Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Methodological Triangulation Using Neural Networks for Business Research

Artificial neural network (ANN) modeling methods are becoming more widely used as both a research and application paradigm across a much wider variety of business, medical, engineering, and social science disciplines. The combination or triangulation of ANN methods with more traditional methods can facilitate the development of high-quality research models and also improve output performance for real world applications. Prior methodological triangulation that utilizes ANNs is reviewed and a new triangulation of ANNs with structural equation modeling and cluster analysis for predicting an individual’s computer self-efficacy (CSE) is shown to empirically analyze the effect of methodological triangulation, at least for this specific information systems research case. A new construct, engagement, is identified as a necessary component of CSE models and the subsequent triangulated ANN models are able to achieve an 84% CSE group prediction accuracy.
Phylogenetic analysis of Fritillaria cirrhosa D. Don and its closely related species based on complete chloroplast genomes

Fritillaria cirrhosa D. Don, whose bulb is used in a well-known traditional Chinese medicine to relieve cough and eliminate phlegm, is one of the most important medicinal plants of Fritillaria L. The species is widely distributed among the alpine regions in southwestern China and possesses complex morphological variations in different distributions. A series of newly related species were reported, based on obscure morphological differences. As a result, F. cirrhosa and its closely related species constitute a taxonomically complex group. However, it is difficult to accurately identify these species and reveal their phylogenetic relationships using traditional taxonomy. Molecular markers and gene fragments have been adopted but they are not able to afford sufficient phylogenetic resolution in the genus. Here, we report the complete chloroplast genome sequences of F. cirrhosa and its closely related species using next generation sequencing (NGS) technology. Eight plastid genomes ranged from 151,058 bp to 152,064 bp in length and consisted of 115 genes. Gene content, gene order, GC content, and IR/SC boundary structures were highly similar among these genomes. SSRs and five large repeat sequences were identified and the total number of them ranged from 73 to 79 and 63 to 75, respectively. Six highly divergent regions were successfully identified that could be used as potential genetic markers of Fritillaria. Phylogenetic analyses revealed that eight Fritillaria species were clustered into three clades with strong supports and F. cirrhosa was closely related to F. przewalskii and F. sinica. Overall, this study indicated that the complete chloroplast genome sequence was an efficient tool for identifying species in taxonomically complex groups and exploring their phylogenetic relationships.
Transformational leadership and turnover

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to report the findings of a study which examines the relationship between transformational leadership and intention to leave through the mediating role of employee engagement, employer branding, and psychological attachment. Design/methodology/approach Transformational leadership, employee engagement, employer branding, and psychological attachment were assessed in an empirical study based on a sample of 405 full-time employees working in information technology (IT) organizations in India. The data which were obtained using Google doc and a printed questionnaire was analyzed through structural and measurement model. Findings The results reveal that transformational leadership style directly influences employee intention to leave. Transformational leadership and employer branding is mediated by employee engagement. The leadership relation with psychological attachment is mediated by employer branding. Practical implications The implications of the study are of utmost importance for Indian IT industries facing high voluntary turnover in recent times. Transformational leaders in teams contribute to develop employee engagement, employer branding, and psychological attachment. Imparting transformational leadership training to team leaders can help in generating psychological attachment with the employees which would go a long way. Originality/value This study explores the relationship among transformational leadership style, employee engagement, employer branding, and psychological attachment which has not been explored theoretically and tested empirically in an Indian context.
SharedSpecific SpecificSpecific Specific Feature ExtractionFeature Extraction { Joint learningX 1 X 4 X 3 X 2 { { {

In this paper, we focus on heterogeneous features learning for RGB-D activity recognition. We find that features from different channels (RGB, depth) could share some similar hidden structures, and then propose a joint learning model to simultaneously explore the shared and feature-specific components as an instance of heterogeneous multi-task learning. The proposed model formed in a unified framework is capable of: 1) jointly mining a set of subspaces with the same dimensionality to exploit latent shared features across different feature channels, 2) meanwhile, quantifying the shared and feature-specific components of features in the subspaces, and 3) transferring feature-specific intermediate transforms (i-transforms) for learning fusion of heterogeneous features across datasets. To efficiently train the joint model, a three-step iterative optimization algorithm is proposed, followed by a simple inference model. Extensive experimental results on four activity datasets have demonstrated the efficacy of the proposed method. A new RGB-D activity dataset focusing on human-object interaction is further contributed, which presents more challenges for RGB-D activity benchmarking.
THE LINGUISTICS OF IMAGINARY NARRATIVE SPACES IN

