Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Influence of Knowledge Management Systems on Performance of Small and Medium Enterprises in Nanyuki Town , Laikipia County , Kenya

DOI: 10.21276/sb.2017. 3.10. 17 Abstract: The study sought to investigate the influence of knowledge management systems on performance of small and medium enterprises. The study was anchored on systems theory. Descriptive cross sectional research design was adopted. Owners and employees of small and medium enterprises in Nanyuki town were targeted. Stratified random sampling technique was used to select a sample of 115 respondents. Data was analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics and regression analysis was used to establish the relationships between the variables. The findings were presented in tables and figures. The findings showed that knowledge management systems were lowly adopted by SMEs especially for feedback and decision support systems. Knowledge management systems (p=0.11) was not found to be statistically significant. It was concluded that majority of managers and employees did not have awareness of these systems. Failure to adopt these systems therefore remains the gap in the performance of SMEs. The study recommended that SME owners and employees should be sensitized about knowledge systems to enable them adopt the same and enhance performance.
THE FIELD-DEPENDENT SURFACE RESISTANCE OF DOPED NIOBIUM: NEW EXPERIMENTAL AND THEORETICAL RESULTS∗

We present systematic work investigating how different doping and post-doping treatments affect the BCS surface resistance at 1.3 GHz and higher frequencies. We examine the field-dependent BCS resistance at many temperatures as well as the field-dependent residual resistance and use the results to reveal how impurity species and concentration levels affect the field-dependent RF properties. We further demonstrate the importance of thermal effects and their direct dependence on doping level. We use the tools of Density Functional Theory to work towards an ab initio model of electron overheating to theoretically confirm the impact of doping, create a full model that includes thermal effects to predict the field dependent resistance, and show that the predictions of the model agree with results from doped and non-doped cavities (e.g. the strength of the anti-Q-slope and the high-field Q slope). Finally, we use our experimental results to systematically assess and compare theories of the field-dependent BCS resistance, showing that the current theory on smearing of the density of states is incomplete.
Diversifying Risks in Bond Portfolios : A Cross-border Approach

This study recalibrates corporate bond idiosyncratic risks in an international context. Applying a statistically powerful risk decomposition scheme, we show in this study that diversification is improved by the addition of a global risk benchmark. We build a long-run stationary yield spread decomposition scheme which provides better diversification effect. In addition to global liquidity and default risk factors, we also include country-specific default risk component, and all of them are free of measurement or availability issues. The idiosyncratic risk component is estimated as a fixed effect along with all the parameter estimates, rather than separately from an exogenous generating process. Our linear model is simple, yet it can be easily and promptly applied by practitioners.
Involvement of Fathers in The Lives of Children in Preschool Age

This study was carried out in order to examine the involvement of fathers' in the life of their children attending preschool. The sample of the study consisted of 870 fathers who continued their children in independent districts in the central districts of Ankara, Trabzon and Erzurum. The "Father Involvement Scale" were used in this research. Based on the results of the study, Arbitrary Preoccupation subscale showed that there was a significant difference in the cases of Ankara, Trabzon and Erzurum according to the father's age, education status, and type of marriage; a significant difference was found in Trabzon according to the age of the child. In the subscale of attention and closeness, a significant difference was found according to the type of marriage in the provinces of Ankara, Trabzon, and Erzurum; a significant difference was found according to the gender of the child and the age of the father in Trabzon and Erzurum provinces, the education status of the father in Ankara and Trabzon provinces. In the subscale of Primary Care, a significant difference was found according to the type of marriage in the provinces of Ankara, Trabzon, and Erzurum; a significant difference was found according to the education status of the father in Ankara and Trabzon provinces; the age of the child, the gender of the child and the age of the father in the province of Trabzon.
Dementia Risk Elevates Brain Activity During Memory Retrieval : An Fmri Analysis of Middle Aged and Older Adults

