Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The Effect of Corporate Social Responsibility on Productivity: Firm-Level Evidence from Chinese Listed Companies

ABSTRACT The recent promotion of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) by China has coincided with a marked increase in the number of its listed firms. To what extent can the disclosure of CSR reports benefit corporate productivity? This article empirically explores the impact of CSR on firm-level Total Factor Productivity (TFP) as well as the possible influence approaches and mechanisms. Following previous literature, several predictive models are built to draw the following conclusions: (1) CSR significantly promotes TFP; (2) the impact of CSR on TFP of family firms is greater than that of non-family firms; (3) CSR has a larger positive impact on firms releasing CSR reports voluntarily than on those releasing under compulsion; (4) CSR has a greater impact on private firms than on state-owned ones, while it has little effect on foreign-funded ones; (5) The impact of CSR on TFP is robust in high-tech firms, non-high-tech firms, coastal firms, non-coastal firms, industrial firms, and service firms. Besides, this article finds that financing constraints operate as a major channel for CSR to affect TFP, while firms’ irregularity acts only as an important channel. Additionally, 2SLS method is employed to deal with possible endogenous problems, finding that our conclusions remain robust.
THE COMPLEXITIES OF TEACHING SKILLS IMPROVEMENT PROGRAM IN INDONESIA

This study investigates the complexities of a teacher training course designed by the Ministry of Education and Culture as a program to improve the teaching skills of teachers. A teacher training program, called Teaching Competency Improvement Program, was conducted as a part of continuing professional development for Indonesian teachers. This training program involved teachers as the facilitators who had attended a one-week training of trainers (ToT) prior to their duties as facilitators. Only those who passed the post test in the ToT were entitled to act as training facilitators. Each facilitator facilitated ten to twenty teacher colleagues in their respective zones following IN1-IN2-ON1-IN3-ON2-IN4-ON3-IN5 pattern for duration of 82 contact hours. This study involved 89 facilitators as respondents to an online survey. Data was gathered and analyzed using qualitative descriptive method. The finding of the study includes problems in the technological tools used in the training program, the time management, the content of the training, coordination problem among parties, and the effectiveness of the training program.Corresponding author:Mangasa AritonangDOI: 10.24071/ijiet.2020. 040206
Relationship between HPV and HIV. Prevalence, molecular mechanisms and screening of HPV among HIV infected women

Introduction: Human papillomavirus (HPV) and human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) are the most common sexually transmitted infections (STI) globally. According to the World Health Organisation (WHO) there are around 17.4 million women living with HIV and over 290 million HPV infected women worldwide. Purpose: This review is to summarize available data concerning the relationship between HIV and HPV infection among women. The analysis comprises molecular mechanisms of HPV infection among HIV(+) women as well as HIV infection among HPV(+) women, prevalence of HPV and cervical lesions among women living with HIV and screening of HPV and cervical cancer (CC) among HIV infected women. Material and methods: The review includes publications from 2011 to 2020. The data has been collected by the use of the PubMed, Ovid, Up-To-Date and WHO website. Key words used to search for references include: HPV, HIV, prevalence, molecular mechanism, screening. Results: HIV infection is a risk factor for HPV acquisition. On the one hand, prevalence of HPV, multiple HPV, high risk HPV (hrHPV) infections and cervical intraepithelial neoplasia (CIN) is higher among HIV(+) women. On the other hand, HPV infection can also predispose to HIV acquisition. Evidence on how these viruses influence each other can be a breakthrough in the range of prevention, detection and treatment of both HIV and HPV infection. Conclusions: Relationship between HPV and HIV is an interest of nowadays medicine. Possibly, these viruses may cooperate and enable infection of each other. It has been showed that the prevalence of HPV, multiple HPV, hrHPV infections and cervical lesions is higher among HIV(+) in comparison to HIV(-) women. Further studies should be performed providing an insight into a molecular mechanism responsible for this cooperation.
Deep Learning for Robust Decomposition of High-Density Surface EMG Signals

Blind source separation (BSS) algorithms, such as gradient convolution kernel compensation (gCKC), can efficiently and accurately decompose high-density surface electromyography (HD-sEMG) signals into constituent motor unit (MU) action potential trains. Once the separation matrix is blindly estimated on a signal interval, it is also possible to apply the same matrix to subsequent signal segments. Nonetheless, the trained separation matrices are sub-optimal in noisy conditions and require that incoming data undergo computationally expensive whitening. One unexplored alternative is to instead use the paired HD-sEMG signal and BSS output to train a model to predict MU activations within a supervised learning framework. A gated recurrent unit (GRU) network was trained to decompose both simulated and experimental unwhitened HD-sEMG signal using the output of the gCKC algorithm. The results on the experimental data were validated by comparison with the decomposition of concurrently recorded intramuscular EMG signals. The GRU network outperformed gCKC at low signal-to-noise ratios, proving superior performance in generalising to new data. Using 12 seconds of experimental data per recording, the GRU performed similarly to gCKC, at rates of agreement of 92.5% (84.5%–97.5%) and 94.9% (88.8%–100.0%) respectively for GRU and gCKC against matched intramuscular sources.
Seed moisture content as a primary trait regulating the lethal temperature thresholds of seeds

