Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Physical Evidence and Customer Patronage: An Empirical Study of Nigeria Banking Sector

This study examines the impact of physical evidence on customer patronage of quoted Banks in south-south zone of Nigeria. 14 quoted Banks at the Nigeria Stock Exchange Market were used for the study. The research considered firm level of analysis and top managers unit of analysis. Customers of the chosen banks were also used. By this arrangement, 42 managers and 7 customers randomly selected constituted our respondents for the study. Descriptively, the study variables were presented and inferentially, the Spearman Rank Correlation Coefficient was used in testing the various hypotheses. In addition, we employed the Pearson Partial Correlation to ascertain the extent to which the organizational factors mediate the relationship between physical evidence and customer patronage. The result of the analysis showed that there is a strong positive and significant correlation between physical evidence and customer patronage. The study specifically revealed that efficient design of work place ambience; physical architecture and signs Original Research Article Adiele et al.; BJEMT, 7(3): 188-199, 2015; Article no.BJEMT. 2015.083 189 significantly impact on sales volume, profit margin and customer retention. It was further found that organization size and information technology capability strongly mediated the relationship between the predictor and criterion variable. The study therefore concluded that physical evidence significantly affects customer patronage. Hence, it was recommended that the panacea to poor customer patronage is predicated on the bank’s ability to efficiently adopt physical evidence dimensions used for the study as significant conditioning factors of the business environment.
Investigation of cholangiocarcinoma associated NKG2D polymorphisms in colorectal carcinoma

we aimed toclarify the impact of NKG2D polymorphisms on this pheno-type by investigating a large cohort of 1072 German patientswith sporadic CRC and 760 healthy controls.Patients with histologically proven CRC from 21 surgicaldepartments in Northern Germany were included, patientsfulﬁlling the clinical Amsterdam or Bethesda criteria for he-reditary nonpolyposis colon cancer were excluded. An earlierstudy in the same cohort has analyzed polymorphisms in DNArepair pathway genes without ﬁnding any association.
An Empirical Analysis of Selected Factors Affecting Dividend Policy of Listed Firms at the Nairobi Securities Exchange (2000-2010)

This paper presents the results of the analysis of factors influencing dividend policy of publicly listed companies at the Nairobi Securities Exchange. The study objective was to examine how firms’ dividend decisions are influenced by current earnings, dividend yield and firm size. It analysed empirical panel data of annual earnings per share, dividend yield, sales and dividend per share of 40 listed companies over a period of ten years (2000-2010) with 432 observations. This empirical analysis of data tested the validity of an extended lintners dividend model using data from the Nairobi Stock Exchange. Regression results indicated that the three explanatory variables predicted 17% of the variation in dividend payout. Accounting earnings was the single most significant variable explaining about 87% of the changes in the dividend decisions of firms listed at the Securities exchange. Earnings were also significantly positively associated with dividend payout of companies involved in the study. The other two variables (dividend yield and size of firm) contributed marginally - less than 1%). However, dividend yield was negatively related to payout although this was insignificant. Firm size was positively significantly associated with dividend payout. Overall, the result supports Lintner hypothesis that current earnings are positively and significantly related to dividend payouts for companies at the NSE.
Influence of the Height of a Robot on Comfortableness of Verbal Interaction

We investigated the effect of height of a robot on comfortableness of verbal interaction with the robot. We created a robot whose height could be changed continuously, and carried out dialog experiments with humans at varying robot heights. We employed 19 participants to evaluate “comfortableness of dialog”, and investigated the height at which the participants felt the dialog was most comfortable. Next, we investigated differences of dialog comfortableness when the height of the robot was changed. Finally, we changed the distance between the participant and the robot and observed whether the dialog comfortableness changed or not. The experimental results yielded the following three guidelines for designing the height of a communication robot. First, the optimum height of a communication robot is about 300mm lower than the eye height of the user. Second, the comfortableness of dialog with the robot degrades when the height of the robot is 200mm lower or 300mm higher than the optimum height. Third, the distance between the robot and the user does not affect the optimum height of the robot.
CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP MARKETING PENGARUHNYA TERHADAP KEPERCAYAAN DAN LOYALITAS PERBANKAN NASIONAL

