Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Developing high-tech companies in Singapore

This paper examines the deliberate state effort to develop specialised clusters and innovation systems, and identify the challenges and possible solutions in the process of developing and nurturing high-tech industries and companies in Singapore. Findings from the case studies indicate that companies born directly into high-tech industries or whose products and services have a high composition of high-tech elements are more optimistic about business prospects and tend to experience greater pace and scope of growth. They are able to leverage government support more effectively, and better benefit from resource sharing and spillover externalities generated by specialised cluster blocks (e.g. Block 71) and the innovation system present in Singapore. In view of these results, a review on government policy support for SMEs in innovation and development is critical. Companies should focus on identifying their core product strengths and leading business propositions and use them as the base to build up their innovation and technology capabilities.
Chapter 15 Deviations from Covered Interest Parity: The Case of China

We study the empirical determinants of the Chinese renminbi (RMB) covered interest differential. The canonical macroeconomic variables including capital flight and the factors that affect country risk, and a few China-specific regulatory and institutional factors are considered. It is found that the effects of these canonical macroeconomic variables on the RMB covered interest differential are largely consistent with those reported in the literature. Further, the covered interest differential was affected by China's general capital control policy and its exchange rate reform program, but not its political risk index. The effects of these explanatory variables on the covered interest differential appear to work mainly via the forward premium rather than the interest rate differential component. The results are largely the same across the onshore and offshore RMB forward rates that cover different sample periods.
Nurses' positive attitudes to nutritional management but limited knowledge of nutritional assessment in Korea.

BACKGROUND Nurses' involvement in nutritional management has received greater emphasis as an accountable factor for the nutritional status of patients. Studies have shown that there are deficiencies in awareness of the importance of nutritional assessment and limited nutritional knowledge in nurses. AIM The purpose of this study was to investigate nutritional attitudes and knowledge of nurses working in the hospital environment. METHODS A questionnaire survey was conducted. It is focused on nutritional management with regard to assessment of nutritional status and implementation of nutritional care. Nurses were recruited from the university hospital in Seoul, Korea. FINDINGS A majority of nurses had positive attitudes towards patients' nutritional status and had a high desire to receive nutritional information. However, they had limited knowledge of nutrition, especially nutritional assessment criteria which are basic to the evaluation of patient's nutritional status. Nurses did not perform the nutritional assessment appropriately in practice. CONCLUSIONS These findings suggest that nurses have limited nutritional knowledge and they use nutritional assessment criteria poorly in clinical settings. This study provides a framework for developing nutritional management programmes and a standardized protocol for nutritional assessment.
Genome Scale Comparison of Mycobacterium avium subsp. paratuberculosis with Mycobacterium avium subsp. avium Reveals Potential Diagnostic Sequences

ABSTRACT The genetic similarity between Mycobacterium avium subsp. paratuberculosis and other mycobacterial species has confounded the development of M. avium subsp. paratuberculosis-specific diagnostic reagents. Random shotgun sequencing of the M. avium subsp. paratuberculosis genome in our laboratories has shown >98% sequence identity with Mycobacterium avium subsp. avium in some regions. However, an in silico comparison of the largest annotated M. avium subsp. paratuberculosis contigs, totaling 2,658,271 bp, with the unfinished M. avium subsp. avium genome has revealed 27 predicted M. avium subsp. paratuberculosis coding sequences that do not align with M. avium subsp. avium sequences. BLASTP analysis of the 27 predicted coding sequences (genes) shows that 24 do not match sequences in public sequence databases, such as GenBank. These novel sequences were examined by PCR amplification with genomic DNA from eight mycobacterial species and ten independent isolates of M. avium subsp. paratuberculosis. From these analyses, 21 genes were found to be present in all M. avium subsp. paratuberculosis isolates and absent from all other mycobacterial species tested. One region of the M. avium subsp. paratuberculosis genome contains a cluster of eight genes, arranged in tandem, that is absent in other mycobacterial species. This region spans 4.4 kb and is separated from other predicted coding regions by 1,408 bp upstream and 1,092 bp downstream. The gene upstream of this eight-gene cluster has strong similarity to mycobacteriophage integrase sequences. The GC content of this 4.4-kb region is 66%, which is similar to the rest of the genome, indicating that this region was not horizontally acquired recently. Southern hybridization analysis confirmed that this gene cluster is present only in M. avium subsp. paratuberculosis. Collectively, these studies suggest that a genomics approach will help in identifying novel M. avium subsp. paratuberculosis genes as candidate diagnostic sequences.
SIX EMPLOYMENT RELATIONSHIP PRACTICES FOR SUSTAINING ORGANIZATIONAL PERFORMANCE