Fire has long shaped biological responses of plants and plant communities in many ecosystems; yet, uncontrolled wildfire frequently puts people and infrastructure at risk. Fuel or hazard reduction burning outside of the historic fire season is a common and widespread practice aimed at reducing the risk of high‐severity fires, which ideally also considers biodiversity values. Within fire‐prone systems, seed banks are critical for plant species’ regeneration, and seeds are typically adapted to survive the passage of fire and to regenerate in response to cues associated with historic fire regimes. However, species‐specific tolerances to the heat from fire exist; likely influenced by a range of physical, physiological, and morphological seed traits, which may differ between seasons. The identification of these tolerances and associated seed traits may inform fire and species management. We determined the lethal temperatures for seeds in relation to their moisture content, and other key traits that we hypothesised may be associated with survival. Seeds from 14 native species and 4 species non‐native to fire‐prone Mediterranean climate Banksia woodlands of south‐west Western Australia were exposed to temperatures between 50 and 180°C for 3 min at three different moisture contents. The temperature at which half the seeds were killed (T50) was estimated using nonlinear modelling. Seed mass, seed shape, embryo type, plant resprouting ability, seed storage syndrome, and native/non‐native status were quantified and modelled for their relationship with T50. Increased moisture content was a significant predictor of elevated seed mortality. Seeds with higher moisture (95% relative humidity [RH]) content perished at much lower temperatures. Seeds with low moisture content (15% or 50% RH) were able to survive significantly higher temperatures (median increase of 38 and 31°C higher respectively). Seeds with basal embryos showed significantly lower T50 than other embryo types. Synthesis. Seeds with elevated moisture contents have lower lethal temperature thresholds, leading to increased seed mortality during fire events when seeds (and soils) are moist. Thermal tolerance varied among coexisting species within this fire‐prone system. These data suggest potential concern for the impacts of aseasonal burning practices (i.e., cool/wet season burning), and highlight the importance of taking seed moisture content into account when planning and implementing prescribed burning.
Think Talk Write Assisted Monopoly Media in Students' Simple Essay Writing Skills

Lack of student interest in writing essays, this happens because teachers in learning do not use innovative learning models, and learning media that interest students. Therefore, this study aims to analyze the use of Think Talk Write (TTW) learning models assisted by monopolistic media on simple essay writing skills of third-grade elementary school students. This type of research is quasi-experimental (quasi-experimental) with a non-equivalent post-test only control group design. The study population was all grade III in elementary school. The research sample was taken using a random sampling technique, with a total of 59 people. Data collection instruments used in this study were simple essay writing skills instruments, then analyzed using descriptive statistics and inferential statistics (t-test). Based on the results of the t-test analysis, the t-count was 11.457. While the table with db = 57 and a significance level of 5% is 2.002. This shows that t-count is greater than ttable (t-count> t-table) with the conclusion that the Think Talk Write (TTW) learning model assisted by monopoly media has a positive effect on writing skills in simple essays. The existence of this research helps teachers to enrich references to models and instructional media that can be used.
A Digital Approach to Model Quality and Sensory Traits of Beers Fermented under Sonication Based on Chemical Fingerprinting

The development of digital tools based on artificial intelligence can produce affordable and accurate methodologies to assess quality traits and sensory analysis of beers. These new and emerging technologies can also assess new products in a near real-time fashion through virtual simulations before the brewing process. This research was based on the development of specific digital tools (four models) to assess quality traits and sensory profiles of beers produced using sonication and traditional brewing techniques. Results showed that models developed using supervised machine learning (ML) regression algorithms based on near-infrared spectroscopy (NIR) were highly accurate in the estimation of physicochemical parameters (Model 1; R = 0.94; b = 0.91). Outputs from Model 1 were then used as inputs to obtain estimations of the intensity of sensory descriptors (Model 2; R = 0.99; b = 0.98), liking of sensory attributes (Model 3; R = 0.97; b = 0.99), and the classification of fermentation treatments using supervised classification ML algorithms (Model 4; 96% accuracy). These new digital tools can aid craft brewing companies for product development at lower costs and maintain specific quality traits and sensory profiles, creating original styles of beers to get positioned in the market.
Auditor Independence and Value Relevance in the European Banking Sector: Do Investor Protection Environment and Corporate Governance Matter?