Customer relationship marketing or CRM is one of service quality form measured through commitment, communication, and complains handling. Customer trust and loyalty are expected to improve by managing those three dimensions of CRM. This research conducted to confirm CRM theoretical model in national banking industry. There are 165 respondents who participate in this research. Data are analyzed using Generalized Structured Component Analysis (GSCA). The result verifies that commitment and complaint handling of National Bank have positive effect to customer trust and customer loyalty. However, this research disconfirms communication effect to customer trust. Empirical model suggest that customer trust is intervening variable which connects CRM to customer loyalty.
Stock market returns and the temperature effect: Thailand

This research focus on investigation of the relationship between stock market returns and temperature. Research in behavioral finance shows that lower temperature can lead to aggression, while higher temperature can lead to both apathy and aggression. This research considers daily financial and temperature data of Thailand. Both a Autoregressive (AR(p))-Generalized Autoregressive Conditional Heteroscedasticity (GARCH (p,q). Based on AR(1)-GARCH(1,1) estimation found that a negative relationship between temperature and stock market returns for Thailand.
Continuous-time fractional bounded positive systems

Necessary and sufficient condition for a positive fractional linear continuous-time system to have its pseudo state bounded in a given interval is presented. Some previous results about fractional positive systems are completed. Generalization of an expression for the exponential function is obtained for the Mittag-Leffler function. Finally, necessary and sufficient condition is obtained for fractional positive systems to have their pseudo state bounded. An illustrative example is provided to show the usefulness of the results.
CORPORATE GOVERNANCE, KARAKTERISTIK PERUSAHAAN DAN ENVIRONMENTAL DISCLOSURE

The purpose of this study is to examine relationship between corporate governance, company characteristics and its environmental disclosures. Corporate governance are identified as the proportion of independent commissioner , the ethnic of commissioner president, the educational background of commissioner president, the number of commissary board meeting, the proportion of independent audit committee, and the number of audit committee meeting. Company characteristics are indentified as size, leverage, profitability, and company’s operation territory. Companies’ environmental disclosures are measured by using the Indonesian Environmental Reporting index that developed by Suhardjanto, Tower and Brown (2007). Under proportional random sampling method, 90 Indonesian listed companies’ annual reports are selected. From the sample, there is four thy seven point seventy eight percent ( 47.78 %) disclosed environmental information with level of five point thirty five percent (5.35%). This study employed logistic regression and multiple regression. Analysis of statistical results cultural background of president commissioner , Size, leverage as powerful variables to predict the level of environmental disclosure. In addition, cultural background of president commissioner , leverage and Profitability are as determinants to predict environmental disclosure. Keywords: Corporate governance, company characteristics, independent commissioners, independent audit committee, environmental disclosure, Indonesian Environmental Reporting (IER) index.
Food retailing loyalty schemes – and the Orwellian Millennium

The food retailing loyalty scheme is one of the marketing phenomena of the 1990s with most of the major supermarket multiples now having a customer loyalty card scheme. Consumers reciprocate by possessing loyalty cards – there are 40 million such cards in circulation. By knowing what individual consumers buy, the food retailer should be able to target them with relevant offers whilst the consumer saves money in the process. The dilemma for the consumer is one of cheaper shopping on the one hand and privacy invasion on the other because they reveal details about themselves every time they let their purchases at the checkout be matched with their data file via the loyalty card. The dilemma for supermarkets is whether loyalty schemes create truly loyal relationships or whether they are merely sales promotions.
Unlocking Souvenir Shopping Tourism in Indonesia : a Cross-Cultural Study