Daphne du Maurier’s 1938 novel Rebecca provides rich opportunities for the study of imaginary narrative spaces and the language associated with such spaces. The present study explores the linguistics of the imaginary narrative spaces in Rebecca, drawing upon three lines of linguistic research consistent with a Cognitive Linguistic approach: (i) an interest in understanding and appreciating ordinary readers’ actual responses (rather than merely relying upon “expert” readers’ responses), (ii) the construction of worlds or “spaces”, and (iii) the application of ideas from Cognitive Grammar. The study reveals a surprisingly intricate interplay of linguistic devices used in the construction of imaginary narrative spaces and the maintenance of such spaces in extended discourse.
CHAPTER 10 Improving Education Outcomes in Developing Countries : Evidence , Knowledge Gaps , and Policy Implications

Improvements in empirical research standards for credible identification of the causal impact of education policies on education outcomes have led to a significant increase in the body of evidence available on improving education outcomes in developing countries. This chapter aims to synthesize this evidence, interpret their results, and discuss the reasons why some interventions appear to be effective and others do not, with the ultimate goal of drawing implications for both research and policy. Interpreting the evidence for generalizable lessons is challenging because of variation across contexts, duration and quality of studies, and the details of specific interventions studied. Nevertheless, some broad patterns do emerge. Demand-side interventions that increase the immediate returns to (or reduce household costs of ) school enrollment, or that increase students’ returns to effort, are broadly effective 653 Handbook of the Economics of Education, Volume 5 Copyright © 2016 Elsevier B.V. ISSN 1574-0692, http://dx.doi. org/10.1016/B978-0-444-63459-7.00010-5 All rights reserved. at increasing time in school and learning outcomes, but vary considerably in cost-effectiveness. Many expensive “standard” school inputs are often not very effective at improving outcomes, though some specific inputs (which are often less expensive) are. Interventions that focus on improved pedagogy (especially supplemental instruction to children lagging behind grade level competencies) are particularly effective, and so are interventions that improve school governance and teacher accountability. Our broad policy message is that the evidence points to several promising ways in which the efficiency of education spending in developing countries can be improved by pivoting public expenditure from less cost-effective to more cost-effective ways of achieving the same objectives. We conclude by documenting areas where more research is needed, and offer suggestions on the public goods and standards needed to make it easier for decentralized and uncoordinated research studies to be compared across contexts.
small and sick neonates in Kenya and Uganda

Morgan, Melissa C; Spindler, Hilary; Nambuya, Harriet; Nalwa, Grace M; Namazzi, Gertrude; Waiswa, Peter; Otieno, Phelgona; Cranmer, John; Walker, Dilys M; (2018) Clinical cascades as a novel way to assess physical readiness of facilities for the care of small and sick neonates in Kenya and Uganda. PloS one, 13 (11). e0207156-. ISSN 1932-6203 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone. 0207156 Downloaded from: http://researchonline.lshtm. ac.uk/id/eprint/4653846/ DOI: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone. 0207156
Comparison of bacterial contamination in bristles of charcoal toothbrushes versus non-charcoal toothbrushes

Objective: Charcoal toothbrushes have been marketed widely with manufacturers’ claims of lesser bacterial contamination owing to the presence of activated charcoal. The aim of this study was to evaluate the bacterial contamination of charcoal bristles compared to non-charcoal bristles in used toothbrushes. Material and methods: Ninety participants were involved in the study. They were given standard brushing instructions on the use of a charcoal toothbrush, and were asked to return the used brushes after 1 week of usage. After a 1-week washout period, the participants were then provided with similar brushing instructions and a non-charcoal toothbrush, and were instructed to return the brush after another week of usage. Bristles of the used toothbrushes were sectioned and placed in a nutrient broth. A pipette was used to extract 0.1 mL of nutrient broth to smear on agar plates. A colony counter was used to measure colony forming units (CFU) after 24 hours of incubation. Data collected were analysed using a paired sample t-test. Results: The mean CFU count for non-charcoal bristles was almost double (106.3; 95% CI 53.39, 159.28) that of charcoal bristles (58.8; 95% CI 15.09, 102.55). However, there was no statistically significant difference between the two groups (p = 0.198). Conclusion: This study shows no statistically significant difference in bacterial counts between bristle types, despite substantially lower CFUs in the charcoal bristles compared with non-charcoal bristles after 1 week of use.
University of Southern Denmark A child with mastocytosis and lymphomatoid papulosis

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Heterogeneous Air Defense Battery Location: A Game Theoretic Approach

