Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The Home Stroke Rehabilitation and Monitoring System Trial: A Randomized Controlled Trial

Rationale Because many individuals poststroke lack access to the quality and intensity of rehabilitation to improve upper extremity motor function, a home-based robotic-assisted upper extremity rehabilitation device is being paired with an individualized home exercise program. Aims/Hypothesis The primary aim of this project is to determine the effectiveness of robotic-assisted home therapy compared with a home exercise program on upper extremity motor recovery and health-related quality of life for stroke survivors in rural and underserved locations. The secondary aim is to explore whether initial degree of motor function of the upper limb may be a factor in predicting the extent to which patients with stroke may be responsive to a home therapy approach. We hypothesize that the home exercise program intervention, when enhanced with robotic-assisted therapy, will result in significantly better outcomes in motor function and quality of life. Design A total of 96 participants within six-months of a single, unilateral ischemic, or hemorrhagic stroke will be recruited in this prospective, single-blind, multisite randomized clinical trial. Study Outcomes The primary outcome is the change in upper extremity function using the Action Research Arm Test. Secondary outcomes include changes in: upper extremity function (Wolf Motor Function Test), upper extremity impairment (upper extremity portion of the Fugl-Meyer Test), self-reported quality of life (Stroke Impact Scale), and affect (Centers for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale). Discussion Similar or greater improvements in upper extremity function using the combined robotic home exercise program intervention compared with home exercise program alone will be interpreted as evidence that supports the introduction of in-home technology to augment the recovery of function poststroke.
Are 'Sticky Costs' the Result of Deliberate Decision of Managers?

Recent research on cost behavior has revealed that costs do not change proportionately with changes in sales, showing that costs increase in response to increases in sales, but do not decline proportionately with reductions in sales. This asymmetric cost behavior is termed as “sticky costs. ” One of the hypotheses on costs stickiness explains it as a phenomenon that results from the deliberate decisions of managers. When managers are faced with a decline in sales, there are some who consider the decline to be temporary, and expect sales to rebound in the near future; thus, there are managers who, deliberately, hold onto resources during periods of declining sales. Such behavior is justified when, in the long run, retaining resources could result in lower costs, thus higher profits, than eliminating resources in response to declining sales and reacquiring them in times of increasing sales. This hypothesis, however, has not been directly examined in the previous research. Managers’ prospect of future sales has not been incorporated into analyses in any of the previous works. In this paper, we use sales forecasts issued by managers as a proxy for managers’ prospect of future sales and examine the hypothesis that costs stickiness is the results of the deliberate decision of managers by empirically testing whether the managers’ sales forecasts have an impact on costs stickiness. We find that the prospect of future sales is related to current level of costs stickiness. Our findings provide the strong evidence that costs stickiness is the results of deliberate decision of managers.
Managing Supply Chain Flexibility using an integrated approach of classifying, structuring and impact assessment

Flexibility in the Supply Chain (SC) has emerged as a new strategic tool to enhance business excellence. The exploitation of flexibility is vital in designing, planning and controlling SC system to improve an organisation's ability to recover from disruptions. There are various types of SCF, each type comes in various forms and each of which can be implemented in different ways and with different costs. The topic of Supply Chain Flexibility (SCF) has drawn the attention of the researchers and practitioners over a decade. However, in literature, there is no evidence of any study focused on interdependency among various types of SCF types. An attempt has therefore been made to identify and analyse relationships among the SCF types, to establish contextual relationships among them to identify the factors that are relevant to various SCF types and to evaluate the dynamics among them. The details of the study are reported in this paper.
Technology Transfer within Mnes: An Investigation of Inter-Subsidiary Competition and Cooperation

Much theory and research that seeks to explain why and how technology transfers occur within multinational enterprises (MNEs) actually addresses the question of how these transfers occur among cooperative subsidiaries, and relies on the assumption of inter-subsidiary cooperation. However, subsidiaries do not always cooperate. We suggest that the success of technology transfer among subsidiaries depends on the extent to which the relationships among an MNE's subsidiaries (i.e. inter-subsidiary) are competitive or cooperative. Inter-subsidiary cooperation is determined by the MNE's international strategy, organizational structure, and the social relationships among subsidiaries. Both hierarchical and social relational factors drive the potential for inter-subsidiary multimarket competition that originates from the overlap on the subsidiaries' products, technologies, and market portfolios.
An investigation of internet adoption factors in New Zealand's small - and medium-sized enterprises - from an industrial perspective