Organizations need to develop as well as strengthen their employment relations in order to improve not only their performance, but also their competitiveness. Despite the importance of employment relations to organizations, the literature reveals there is not much information on how companies practice employment relations. The limited information has resulted from lack of emphasis on the important role of employment relations in organizations. This paper specifically attempts to address this issue by providing insights into six important employment relations practices that can help sustain the performance of organizations. The six practices were identified based on the review of the literature and findings of previous studies.
Psychological Impact of the Animal-Human Bond in Disaster Preparedness and Response

The authors present an overview of the impact of the animal-human bond on disaster management and highlight the need to further examine the relationship of animals and humans in disaster response. The human connection to animals influences compliance with individual and community evacuation plans. Search and rescue teams with canine units confront physical and emotional demands that affect both handler and animal. The culling of animal populations on a scale such as occurred during the recent foot-and-mouth epidemic in the United Kingdom affects every member of rural society. Livestock farmers and their families endure enormous emotional losses, and veterinarians and government officials who must implement these programs suffer as well. A familiarity with and understanding of these issues is important for psychiatrists and other mental health professionals who are involved in disaster preparedness and response.
Pursuit of Muscularity in Adolescent Boys: Relations Among Biopsychosocial Variables and Clinical Outcomes

Adolescent boys (n = 269) were assessed for levels of several risky behaviors related to the pursuit of muscularity, including substance use (anabolic steroids, prohormones, and ephedrine) dieting to gain weight, and symptoms of muscle dysmorphia (MD). The association between these behaviors and a variety of putative biological, psychological, and social risk factors were also evaluated. Concerning rates for lifetime use of steroids (2.6%), prohormones (4.5%), and ephedrine (6%) were found. Multiple regression analyses indicated that MD and sports participation significantly predicted substance use. Body dissatisfaction and body mass index were significant predictors of dieting to gain weight. Additionally, negative affect, media influence, and sports participation predicted symptoms of MD.
Silicon synaptic transistor for hardware-based spiking neural network and neuromorphic system

Brain-inspired neuromorphic systems have attracted much attention as new computing paradigms for power-efficient computation. Here, we report a silicon synaptic transistor with two electrically independent gates to realize a hardware-based neural network system without any switching components. The spike-timing dependent plasticity characteristics of the synaptic devices are measured and analyzed. With the help of the device model based on the measured data, the pattern recognition capability of the hardware-based spiking neural network systems is demonstrated using the modified national institute of standards and technology handwritten dataset. By comparing systems with and without inhibitory synapse part, it is confirmed that the inhibitory synapse part is an essential element in obtaining effective and high pattern classification capability.
Prestimulus EEG Power Predicts Conscious Awareness But Not Objective Visual Performance

Abstract Prestimulus oscillatory neural activity has been linked to perceptual outcomes during performance of psychophysical detection and discrimination tasks. Specifically, the power and phase of low frequency oscillations have been found to predict whether an upcoming weak visual target will be detected or not. However, the mechanisms by which baseline oscillatory activity influences perception remain unclear. Recent studies suggest that the frequently reported negative relationship between α power and stimulus detection may be explained by changes in detection criterion (i.e., increased target present responses regardless of whether the target was present/absent) driven by the state of neural excitability, rather than changes in visual sensitivity (i.e., more veridical percepts). Here, we recorded EEG while human participants performed a luminance discrimination task on perithreshold stimuli in combination with single-trial ratings of perceptual awareness. Our aim was to investigate whether the power and/or phase of prestimulus oscillatory activity predict discrimination accuracy and/or perceptual awareness on a trial-by-trial basis. Prestimulus power (3–28 Hz) was inversely related to perceptual awareness ratings (i.e., higher ratings in states of low prestimulus power/high excitability) but did not predict discrimination accuracy. In contrast, prestimulus oscillatory phase did not predict awareness ratings or accuracy in any frequency band. These results provide evidence that prestimulus α power influences the level of subjective awareness of threshold visual stimuli but does not influence visual sensitivity when a decision has to be made regarding stimulus features. Hence, we find a clear dissociation between the influence of ongoing neural activity on conscious awareness and objective performance.
How trust moderates social media engagement and brand equity

