Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Advanced Walking Skills for Bipedal Locomotion

Most control algorithms for current bipedal robots relied on the stability analysis of ZeroMoment Point (ZMP), which was rstly introduced by Vukobratović in 1968. However, control approaches based on ZMP have yet common shortcomings, such as, unnatural motions, high energy costs, high computational burden, absence of natural dynamics. Due to their disadvantages, many researchers studied the biological and biomechanical aspects of human locomotion, from which valuable ndings can be transferred to the design of control approaches for bipedal walking robots. Among them, a Bio-Inspired Behavior-Based Bipedal Locomotion Control (B4LC) was developed by Luksch based on the concepts found in human motion control with the hypothesis that a control system similar to human one will enable a robot to perform locomotion in a likewise fashion. Examining the achievement of the B4LC approach, it can be observed that several re nements and extensions are desirable. The current walking skills contain walking initiation, cyclic walking and standing with perturbations. Moreover, to extend the walking skills of a humanlike robot, certain advanced walking skills, such as, walking termination, curve walking, and upslope walking in walking are studied and control methods for them are designed based on biological and biomechanical literature. To enhance the robustness of bipedal walking in more challenging environments, a control structure is thus required. It features detection and rejection of unexpected disturbances during walking, especially the external pushes. Based on the processing of sensory information, di erent control strategies should be applied according to the state of the biped to come to a relative stable state. The external pushes can come from sagittal and frontal plane and happen during certain time instants of a gait cycle. Investigating the literature in push recovery of human walking leads to development of speci c control strategies for joints in lower limb. Besides the external disturbances, voluntary control from robot itself may also result in instability of the robot. Neuroscientists assume that ve electromyography (emg) components account for muscle activity during walking under di erent speeds. This nding brings us the implication for designing the corresponding motor patterns across di erent walking speeds. With approximating those ve emg components to Gaussian curves, it can deduce the problem as the search of parameters representing those curves, which are the mean values, the variances and the peak of amplitudes, respectively. By employing the Swarm Particle Optimization method, parameters for those motor patterns can be automatically found and optimized in terms of stability and energy cost. Analyzing all parameters within di erent walking speeds, construction of a function of parameters for motor patterns across walking speeds can be accomplished. Furthermore, the drawback of manually tuning process for parameters of the control units and of the biped model still persists. To nd optimal control parameters, the introduction of
Aggressive behavior and seminal vesicle function in mice: differential sensitivity to androgen given neonatally.

Male mice were castrated at birth and injected with either testosterone propionate or oil on days 2 and 4 of life. Half of each of these 2 groups were then injected with oil and the remaining half with testosterone as adults and tested for spontaneous aggression. All animals were raised in isolation to eliminate pretest fighting experience. The incidence of fighting was 4 times greater among mice receiving testosteronetestosterone neonatally than it was in those given neonatal oil treatment. Testosterone given just prior to behavioral testing in adulthood was without apparent effect on aggressiveness regardless of treatment in infancy. In contrast, responsiveness of seminal vesicles to testosterone given during adulthood was enhanced by neonatal injections of the same hormone. (Endocrinology 85: 971, 1969)
Resource Base Change and Development during the Internationalization Process: The Case of a Swedish Fashion Firm

This thesis examines the processes that define the change and development of a firm’s resources and capabilities during the internationalization process. Prior research shows that a firm’s resources and capabilities have an important impact on the internationalization process, either hindering or enabling it. Despite this, the processes that explain the development and change of firms’ resource bases have been neglected in the extant research. There is still a lack of understanding of how firms’ resource bases change and develop and why such changes develop in a particular way during the internationalization process. To study resource base changes and developments during internationalization, a longitudinal single case study was conducted. The empirical basis of the study is a firm in the Swedish fashion industry starting as they begin their growth and expansion process, wherein this particular firm is confronted with the need to deal, develop and change their resources and capabilities in response to internationalization. The findings reveal that the development and change to firms’ resource bases is a complex and multilayered process. This is because firms need to develop both managerial and organizational capabilities to enable the development of dynamic capabilities, which draw from the firms’ managerial and organizational capabilities. Furthermore, the changes are embedded in firms’ commitment to resource base change and development; development of knowledge via experience, search, grafting, and congenital learning; and the development of internationalization knowledge. The study contributes to the internationalization process literature by incorporating the internal aspects related to change and development as firms internationalize. Also, this study explores dynamic capabilities by showing how firms build those capabilities as well as when dynamic capabilities are realized. The thesis shows that dynamic capability is the ability to synchronize the four processes, which are build, integrate, reconfigure, and leverage resources and capabilities. Synchronization involves the ability to be involved in all four processes while also being alert to the changes in firms’ business networks.
Customer Loyalty in the Nigerian Telecommunication Industry: The Antecedence of Customer Satisfaction