This thesis aimed to investigate the impact of firmand industry-specific factors on the decision to adopt Internet technologies among SMEs in New Zealand’s retail and tourism industries. A mail survey was sent to 500 retail SMEs and 1,000 tourism SMEs, with response rates of 26.4 percent and 33.4 percent respectively. The results indicated that, in a comparison of perceived benefits, organizational readiness and external pressure, the most important factor in determining the adoption decision was the perceived benefits. Overall, the level of Internet support, business size, international business, and years on the Internet were the most important structural factors in determining Internet technology adoption. When comparing retail and tourism SMEs, the level of Internet support within a firm, business size, and years on the Internet were more important factors for the tourism SMEs than for their retail counterparts. On the other hand, business type and international business were more important factors for retail SMEs than they were for tourism firms. The research also found that tourism SMEs experienced greater pressure from the external environment to adopt Internet technologies than did retail firms.
Feelings and Fellings Exploring the Process of Communication in Forest Management Conflicts

The way we communicate about forest issues has consequences for how forests are managed. Policies and research suggest that public participation in natural resource management (NRM) leads to better informed and more sustainable decisions about the environment. This thesis seeks to increase understanding regarding how the way people communicate about a natural resource, such as a forested area, affects the decisions taken about that natural resource. This issue is investigated by studying how individuals involved in forest management interpret conflict, participation, and the actions of other people, and how this process of interpretation is connected to the way they act. The underlying assumption is that reality is socially constructed, and that this social construction is accomplished by people communicating with each other, via symbolic interaction. The empirical material consisted of three case studies of forest management, one case of participant observation in two participatory meetings and two cases of conflict concerning final fellings of forest studied via semi-structured interviews. The empirical material was analyzed using the concepts of avoidance of embarrassment and discursive closure. The findings suggest that situations where people feel insecure about the role they are expected to play create anticipation of embarrassment and causes them to avoid face-to-face meetings. The findings also show that actors in participatory meetings have numerous different expectations on them, leading to discursive closures, i.e., suppression of certain subjects in the discussion, in order to avoid role confusion and hence embarrassment. Avoidance of embarrassment and discursive closure in people’s interactions with each other, in conflict and in participation, have negative impacts on listening and learning and knowledge exchange. The conclusion in this thesis is that a conscious focus on creating meeting spaces where role confusion is accepted can create discussions where more perspectives are raised, the common knowledge base is increased, and more sustainable decision-making concerning natural resources is possible.
Consumer Trust and Satisfaction in the Formation of Consumer Loyalty Intentions in Transactional Exchange: The Case of a Mass Discount Retailer

Marketing relationships can be placed on a continuum from short, discrete transactions to ongoing brand relationships. The majority of recent work has focused on relational exchanges, with some scholars even suggesting early on that the marketing discipline was undergoing a paradigm shift from a transaction-based marketing perspective toward a relational exchange perspective. However, there has been a growing recognition that not all customers seek relational exchanges. Consequently, the current research considers customer relationship management from the less studied, but oft seen, perspective of transactional exchange. A study is presented using recent advances in structural equation modeling analyses, including Bayesian estimation methods and mediation analyses. We further consider the psychological processes underlying the formation of consumer loyalty based on pre- and post-purchase measurements taken over multiple time periods. We specifically hypothesize that consumer satisfaction judgments will fully mediate any influences of post-purchase trust judgments on future loyalty intentions. With American consumers’ trust in businesses at an all-time low, coupled with the recent trend that more and more brick-and-mortar retailers are at risk of “showrooming” for online retailers, there is an apparent need to also consider retail customers who see the value of relationship marketing only selectively.
Analyst Optimism and Stock Price Momentum

We examine the effect of security analyst recommendations on stock price momentum. Results show that momentum profits are directly linked to analyst optimism. Specifically, we find that a 1-unit change in recommendation quintile translates to about a 50 basis point change in subsequent 3-month momentum profits. We also examine uncovered stocks by using parallel projection methods to project analyst recommendations from covered stocks onto uncovered stocks. For uncovered stocks, projected recommendations are unrelated to subsequent momentum profits. Our findings show that investor optimism alone does not generate stock price momentum. Analyst affirmation is a key catalyst for stock price momentum.
Stimulated jitter analysis for the evaluation of neuromuscular junction disorders in children

