Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Performance Analysis of Mutual Funds in Saudi Arabia

When it comes to investing in mutual funds in the Kingdom, the Saudi investors have to choose from 182 different funds currently offered by the eleven fund managers. In the case of Saudi Arabia, the fund managers/asset management companies are the different banks listed on Saudi Arabia's Stock Exchange - Tadawul. The complexity of choosing funds is further compounded by the different currencies in which the funds are denominated (6), categories (11), subcategories (2), classifications (4); due to which the common investors are often confused about which fund they should invest in, as they are not able to assess the risk-return profile associated with each of the funds. The purpose of the article is to illustrate a simple method to analyse performance and develop a good understanding of the risk-return associated with the mutual funds in Saudi Arabia. The article presents an overview of Mutual Funds in Saudi Arabia and their performance analysis during the last six months (1st January to 15th of June, 2006), the period in which the stock market had been very volatile. An overview of the Saudi Arabia Mutual Fund Industry is presented in terms of each of the five variables chosen for the study: 1. Mutual fund managers; 2. Base Currency; 3. Category; 4. Subcategory; 5. Classification. Further, the 182 funds were classified in to positive and negative return funds for the chosen period and were probed for what type of funds (currency, category, subcategory and classification wise) have yielded positive and negative returns. The performance of the positive and negative return funds in terms of each of the five chosen variables and a combination of classification variable with the other three variables, i.e., category, subcategory and currency was also presented. Finally, the performance of the funds and the Fund Managers have been evaluated in terms of the variables based on average risk per return and the results have been presented.
Human perceptual learning in identifying the oblique orientation: retinotopy, orientation specificity and monocularity.

1. Human perceptual learning in discrimination of the oblique orientation was studied using psychophysical methods. Subjects were trained daily to improve their ability to identify the orientation of a circular 2.5 deg diameter unidimensional noise field. Dramatic improvements in sensitivity to contour orientation occurred over a period of 15‐20 days. The improved performance persisted for several months. Improvement was more evident between daily sessions than within sessions. This was partly due to fatigue interfering with the learning effect. Moreover, a consolidation period seemed to be required. 2. Improvement was restricted to the position of the stimulus being trained. This position dependency of the learning effect proved very precise. After training at a specific stimulus position, merely displacing the stimulus to an adjacent position caused a marked increase in thresholds. 3. No transfer of the training effect was observed between orientations. Following a shift of 90 deg away from the trained orientation, performance fell, even below the initial level. 4. We observed complete to almost complete transfer between the two eyes. 5. Our results suggest plastic changes at a level of the visual processing stream where input from both eyes has come together, but where generalization for spatial localization and orientation has not yet occurred.
PENGARUH FAKTOR KULTUR ORGANISASI, MANAJEMEN, STRATEGIK, KEUANGAN, DAN AUDITOR TERHADAP KECENDERUNGAN KECURANGAN AKUNTANSI: STUDI PADA PERUSAHAAN PUBLIK DI INDONESIA

Accounting fraud, where the financial reports are reported not in compliance with the generally accepted accounting principles can undermines the credibility of the financial reporting system. Indeed the effects of accounting fraud can be devastating for investors. The objectives of the research is to explain the effect of organization culture, managerial, strategic, financial ratios , and auditor factors to the tendency of accounting fraud. The research population was 343 companies listed in the Indonesian Stock Exchange (IDX). The research samples were 110 public companies consisting 29 fraud firms and 81 non-fraud firms. Binary logistic regression was used to test the hypothesis. The results showed that number of related party transactions, CEO’s age, current asset composition in total asset, capital turnover, firm size, and auditor’s non-unqualified opinion affected the tendency of accounting fraud significantly. These results advance the understanding of accounting fraud. Keywords: Accounting Fraud, Organizational Culture, Managerial Factors, Strategic Factors, Financial Ratios, Auditor Factors.
Buyer behaviour for fast fashion

