Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Investing in People and Communities for Social Change: Lessons from Social Enterprises in South Africa

ABSTRACT Irrefutably, many countries of the developing world continue to exhibit economic investments culture primarily premised on maximizing profit and accumulating wealth for oneself. Through this phenomenon, inequality has been glaring, with rich individuals becoming richer, while the majority poor continue to languish in poverty and their human dignity being highly compromised. South Africa as a country battling with pernicious legacies of apartheid presents such a good example. The country experiences a high level of gender inequality, poverty, a culture of violence, and unemployment of women and youth. In the awake of these predicaments, we need to question the dominant exorbitant profit-making investment approaches that undermine people’s dignity, freedom and self-value. This paper presents findings from social enterprises to gain insights and lessons on doing business differently. The findings are presented using a conceptual framework abbreviated as ‘SISTER’; S – Service; I – Integrity; S – Sustainability; T – Teamwork; E – Excellence; R – Respect. The study emphasizes that, investing in people has to take a paradgim shift by adopting distinctive models aganist the current capitalistic philosophies. The paper emphasis on focusing on peoples' values, capabilities, talents and cultural richness to generate wealth for societal and individual development, and thus lessening the ramifications associated with self-centredness of economic investment.
Effects of High Intensity Resistance Training Versus Whole-Body Electromyostimulation on Cardio-Metabolic Risk Factors in Untrained Middle Aged Males. A Randomized Controlled Trial

Background: Time-efficient exercise protocols may encourage subjects to exercise more frequently and could thus be excellent tools for health promotion. The aim of this study was to compare the effectiveness of the time-efficient methods HIT and/versus WB-EMS on cardio-metabolic risk factors in untrained middle-aged males. Methods: Untrained, healthy males (30-50 years) were randomly allocated either to 16-weeks of WB-EMS with 3 applications of 20 min/2 weeks, or 16 weeks of high intensity (resistance) training (HIT) performing 2 sessions/week. Both methods addressed all the main muscle groups. Metabolic-Syndrome Z-Score (MetS-Z-Score), abdominal body fat and total cholesterol/HDL-cholesterol (TC/HDL-C) were defined as the study endpoints. Results: HIT and WB-EMS were similar (p≤.096) effective to improve the MetS-Z-Score (HIT: p=.031 vs. WB-EMS: p=.001) and abdominal body fat (HIT: -4.5±8.1%, p=.014 vs. WB-EMS -4.0±5.2%, p=.002) in this cohort. No significant changes (HIT: -2.7±7.4, p=. 216 vs. WB-EMS: -2.2±10.2 p=.441) or group-differences (p=.931) within and between the groups were determined for TC/HDL-C. Conclusion: WB-EMS and HIT-RT is equally effective, attractive, feasible and time-efficient methods for combatting cardio-metabolic risk factors in untrained middle-aged males. WB-EMS can be considered as an effective option, particularly for subjects with low time resources unwilling or unable to conduct exhausting HIT protocols.
Gender and educational background: Influence on entrepreneurial intention (EI) in economics learning

Student behavior is one of important aspects to determine both direction and process in the Economic Theory learning. This study aims to draw how those two factors, gender and educational background, support the emergence and development of student entrepreneurial intention. This study is a quantitative study using explanatory survey. Data were analyzed by two-way ANOVA design to find the relationship/influence of gender and educational background on student entrepreneurial intention. The population was 111 students. Saturated samples were used as sampling technique. The results indicate that both gender and educational background had no significant influence on student entrepreneurial intention. Therefore, lecturers can override both when preparing learning strategies and design for Economics Theory courses.
The Silver Bullet? Assessing the Role of Education for Sustainability

Abstract:The United Nations 2030 agenda for sustainable development calls on nation states to invest in national development trajectories that promote both human and environmental well-being. Given the complexity of this plan, and the increasing severity of the climate crisis, understanding the relationship between nations' social and environmental outcomes is a critical task for social scientists. Raising national rates of educational attainment is a cornerstone national and international governance goal. This paper integrates Amartya Sen's conceptualization of education as the expansion of human capabilities, with the ecological modernization position that more educated societies may be less ecologically intensive, and tests the resultant hypothesis that gains in education may support global sustainability. Specifically, this study uses two-way fixed effects longitudinal modeling techniques to assess the relationship between national educational attainment and the carbon intensity of well-being (CIWB) for 76 nations between 1960 and 2010. The CIWB ratio is a well-established metric for sustainability within sociology. The findings indicate that gains in educational attainment played an important historical role in reducing the carbon intensity with which nation states produce well-being for its citizens. Less encouraging, from a global sustainability perspective, is the uneven distribution of these desirable effects across regions, and the diminishment of the education effect over time in all regions outside of advanced economies.
Use and Outcomes of Epoetin Alfa and Darbepoetin Alfa for Anemic Cancer Patients in Outpatient Community Practice Settings.