Stimulated jitter analysis (stim‐JA) using a concentric needle electrode is a technique used to study the neuromuscular junction (NMJ) without voluntary activation. Our objective was to study the diagnostic sensitivity, specificity, and feasibility of stim‐JA in infants and children with suspected NMJ defects.
Detection of endothelial cell‐reactive immunoglobulin in patients with anti‐phospholipid antibodies

Individuals with anti‐phospholipid antibodies are at increased risk for the development of thrombosis and fetal loss. The pathogenesis of these syndromes is unknown, but may involve antibody‐mediated alterations in endothelial cell coagulant activity. To address this possibility, we determined the incidence of endothelial cell‐reactive antibodies in 76 patients whose plasma contained anti‐phospholipid antibodies, but who had no clinically‐evident immune disorder. Plasma from 47 patients deposited significantly more immunoglobulin on cultured endothelial cells than control plasma. Positive tests were more frequent in patients with a history of thrombosis than in those without (17/19 v 23/48; P=0.004). However, we observed no correlation between immunoglobulin deposition on cardiolipin and endothelial cells by individual plasmas. Furthermore, endothelial cell reactivity was not diminished by adsorption of anti‐cardiolipin antibodies from patient sera using liposomes. Immunoglobulin fractions prepared from 5/6 patient sera immuno‐precipitated a ≈ 70 kDa endothelial cell surface protein; 4/5 of these fractions also induced the release of von Willebrand factor from endothelial cells. These results demonstrate that plasma from many patients with anti‐phospholipid antibodies, but no clinically‐evident autoimmune disease, also contains endothelial cell‐reactive antibodies. Detection of such antibodies might help identify individuals in this patient population at greatest risk for thrombosis.
Violence: News on a public health problem

In 1996, the UN World Health Assembly adopted a resolution that declared violence to be a major and growing public health problem across the world. The resolution drew attention to the serious consequences of violence, both in the short and the long term, for individuals, families, communities and countries, and stressed the damaging effects of violence. The World Health Organization (WHO) was requested to set up public health activities to deal with the problem. In 2002, the WHO published the first world report on violence and health [1]. It addressed violence as a global health problem, and covered youth violence, child sexual abuse and neglect, intimate partner violence, abuse of the elderly, sexual violence, self-inflicted violence, and collective violence (violence during armed conflicts). The WHO defines violence as the intentional use of physical force or power, threatened or actual, against oneself, another person or a group or community that either results in or has the likelihood of resulting in injury, death, personal harm, maldevelopment, or deprivation. It covers a broad range of outcomes, including injuries, chronic diseases, psychological harm and adverse development, that pose a substantial burden on individuals, families, and communities. The world report on violence and health primarily described the physical, psychological and social problems of intimate partner violence and sexual violence against women, and, to a lesser degree, the possible long-term, health-related consequences of violence against men. Collective violence was subdivided into social, political and economic violence, committed by larger groups of individuals or by states. It included war and related violent conflicts. Apart from the direct health effects on combatants during war and armed conflicts, violence against women and girls has risen sharply since the start, in 2003, of the war in Iraq [2], and as a result of other regional conflicts [3]. In 2002, the Council of Europe adapted recommendations to combat violence against women in the Member States. Consequently, the Council was to receive annual follow-up information at a national level regarding the provisions of this recommendation. In this respect, in 2005, the Council implemented a set of indicators to monitor the Member States’ initiatives to combat violence against women. Among these indicators were current and nationwide sex-differentiated register data on police-reported cases of violence, and data on emergency department contacts due to violence. Furthermore, to monitor the trends in violence against women, it was recommended to include questions on violence in the Member States’ regular, national health interview surveys. The Danish National Institute of Public Health considers violence to be a serious risk factor for physical and mental health problems. Hence, since 2000, the national health interview surveys have included standardized questions on exposure to threats of violence, physical violence, and unwanted sex. The regulations on register-based research in Denmark permit the merging of survey data and
Plural forms of governance in the beef industry: a case study in Brazil

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to describe the forms of coordinating transactions used by a large beef slaughterhouse and processing companies and their suppliers of beef cattle, and to identify the reasons for the adoption of plural forms of governance for their transactions with cattle suppliers. Design/methodology/approach – A case study format was selected for this investigation. The focal company selected offers a large number of products derived from beef for different commercialisation channels in the domestic and foreign market. A non-probability sample of 30 suppliers (cattle farmers) of the focal company provided data on finished steers sold in 2010, according to the three types of governance used in the transactions (spot market, forward contracts and long-term contracts). Findings – The simultaneous use of more than one type of governance structure to coordinate similar transactions has been termed plural forms of governance in the literature. In Brazil, new forms of governance, such a.
A robotic treatment approach to promote social interaction skills for children with autism spectrum disorders