The purpose of this paper is threefold: first, to develop and measure customer engagement scale in context to social media (SM); second, to elucidate the variables that impact customers’ brand engagement on SM and its impact in building customer-based brand equity; and finally, to examine the moderating role of trust in SM brand engagement and brand equity relationship. ,The data were collected from 767 SM users working in multinational corporations of Gurgaon city, using purposive sampling technique. Exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) were undertaken to analyze the data. ,The paper outcomes indicated SM brand engagement as a bi-dimensional construct comprising information interest and personal interest. Both social factors and consumer-based factors significantly influence customers’ SM brand engagement. Specifically, results depicted that tie-strength and social identity (social factors); and opportunity seeking and product selection (consumer-based factors) strongly influence customers’ SM brand engagement in comparison to other factors. ,The research has two major limitations. First, it is limited to Gen Y only. How older and younger consumers interact with brands via SM can stimulate theoretical development as well as furnish potentially valuable strategic opportunities to brand managers in future research. Second, relationship between SM brand engagement and brand equity is examined using trust as a moderating variable. Thus, the effect of other moderating factors like perceived risk and gender can be investigated in the future. ,The paper makes a maiden attempt to examine the moderating role of trust in the relationship between SM brand engagement and brand equity. It adds value to the marketing literature in the development of SM brand engagement scale for Gen Y.
Superresolution fluorescence mapping of single-nanoparticle catalysts reveals spatiotemporal variations in surface reactivity

Significance Here we use time-lapsed superresolution mapping of single-molecule catalysis events on individual nanoparticle surface to observe time-varying changes in the spatial distribution of catalysis events on Sb-doped TiO2 nanorods and Au triangle nanoplates. The ability to measure both the spatial- and time-resolved activity of different types of active sites on single-nanoparticle surface leads to a more comprehensive understanding of reactivity patterns and may enable the design of new and more productive heterogeneous catalysts. For the practical application of nanocatalysts, it is desirable to understand the spatiotemporal fluctuations of nanocatalytic activity at the single-nanoparticle level. Here we use time-lapsed superresolution mapping of single-molecule catalysis events on individual nanoparticles to observe time-varying changes in the spatial distribution of catalysis events on Sb-doped TiO2 nanorods and Au triangle nanoplates. Compared with the active sites on well-defined surface facets, the defects of the nanoparticle catalysts possess higher intrinsic reactivity but lower stability. Corners and ends are more reactive but also less stable than flat surfaces. Averaged over time, the most stable sites dominate the total apparent activity of single nanocatalysts. However, the active sites with higher intrinsic activity but lower stability show activity at earlier time points before deactivating. Unexpectedly, some active sites are found to recover their activity (“self-healing”) after deactivation, which is probably due to desorption of the adsorbate. Our superresolution measurement of different types of active catalytic sites, over both space and time, leads to a more comprehensive understanding of reactivity patterns and may enable the design of new and more productive heterogeneous catalysts.
The effect of different acidic environments on the apical microleakage of different obturation techniques (An in vitro study)

Background: Pulpal and apical inflammation or infection decreases tissue pH in the region surrounding the involved tooth which might affect the sealing ability of different obturation systems. This study evaluate the apical microleakage of three obturation techniques (lateral condensation of Gutta-percha/AH 26, Soft-Core guttapercha/AH 26 and lateral condensation of Resilon/Real Seal SE), when exposed to 7.3 6.5, 6.0 and 5.5 pH values. Materials and method: One hundred and thirty two roots of freshly extracted teeth were selected. Teeth were decoronated, working length was established and the roots were instrumented using a crown down technique with ProTaper rotary files (SX-F3). The specimens were divided into three groups of 44 samples each. Group A: obturated using lateral condensation of gutta percha and AH 26. Group B: obturated using soft-core and AH 26. Group C: obturated using lateral condensation of Resilon and Real Seal SE. Each group was further subdivided into four subgroups, 10 samples each, which were exposed to pH values of 7.2, 6.5, 6.0 and 5.5 respectively. Microleakage was evaluated by longitudinal sectioning, and measurement of liner dye penetration. Results: There was a non significant difference within each group regarding the different pH media. Both Soft-Core and Resilon showed less apical microleakage than lateral condensation of gutta percha with a highly significant difference in all the tested acidic media. Conclusion: Resilon/Real Seal SE subgroups showed the least apical microleakage, however, it didn’t provide the complete sealing claimed by the manufacturer.
Investor Horizons and Corporate Cash Holdings

We study the effect of investor horizons on corporate cash holdings. We argue that investors with longer horizons monitor more because their net benefit of monitoring is higher. Consequently, the optimal amount of corporate cash holdings increases, so firms hold more cash. We find empirical support for our argument: (1) firms with longer investor horizons hold more cash; (2) when they have excess cash, they invest less and pay out more to shareholders; and (3) they are more likely to invest in projects with long-term payoffs, as evidenced by increased profitability in the long-term. We establish causality using long-term investors who index as an instrument. Our results are not explained by internal corporate governance mechanisms or ownership concentration (blockholders).
Fibroblast growth factor receptor‐3 is expressed in undifferentiated intestinal epithelial cells during murine crypt morphogenesis