Objective: To assess the treatment patterns and hematologic outcomes associated with epoetin alfa (EPO) and darbepoetin alfa (DARB) for the treatment of anemic cancer patients in the community practice setting. Methods: A retrospective observational study design was used. De-identified data from patients receiving care in community oncology practice settings were obtained from an electronic medical record system. Eligible patients were >= 18 years of age, had a cancer diagnosis, and were treated with an erythropoiesis stimulating agent (ESA: EPO or DARB) during the period July 2002 – July 2004, with baseline anemia (Hb Results: 2382 EPO and 1399 DARB patients were eligible for analysis. The two groups were comparable in terms of baseline characteristics (62% female, 75% solid tumors, mean baseline Hb 9.9 g/dL). Only about two-thirds of patients were treated with standard dosing regimens of the two agents in the US (EPO 40,000 U qw, DARB 200 mcg q2w). Hematologic outcomes observed in patients receiving EPO were consistently better than those in patients receiving DARB. The mean treatment durations for patients receiving EPO and DARB were 55.3 and 62.5 days, respectively. Mean cumulative doses were 231,211 U for EPO and 857 mcg for DARB. These doses resulted in an average cost per patient of $3,089 for those receiving EPO and $4,276 for those receiving DARB. Conclusion: These results, based on over 3000 community-treated cancer patients, reinforce previous findings of earlier and greater overall hematologic response for EPO vs. DARB in this setting. Additionally, based on mean cumulative doses, the cost of DARB per patient was substantially greater than that of EPO. Additional studies of variations in dosing regimens used in the community setting are warranted, as are well-powered, randomized, controlled trials to further confirm the clinical results observed here.
SUCCESSFUL CHANGE COMMUNICATION IN LARGE ORGANIZATIONS A Qualitative Case Study on a Planned Change in a Swedish County Council

This qualitative case study explores a planned change project and its current change communication used to mediate change within one of Sweden’s largest county councils. A study on change communication is a relevant contribution to the field of organizational change communication as well as to large-scale organizations. By exploring employees’ perceptions and shared meanings about the ongoing planned change, the study aims to discover what aspects of communication that enables or constraints the change process within the organization. The empirical data is collected through three focus group interviews, examined through the theoretical framework of the theory Diffusion of Innovation (DOI), and analyzed through a qualitative thematic analysis. The analysis resulted in four main themes: Change communication, A complex, large-scale change, Stakeholder Diversity, and Opinion Leaders as Change Agents. The themes provide insights on what type of challenges the county council is facing concerning communication during planned change projects, as well as organizational members’ roles that are shaped and developed in this process. The study concludes that strategic change communication is essential for planned organizational changes to be successful and suggests practical implications and future research.
Prevalence of Maternal Near Miss and Maternal Death in Atat Hospital, Ethiopia

Prevalence of Maternal Near Miss and Maternal Death in Atat Hospital, Ethiopia The reduction of maternal death is one of the high priorities for the international communities, in the view of millennium development goal to reduce it by 75% by 2015. It arises during pregnancy, delivery and post partum period. In Ethiopia, a sub-Saharan country, maternal deaths account 470 per 100,000 live births. In Ethiopia and other developing countries, due to the presence of high maternal mortality, maternal near miss approach is over shadowed and was not applied for assessment of maternal health.
The Effectiveness of Mindfulness Training Techniques on Stress, Anxiety, and Depression of Depressed Patient

Depression remains one of the world’s most urgent health problems, affecting an estimated 350 million people. Mindfulness is effective for people suffering from critical depressive symptoms. The aim of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of mindfulness training techniques on stress, anxiety, and depression of depressed patients. Design: - Quasi-experimental design (one group pretest-posttest design) was used to achieve the aim of the study. Setting: - The study was conducted at the Psychiatric Hospital in Tanta and The Psychiatric and Addiction Treatment Hospital in Met-Khalf, Menoufia governorate, Egypt. Sample: -A Purposive sample (34) depressed patients that were diagnosed by psychiatrists according to DSM5 were selected; in the chosen setting inpatient clinics. Tools: Data were collected using the depression, anxiety and stress scale. Results: The results revealed that there is a highly statistically significant reduction in stress, anxiety, and depression mean score level among the study group after mindfulness training techniques than before; where p-value (p = 0.001). Also, there is a statistically significant positive correlation between stress and depression level of study group before and after mindfulness training techniques where p-value (p = 0.015, 0.013), respectively. Conclusion: The implementation of mindfulness training techniques with depressed patients has a positive effect on reducing stress, anxiety, and depression levels. Recommendation: Application of mindfulness training techniques for all patients with depression to reduce their stress, anxiety, and depression levels.
Requirements fixation: the effect of specification formality on design creativity