Purpose – This paper seeks to address the complex nature of fast fashion buying through case studies with a supermarket, department store and own brand label. The phenomenon of fast fashion raises questions about traditional approaches to sourcing and buying, which are addressed here.Design/methodology/approach – Case studies were compiled with companies managing fast fashion, alongside other purchase and retail activities, namely a supermarket, department store and specialist fashion chain.Findings – Reveals the buying practices for fast fashion, namely, a combination of global and local suppliers, a leagile approach is typical; trust is an important factor in the supplier‐retailer relationship to ensure fast delivery at an agreed quality; and integration of key internal activities and processes to facilitate the speed of buying decisions that may be required.Originality/value – Gives insight into the factors affecting buying behaviour for fast fashion.
Joint Optimization of Task Scheduling and Image Placement in Fog Computing Supported Software-Defined Embedded System

Traditional standalone embedded system is limited in their functionality, flexibility, and scalability. Fog computing platform, characterized by pushing the cloud services to the network edge, is a promising solution to support and strengthen traditional embedded system. Resource management is always a critical issue to the system performance. In this paper, we consider a fog computing supported software-defined embedded system, where task images lay in the storage server while computations can be conducted on either embedded device or a computation server. It is significant to design an efficient task scheduling and resource management strategy with minimized task completion time for promoting the user experience. To this end, three issues are investigated in this paper: 1) how to balance the workload on a client device and computation servers, i.e., task scheduling, 2) how to place task images on storage servers, i.e., resource management, and 3) how to balance the I/O interrupt requests among the storage servers. They are jointly considered and formulated as a mixed-integer nonlinear programming problem. To deal with its high computation complexity, a computation-efficient solution is proposed based on our formulation and validated by extensive simulation based studies.
A field study of nematode parasite populations in the lactating ewe

A typical postparturient rise of parasite egg output occurred in a group of lactating ewes. At parturition these animals carried few inhibited fourth-stage larvae and the rise was associated with a net increase in parasite populations, which did not occur in non-lactating ewes. Lactating ewes whose established parasite populations were effectively removed just prior to parturition showed a similar rise derived entirely from infection acquired during lactation, which was of much greater magnitude than that seen in similarly treated non-lactating animals. Circumstantial evidence of increased fecundity of T. colubriformis females in lactating ewes was also obtained. It was concluded that the postparturient rise of egg output may derive from an increase in adult parasite populations by an increased rate of establishment of newly ingested infective larvae which develop to the adult stage without inhibition, as well as by the resumption of development of previously inhibited fourth-stage larvae. In addition, both newly acquired and established adult female parasites may show increased fecundity. Ewes whose lambs were removed at birth or after a period of lactation showed a rapid fall in faecal egg counts associated with rejection of part of their existing worm burden and a pronounced increase in resistance to new infection. All of the differences observed between lactating and non-lactating ewes in the behaviour of their parasite populations were found to be qualitatively the same as those that have been frequently reported in susceptible and resistant non-reproductive sheep. The hypothesis is suggested, therefore, that the postparturient rise derives from a pronounced but temporary relaxation of immunological control of gastro-intestinal nematode infection associated with the endocrine status of the lactating ewe.
Heading the table: parenting and the junior consumer

From the 1970s onwards, studies of the dynamics involved in family food provisioning in Britain and the USA have provided consistent evidence of the centrality of husbands and male breadwinners to food decisions. Recent studies are beginning to show the significance of children or the “junior consumer” to household food decisions. This paper reports on focus groups conducted in Australia in the mid‐1990s that support the argument that children exert considerable influence over family diets. One obvious reason for this trend lies in the activities of food retailers and advertisers/marketers, who target their goods, services and messages to children. These marketplace actors are encouraging children to identify as consumers. A less obvious explanation, and the one explored in this paper, concerns changing parenting practices. Despite the double workload of many family food providers, children's demands are being responded to in unprecedented ways. Metaphorically, children are displacing male adults at the head of the table. The paper comments on the consequences of children's dominance over dietary practices.
Improving of the efficiency through benchmarking: a case of Ukrainian breweries