Our study explores the effects of statutory auditor’s independence on value relevance, measuring the different impact against the quality of country-level investor’s protection and firm-level corporate governance. A sample of 98 European financial entities listed on the stock markets of 15 countries in the period from 2009 to 2014 is used to measure statutory auditor independence by taking into account audit firm tenure, partner tenure, and the percentage of nonaudit fees. Findings demonstrate that in different investor protection environments or in the presence of differences in corporate governance quality, phenomena that could be interpreted as a deterioration of the auditor independence do not necessarily determine a decrease in the value relevance of accounting numbers. Rather, they may determine a possible increase if the knowledge spillover effects prevail over the perception that independence has deteriorated. These findings add to the literature and provide regulators with insights by suggesting that not only accounting and auditing practices but also country features or firm-level corporate governance quality might influence the outcome of reforms on the independence of the statutory auditor as well as value relevance judgments.
Dendrochronology and climate in the Brazilian Atlantic Forest: Which species, where and how

As dendrochronology noticeably increased in tropical regions during the last three decades, some general patterns could emerge from comprehensive analyses of case studies. Here, we investigated the state of dendrochronology’s contributions to the bioclimatology of wood species in the Brazilian Atlantic Forest (AF). We asked: Which species and sites had cross-datable growth-ring series suitable for bioclimatic inference? What were the sampling and analytical methods applied? What do these studies tell us about plant-growth sensitivity to climate conditions? Which knowledge gaps may be identified? For this, we searched for articles addressing climate-growth relationships by means of cross-dated growth-ring chronologies within the AF. We found 11 articles, covering 16 chronologies from 10 species. The average number of trees in chronologies was 16 individuals. 87% of chronologies suggested a positive precipitation signal, and some positive temperature signal was identified in all chronologies that were compared to monthly or seasonal temperature series. The findings are supported by the specialized literature, which points out the influence of precipitation in the tropics. However, making stronger conclusions about the role of climate on the growth of AF tree species will require greater efforts in surveying the diverse tree flora and developing rigorous cross-dated chronologies. Keywords: climate-growth relationship, dendrochronological parameters, tropical forest, subtropical forest.
Research Regarding the Influence of TiO2 Nanoparticles on the Performance of Cementitious Materials

Urban buildings are subject to deterioration and degradation due to the action of external factors, air pollutants, water, compounds resulting from fuelcombustion used for heating and transportation, etc. Research on self-cleaning cementitious materials is developing at fast pace and contributes to the high interest in the industry in the decrease of evnironmental pollution, which is of real interest. The aim of this paper is to highlight the influence of the addition of TiO2 nanoparticles on the self-cleaning ability of cementitious materials, under staining with an aqueous solution of a rodamina B, followed by exposures to the action of UV rays, followed by artificial rain cycles and to determine the physico-mechanical properties of the material, as well as the white dregree of the samples and their self-cleaning. Based on experimental research results it can be said that the white degree of the samples increased with the increase of the TiO2 amount in the mixtures. Several other factors such as the intensity of the UV light also affected the self-cleaning capacity of the samples, better results being recorded for higher UVA intensity. The TiO2 amount in the mixtures also influences fresh and hardened state properties of the material such as setting time, apparent density, water absorbtion and porosity of the material. It can therefore be said that it is necessary to identify an optimal range of TiO2 nanopraticles concentration in the cementitious matrix, in order to obtain the maximum cumulative benefits in terms of self-cleaning capacity, physico-mechanical properties and costs.
Virtual Reality learning environments and technological mediation in construction practice

ABSTRACT Training based on Virtual Reality (VR) has reached a level of maturity that renders it applicable in many industries. By moving through learner interaction and representational fidelity, from navigable to interactable VR learning environments, the relationships between trainees, VR technology, and the world that trainees experience change. These relationships are central to the theory of technological mediation. In this theory, the central idea is that humans’ perceptions and interpretations of reality are transformed when the latter are mediated by technology. Using this theory, the objective of this study is to provide insights into the different roles that mediation, in the relationship between trainees or users of this technology and construction practice, may play in the new type of context-realistic VR learning environments. To this end, the development of a framework for generating an innovative VR tool for training operators on construction sites was chosen as the subject of a case study. By focusing on the development phases of this framework one is able to scrutinise the underlying elements that shape the changing relationship between trainees, the VR environment, and the real world.
PERAN KEUNGGULAN BERSAING MEMEDIASI PENGARUH ORIENTASI KEWIRAUSAHAAN TERHADAP KINERJA BISNIS