Longitudinal research suggests that genetic, lifestyle, and environmental factors enhance one’s risk for developing Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias (ADRD). However, it is not known how an accumulation of such factors impact brain functioning. One barrier to this research is that increased risk for ADRD affects the cerebrovascular system and, therefore, alters the link between neural activity and the fMRI BOLD signal. To better interpret fMRI findings, several steps were taken to adjust fMRI activity thereby reducing such cerebrovascular effects. We hypothesized that as the number of ADRD risk factors increase, brain regions within the medial temporal lobes and the default mode network would exhibit altered brain activity during an episodic memory retrieval task. Middle-aged and older adults (aged 50-74) free of dementia were recruited with varying levels of risk and underwent a neuropsychological battery and fMRI. In the memory task, participants viewed a pair of pictures. In an alternative-forced-choice test, participants viewed a picture cue and had to determine which of four pictures was paired with the cue. Increased dementia risk was positively associated with brain activity in regions of interest within the default mode network, the hippocampus, and the entorhinal cortex during memory retrieval. Whole-brain analyses revealed additional positive associations in prefrontal and occipito-temporal cortices. Risk factors most contributing to these elevated levels of brain activity included hypertension, diabetes, obesity, and cholesterol. We also ruled out confounds due to in-scanner performance and premorbid ability. Cumulative risk might represent early signs of burnout in brain regions underlying episodic memory.
Clinical Experience with the Hybrid Closed-Loop Insulin Delivery System (MinimedTM 670G) compared to Sensor Augmented Therapy (MiniMedTM 640G) and standard care

Background: This real-world clinical study compared the efficacy of a hybrid closed-loop system (HCL) to a sensor integrated pump (SIP) system and usual care. Methods: Twenty-four subjects aged 8 to 65 years were randomly selected from 6 clinical centers to take part in this prospective study. Subjects were on a variety of standard care programs at base-line (Phase 1) and then used SIP for two months (Phase 2) followed by two months on HCL (Phase 3). Results: Compared with baseline, the mean HbA1c for the cohort reduced by 0.37% after 2 months of SIP therapy and by 0.7% after 2 months of HCL therapy. At study end, the mean HbA1c for the cohort was 7.2%. Time in severe hypoglycemia reduced to 0.4% (0.7% at baseline) for both SIP and HCL therapies. Time below 70 mg/dl reduced progressively between Phase 1 (baseline therapy), Phase 2 (SIP) and Phase 3 (HCL) (6%, 2.5% and 1.5% respectively) of the study. In the study intervention arms, less time was spent above 180 mg/dl (32.1% with SIP and 25.5% with HCL) versus 37% at baseline. The mean time-in-range (TIR) achieved was 72.5% with HCL, versus 65.2% with SIP (58.3% at baseline). Similarly, 50% of the subjects achieved a TIR of over 70% on HCL versus 33% on SIP (8% at baseline). Conclusions: This small, prospective, real-world study demonstrated that irrespective of the starting parameters, SIP therapy reduced mean HbA1c levels, TIR and hypoglycemic events. Implementation of an HCL system enhanced these outcomes further.
Optimization of Space Structures

Fig. 1. Le : A statically sound space structure designed and optimized with our framework, motivated by the real architectural project shown in Figure 2. Right: The space structure is constructed with six types of customized beams to minimize the total volume of the material used for beams while maintaining moderate manufacturing complexity. Here, a ho er color indicates a larger beam cross-section area. Our framework automatically determines the optimal cross-section areas of the six types of beams as well as the assignment of beam types.
Impact of Social Media Usage on Recruitment in the Indian IT Industry

With the advancement of technology, social media plays a very important role in people’s lives. It helps the communities to get engaged and build genuine relationships (Narvey, 2009). Examples of social media include Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter. There are significant differences between these sites, but the basic component, which is networking through social contacts, is similar (Smith, 2010). LinkedIn and Facebook have features to act as recruiting tools as they both include job-posting features for recruiters and job-search options for jobseekers. Facebook and LinkedIn are most popular among young professionals. Employers who use LinkedIn and Facebook, have the highest potential of reaching young professionals in the workplace (Schroeder, 2010). LinkedIn is used for business and networking reasons and can be described as a virtual contact book (Bulik, 2008). Both these social media networking websites allow users to connect with others and tap into their internal network and contact business.
Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America

