Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Rapid internationalisation among entrepreneurial firms in Australia, Canada, Ireland and New Zealand: An extension to the network approach

Purpose – The importance of networks in the internationalisation of entrepreneurial firms is widely accepted. However, while the literature tends to focus on the existing networks of firms, there is growing evidence that many rapid internationalisers have to build new networks. This cross‐national study investigates the networks of internationalising entrepreneurial firms in Australia, Canada, Ireland and New Zealand.Design/methodology/approach – A multi‐stage approach and mixed methods were employed. Online sources were used to gather information on 218 internationalising small firms, then an e‐mail instrument was administered to verify data and address information gaps, resulting in 143 usable responses (66 per cent) evenly distributed across locations. A representative sub‐sample of 53 firms was selected for further in‐depth investigation via face‐to‐face interviews with CEOs.Findings – A high proportion of firms (25 per cent) actively used existing networks to develop their knowledge of international .
Microalbuminuria: A Major Risk Factor in Non‐insulin‐dependent Diabetes. A 10‐year Follow‐up Study of 503 Patients

The impact of microalbuminuria on mortality as well as other risk factors was investigated in a 10‐year follow‐up study of 503 predominantly non‐insulin‐dependent diabetic patients of whom 265 had died. Using Cox's regression analysis the prognostic influence of age, sex, age at diagnosis, known diabetes duration, blood pressure, fasting plasma glucose, relative weight, serum creatinine, retinopathy, and treatment was evaluated as well as morning urine albumin concentration (UAC) in four categories, i.e. UAC 15 μg/ml (normal), 15 μg/ml < UAC 40 μg/ml, 40 μg/ml < UAC 200 μg/ml and UAC > 200 μg/ml. Age, UAC, known duration, and serum creatinine were the only significant risk factors. After correction for the other three independent risk factors, the hazard ratios in the elevated UAC categories relative to the group with UAC 15 μg/ml were 1.53 (p = 0.007), 2.28 (p = 0.000002), and 1.82 (p = 0.02). The statistically significant correlations with UAC were: age (r = 0.09, p < 0.05), duration (r = 0.14, p < 0.01), systolic blood pressure (r = 0.12, p < 0.01), serum creatinine (r = 0.33, p < 0.001), and fasting plasma glucose (r = 0.12, p < 0.01). Increased UAC was associated also with retinopathy (p = 0.01). Fifty‐eight per cent of the deaths were caused by cardiovascular disease or stroke; only 3% died from uraemia. A reinvestigation including blood pressure, fasting plasma glucose, and UAC was made on 208 survivors.
Superior Service Quality in Indian Cellular Telecommunication Industry

Abstract This study deals with the measurement of service quality at cellular retail outlets in the Indian environment with a focus on perception and expectation of service quality from the customer's perspective. The research was conducted via a structured questionnaire based on the SERVQUAL model. A literature review was conducted on service quality and its potential offering competitive advantage. This study provides evidence supporting the proposition that customers distinguish between the performance cues of the customer-contact employees. Service delivery systems should create positive moments of truth by ensuring that the point of customer's contact is reduced to minimum.
Draft Genome Sequence of Flavobacterium psychrophilum Strain SSADA-1411, Isolated from an Ayu (Plecoglossus altivelis altivelis) Migrating Downriver To Spawn in the Shimanto River, Kochi, Japan

ABSTRACT Here, we report the draft genome sequence and annotation of Flavobacterium psychrophilum strain SSADA-1411. This strain was isolated from the skin ulcer of an ayu (Plecoglossus altivelis altivelis) migrating downriver to spawn in the lower Shimanto River, in western Kochi Prefecture on Shikoku Island in Japan.
Ownership Structure, Liquidity, and Firm Value: Effects of the Investment Horizon

A firm’s ownership structure influences both its liquidity and value. This paper introduces a new measure of latent investment horizon, a weighted average investment horizon computed from the firm’s ownership structure and the average investment horizon of various investor categories. We find that the latent investment horizon explains differences in liquidity and firm value among firms listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange. Empirical results indicate that the longer the investment horizon, the lower the firm’s liquidity and value. In addition, concentrated ownerships by foreign (cross-holding) shareholders can lead to superior (inferior) liquidity and corporate governance after accounting for selection bias.
A Cross­Country Analysis Regarding the Impact of the Recent Global Crisis on the Banking Sector

The current global crisis has had tremendous effects on the banking sectors from the new EU member countries. In this context it becomes important to analyse how the crisis has affected these banking systems and also how the monetary authorities from these countries have reacted in such an adverse situation in order to ensure the macro-stability and the re-launch of the lending process. In order to achieve this, firstly we have reviewed the academic literature on this subject, in order to avoid any overlap in our research and to ensure the originality of our undertaking. Secondly, using a quantitative approach, we have comparatively analysed the effects of the economic and financial crisis on the banking systems from our panel.
Resin Composite Properties and Energy Density of Light Cure