2d Lt Nicholas T. Boardman Co-advisor: LTC Brian J. Lunday, PhD Co-advisor: Lt Col Matthew J. Robbins, PhD Department of Operational Sciences (ENS) Air Force Institute of Technology Objective • Identify the optimal locations for a heterogeneous set of air defense batteries for a defender to protect a set of cities, given an attacker’s best response to launch a limited number of ballistic missiles and the batteries’ collective optimal response to the attack, as limited by interceptor magazine depths, ranges, and probability of interception
The Composition of Government Spending and Growth: The Role of Corruption

In this paper, we analytically derive the optimal composition of government spending in an endogenous growth model in the presence of corruption. Corruption results in a loss of productivity, but could have a favourable effect in diverting resources towards the sector that is more productive, net of corruption. Empirical analysis for a sample of developing countries shows that corruption does not turn out to be a factor that is significant enough to warrant a shift in spending from current to capital spending, and for OECD countries, the effect of corruption is small.
PHYSICAL REVIEW APPLIED 12 , 014013 ( 2019 ) Quantum Transport Properties of Industrial 28 Si / 28 SiO

We investigate the structural and quantum transport properties of isotopically enriched Si/SiO2 stacks deposited on 300-mm Si wafers in an industrial CMOS fab. Highly uniform films are obtained with an isotopic purity greater than 99.92%. Hall-bar transistors with an oxide stack comprising 10 nm of SiO2 and 17 nm of Al2O3 (equivalent oxide thickness of 17 nm) are fabricated in an academic cleanroom. A critical density for conduction of 1.75 × 1011 cm−2 and a peak mobility of 9800 cm2/Vs are measured at a temperature of 1.7 K. The Si/SiO2 interface is characterized by a roughness of = 0.4 nm and a correlation length of = 3.4 nm. An upper bound for valley splitting energy of 480 μeV is estimated at an effective electric field of 9.5 MV/m. These results support the use of wafer-scale Si/SiO2 as a promising material platform to manufacture industrial spin qubits.
Intermediation in Over-the-Counter Markets

This paper studies the effect of intermediaries’ market power on asset prices and volumes traded in over-the-counter markets. I develop a search-and-bargaining model of trading and show that the market power of dealers reduces volumes traded and increases price volatility. I estimate the model using a new dataset containing all trades executed in a secondary market of municipal bonds whose liquidity plummeted in 2008, with significant consequences for investors wealth and issuers financing costs. The model provides a good fit of the data. I simulate the model to study the outcome of alternative market structures. I find that proportional fees significantly increase volumes traded with small effects on the level of prices. The introduction of a centralized market can have an ambiguous effect that depends on which side of the market is allowed to post orders. Volumes double and prices increase on average by 18% under buyers posting, but they fall 60% and 12% respectively under sellers posting.
Fast and Robust Forensics for Image Region-duplication Forgery

Region duplication forgery, in which a part of a digital image is copied and then pasted to another portion of the same image, is one of the simple and common image forgery techniques. Most of the existing algorithms are not robust to the post region duplication image processing, and have high time complexity. In this paper, we describe an e-cient and robust algorithm for detecting and localizing this type of malicious tampering. The image is flrst reduced in dimension by Gaussian pyramid, and the Hu moment is applied to the flxed sized overlapping blocks of low-frequency image. The eigenvectors are lexicographically sorted. Then, similar eigenvectors are matched by a certain threshold value. Finally, the area threshold value is proposed to remove the wrong similar blocks. The mathematical morphology operations are performed to locate the tampered part. Experimental results show that our method is robust and that it can not only successfully detect this type of tampering for images subject to various forms of post region duplication image processing, including noise contamination, blurring, and severe lossy compression, but also reduce the total number of blocks to narrow block-matching searching space, which can improve the method e-ciency.
Liquidity and Profitability Trade-Off: A Study of Indian Pharmaceutical Companies