As a result of the role ascribed to the concept of customer loyalty as an important organizational critical success factor the consensual focus within research and academic community in recent years has been centered on the need to acquire a useful knowledge on some of its critical antecedents with the aim of using such knowledge as a basis of formulating marketing strategies and enhancing a desirable customer loyalty base. As a response to this need, the present research investigates the effect of customer satisfaction on the loyalty of subscribers in the Nigerian mobile telecommunication industry. Making use of the responses elicited through a self administered and structured questionnaire, from a total of three hundred and seventy six (376) mobile phone subscribers that were picked from the eight local governments of Kano metropolis through the multi-stage sampling technique, it was uncovered through the Pearson moment correlation and multiple regression analysis conducted that customer satisfaction has a positive and significant effect on customer loyalty with Beta coefficient at 0.629 and significant at 0.01. Furthermore, it was equally uncovered that the respondents exhibited an above average mean score in both customer satisfaction and customer loyalty which implies that they are considerably high in these two constructs. In the light of these findings, it was recommended that mobile telecom companies should employ the use of results generated from customer’s profiling research activities as a yardstick in designing customer satisfaction programs to ensure that the performance derived from products/services on offer consistently surpasses customer’s expectation whenever the objective is achieving a desirable customer loyalty base.
Enteric bacterial metabolism of stream sediment eluates.

River bottom sediments, which were washed free of loosely associated chemical nutrients, were further eluted with phosphate buffer. Chemical analyses of the eluates indicated that 0.3 M buffer (pH 7.0) eluted hexose, protein, and ammonia nitrogen in concentrations 4–6 times that found in the free-flowing water. Respiration experiments showed that selected strains of Enterobacteriaceae, including pathogens, had the ability to metabolize these substrates. These studies indicate that bottom sediments can have a high adsorptive capacity and suggest that they can regulate basic nutrient concentration and eutrophication in situ.
Burning Money? Government Lending in a Credit Crunch

We analyze a small, new credit facility of a Spanish state-owned-bank during the crisis, using its continuous credit scoring system, firm-level scores, and credit register data. Compared to privately-owned banks, the state-owned bank faces worse applicants, softens (tightens) its credit supply to unobserved (observable) riskier firms, and has much higher defaults. In a regression discontinuity design, the supply of public credit causes: large positive real effects to financially-constrained firms (whose relationship banks reduced substantially credit supply); crowding-in of new private-bank credit; and positive spillovers to other firms. Private returns of the credit facility are negative, while social returns are positive.
Lead exposure effect on angiotensin II renal vasoconstriction

Low levels of chronic lead exposure can produce hypertension and endothelial dysfunction, which could be associated with oxidative stress, changes in vascular tone and an imbalance of endothelial-derived vasoconstriction and vasodilator factors. The aim was to investigate the effect of chronic lead-exposure on angiotensin II-induced vasoconstriction in isolated perfused kidney and microvessels. Male Wistar rats (230—250 g) were treated for 12 weeks with lead acetate (100 ppm, Pbgroup) or pure water (control group). We evaluated the vascular reactivity in the kidneys and renal microvessels in the presence and absence of N ω -nitro-L-arginine methyl ester (L-NAME) in both groups. The nitrite concentration in renal perfusate was measured as an index of NO released, renal abundance of 3-nitrotyrosine was measured as well as endothelial NO synthase (eNOS) expression. Oxidative stress was measured by using the oxidative fluorescence dye dihydroethidium (DHE) to evaluate in situ production of superoxide and identified by confocal microscopy. Lead-exposure significantly increased blood pressure, eNOS protein expression, oxidative stress and vascular reactivity to angiotensin II. L-NAME potentiated vascular response to angiotensin II in control group but had no effect on the Pb-group. Nitrites released from the kidney of lead-group was lower compared to the control group while 3-nitrotyrosine was higher. This data suggest that lead-induced hypertension could be caused partially by an altered NOsystem. Human & Experimental Toxicology (2007) 26 : 499—507
A mechanistic approach to modelling the risk of liver tumours in mice exposed to fumonisin B1 in the diet