According to the ‘total energy concept’, properties of light-cured resin composites are determined only by energy density because of reciprocity between power density and exposure duration. The kinetics of polymerization is complex, and it was hypothesized that degree of cure, flexural strength, and flexural modulus were influenced not only by energy density, but also by power density per se. A conventional resin composite was cured at 3 energy densities (4, 8, and 16 J/cm2) by 6 combinations of power density (50, 100, 200, 400, 800, and 1000 mW/cm2) and exposure durations. Degree of cure, flexural strength, and flexural modulus increased with increasing energy density. For each energy density, degree of cure decreased with increasing power density. Flexural strength and modulus showed a maximum at intermediate power density. Within clinically relevant power densities, not only energy density but also power density per se had significant influence on resin composite properties.
EFFECTS OF VEHICLE FRONT DESIGN PARAMETERS ON PEDESTRIAN HEAD-BRAIN INJURY PROTECTION

The objective of the present work is to determine the effect of the vehicle front design on pedestrian head impact responses and injury related parameters based on accident reconstructions and simulation analyses of car-pedestrian impacts. The accident reconstructions were carried out using selected accident data from an in-depth study with head/brain injuries documented in accident and medical report. The correlations of the output parameters from reconstructions with the injuries described in medical and accident report were analyzed. The influences of vehicle front structures to pedestrian head-brain injuries were investigated by using computer simulations at varying impact speeds up to 60 km/h. The different sizes of models were used to represent the adult and child pedestrians, including 6- and 9-year-old children and 5th, 50th, 95th percentile adults. The shapes of the vehicles were investigated and categorized by compact and large passenger cars, mini-van. The safer vehicle front design for pedestrian protection was analyzed and discussed with focus on the head impact velocity, head impact angle, location and timing of head impact for both adult and child pedestrians. For the covering abstract see ITRD E825082.
Quantification of ONO-2952 Occupancy of 18-kDaTranslocator Protein in Conscious Monkey Brains using Positron Emission Tomography

We have previously shown that ONO-2952, a novel 18-kDa translocator protein (TSPO) antagonist, inhibits stress-induced accumulation of neurosteroids and noradrenaline release in the rat brain and alleviates the subsequent symptomatic responses with a brain TSPO occupancy of 50% or more. In this study, we measured ONO-2952 brain TSPO occupancy in conscious rhesus monkeys using positron emission tomography (PET) with 11C-PBR28 as ligand for translational research to clinical application. PET scans were performed after single and repeated oral administration of ONO-2952 at several dose levels for each animal, with sequential arterial blood sampling. In vitro binding studies showed that ONO-2952 potently binds to brain TSPO in monkeys with an affinity equivalent to that in rats. ONO-2952, given orally before PET scans, dose dependently decreased 11C-PBR28 uptake without marked brain region specificity. Results of the quantitative analysis using arterial input function revealed that TSPO occupancy after ONO-2952 single and repeated oral administration tended to increase in parallel with its plasma concentration, reaching the highest level of 100%. These findings indicate that ONO-2952 has sufficient brain distribution in primates and that ONO-2952 TSPO occupancy in humans can also be determined using PET.
Effect of Mycorrhizal Fungi Inoculation and Humic Acid on Vegetative Growth and Chemical Composition of Acacia saligna Labill. Seedlings under Different Irrigation Intervals

A pot experiment was conducted to investigate the effect of mycorrhizal fungi inoculation and humic acid on growth, chlorophylls and total carbohydrates content of Acacia saligna Labill. seedlings under different irrigation intervals. The seedlings were subjected to four irrigation intervals (I1, I2, I3 and I4) where the seedlings were irrigated every 3or 5days (I1), every 5or8 days(I2), every 7or11days (I3) and every 9or 14 days(I4) according to the climatic conditions. Results showed that that prolonging the irrigation intervals had negative effects on plant height, fresh and dry weights of leaves, stems and roots and total carbohydrates content in leaves and stems and the opposite trend was recorded in the root. Mycorrhizal fungi inoculation had significantly positive effects than humic acid on plant height, stem diameter, leaf area, fresh and dry weights of stems and roots, chlorophyll content and total carbohydrates content in all seedling parts, while humic acid treatment gave the highest fresh and dry weights of leaves under all irrigation treatments. The irrigation treatment I1 combined with humic acid gave the highest values of plant height, fresh and dry weights of leaves. While mycorrhizal inoculation combined with I1 or I2 gave the highest values of leaf area, stem and roots fresh and dry weights, chlorophyll a, b, carotenoids content and total carbohydrates content in leaves and stems. The highest total carbohydrates in the roots was obtained with humic acid treatment combined with irrigation interval I3.
Monaural Audio Speaker Separation with Source Contrastive Estimation