Recordings from a low magnification (V = 4), intermediate period (T ~ 5 sec) seismograph at Mt. Hamilton, within 35 km of the San Andreas fault, show about 8 sec of P-wave energy and the first half-cycle or so of the initial 5 wave before going off-scale. The times, polarities, and overall amplitudes are consistent with Bolt's conclusion (1968) that the main shock began closer to San Francisco than Olema, as originally proposed by Reid (1910). This and the distribution of surface slip imply a bilateral rupture, but the seismic moment for the segment to the northwest was on the order of 2.5 times greater than for the southeasterly segment. Although Mt. Hamilton is only 3 5 km from the rupture surface, the most massive faulting apparently took place at least 75 km away. The recording at Mt. Hamilton returned to scale after about 60 sec; the duration of energy with periods close to 5 sec was comparable to that from ,more recent strong-motion recordings. Theoretical modeling using both body and surface waves showed that the surface waves dominated the motion at Mt. Hamilton. The modeling also emphasized the sensitivity of the ground motion to directivity effects and rupture velocity. The general characteristics of the data (polarity, amplitude, period content, and duration) were matched reasonably well by a simple dislocation model using fault lengths, depths, and offsets determined from independent data.
Effect of Intellectual Capital Management on Revenue Generation of Listed Commercial Banks in Nigeria

The paper is aimed at determining the effect of Intellectual Capital Management on revenue generation of listed deposit money banks in Nigeria. The specific objectives of the research were to ascertain the effect of human capital efficiency on revenue growth, to examine the effect of structural capital efficiency on revenue growth and to determine the effect of intellectual capital management on revenue growth. Descriptive research design was adopted for the study considering the total population of all the twenty-one listed deposit money banks in Nigeria. Data were gathered via secondary source from Six (6) public annual reports of the listed deposit money banks and analyzed using percentages and ratios. Multiple regressions was employed in data analysis and testing the hypotheses; in determining if there is a significant effect of human capital efficiency, structural capital efficiency and Intellectual Capital management on revenue growth of listed deposit money banks in Nigeria. The study revealed that Human Capital Efficiency (HCE) has a positive and significant effect on revenue growth, Structural Capital Efficiency (SCE) has a positive but no significant effect on revenue growth and concluded that Intellectual Capital Management has a positive and no significant effect on revenue growth of listed deposit money banks in Nigeria. Based on the findings, the study recommends that management of deposit money banks in Nigeria and the financial service industry should invest in human capital in order to enjoy increase in revenue generation coupled with the need to determine optimally the level of intellectual capital management so that layoff and underutilization would be highly discouraged and for management to strengthen Intellectual capital management in order to enhance improved performance in revenue generation.
EM study of the effect of high-temperature hermal cycles on the stability of the YAlO oxides n MA 956 ODS steel

MA956, a commercial ferritic grade of Oxide-Dispersion-Strengthened (ODS) steel, was investigated using transmission electron microscopy (TEM) to evaluate the influence of hightemperature thermal cycles on the nanometric dispersed oxides. Analyses of the oxide size distribution were carried out on foils from the as-received MA956 and following treatment at 1285 ◦C for one hour, and show that growth of the oxides has occurred under the thermal cycle. Implications for the oxide stability in the steel matrix are discussed, in the light of the oxide chemical composition. © 2019 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
The Political Consequences of Labor Market Dualization: Labor Market Status, Occupational Unemployment and Policy Preferences