Data from the National Toxicology Program's carcinogenesis study of fumonisin B1 in B6C3F1 mice, conducted at the National Center for Toxicological Research, were used to fit the Moolgavkar-Venzon-Knudson (MVK) two-stage, clonal-expansion model of carcinogenesis. In addition to tumour data from the conventional 2-year bioassay, the study included data on tissue weights, cell proliferation, cell death, and sphingolipid metabolism in primary target organs. The model was used to predict 2-year liver tumour rates in female and male mice based on differences among dose groups in the effect of fumonisin B1 on the growth of normal tissue and on the proliferation of preneoplastic cells as a compensatory response to sphinganine-induced cell death. Fumonisin B1 was assumed to be non-genotoxic, i.e. the model did not include any effect of fumonisin B1 on either of the two mutation rates of the MVK model. The model was able to reproduce reasonably well the observed tumour rates in both female and male mice, predicting substantially increased rates above background only at the highest doses of fumonisin B1 in females.
Can Acupuncture have Specific Effects on Health? A Systematic Review of Acupuncture Antiemesis Trials

The effects of acupuncture on health are generally hard to assess. Stimulation of the P6 acupuncture point is used to obtain an antiemetic effect and this provides an excellent model to study the efficacy of acupuncture. Thirty-three controlled trials have been published worldwide in which the P6 acupuncture point was stimulated for treatment of nausea and/or vomiting associated with chemotherapy, pregnancy, or surgery. P6 acupuncture was equal or inferior to control in all four trials in which it was administered under anaesthesia; in 27 of the remaining 29 trials acupuncture was statistically superior. A second analysis was restricted to 12 high-quality randomized placebo-controlled trials in which P6 acupuncture point stimulation was not administered under anaesthesia. Eleven of these trials, involving nearly 2000 patients, showed an effect of P6. The reviewed papers showed consistent results across different investigators, different groups of patients, and different forms of acupuncture point stimulation. Except when administered under anaesthesia, P6 acupuncture point stimulation seems to be an effective antiemetic technique. Researchers are faced with a choice between deciding that acupuncture does have specific effects, and changing from ‘Does acupuncture work? ’ to a set of more practical questions; or deciding that the evidence on P6 antiemesis does not provide sufficient proof, and specifying what would constitute acceptable evidence.
Enhancing the accountability of Malaysian government-linked companies through sustainable competitive advantage and value creation / Nur Nadiah Zulkarnain … [et al.]

Value creation is an essential element needed in every organization for sustainability in the global market. Value creation can be reflected through continuous improvement in the organization’s earnings per share and the high level of operational effectiveness and competitiveness. Government linked companies (GLCs) are organizations in which the government contributes more than fifty percent of capital and is expected to be actively involved in value creation to reflect high level accountability to taxpayers’ money. However, despite many efforts by the government to improve the performance of GLCs, several studies have found a lack of value creation among GLCs that led to their closure. The resource-based view argues that an organization that possesses capabilities often create more value. This study aims to test resource-based view’s proposition by examining whether companies with high sustainable competitive advantage can create high value. This study examines four components of sustainable competitive advantage: innovation, entrepreneurship, learning, and market orientation. Results show that the existence of the significant relationship among learning orientation, entrepreneurship orientation, and market orientation on value creation. However, this study finds that high innovation does not lead to better value creation in the context of Malaysian GLCs.
Dose- and time-dependency of the dilator effects of the endothelin antagonist, BQ-123, in the human forearm.

AIMS Endothelin-1 is a potent endogenous vasoconstrictor that acts on the endothelin A (ET[A]) receptor. The dose-response and time-course of the dilator effect of the ET(A) receptor antagonist, BQ-123, was investigated in the forearm of healthy volunteers. METHODS Forearm blood flow was measured using mercury-in rubber strain gauge venous occlusion plethysmography. RESULTS Following intra-arterial infusion of BQ-123 (50 nmol min-1) for 5 min, forearm blood flow increased by approximately 60% over the next 60 minutes; lower doses were without significant effect. The degree of dilatation was similar to that observed in previous studies using 20-fold larger doses. CONCLUSIONS This study confirms that basal endothelin-1 has a role in the physiological regulation of vascular tone. It is possible that at low doses, BQ-123 might be a more sensitive pharmacological tool for the detection of abnormal endothelin-1 mediated constriction.
Capital Structure Determinants in Financial Institutions: Turkish Banking System

Capital is used to create liquidity and credit for banks. Each corporation strives for the optimal capital structure that maximizes its market value while minimizing its capital cost. Capital structure decisions are among the most critical for efficient risk management in banks. This paper aims to examine the determinants of capital structure and determine which of the capital structure theories have the power to explain the banking sector structure by focusing on the Turkish banking sector. Despite many studies on determining the capital structure of banking sector in the worldwide, these studies are limited for the sector in Turkey. Moreover, since studies in this area are usually concentrated on static models in Turkey, this paper contributes to fill the lack in the banking sectors’ capital structure literature in Turkey by using dynamic model structure in which the form of the mechanism that generated the data in previous periods are important. In this paper, the asset structure of banks, size, non-debt tax shield, profit, tax level, liquidity, and cost of borrowing is analyzed as factors that affect the capital structure. It can be concluded that theories on capital structure fail to fully explain the capital structure of the banking sector.
Technology Application and Employee Participation: Comparative Contributions to B2B Technology Related Outcomes