We propose an algorithm to separate simultaneously speaking persons from each other, the "cocktail party problem", using a single microphone. Our approach involves a deep recurrent neural networks regression to a vector space that is descriptive of independent speakers. Such a vector space can embed empirically determined speaker characteristics and is optimized by distinguishing between speaker masks. We call this technique source-contrastive estimation. The methodology is inspired by negative sampling, which has seen success in natural language processing, where an embedding is learned by correlating and de-correlating a given input vector with output weights. Although the matrix determined by the output weights is dependent on a set of known speakers, we only use the input vectors during inference. Doing so will ensure that source separation is explicitly speaker-independent. Our approach is similar to recent deep neural network clustering and permutation-invariant training research; we use weighted spectral features and masks to augment individual speaker frequencies while filtering out other speakers. We avoid, however, the severe computational burden of other approaches with our technique. Furthermore, by training a vector space rather than combinations of different speakers or differences thereof, we avoid the so-called permutation problem during training. Our algorithm offers an intuitive, computationally efficient response to the cocktail party problem, and most importantly boasts better empirical performance than other current techniques.
Analysis of RSSI-based DFL for human detection in indoor environment using IRIS mote

IoT technology has improved the quality of life as well as provides intelligence and comforts to the user. A Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN) technology is one of the powerful technologies that enable IoT objects to communicate with each other. Device-Free Localization (DFL) system exploits changes in radio signals across different environments aims to detect and track entities without requiring them to carry any additional RF devices or to be cooperatively participating with the localization process. This paper proposes a received signal strength indicator (RSSI) - based DFL system that can be used to detect human presence in an area of interest (AoI) using changes in signal strength measurements. The main objective of this paper is to design a DFL system that can be easily deployed and configured using IRIS mote from MEMSIC based on `plug and play' concept and operates in real time. The system is deployed in CEASTech's Research Room by using the IRIS mote as the communication module in the network. The principle behind this is that the human body and motion have strong impact on the signal strength of indoor wireless links being transmitted from a transmitter to one or more base stations by either shadowing or diffraction, or by scattering. Result shows that signal strength fluctuate by 3.97dBm and from 10 to 15dBm with the presence of stationary human and moving human respectively.
Total Hip Arthroplasty versus Hip Resurfacing: Evidence Based Review and Current Indications

Total hip arthroplasty (THA) is the gold standard in the treatment of degenerative hip disease, especially in the older patient. Concerns regarding the higher levels of failure of traditional implants in younger, more active patients have led to a search for alternative arthroplasty techniques. Hip resurfacing (HR) is one of these alternatives. When compared with THA, HR has some theoretical advantages that stem from preservation of the patient’s normal proximal femoral anatomy and the use of a large diameter metal on metal bearing. This has the potential to more accurately replicate physiological hip function, reduce the risk of dislocation and allow higher levels of activity with minimal wear of the articulating surface. In addition, the preservation of proximal femoral bone stock offers the potential for easier revision options as would inevitably be required in younger patients. In order to be considered a suitable alternative, HR would need to demonstrate improvements or at least equivalence in functional outcomes and survivorship along with evidence of successful preservation of bone stock leading to good outcomes from future revision surgery. Whilst the recent expansion of data both in the orthopaedic literature and the mainstream media concerning the potentially devastating problems from large metal-on-metal (MoM) bearings in some settings carries some salient lessons for both the development, marketing and uptake of new orthopaedic implants, it should be put in the context of the resurfacing literature as a whole. In this review we aim to review the current evidence base for HR compared with THA and examine the current indications for the procedure.
What Five Decades of Research Tells Us About the Effects of Youth Psychological Therapy: A Multilevel Meta-Analysis and Implications for Science and Practice

Across 5 decades, hundreds of randomized trials have tested psychological therapies for youth internalizing (anxiety, depression) and externalizing (misconduct, attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder) disorders and problems. Since the last broad-based youth meta-analysis in 1995, the number of trials has almost tripled and data-analytic methods have been refined. We applied these methods to the expanded study pool (447 studies; 30,431 youths), synthesizing 50 years of findings and identifying implications for research and practice. We assessed overall effect size (ES) and moderator effects using multilevel modeling to address ES dependency that is common, but typically not modeled, in meta-analyses. Mean posttreatment ES was 0.46; the probability that a youth in the treatment condition would fare better than a youth in the control condition was 63%. Effects varied according to multiple moderators, including the problem targeted in treatment: Mean ES at posttreatment was strongest for anxiety (0.61), weakest for depression (0.29), and nonsignificant for multiproblem treatment (0.15). ESs differed across control conditions, with “usual care” emerging as a potent comparison condition, and across informants, highlighting the need to obtain and integrate multiple perspectives on outcome. Effects of therapy type varied by informant; only youth-focused behavioral therapies (including cognitive-behavioral therapy) showed similar and robust effects across youth, parent, and teacher reports. Effects did not differ for Caucasian versus minority samples, but more diverse samples are needed. The findings underscore the benefits of psychological treatments as well as the need for improved therapies and more representative, informative, and rigorous intervention science.
Anchoring and pre-existing knowledge in economic and financial settings