Abstract This article explores empirically how different types of labor market inequality affect policy preferences in post-industrial societies. I argue that the two main conceptualizations of labor market vulnerability identified in the insider–outsider literature are complementary: labor market risks are shaped by both labor market status—whether an individual is unemployed, in a temporary or permanent contract—and occupational unemployment—whether an individual is in an occupation with high or low unemployment. As a result, both status and occupation are important determinants of individual labor market policy preferences. In this paper, I first briefly conceptualize the link between labor market divides, risks and policy preferences, and then use cross-national survey data to investigate the determinants of preferences.
LANCASTER UNIVERSITY APPROXIMATE POLICY ITERATION (API) WITH NEURAL NETWORKS FOR THE GENERALIZED SINGLE NODE ENERGY STORAGE PROBLEM BY RICHLOVE AMPOFOWAA FRIMPONG

Energy storage problems are hard sequential decision-making problems often modelled as markov decision processes. Exact solution using dynamic programming quickly becomes implausible with large state spaces hence approximate dynamic programming using policy iteration (API) is often employed in such cases. API does not always work, one reason being that the approximation architectures used are often linear for computational tractability reasons. We propose a mathematical model which allows easier implementation of non-linear approximations with API. We use neural networks along with monte-carlo simulation to predict the future values for the generated states during the improvement step of the API algorithm. Our initial experiments suggest that the proposed method provides good results which can be further improved with more fine tuning of the neural network parameters.
Stomatal and non-stomatal limitations to photosynthesis in field-grown grapevine cultivars

Diurnal changes of photosynthesis in the leaves of grapevine (Vitis vinifera × V. labrusca) cultivars Campbell Early and Kyoho grown in the field were compared with respect to gas exchanges and actual quantum yield of photosystem 2 (ΦPS2) in late May. Net photosynthetic rate (PN) of the two cultivars rapidly increased in the morning, saturated at photosynthetic photon flux density (PPFD) from 1200 to 1500 μmol m s between 10:00 and 12:00 and slowly decreased after midday. Maximum PN was 13.7 and 12.5 μmol m s in Campbell Early and Kyoho, respectively. The stomatal conductance (gs) and transpiration rate changed in parallel with PN, indicating that PN was greatly affected by gs. However, the decrease in PN after midday under saturating PPFD was also associated with the observed depression of ΦPS2 at high PPFD. The substantial increase in the leaf to air vapour pressure deficit after midday might also contribute to decline of gs and PN. Additional key words: gas exchange, quantum yield, stomatal conductance, transpiration rate, vapour pressure deficit.
Direct evidence of ball-valve aperture in sacral perineural cyst treated with cyst-subarachnoid shunt

P erineural (Tarlov) cysts are meningeal dilatations of the posterior spinal nerve root sheath that most often affect sacral roots and can cause progressive local pain or radicular symptoms. Tarlov cysts usually are diagnosed by lumbosacral MRI and often can be seen on CT myelography communicating with the spinal subarachnoid space. The symptoms are most frequently exacerbated by standing, sitting, walking, and coughing, all of which elevate the cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) pressure. It has been suggested that cysts enlarge because of a check-valve effect, whereby CSF enters the cyst with systolic pulsation but is unable to exit through the same portal during diastole. However, no reports have demonstrated this mechanism on imaging studies. The purpose of this study was to show the pathomechanism of Tarlov cysts and to report the clinical results of a cyst-subarachnoid shunt.
Adopting Community Policing toward Neighborhood Engagement to Reduce Crime Fear in the Central of Thailand

This article provides readers with an overview of fear rely on crime perspectives derived from people lived permanently in a central area of Thailand where the crime rates have been increasing dramatically in a decade. The research aims to investigate how social and policing aspects affected those fear level. For the methodology, the researcher applied quantitative techniques to conduct the study with questionnaire of 409 samples represented 4,827 neighbors. The one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) is utilized to determine significant differences among demographic independent groups and crime fear as a dependent variable. Moreover, the regression analysis is selected to examine a model with key factors from social engagement between a community and a police agency. First, the result exposes that demographic data age, income, and length of stay are significantly associated with the crime fear among the neighborhood by mean square within subject variances are 0.959, 0.634, and 0.633 respectively. The second finding shows that fear could be found an implication with factors related social interaction, including social cohesion and even police services by about 19.3 percent. To conclude, long-term residents who mostly provide contributions to public activities tend to feel safer. In addition, public services authorized local police to get in touch a neighborhood and to influence people with high confident during daily lives among others who are commuting in and out their living space.
Perfil de los farmacéuticos e indicadores de estructura y proceso en farmacias de Curitiba Brasil