Souvenir shopping has emerged as a critical component of the Indonesian tourism industry because it helps small home industries to survive and develop. The aims of this study was to gain an understanding of souvenir tourists’ behaviour across three groups – Indonesian, Asian and non-Asian - in relation to their shopping preferences, travel patterns and demographic characteristics. This research was to identify the key determinants of the motivational push and pull factors of shopping tourists, their travel experience quality, satisfaction and behavioural intention from different cultural backgrounds. Further, this study examined the relationship between tourists’ travel motivation and other behavioural constructs in relation to future behavioural intention in the Indonesian souvenir shopping tourism context.
Solitary and Gregarious Locusts Differ in Circadian Rhythmicity of a Visual Output Neuron

Locusts demonstrate remarkable phenotypic plasticity driven by changes in population density. This density dependent phase polyphenism is associated with many physiological, behavioral, and morphological changes, including observations that cryptic solitarious (solitary-reared) individuals start to fly at dusk, whereas gregarious (crowd-reared) individuals are day-active. We have recorded for 24-36 h, from an identified visual output neuron, the descending contralateral movement detector (DCMD) of Schistocerca gregaria in solitarious and gregarious animals. DCMD signals impending collision and participates in flight avoidance maneuvers. The strength of DCMD’s response to looming stimuli, characterized by the number of evoked spikes and peak firing rate, varies approximately sinusoidally with a period close to 24 h under constant light in solitarious locusts. In gregarious individuals the 24-h pattern is more complex, being modified by secondary ultradian rhythms. DCMD’s strongest responses occur around expected dusk in solitarious locusts but up to 6 h earlier in gregarious locusts, matching the times of day at which locusts of each type are most active. We thus demonstrate a neuronal correlate of a temporal shift in behavior that is observed in gregarious locusts. Our ability to alter the nature of a circadian rhythm by manipulating the rearing density of locusts under identical light-dark cycles may provide important tools to investigate further the mechanisms underlying diurnal rhythmicity.
Services in Manufacturing Industries: Contributions to Quality and Competition

Motivated by the increasingly important role of services in manufacturing industries, this dissertation examines implications of this trend for quality management and competition by firms engaged in the production of joint product-service offerings. Broadly defined, we study the following research questions: How do the service contracts offered by manufacturers affect product quality? How does consumer demand respond to product quality and service attributes when manufacturers compete on services? How are consumer intentions influenced by product quality and service quality perceptions, and how does consumer heterogeneity influence this relationship? We empirically study these questions in the aerospace, automobile and consumer electronics industries, respectively. In the first study, we examine the impact of PerformanceBased Contracting on product reliability in an application in the aerospace industry (aircraft engines), and show that the incentive alignment induced by performance-based contracts positively influences product reliability by different mechanisms. In the second essay, we formulate and estimate a structural model to analyze the impact of service competition and product quality in the U.S. automobile industry. We show that the impact of service attributes (warranty length, service quality) on consumer demand critically depends on the firm's product quality. Finally, in the third essay (consumer electronics industry), we examine the joint influence of product quality and service quality perceptions on consumer intentions toward a brand, and show that consumer heterogeneity plays a significant role in defining this relationship. Collectively, our results suggest that the joint consideration of product and service is essential for the development of an effective competitive strategy and for the management of quality by manufacturing firms. Degree Type Dissertation Degree Name Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) Graduate Group Operations & Information Management First Advisor Morris A. Cohen Second Advisor Gerard Cachon
Epithelioid Hemangioma of the Penis: A Clinicopathologic and Immunohistochemical Analysis of 19 Cases, With Special Reference to Exuberant Examples Often Confused With Epithelioid Hemangioendothelioma and Epithelioid Angiosarcoma