Entrepreneurial orientation and high competitive advantage can trigger business performance that greatly affects the achievement of company goals. The purpose of this study was to determine the mediating role of the variable competitive advantage against the entrepreneurial orientation variable and the business performance of the silver industry in Celuk Sukawati. The population of this study are 71 people, with the saturated sample method. Data collectedthrough questionnaires and interviews and are analyzed by SEM - PLS. The test results show that entrepreneurial orientation has positive and significant effect on competitive advantage, competitive advantage and entrepreneurial orientation have positive and significant effect on business performance, and competitive advantage is mediating variable of entrepreneurial orientation on business performance. Company is expected to be able to implement the dimensions of entrepreneurial orientation well, and increase the company's competitive advantage, so company will be able to compete and improve the company's business performance. Keywords: entrepreneurial orientation, competitive advantage, business performance
Teachers’ Perceptions of Their Classroom Experiences in Kindergartens Serving Low SES Families: Associations with Global Classroom Quality

ABSTRACT Research Findings: This study focused on kindergartens serving low SES families and examined the associations between teachers’ perceptions of their teaching experiences in their classroom and observed global classroom quality. Forty teachers and their classrooms participated. Teachers’ perceptions of their teaching experiences in the classroom were assessed via the valence and multidimensionality of their narratives on their teaching experiences. Global classroom quality, measured as observed emotional support, instructional support and classroom organization, was assessed using the CLASS (Classroom Assessment Scoring System) during structured and unstructured classroom activities. Positive valence of teachers’ narratives on their teaching experiences was associated with better classroom organization, while higher levels of narratives’ multidimensionality were associated with higher emotional and instructional support. Practice or Policy: Evaluating teachers’ perceptions and helping them construct more positive and more holistic perceptions of their teaching experiences may be important targets in teachers’ training and supervision programs for enhancing global classroom quality.
Early usage and meaning of evolvability

Abstract Evolvability has become an enormously popular concept in evolutionary biology and in machine learning software architecture. While it is claimed that the term was coined in 1988 by Richard Dawkins, it was used as early as 1931 as a characteristic of life by John A. Thomson. We quote and review the earliest uses and definitions of evolvability in biological frameworks up until 1989, which are remarkably few. The meaning changed from simply the “ability to evolve” as a characteristic of life to various versions of including necessary variation to predict whether or not something could evolve to the rate and quality of that evolution. Or, meaning changed from the ability to evolve to the “quality” of the ability to evolve. Since then, evolvability has taken on many definitions as it has exploded in usage.
A Preregistered Study of the Effect of Shopping Satisfaction during Leisure Travel on Satisfaction with Life Overall: The Mitigating Role of Financial Concerns

Despite growing interest in leisure well-being and life satisfaction, there is still limited research concerning the role of perceived financial status on leisure travel experiences. The main objective of this preregistered research is to test the prediction that satisfaction with shopping experience during leisure travel contributes to the satisfaction hierarchy moderated by financial concerns. Through two surveys of online panel members in the United Kingdom, we found that satisfaction with shopping has a positive influence on satisfaction with leisure travel, which in turn has a positive influence on satisfaction with leisure life and life overall. We also corroborated that the shopping satisfaction–leisure travel satisfaction relationship is negatively moderated by overspending on shopping during travel, while the leisure travel satisfaction–leisure life satisfaction relationship is negatively moderated by current money management stress. Finally, expected future financial security has a direct positive influence on life satisfaction overall. Theoretical and managerial implications are discussed.
Predicting Network Behavior Model of E-Learning Partner Program in PLS-SEM

The Ministry of Education of Taiwan conducted an e-learning partner program to offer life-accompaniment and subject teaching to elementary and secondary students through a network platform with cooperation from university undergraduates. The aim of the e-learning partner program was to improve the motivation and interest of the children after learning at school. However, the outcome of this program stated that the retention rate of the undergraduates was low over three semesters in the case universities. Therefore, the training cost for the program was wasted each semester, and it was necessary to solve the problem and improve the situation. The evaluation of self-efficacy directly affects a person’s motivation for the job. This research examined inner self-efficacy (teaching and counseling) and outer support (administration and equipment) that would contribute to and predict the success and the persistence of the e-learning partner program. There were 94 valid self-evaluation records in the 2019 academic year. ANOVA, post hoc, and partial least squares (PLS) analyses were conducted. The results showed that the year level, experience, and teacher education program background were significantly different in this study. The network behavior model was set up effectively to predict the retention from four scopes. A higher teaching self-efficacy would have better passion and innovation scores than the others. Using the suggestions for improvement, decreasing the gap between undergraduates’ expectations and promoting sustainability in the e-learning partner program can be achieved.