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate the use of competitive and international performance benchmarking in order to estimate efficiency, determine key factors, find the internal and foreign benchmarks, and reveal the full reserves of inputs reduction and potential growth efficiency for brewing companies.Design/methodology/approach – Data envelopment analysis (DEA) and other tools of performance benchmarking are used to analyse the efficiency of brewing companies. Some key factors are examined for their impact on efficiency: the scale, regional location, proprietors and other endogenous and exogenous factors. The results are based on the samples of 34 Ukrainian brewing companies and 20 foreign brewing companies.Findings – Only one domestic company can be recognized as a world‐class efficient company. The proprietors, location and the scale factors exert sufficient influence on efficiency of the brewing companies. The international benchmarking allows to widen essentially the capability of r.
Cholesterol-Lowering Drugs Inhibit Lectin-Like Oxidized Low-Density Lipoprotein-1 Receptor Function by Membrane Raft Disruption

Lectin-like oxidized low-density lipoprotein (LOX-1), the primary receptor for oxidized low-density lipoprotein (ox-LDL) in endothelial cells, is up-regulated in atherosclerotic lesions. Statins are the principal therapeutic agents for cardiovascular diseases and are known to down-regulate LOX-1 expression. Whether the effect on the LOX-1 receptor is related to statin-mediated cholesterol-lowering activity is unknown. We investigate the requirement of cholesterol for LOX-1-mediated lipid particle internalization, trafficking, and processing and the role of statins as inhibitors of LOX-1 function. Disruption of cholesterol-rich membrane microdomains by acute exposure of cells to methyl-β-cyclodextrin or chronic exposure to different statins (lovastatin and atorvastatin) led to a spatial disorganization of LOX-1 in plasma membranes and a marked loss of specific LOX-1 function in terms of ox-LDL binding and internalization. Subcellular fractionation and immunochemical studies indicate that LOX-1 is naturally present in caveolae-enriched lipid rafts and, by cholesterol reduction, the amount of LOX-1 in this fraction is highly decreased (≥60%). In contrast, isoprenylation inhibition had no effect on the distribution and function of LOX-1 receptors. Furthermore, in primary cultures from atherosclerotic human aorta lesions, we confirm the presence of LOX-1 in caveolae-enriched lipid rafts and demonstrate that lovastatin treatment led to down-regulation of LOX-1 in lipid rafts and rescue of the ox-LDL-induced apoptotic phenotype. Taken together, our data reveal a previously unrecognized essential role of membrane cholesterol for LOX-1 receptor activity and suggest that statins protect vascular endothelium against the adverse effect of ox-LDL by disruption of membrane rafts and impairment of LOX-1 receptor function.
The Organization of Insurance Companies: Mutual versus Stock

Mutuals account for almost half of all life insurance in force and one quarter of all property and liability insurance. There are few other industries in which consumer cooperatives-of which mutuals are an example-account for such a large share of the market. In fact, the annual volume of business done by mutual life insurance companies far outweighs the volume of business done by consumer cooperatives in any other line of business. And it is not just in comparison with other cooperatives that the mutual insurance companies appear large; the assets of the largest of the mutuals, Prudential, exceed those of any industrial corporation (Fortune, 1983a: 228; 1983b: 166). At present, however, we have no well-accepted theory to explain the remarkable prominence of the cooperative form in this industry. Indeed, the subject has hardly been discussed. ' In this article I seek to offer an explanation. The question is of interest not just as a matter of positive economics, but also for law and public policy. The
A Study on the Effects of a Health Education Intervention on Anxiety and Pain During Colonoscopy Procedures

