). RESULTS Despite a low response rate (33% for pediatric nurse practitioners, 27% for registered dieticians, and 19% for pediatricians), descriptive data were obtained about a variety of practitioner characteristics. Some significant differences were observed across practitioner groups and between genders in regard to years in practice, body mass index, and dietary and physical activity behaviors. Significant relationships were also observed in some practitioner groups between body mass index and compliance with dietary and physical activity guidelines. CONCLUSIONS Our data show there is a wide variance in practitioner characteristics, particularly in regard to gender, years of practice, body mass index, and obesity-related behaviors. It is hoped the analyses presented in this and in the subsequent articles will provide useful information on current attitudes and practices and will contribute to improvements in the treatment of overweight children and adolescents.
New Methods for Spectral Clustering.

Analyzing the affinity matrix spectrum is an increasingly popular data clustering method. We propose three new algorithmic components which are appropriate for improving performance of spectral clustering. First, observing the eigenvectors suggests to use a K-lines algorithm instead of the commonly applied K-means. Second, the clustering works best if the affinity matrix has a clear block structure, which can be achieved by computing a conductivity matrix. Third, many clustering problems are inhomogeneous or asymmetric in the sense that some clusters are concentrated while others are dispersed. In this case, a context-dependent calculation of the affinity matrix helps. This method also turns out to allow a robust automatic determination of the kernel radius σ.
TNF‐α‐induced chemokine production and apoptosis in human neural precursor cells

Recent studies have shown that proinflammatory cytokines damage rodent neural precursor cells (NPCs), a source of self‐renewing, multipotent cells that play an important role in the developing as well as adult brain. In this study, the effects of tumor necrosis factor α (TNF‐α) on cytokine and chemokine production by human NPCs (>98% nestin‐ and >90% A2B5‐positive), obtained from 6‐ to 8‐week‐old fetal brain specimens, were evaluated. NPCs stimulated with this proinflammatory cytokine were found to produce abundant amounts of the chemokines monocyte chemoattractant protein 1 (MCP‐1)/CC chemokine ligand 2 (CCL2) and interferon‐inducible protein 10 (IP‐10)/CXC chemokine ligand 10 (CXCL10) in a time‐ and concentration‐dependent manner. TNF‐α treatment also induced NPC apoptosis. Receptors for TNF [TNFRI (p55) and TNFRII (p75)] mRNA were constitutively expressed on NPCs. However, only TNFRI was involved in TNF‐α‐induced chemokine production and apoptosis by NPCs, as anti‐TNFRI but not anti‐TNFRII antibodies blocked the stimulatory effect. TNF‐α treatment induced p38 mitogen‐activated protein kinase (MAPK) phosphorylation in NPCs, and SB202190, an inhibitor of p38 MAPK, blocked TNF‐α‐induced chemokine production. Thus, this study demonstrated that NPCs constitutively express receptors for TNF‐α, which when activated, trigger via a p38 MAPK signaling pathway production of two chemokines, MCP‐1/CCL2 and IP‐10/CXCL10, which are involved in infectious and inflammatory diseases of the brain.
Open source software and the economics of organization

Open source software development has organizational characteristics that are out of the ordinary (e.g., flatter hierarchy, self-organization, self-regulation, and no ownership structure). The study suggests that this organization of work can be explained by combining the recently developed organizational theory of professions with the classic one of clubs. Still, the explanans falls within the broad rubric of the knowledge approach. The claim is in fact that this organization is at least as good as a firm in sharing rich types of information in real time because (a) constituents have symmetry of absorptive capacity, and (b) software itself is a capital structure embodying knowledge. Indeed, in this regard the study goes so far as to suggest that the distinction between input (knowledge) and output (software) is somewhat amorphous because knowledge and software are not only the common (spontaneous) standards, but also the nonrivalrous network products being shared.
Face Association for Videos Using Conditional Random Fields and Max-Margin Markov Networks