Liquidity plays a vital role in the successful functioning of every business. The important part in managing working capital is maintaining liquidity on a day-to-day basis to ensure the smooth running of the organisation and to meet its obligations. Hence, it is very important to keep a close eye on the liquidity position of the company as without it, the company cannot survive. But efforts to increase the profitability would tend to reduce firms' liquidity and too much attention on liquidity would tend to affect profitability. No doubt, every firm tries to maximise profitability by maintaining liquidity. However, increasing profits at the cost of liquidity might cause serious problems for the firm including financial insolvency. Thus, an effective WCM would be needed to strike a balance between the two core objectives of the firm. It is essential that the firm's liquidity should be properly balanced because excessive liquidity on one hand, indicates the accumulation of idle funds that don't fetch any profits for the firm and on the other hand, insufficient liquidity might damage the firm's goodwill, deteriorate the firm's credit standing, which may lead to forced liquidation of the firm's assets. Hence, a trade-off needs to be maintained between liquidity and profitability. This paper attempts to study the association between liquidity and profitability for a period of five years from 2011-12 to 2015-16 for five selected pharmaceutical companies. The objective of the study was mainly to know whether companies earn profit while maintaining the necessary liquidity or are they ready to sacrifice liquidity for the sake of earning higher profit. The results indicate that among the five selected pharmaceutical companies, i.e. Ajanta Pharma, Biocon Ltd, Torrent Pharma, Ipca Labs and Lyka Labs. , the liquidity position of Biocon is best when it comes to liquidity analysis as per Motaal's test of liquidity. The techniques of Motaal's ultimate rank test have been applied to analyse the data. The researchers have used purely secondary data for the purposes of this study. In this paper, an attempt has also been made to study the association between liquidity and profitability of the sample companies by using Spearman's Rank Coefficient of Correlation. The results found were the same with the theoretical views i.e. both are negatively correlated. But there are instances like Wal-Mart, which is able to generate profit and maximise shareholders' wealth with negative working capital, i.e. an example of foregoing liquidity for the sake of maximising profits. In such a case, can we say that the company is on the verge of bankruptcy or is it a sign of managerial efficiency?
Essays on Trade and Foreign Direct Investment Costs and Migration

Essays on Trade and Foreign Direct Investment Costs and Migration Eugene Bempong Nyantakyi This dissertation consists of three essays on trade and investment costs and migration. The first paper documents how timeliness induces U.S. parent firms to adjust their trade activities with affiliates located abroad, and the extent to which these adjustments change according to the time sensitivity of the industry in which the multinational enterprise (MNE) operates. The results show that parent firms operating in manufacturing are sensitive to shipping time. Long shipping lags reduce parent firms’ import from (export to) affiliates. At the sectoral level, there exists some heterogeneity in MNE’s response to time. When MNEs are ranked on a spectrum of time sensitivity, those operating in computers and machinery are shown to be more time sensitive, with coefficients consistently surpassing that of other industries. Those operating in chemicals and metals appear to be less time sensitive. The results suggest that, countries that focus on reducing bottlenecks and building infrastructure that promote efficient and fast movement of goods across borders are not only promoting trade but more subtly, improving their participation in the global production networks in manufacturing. The second paper presents empirical evidence on the effects of variable and fixed costs of export on the extensive and intensive margins of trade for South vs. North exporters. In particular, we search for the presence of any systematic development related bias, where South exporters face higher market access friction relative to North exporters. At the extensive margin, where we compare the effects of fixed and variable costs on the probability of success in entering export markets, we do not find any significant development related bias. Similarly, at the intensive margin, where we examine the effect of observable variable cost on the export volume of successfully entrants into export markets, we do not find any significant North-South bias. The last essay examines how foreign-born migrants from developing countries (South) attract foreign direct investment (FDI) from developed countries (North) to their countries’ of origin. South migrants have information advantage over North investors concerning the nature of the investment climate in their home countries. Transfer of this knowledge can lower start-up barriers and help match North investors with investment opportunities in the South. Using bilateral migration and FDI data for 18 OECD and 101 developing countries, the empirical evidence suggests that, high stock of South migrants in North is associated with higher FDI flow from North to South. However, the hypothesis that the positive effects of South-North migration on North-South FDI may be stronger when the start-up costs of investment is higher is the South is not strongly supported by the data.
THE EFFECTS OF TEMPERATURE ABUSE AT THE BEGINNING OF STORAGE ON THE QUALITY AND SHELF LIFE OF FRESH WATER ARCTIC CHARR ( SALVELINUS ALPINUS )

The main aim of this project was to study the influence of temperature abuse during the early stages of storage on the shelf life of Arctic charr (Salvelinus alpinus). A shelf life study was performed with farmed Arctic charr stored under two different conditions: a) iced and stored at 1C (well handled lot) and b) iced, but stored at 18C for 24 hours (resulting in a temperature increase from 3-12°C) on the second day of storage prior to re-icing and storage at 1C (temperature abused lot). Approximately every third day during storage, samples were collected for sensory analysis using the Quality Index Method (QIM) and Quantitative Descriptive Analysis (QDA) and microbiological counts (Total Viable Counts (TVC) and H2S producing bacteria). The maximum shelf life of well handled and temperature abused Arctic charr was 17 and 15 days respectively according to sensory evaluation of cooked fillets (QDA). Sensory evaluation showed a high linear correlation between Quality Index (QI) and storage time for the well handled lot. At the end of shelf life the QI was 17 for both groups. The TVC at the consumption limits were 10-10 CFU/g of flesh for both lots. H2S producing bacteria constituted a higher proportion of TVC in the abused than in the well handled fish at the end of the storage time (study). High correlation between QI scores, TVC and H2S producing bacteria was found.