The purpose of this paper is to test for the relative impact of B2B technology application and employee participation on typical operational and bottom line business outcomes. The constructs developed relate to employee participation and use of B2B technologies. A survey instrument was administered within a sample of the membership of GS1 Australia (formerly EAN Australia). Employee participation is found to be the strongest significant predictor of B2B technology related outcomes. Application of the technology is also found to be important in explaining outcomes, but generally to a lesser extent than participation. This study has been limited to organizations operating in the Australian Fast Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG) sector. This research indicates that employee participation is not only a good strategy for B2B technology implementation, but essential to ensure the full potential of the technology is realized. The evidence suggests that involvement and participation of different groups of employees, at different stages of implementation, can be a critical factor accounting for many of the outcomes organizations seek when adopting technologies of this type.
How Public Markets Foster Firm Standardization: Evidence from Chinese IPOs

In exchange for the benefits of an IPO, an entrepreneurial firm must increase disclosure, professionalize, and separate its value from specific human capital. Among Chinese firms on the cusp of an IPO, we explore how access to public markets affects this process. Unique features of China’s approval-based listing process permit quasi-experimental variation in the prospect of public listing. Among firms approved to IPO at similar times, surprise IPO suspensions of indeterminate length provide plausibly exogenous variation in listing delay and thus access to public markets. We find that suspension-induced delay affects a basket of standardization measures. It reduces patent applications both during delay and in the medium term after listing. Delay also reduces earnings when the CEO is the firm’s founder, reduces the likelihood of hiring a CFO, and increases the number of underwriting co-managers. The reduction in patenting is larger for firms with venture capital (VC) backing. Across measures, however, foreign VC backing counteracts the pernicious effects of delay. Suspension-induced delay does not affect contemporaneous investment, employment, or leverage, making it unlikely that our results are due to a negative capital supply shock. ⇤We received valuable comments from Viral Acharya, Philip Bond, Zhiguo He, Steve Kaplan, Holger Mueller, Raghuram Rajan, and seminar participants at the University of Washington. This research was funded in part by the Initiative on Global Markets, the Fama-Miller Center, and the Polsky Center at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. Danye Wang, Sean Yin, and Xiao Zhang provided excellent research assistance. †Cong: Chicago Booth, will.cong@chicagobooth.edu; Howell: NYU Stern, showell@stern.nyu. edu; Zhang: Peking Guanghua, rzhang@gsm.pku. edu.cn.
Identification of a cis-acting element that localizes mRNA to synapses

Messenger RNA (mRNA) localization and regulated translation can spatially restrict gene expression to each of the thousands of synaptic compartments formed by a single neuron. Although cis-acting RNA elements have been shown to direct localization of mRNAs from the soma into neuronal processes, less is known about signals that target transcripts specifically to synapses. In Aplysia sensory-motor neuronal cultures, synapse formation rapidly redistributes the mRNA encoding the peptide neurotransmitter sensorin from neuritic shafts into synapses. We find that the export of sensorin mRNA from soma to neurite and the localization to synapse are controlled by distinct signals. The 3′ UTR is sufficient for export into distal neurites, whereas the 5′ UTR is required for concentration of reporter mRNA at synapses. We have identified a 66-nt element in the 5′ UTR of sensorin that is necessary and sufficient for synaptic mRNA localization. Mutational and chemical probing analyses are consistent with a role for secondary structure in this process.
Structural investigations of a Podoviridae streptococcus phage C1, implications for the mechanism of viral entry

The Podoviridae phage C1 was one of the earliest isolated bacteriophages and the first virus documented to be active against streptococci. The icosahedral and asymmetric reconstructions of the virus were calculated using cryo-electron microscopy. The capsid protein has an HK97 fold arranged into a T = 4 icosahedral lattice. The C1 tail is terminated with a φ29-like knob, surrounded by a skirt of twelve long appendages with novel morphology. Several C1 structural proteins have been identified, including a candidate for an appendage. The crystal structure of the knob has an N-terminal domain with a fold observed previously in tube forming proteins of Siphoviridae and Myoviridae phages. The structure of C1 suggests the mechanisms by which the virus digests the cell wall and ejects its genome. Although there is little sequence similarity to other phages, conservation of the structural proteins demonstrates a common origin of the head and tail, but more recent evolution of the appendages.