We address the video-based face association problem, in which one attempts to extract the face tracks of multiple subjects while maintaining label consistency. Traditional tracking algorithms have difficulty in handling this task, especially when challenging nuisance factors like motion blur, low resolution or significant camera motions are present. We demonstrate that contextual features, in addition to face appearance itself, play an important role in this case. We propose principled methods to combine multiple features using Conditional Random Fields and Max-Margin Markov networks to infer labels for the detected faces. Different from many existing approaches, our algorithms work in online mode and hence have a wider range of applications. We address issues such as parameter learning, inference and handling false positves/negatives that arise in the proposed approach. Finally, we evaluate our approach on several public databases.
Topological analysis of citation networks to discover the future core articles

In this article, we investigated the factors determining the capability of academic articles to be cited in the future using a topological analysis of citation networks. The basic idea is that articles that will have many citations were in a “similar” position topologically in the past. To validate this hypothesis, we investigated the correlation between future times cited and three measures of centrality: clustering centrality, closeness centrality, and betweenness centrality. We also analyzed the effect of aging as well as of self‐correlation of times cited. Case studies were performed in the two following recent representative innovations: Gallium Nitride and Complex Networks. The results suggest that times cited is the main factor in explaining the near future times cited, and betweenness centrality is correlated with the distant future times cited. The effect of topological position on the capability to be cited is influenced by the migrating phenomenon in which the activated center of research shifts from an existing domain to a new emerging domain.
Palomar 13: A velocity dispersion inflated by binaries?

one order of magnitude larger than the usual estimate for globular clusters. We present here radial velocities measured from three different CCD frames of commissioning observations obtained with the new ESO/VLT instrument FLAMES (Fibre Large Array Multi Element Spectrograph). From these data, now publicly available, we measure the homogeneous radial velocities of eight probable members of this globular cluster. A new projected velocity dispersion σp = 0.6–0.9 ± 0. 3k m s −1 implies Palomar 13 mass-to-light ratio M/LV = 3–7, similar to the usual value for globular clusters. We discuss briefly the two most obvious reasons for the previous unusual mass-to-light ratio finding: binaries, now clearly detected, and more homogeneous data from the multi-fibre FLAMES spectrograph.
Sentiment Classification for the Italian Language: A Case Study on Movie Reviews

We consider the problem of tracking the opinion polarity, in terms of positive or negative orientation, expressed in documents written in natural language and extracted from a heterogeneous set of Web sources. More specifically, we focus our attention on the movie reviews domain. We are interested in evaluating the performance obtained by a set of high performance opinion polarity classifiers for the Italian language. Classification of polarity expressed by the input documents is achieved by means of several sets of specialized autonomous or interacting agents, devoted, respectively, to document gathering, classification and visualization. In particular the results of opinion analysis are represented by means of a graphical interface, where a multi agent based implementation of zz-structures is exploited to offer graph-centric views and navigation of results. The specific experimental evaluation performed so far shows an accuracy level, which is higher than previous results reported in the literature.
Long-Term Cochlear Implant Outcomes in Children with GJB2 and SLC26A4 Mutations

Objectives To investigate speech and language outcomes in children with cochlear implants (CIs) who had mutations in common deafness genes and to compare their performances with those without mutations. Study Design Prospective study. Methods Patients who received CIs before 18 years of age and had used CIs for more than 3 years were enrolled in this study. All patients underwent mutation screening of three common deafness genes: GJB2, SLC26A4 and the mitochondrial 12S rRNA gene. The outcomes with CIs were assessed at post-implant years 3 and 5 using the Categories of Auditory Performance (CAP) scale, Speech Intelligibility Rating (SIR) scale, speech perception tests and language skill tests. Results Forty-eight patients were found to have confirmative mutations in GJB2 or SLC26A4, and 123 without detected mutations were ascertained for comparison. Among children who received CIs before 3.5 years of age, patients with GJB2 or SLC26A4 mutations showed significantly higher CAP/SIR scores than those without mutations at post-implant year 3 (p = 0.001 for CAP; p = 0.004 for SIR) and year 5 (p = 0.035 for CAP; p = 0.038 for SIR). By contrast, among children who received CIs after age 3.5, no significant differences were noted in post-implant outcomes between patients with and without mutations (all p > 0.05). Conclusion GJB2 and SLC26A4 mutations are associated with good post-implant outcomes. However, their effects on CI outcomes may be modulated by the age at implantation: the association between mutations and CI outcomes is observed in young recipients who received CIs before age 3.5 years but not in older recipients.
Connecting gender identity, entrepreneurial training, role models and intentions