Prior studies have demonstrated that fibroblast growth factor receptor‐3 (FGFR‐3) regulates proliferation of undifferentiated intestinal epithelial cells in vitro. However, the function(s) of FGFR‐3–mediated signaling during intestinal development and epithelial differentiation in vivo remain unknown. The goal of this study was to define the temporal, regional, and cell‐specific patterns of FGFR‐3 expression and its ligands during normal intestinal ontogeny and epithelial regeneration. Both the IIIb and IIIc isoforms of FGFR‐3 mRNA, which result from differential splicing of the FGFR‐3 primary transcript, were detected in mouse small intestine as early as embryonic day 16. FGFR‐3 levels peaked in the small intestine from 7 to 21 days after birth and decreased thereafter to reach the low levels observed in adult mice. FGFR‐3 IIIb and IIIc mRNA levels were highest in the duodenum and proximal jejunum with lower levels of both seen in the distal jejunum, ileum, and colon. FGFR‐3 was expressed in a subset of proliferating undifferentiated crypt epithelial cells located in the intervillous epithelium and in the lower half of nascently forming crypts but not in differentiated epithelial cell types. FGFR‐3 IIIb was the dominant isoform expressed in both small intestinal and colonic crypts. Expression of FGF1, FGF2, and FGF9, known ligands of FGFR‐3, paralleled patterns of FGFR‐3 expression during gut development. These data suggest that signaling through FGFR‐3 plays a role in regulating morphogenic events involved in formation of intestinal crypts and/or the fate of epithelial stem cells. Developmental Dynamics 230:114–123, © 2004 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Strategies for Strengthening the Technical Workforce: A Review of International Evidence

Numerous countries suffer from a shortage of technicians and skilled workers, particularly in the STEM fields (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics), due to a mismatch between the skills and interests of the students graduating from or leaving the current education system and the needs of the labor market. Often, parents and students place a high priority on entering and completing university, and as a consequence, many students pursue academic education in secondary schools in order to gain entrance to university, only to find themselves entering the job market lacking the skills they need for employment and advancement. Further, in some countries, the vocational school system is not wellrespected by the public and focuses heavily on preparation of youth for specific jobs in one firm rather than preparing them for careers within an industry as a whole. This literature review aims to synthesize the research evidence about the effectiveness of various strategies used by national governments, nongovernmental organizations, technical schools, and industries to strengthen both the quality of the technical workforce, as well as the avenues through which individuals can access career and technical programming.
Explicit Model-Predictive Control of a PWM Inverter With an LCL Filter

This paper deals with the control of pulsewidth modulation inverters connected to the grid through resonant LCL filters. It proposes two alternative (piecewise affine) models that account for the switched behavior of the converter. Based on these improved models, an explicit model-predictive control scheme is derived in order to provide a fast response, making it very suitable for applications, such as active filtering, where a large bandwidth is required. A state observer and a grid voltage estimator are used in order to reduce the number of required sensors and to eliminate noise. The control scheme relies only on filtered current measurements and on the DC voltage.
Attentional focus effects on sprint start performance as a function of skill level

Abstract Several researchers have demonstrated that an external focus of attention (about movement’s effects) during movement execution allowed better performances and learning of various motor tasks than an internal focus of attention (about movement itself). However, attentional focus effects have not been studied in tasks requiring explosive actions preceded by fast reaction time to a signal, such as a sprint start. We hypothesised that the beneficial effect of external focus of attention would be observed in the different stages of the sprint start (i.e. reaction time, block clearance and running) for both expert and novice sprinters. Novice and expert sprinters performed sprint starts followed by a 10 m sprint under three conditions: external focus instructions; internal focus instructions; and neutral instructions. The reaction time and the running time were significantly shorter in the external focus condition than in the internal focus condition, for both expert and novice participants. These results confirm the beneficial effect of an external focus of attention on the speed of movement execution. Moreover, they revealed that attentional focus influences movement preparation. Several hypotheses are proposed to account for these results, with reference to the processes that could be responsible for the observed effects.
Privatization, public r&d policy, and private r&d investment in China's agriculture

Private R&D is a major source of innovation and productivity growth in agriculture worldwide. This paper examines trends and determinants of agricultural R&D in China. Results show that while the public sector monopolized agricultural research until recently, private agricultural R&D has grown rapidly since 2000, driven largely by agribusiness privatization. Public-sector R&D investments in basic research also encouraged private R&D research, but public investments in technology development crowded out private R&D investment. China’s private R&D investment would grow more rapidly if the government shifted public resources from technology development to basic research.