Contemporary research documents various psychological aspects of economic thought and decision-making. The main goal of our study is to analyze the role of the anchoring (bias) (Tversky and Kahneman, 1974) in perceiving economic and financial information, and, in particular, the effect of pre-existing knowledge on the degree of the bias. Anchoring bias refers to people's tendency to form their estimates for different categories, starting from a particular available, and often irrelevant, value and insufficiently adjusting their final judgments from this starting value. We carry out an experiment involving a group of MBA students, asking them to recall a number of recent economic and financial indicators (stock and bond market index returns, rates of inflation, currency exchange rates, etc.), with half of the participants receiving actual information about some unrelated indicators (anchors), before answering the questions. We document that significant anchoring bias is exhibited, on average, for each of our experimental questions and by vast majority of the participants, the degree of the bias being higher for women and older participants. Furthermore, in the context of the effect of pre-existing knowledge, we find that people exhibit significantly stronger bias for relatively more difficult questions. Our findings indicate that the less people know about an object or a category, the more they may be influenced by some, even arbitrary, anchors when estimating its characteristics or forecasting related future outcomes.
Theory of Fitness in a Heterogeneous Environment. V. Optimal Genetic Systems.

FOR populations living in more or less constant environments there is a close connection between the frequencies of alleles at different loci and the direction of natural selection operating on these genes. Alleles at very low frequencies will, by and large, be those selected against but maintained by recurrent mutation. Alleles in intermediate frequencies are for the most part maintained by some form of balancing selection. This correlation between allelic frequencies and selective forces is disrupted in small populations where genetic drift will cause gene frequencies to differ from their equilibrium values, but for large populations the frequencies of alleles will, in general, be such as to maximize or nearly maximize population fitness. When we turn to a consideration of populations in fluctuating environments, the problem is much more complex. Alleles may have low frequencies because natural selection has reduced them in past generations, but these low frequencies may be very far from the equilibrium values dictated by current selective forces. Thus gene frequencies at various loci and in various populations are correlated with past selective forces, but not necessarily with recent forces, or, worse yet, they may be negatively correlated with current selection if successive environments are themselves periodic or correlated to the proper degree. Unfortunately, from the standpoint of the population, the fitness of the population is determined in any generation by the correspondence between the gene frequencies and selective forces at that instant. If the pattern of environmental change is such as to make past environments poor predictors of present environments, populations that have responded adaptively to past environments will be ill-adapted to present ones. Thus, it is clear that the average fitness of a population is a function of the pattern of fluctuation of the environment, on the one hand, and the way in which a population’s genetic composition changes in response to the environment. While the pattern of the environment is not generally under the control of the population (it may be if the organisms’ behavior allows them to modify their immediate environment adaptively) , the way in which the population responds to selective forces is a function of the constants of the genetic system. Additive effects of genes, dominance, epistatic interaction, linkage, mutation rates, migration rates all are critical in determining whether the population changes quickly or slowly, whether different genotypes are differently fit, and This reaearch was supported by Atomic Energy Commission Grant AT(30 1)2820, principal investigator R C.
Medical management of first trimester incomplete miscarriage using misoprostol

This prospective study looked at the effectiveness of 400 μg oral misoprostol in the management of women with a first trimester incomplete miscarriage with retained products of conception measuring between 15 mm and 50 mm on transvaginal ultrasound scan. Of 164 eligible women, 131 agreed to participate. Successful treatment, defined as an empty uterus on scan after 10 days with no bleeding, was achieved in 77.7% of women. Some women with retained products opted to have further misoprostol or conservative management instead of surgical evacuation and in total 92.4% of women completed their miscarriage without requiring surgery. Most bleeding was mild (31.3%) to moderate (38.9%), lasting on average 6.4 days. Forty-five per cent of women needed no pain relief, 51% received oral analgesia and 4% intramuscular opiates. Adverse effects included nausea (10.93%), diarrhoea (2.34%), vomiting (7.8%) and hypotension (4.68%). There were no infections. We concluded that a single dose of 400 μg of oral misoprostol was an effective treatment for women presenting with an incomplete miscarriage.