Epithelioid hemangiomas of the penis are very rare. To date, less than 10 examples have been reported in the English language literature. In this report, we describe the clinical, histopathologic, and immunohistochemical findings in 19 cases retrieved from our files. The patients ranged in age from 23 to 75 years (median age, 45 years) at the time of initial surgical resection. Seventeen patients presented with a solitary mass, and two presented with two separate, but closely approximated, lesions. The process involved the glans penis (n = 3), shaft (n = 11), base of the penis (n = 2), or penis, not otherwise specified (n = 3). The lesions ranged in size from <0.5 to 2.5 cm (median size, ∼1.2 cm) in greatest dimension. Eleven examples were specifically noted to be dorsally located, and only one was stated to be ventral. Localized pain or tenderness was the most common complaint, documented in 12 cases. The preoperative duration of the lesions ranged from 5 days to 1 year (median 4.5 months). Microscopically, all examples contained a tumefactive proliferation of epithelioid endothelial cells, often in a nodular or lobular configuration and associated with an inflammatory infiltrate containing lymphocytes and eosinophils. In 14 cases, the vascular proliferation was associated with a small arterial segment, sometimes with mural damage and frequently (n = 13) with intraluminal epithelioid endothelial cells. Based on the growth pattern of the epithelioid endothelial cells, 13 cases were considered “typical,” and six were considered exuberant or “atypical. ” The latter examples had a prominent centrally located zone where nests or sheet-like aggregates of epithelioid endothelial cells did not form discrete vessels. Immunohistochemical data are available for 15 tumors. The epithelioid endothelial cells usually had strong reactivity for CD31, lesser reactivity for factor VIIIrAg, and minimal reactivity for CD34. In 9 of 12 cases, a small number of epithelioid endothelial cells expressed keratins. In all cases tested, at least focal muscle-specific actin-positive myopericytic cells were present bordering the endothelial cells, and this was especially notable peripherally. Initial surgical intervention consisted of either a shave biopsy (n = 1), excisional biopsy (n = 2), or local excision (n = 16). A complete follow-up history is available for 12 patients, and incomplete follow-up information is available for an additional four patients. One patient developed a new epithelioid hemangioma at a site within the penis separate from the initial lesion, but no patient is known to have experienced a true metastasis or to have died of complications of this process. Optimal management appears to be complete local excision with periodic follow-up visits to monitor for local recurrence.
Analysis Electronic Service Quality through E-S-Qual Scale: The Case Study of Nowshahr Hotel

The aim of this study is to analyze the electronic service quality in Arsh Hotel which is located at Nowshahr city using Kano and E-S-Qual scale. All Given the importance and position of electronic hotel service and the growing trend of electronic hotel services in the country in recent years, now is the financial and credit institutions and banks have found a good position to maintain and develop effective strategies without the utilization of scientific and practical management Information and communication is not possible. Today, hotels in order to remain competitive need to improve the quality of its electronic services to the linear view of this topic are not comprehensive . In order to study integrated model E-S-Qual and Kano is used that with removal the linear hypothesis is. In the first step towards electronic service quality factors based on the Arsh Hotel E-S-Qual model to determine the current practice of banks and provide the service expectations of customers and their vision of electronic service quality mentioned has been evaluated. In the first step factors towards electronic service quality the Arsh Hotels based on E-S-Qual model to determine the current practice of hotels and provide the service expectations of customers and their vision of electronic service quality mentioned has been evaluated. Considering the gap between customer expectations and current practice of hotels in providing these services, services to the two categories is divided into weak and strong. In the second step of research with integrating E-S-Qual and Kano model, service quality factors based on Kano model classified to determine which features of electronic service quality determined by the model E-S-Qual and evaluated, is the strategic importance in relation to customer satisfaction.
The effect of semistarvation on absorption by the rat small intestine in vitro and in vivo