Background: Colonoscopy is currently considered the best screening tool in the diagnosis of colon diseases. However, this procedure often causes pain and discomfort in patients, thus reducing patient willingness to undergo and comply with this procedure. Purpose: This study explores the effects of providing procedure-related information to patients receiving colonoscopy in terms of anxiety and pain reduction and identifies factors that influence the pain and anxiety experienced by patients during this procedure. Methods: This study adopted a quasi-experimental design that targeted colonoscopy patients in outpatient clinics. Two hundred thirteen patients were recruited, with 103 patients in the experimental group and 110 in the control group. Participants were recruited between January and April 2011. All of the participants received standard care, and only those participants who were assigned to the experimental group were asked to watch “A Guide to the Colonoscopy Procedure,” a multimedia health informatics CD-ROM. Results: Anxiety scores of the experimental group dropped from 48.7 ± 11.6 to 39.2 ± 8.7 after the intervention. The average pain score of the experimental group was significantly lower than that of the control group (3.8 ± 2.5 vs. 5.0 ± 2.7). Furthermore, trait anxiety, gender, and educational level were identified as the main predictors for state anxiety, and state anxiety was identified as an important predictor for pain during the colonoscopy examination. Conclusions/Implications for Practice: This study found that using a multimedia health informatics CD-ROM to provide information on the colonoscopy procedure effectively reduced the examination-related anxiety and pain of patients.
Effects of rosmarinic acid on an experimental model of painful diabetic neuropathy in rats

Abstract Context: Diabetic neuropathic (DN) pain is one of the diabetes complications. Rosmarinic acid (RA), a natural phenol antioxidant, shows some biological activities, including anti-inflammatory, analgesic, and anti-diabetic effects. Objectives: We investigated the efficacy of RA administration (10 and 30 mg/kg) on streptozotocin (STZ)-induced neuropathy in rats. Material and methods: The animals received saline or RA (10 and 30 mg/kg, p.o.; once daily) for 8 weeks. DN was evaluated by the tail flick (TF) method, formalin test, and tactile allodynia. At the end, all rats were weighed and underwent plasma glucose measurement. Results: There was an increase in licking time during both formalin test phases in diabetic animals (138.5 ± 10.7 and 448.7 ± 2.6 s) that was decreased by RA10 mg/kg (103.5 ± 7.5 and 284.4 ± 19 s) and RA 30 mg/kg (81.8 ± 11 and 192.7 ± 14 s). RA 30 mg/kg caused anti-nociception during the early phase in treated controls (52.1 ± 6 s) than untreated controls (99.4 ± 5.9 s). The TF latency in diabetics (2.9 ± 0.1 s) was increased in RA10 and 30 mg/kg treated diabetics (5.3 ± 0.4 and 6 ± 0.86 s). The paw withdrawal threshold (PWT) of the diabetics (3.6 ± 0.7 g) was increased after RA 10 and 30 mg/kg (13.8 ± 0.3 and 14 ± 0.4 g) treatment. RA did not induce a significant change in body weight and plasma glucose of rats. Conclusion: RA showed efficacy in amelioration of some aspects of DN. Therefore, RA makes a good candidate for DN treatment in clinical studies.
Modified Smith Predictor for Controlling Integrator/Time Delay Processes

Astrom et al. have proposed a new Smith predictor to control the process with an integrator and a long time delay. Though the method provides significant performance improvement, it fails to give effective tuning rules even when the integral constant is equal to 1. In this paper the method is extended to the general integrator/time delay process. A clearer and more logical design procedure is formulated, and simple tuning rules are developed. It shows that there is a minimum-order compensator for the process. Illustrative examples show the superiority of the proposed scheme in terms of both closed-loop performance and robustness.
Niche construction and the behavioral context of plant and animal domestication