Purpose This paper aims to establish the antecedents of the entrepreneurial intentions in the case of youth beneficiaries of entrepreneurial higher education studies and/or entrepreneurial role models, being grounded in the theoretical framework of rational action and planned behavior (TPB) reference model (Ajzen, 1991, 2002). Design/methodology/approach The quantitative study took place in the biggest academic center in the western part of Romania, by applying a questionnaire-based survey between 2008 and 2015 on 650 students, both female and male participants. The authors’ research endeavor to model different types of factors influencing entrepreneurial intentions, required the assessment of alternative configuration models via structural equation modeling, completed with several statistical tools, including descriptive statistics, scale reliability, factor and validity analysis, respectively, pairwise critical ratio differences. Findings At the level of investigated sample, composed of 650 students from the Timisoara academic center, the empirical results of the study highlighted that: entrepreneurial higher education training and behavioral characteristics are significant and direct predictors of entrepreneurial intentions; behavioral characteristics also mediates the influence of psychological characteristics and of parental or social environmental specific entrepreneurial role models on entrepreneurial intentions; gender identity is a moderator, differentiating the direct effects of entrepreneurial education and behavioral characteristics on entrepreneurial intentions. Research limitations/implications The proposed research model does not seek to explain the inclination of the surveyed students to act according to their entrepreneurial intention; also, the obtained empirical results cannot be generalized because of the restricted sample size. The theoretical utility of the research regards the predictability enhancement of the reference TPB model on identifying the antecedents of entrepreneurial intentions in diverse national contexts and investigated populations. At practical level, the study sustains the importance of tertiary entrepreneurial education in stimulating youth’s entrepreneurial intentions, especially for women, along with the detection of motives of preferring an entrepreneurial career and sustaining it through personalized entrepreneurial education programs. Originality/value The papers originality is conferred by the following: large, comprehensive and relevant investigation sphere of the direct, mediator and moderator influencing factors of entrepreneurial intentions in the case of youth; respectively by research methodology applying four configuration models; and the empirical analysis performed via structural equation modeling and multi-group moderation. The value of the paper consists in its theoretical and empirical contribution on investigating and enhancing the role of entrepreneurial spirit stimulating academic education for specific contexts and investigated groups.
An Investigation of the Factors Hindering Adults’ Participation in Physical Activity

This study focuses on the non-participation of adults in physical activity and the reasons that have been preventing them to participate. The study is carried out with 283 participants (116 men and 167 women) who live in Adana, Turkey. Their ages range from 18-66. The average age of the adult participants is 31.81 ±10.12. The demographical features, their conditions to be able to participate in physical activity and the conditions that restrain them from participation have been determined by the 35 question through a questionnaire prepared by the researcher. In analyzing the information the x² test has been used. According to the results of the analysis it is found out that 59.5% of the man and 53.7% of the woman who have participated in the study are involved in physical activities. In the study it has been observed that participation in physical activity increases in direct proportion to better education and higher income. The marital status has also affected the participation. The participants have brought to the fore the most important reasons for not participating in physical activities as, not finding friends, that the places where physical activity is performed is crowded, not having enough time, not being supported by the family or not having enough information in their answers. As a result, participation in physical activity is made up by factors related to each other and at the same time independent of them.
The fluid dynamics applied to mobile robot motion: the stream field method

Mobile robots need a powerful and flexible navigation system in order to move around autonomously in an incompletely known and changing environment. In this paper we present a computational metaphor for path generation which is gleaned from fluid dynamics. It is powerful because it can find optimal paths in a maze of arbitrary complexity and it is flexible because it readily adapts to any change in the topology of the maze. We also show that by choosing appropriate boundary conditions, the fluid dynamics metaphor does not suffer from local minima. The paper further discusses the natural parallelism of the metaphor, its implementation on the DAP computer and examines some possible extensions by showing that additional constraints on the path, such as the maximal clearance, can be tackled using the fluid metaphor. Finally the topological properties of the path generated by the fluid dynamics metaphor are discussed using tools of topology. <<ETX>>