El objetivo del presente trabajo fue conocer el perfil de los participantes en cursos de atencion farmaceutica en Curitiba-PR (Brasil) y los indicadores de estructura y proceso de sus farmacias. Se pasaron dos formularios de entrevista estructurada en el ano 2003 a todos los participantes, con preguntas relativas a su perfil y al de las farmacias en las que ejercen, y se analizaron los datos con estadistica descriptiva. Los resultados proporcionan informaciones relativas a la formacion del profesional, disponibilidad de recursos para el desarrollo del seguimiento farmacoterapeutico, relacion laboral, dominio de lenguas extranjeras, y actividades clinicas o no clinicas actualmente desarrolladas. Estos datos evidencian algunas necesidades especificas de formacion continuada y permiten un delineamiento de estrategias en el diseno de nuevos cursos dedicados a esa poblacion.
Progenitor Cell Therapy for Sensorineural Hearing Loss in Infants

Typical language development requires typical hearing. With sensorineural hearing loss (SNHL), the damaged hair cells of the organ of Corti within the cochlea interfere with typical hearing and, as a result, cause impaired language development. Untreated SNHL causes significant neurocognitive differences in affected children. SNHL is a permanent sensory disorder affecting more than 270 million people worldwide. Congenital SNHL is found in 4 of 1000 newborns. Approximately half of congenital SNHL is hereditary and is the result of genetic mutations causing improper development of cochlear hair cells. Non-genetic congenital SNHL is thought to be the result of an injury to the cochlea typically from premature birth, infection, or exposure to ototoxic medications or noise. In mam-mals, the cochlea is postmitotic at birth, and no spontaneous repair occurs there-after. Existing treatments for SNHL (hearing aids and cochlear implants) function by augmenting the damaged organ of Corti. No reparative treatments currently exist. In preclinical and clinical studies, progenitor cell therapy (cord blood and mesenchymal stem cells) has shown promise in reversing the underlying pathology of SNHL, the loss of cochlear sensory hair cells. Progenitor cell therapy may also allow functional reorganization of the auditory pathways including primary auditory cortex (Heschl’s gyrus). We will present a summary of the effect of hearing loss on auditory development, existing preclinical and clinical data on progenitor cell therapy, and its potential role in the (re)habilitation of non-genetic SNHL.
Centers of Gravity : The Effect of Shared Leadership and Stability in Top Management Teams on Firm Growth and Industry Evolution

We study the processes of firm growth in the evolution of the Japanese cotton spinning industry in the late 19th-early 20th century, the first episode of successful industrialization outside of Western Europe and the United Sates. By integrating strategy and historical approaches and utilizing rich quantitative firm-level data and detailed business histories, we examine the effect of top management teams’ (TMT) shared and stable leadership in the emergence of “centers of gravity” for output and talent in the industry. Shared and stable TMT leadership enabled long term expansion, innovative product choices, and the accumulation of talent and physical assets. Additionally, a focus on value creation, in conjunction with talent recruitment and promotion enabled TMTs to weather discord related disruptions. 1 This work was supported by the NSF grant No.1632833 (Braguinsky) and JSPS KAKENHI Grant No. 15KK0078 (Ohyama). We thank Tetsuji Okazaki and Takenobu Yuki for helpful advice and data sharing, as well as Hiroko Ohga, Tomohiro Hara, Kohei Yamagata, Jun Sakamoto, and Takao Takasago for great research assistance. Braguinsky thanks Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research and Ohyama thanks the University of Maryland Robert H. Smith of Business for their hospitality during parts of the work on this project. Ohyama also thanks Gakushikai (the Assocation of University Graduates) for the permission to use their restricted-use alumni lists. All interpretations and errors are ours.