During a period of semistarvation there is a fall in the mass of body cells and a lowering of the basal metabolic rate (Wishart, 1934; Taylor & Keys, 1950; Grande, Anderson & Keys, 1958), the degree to which each change occurs depending upon the duration of the experiment and the severity of the dietary restriction. The loss of cellular mass and the fall in the metabolic rate depend upon the number of calories available, and provided that the caloric restriction is not too severe an equilibrium situation can be obtained. It was of interest therefore to investigate the absorptive ability of the small intestine during semistarvation, as it seemed a vulnerable organ in view of its great demands on the metabolic pool for the frequent replacement ofits epithelial lining (Leblond & Stevens, 1948; McMinn, 1954). We have found that after a period of semistarvation sufficient to cause a loss of about 20% of the initial body weight, there is an enhanced rate of disappearance of both glucose and L-histidine from the small intestine of the rat in vivo, and that in vitro the small intestine from semistarved animals can transport both these substances against a concentration gradient to a greater extent than can the small intestine of rats fed on an 'ad libitum' diet. A preliminary report has been given by Neame & Wiseman (1959). METHODS
Subjective Evaluation of Retinal-Dependent Image Degradations

To understand the contributions and the requirements of image resolution at different eccentricities to perceived image quality, we measured subjective image quality for degraded multiresolution images. A vision model equation was used to estimate contrast threshold as a function of retinal eccentricity. Two high-resolution images were processed using a vision-performance-based algorithm. Eight such degraded images were computed for each original scene by scaling the model-determined performance. During this experiment, the participants were asked to fixate on a target. The images were displayed for 250 ms in each trial to prevent saccadic eye movements. Five observers participated in the experiment and were instructed to rate the image quality on a ratio scale. Each image presentation was repeated 20 times in a random sequence. The average response over the five observers showed that the perceptible image degradation level was slightly higher than predicted by the model equation. This is consistent with our expectations as the visibility of the degradation should be masked by the background image. This experiment demonstrates that the vision model, which is based on visual sensitivity to simple grating patches at different eccentricities and spatial frequencies, provides a useful tool to predict the perceptible image degradation in real complex scenes as a function of retinal eccentricity.
Pharmacogenetics of Intravenous and Oral Busulfan in Hematopoietic Cell Transplant Recipients

Kinetics‐based dose targeting is often conducted in hematopoietic cell transplant (HCT) patients conditioned with intravenous (IV) or oral busulfan to lower rates of rejection, nonrelapse mortality, and relapse. Using the candidate gene approach, the authors evaluated whether busulfan clearance was associated with polymorphisms in the genes regulating the predominant metabolizing enzymes involved in busulfan conjugation, specifically glutathione S‐transferase (GST) isoenzymes A1 (GSTA1) and M1 (GSTM1). Busulfan clearance was estimated after the morning dose on days 1, 2, and 3; each patient's average clearance was used for analyses. The average (± standard deviation) busulfan clearance was 3.2 ± 0.56 mL/min/kg in the separate population of 95 patients who received oral busulfan and 103 ± 24 ml/min/m2 in the 57 patients who received IV busulfan. Oral busulfan clearance was associated with GSTA1 (P = .008) but not GSTM1 (P = .57) genotypes. However, among the GSTA1 haplotypes (ie, *A*A, *A*B, *B*B), there was significant overlap in the observed oral busulfan clearance and similar rates of achieving the target busulfan exposure. Clearance of IV busulfan was not associated with GSTA1 (P = .21) or GSTM1 (P = .99). These data suggest that personalizing either IV or oral busulfan dosing cannot be simplified on the basis of GSTA1 or GSTM1 genotype.
Corporate Leverage in Emerging Markets: Discussing the Implications for Legislative Fiscal Oversight

The last decade has witnessed a surge of leveraging activity among emerging market corporations, and this has major implications both for riskiness in global equities, as well as for the mechanisms for fiscal oversight such as legislative scrutiny of national debt levels in developing countries. This discussion provides an overview of the major concerns that have emerged due to corporate leveraging in emerging markets from (1) a legislative scrutiny standpoint, and (2) stock market returns. The discussion emerges at a time (2016) when emerging economies are already faced with severe stock market turmoil, making these considerations all the more pertinent and timely.