Many animal species attempt to enhance their environments through niche construction or environmental engineering. Such efforts at environmental modification are proposed to play an important and underappreciated role in shaping biotic communities and evolutionary processes. 1 , 2 Homo sapiens is acknowledged as the ultimate niche constructing species in terms of our rich repertoire of ecosystem engineering skills and the magnitude of their impact. We have been trying to make the world a better place—for ourselves—for tens of thousands of years. I argue here that it is within this general context of niche‐construction behavior that our distant ancestors initially domesticated plants and animals and, in the process, first gained the ability to significantly alter the world's environments.
Producing children in the 21st century: A critical discourse analysis of the science and techniques of monitoring early child development

The purpose of this article is to identify the implications of commonly held ideologies within theories of child development. Despite critiques to doing so, developmental theory assumes that children’s bodies are unitary, natural and material. The recent explosion of neuroscience illustrates the significance of historical, social and cultural contexts to portrayals of brain development, offering the opportunity for a critical departure in thinking. Instead, this neuroscience research has been taken up in ways that align with biomedical traditions and neoliberal values. This article uses a critical discursive approach, supported by Haraway’s ideas of technoscience, to analyse a population-based early child development research initiative. This initiative organises a large-scale surveillance of children’s development, operating from the premise that risks to development are best captured early to optimise children’s potential. The analysis in this article shows an intermingling of health and economic discourses and clarifies how the child is a figure of significant contemporary social and political interests. In a poignant example of technobiopolitics, the collusion between health research, technologies and the state enrols health professionals to participate in the production of children as subjects of social value, figured as human capital, investments in the future, or alternatively, as waste. The analysis shows how practices that participate in what has become a developmental enterprise also participate in the marginalisation of the very children they intend to serve. Hence, there is the need to rethink practices critically and move towards innovative conceptualisations of child development that hold possibilities to resist these figurations.
Firm Size and Export Performance: Some Empirical Evidence

This paper uses firm level data collected by the Australian Bureau of Statistics in its Business Longitudinal Survey to help fill the information gap about the characteristics of successful exporters. This study suggests that the main influences on export performance of Australian manufacturing firms may lie with a range of ‘firm-specific’ factors other than size or domestic market share. These potentially include: kind of activity, product design and quality, marketing expertise and the motivation of management.
Venture Capital Industry

When considering an investment, venture capitalists carefully screen the technical and business merits of the proposed company. Venture capitalists only invest in a small percentage of the businesses they review and have a long-term perspective. Going forward, they actively work with the company's management by contributing their experience and business savvy gained from helping other companies with similar growth challenges.
The Effect of N-6 and N-3 Polyunsaturated Fatty Acids on Hemostasis, Blood Lipids and Blood Pressure

Summary Diverging results from studies of marine oil supplementation to western diets initiated the undertaking of a double-blind crossover study, with administration to healthy volunteers for 4 weeks of either 10 g of fish oil or 10 g of vegetable oil. Each oil containing approx. 40% of n-3 and n-6 polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFA) respectively. During the n-3 PUFA period, systolic blood pressure, plasma total lipids, triglycerides and VLDL concentrations fell significantly whereas plasma antithrombin-III (AT-III) rose. Cutaneous bleeding time increased significantly. In contrast only AT-III rose during the n-6 PUFA feeding, however, more marked than during the n-3 oil period. It is concluded that a n-3 PUFA oil supplement to the western diet exerts an effect that generally is considered as beneficial in terms of the risk of developing cardiovascular diseases. It is in this respect superior to that of n-6 PUFA, stressing the necessity of a more differentiated approach to advices on dietary PUFA enrichment than presently is exerted.
Motivation tools though lenses of prospective employees

This article examines the theoretical aspects of employee motivation tools. A study conducted at V.A. Graiciūnas high management school. The results showed that most of respondents evaluated very good the physiological needs, the second - the security requirements, third place - the respect and esteem needs, the fourth - the needs of self-expression, in fifth place social needs. In terms of importance of motivating factors respondents evaluated wages and social security vacation time. Most respondents have got the monetary reward, a salary bonus, fixed bonuses for a job well done, insurance against accidents at work, professional phone and various benefits