In this paper, we propose with a robot-assisted behavioral intervention system to easily improve children's social capability. In particular, the system for children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) is basically achieved through the discrete trial teaching (DTT) protocol with three task modes of therapy, encouragement, and pause in social training scenarios. In child-robot interaction architecture, the robot firstly offers therapeutic training elements of mutual greeting and interplay game, and evaluates the level of children's reactivity by recognition modules for frontal face and touch features. Thence, the system in the decision-making process determines the task mode to perform subsequent action by grasping behavioral state of the children, and then it copes with individual response appropriately by using the robotic stimuli with the combination of kinesic acts and displayable contents. From the experiments of clinical trials with children with non-ASD and ASD in each robotic stimulus, the system showed the potential to increase their attention and activeness for social training, and we believe that the proposed system has some positive effect on developing children's social skills.
Barriers and Catalysts to Effective Internal Audit in the Ghanaian Public Sector

Purpose – The purpose of the study is to investigate the role of the internal audit function in the public sector entities in Ghana and the factors limiting the effectiveness of internal audit in the sector. Design/Methodology/Approach – The study collected the data from 120 internal auditors in 40 ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs) through a self-administered questionnaire. A semi-structured interview with a senior manager of the Internal Audit Agency, the oversight body was also carried out as a follow up. Findings – The scope of internal audit services in the sector is limited to regular audit activities, mainly pre-audit of payment vouchers which take estimated 74% of the average productive audit time. The effectiveness of internal audit in the Ghanaian public sector is hampered by several factors: low professional proficiency of internal auditors; lack of management ownership and support for internal audit activities, lack of budget authority of the internal audit units and weak functioning of audit committees, among others. Some remedial programmes are ongoing. Research limitations – Inherent in the study result is the limitation associated with non-probability sampling methods because of the use of purposive sampling technique to select the internal auditors and the organisations. Practical implication – The result of the study may have policy implication for government in the design of programmes for improving the effectiveness of internal audit as an element of public financial management reforms. Originality/Value – Despite several studies on internal audit effectiveness in the public sector organisations, none relates to Ghana. This study fills the gap.
Embedded Model Control urges disturbance modelling and rejection

Robust control design is devoted to guarantee closed-loop stability of a model-based control law in presence of parametric uncertainties. The control law is usually a static feedback law which is derived from a model. Under this view stability can only be guarantee by introducing some ignorance coefficients and restricting the feedback control effort with respect to the model-based design. Embedded Model Control shows that under certain conditions, the model-based control law must and can be kept intact under uncertainty, if the controllable dynamics is complemented by a suitable disturbance dynamics capable of real-time encoding the different uncertainties affecting the ‘embedded model’, i.e. the model which is both the design source and the core of the control unit. To be real-time updated the disturbance state is driven by an unpredictable input vector, called noise, which can be only estimated from the model error. The uncertainty-based design concerns the noise estimator, as the model error conveys into the embedded model uncertainty components which are command-dependent and thus prone to destabilize the plant. Separation of the components in the low and high frequency domain by the noise estimator itself allows to recover and guarantee stability. A simple example will help to understand the key assets of the methodology.
Functional Interactions between NURF and Ctcf Regulate Gene Expression

ABSTRACT Gene expression frequently requires chromatin-remodeling complexes, and it is assumed that these complexes have common gene targets across cell types. Contrary to this belief, we show by genome-wide expression profiling that Bptf, an essential and unique subunit of the nucleosome-remodeling factor (NURF), predominantly regulates the expression of a unique set of genes between diverse cell types. Coincident with its functions in gene expression, we observed that Bptf is also important for regulating nucleosome occupancy at nucleosome-free regions (NFRs), many of which are located at sites occupied by the multivalent factors Ctcf and cohesin. NURF function at Ctcf binding sites could be direct, because Bptf occupies Ctcf binding sites in vivo and has physical interactions with CTCF and the cohesin subunit SA2. Assays of several Ctcf binding sites using reporter assays showed that their regulatory activity requires Bptf in two different cell types. Focused studies at H2-K1 showed that Bptf regulates the ability of Klf4 to bind near an upstream Ctcf site, possibly influencing gene expression. In combination, these studies demonstrate that gene expression as regulated by NURF occurs partly through physical and functional interactions with the ubiquitous and multivalent factors Ctcf and cohesin.