There is a broad consensus in the software engineering (SE) research community that understanding system desiderata and design creativity is critical for the success of software projects. This has motivated a plethora of research in SE to improve requirements engineering (RE) processes. However, little research has investigated the relationship between the way desiderata are presented (i.e., framed) and creative design performance. This dissertation, therefore, examines the effects of more formal presentations of desiderata on design creativity. The research was conducted in three phases. The first consisted of summarizing the available literature on cognitive biases in SE to build a comprehensive body of knowledge, understand the current state of research, and identify the relevant literature to position and delineate subsequent investigations involving the framing effect and fixation. This research phase also investigated how creativity is conceptualized (i.e., understood, assessed and improved) in SE by exploring the perceptual differences and similarities between SE researchers and practitioners. In the second phase, two controlled experiments were conducted to investigate the impact of framing desiderata first as requirements (in general) and then as prioritized requirements on design creativity (i.e., the originality and practicality of a design). The third phase involved a protocol study to explore the underlying cognitive mechanisms that may explain why framing desiderata as formal requirements affects creativity. The empirical evidence from the second and third phases was interpreted together to propose a theoretical framework that explains the effect of specification formality on design creativity. While the results of the experiments show that specification formality is negatively related to design creativity (i.e., desiderata framed as requirements or prioritized requirements result in designs that are less creative), the findings from the protocol study indicate that the negative relationship between specification formality and design creativity is mediated by fixation (i.e., more formal presentation of desiderata induces fixation and hinders critical thinking). Overall, the results of this dissertation suggest that more formal and structured presentations of desiderata cause requirements fixation---the tendency to attribute undue confidence and importance to desiderata presented as formal requirements statements---that affects design creativity, and thus undermines software engineering success.
RELAY SELECTION IN ENERGY HARVESTING AIDED MIXED RF/FSO SYSTEM WITH TRANSMIT ANTENNA SELECTION OVER ATMOSPHERIC TURBULENCE AND POINTING ERROR

In this paper, the performance of relay selection in an energy harvesting aided mixed radio frequency (RF)/free space optical (FSO) system with transmit antenna selection (TAS) over atmospheric turbulence and pointing error is presented. The source of multiple antennas employs TAS to send information to the destination via multiple relay nodes. Also, the energy-limited source uses selection combining technique to harvest energy from multiple relay nodes. As a result, all the relay nodes act as a wireless power transmitting node as well as data receiving node. Moreover, it assumes that the RF/FSO links follow Rayleigh/Malaga (M) distributions with non-zero boresight (NB) pointing error on the FSO link. Therefore, the system outage probability closed-form expression is then derived which is utilized to obtain the system throughput. In addition, the results demonstrate the significant effect of atmospheric turbulence and NB pointing error on the system performance with multiple relays, and source transmit antenna offers the system better performance. The accuracy of the derived expressions is thus validated through Monte Carlo simulations.
Impact of Social Media Addiction on Employees’ Wellbeing and Work Productivity

The objective of this study is to gain insights into the experiences of employees regarding their social media usage and consequences of social media overuse at the workplace. Fourteen semi-structured interviews were conducted, audio-recorded, transcribed, and analyzed using the Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) procedures. The qualitative data was collected from the employees working in renowned IT/ITES companies in India. The themes that emerged are lack of sleep; backache and eye strain; feeling of envy; lack of depth in the relationships; tendency to seek approvals; not meeting deadlines; compromise with the work quality; distraction from work. The present study intends to assist human resource managers in designing appropriate policies and guidelines pertaining to employees’ social media usage at the workplace.
Carotid Intima Media Thickness in Systemic Sclerosis Patients: Results From a Single Centre, Cross Sectional, Case-Control Study

Objective: To describe the parameters of subclinical vascular changes [Carotid Intima Media Thickness (cIMT), Flow Mediated Dilatation (FMD), Ankle Brachial Pressure Index (ABPI)] in patients with systemic sclerosis and compare them with age and sex matched controls. Methods: 50 patients of systemic sclerosis aged 20-50 years were selected and compared with the same no. of age and sex matched controls. Patients with diabetes, hypertension, dyslipidemia, smoking and thyroid disorders were excluded. cIMT, FMD and ABPI were calculated for all participants. Results: The cases and controls were well matched in terms of age, blood pressure, Body Mass Index, renal and liver functions, and lipid profiles. 34 patients had limited cutaneous SSc while 16 had diffuse cutaneous SSc. cIMT was significantly more in SSc patients as compared to controls (0.585 mm vs. 0.571 mm; p=0.001). FMD measurements in SSc patients were lower when compared to controls, but they did not achieve statistical significance (7.61% vs. 8.03%; p=0.608). ABPI values were similar in SSc patients and controls (1.056 vs. 1.036; p=0.398). cIMT did not show any correlation with age or duration of illness. ABPI showed significant inverse correlation with duration of illness (Rho=-0.385; p=0.006). However, none of these parameters varied as per the pattern of skin involvement (diffuse vs. limited), presence or absence of digital infarcts or pulmonary fibrosis. Conclusion: cIMT is increased in patients with systemic sclerosis as compared to matched controls. cIMT and ABPI may prove useful for assessing the burden of subclinical atherosclerosis and peripheral vascular disease.
Plasma membrane damage removal by F-actin-mediated shedding from repurposed filopodia

Repairing plasma membrane damage is vital to eukaryotic cell survival. Membrane shedding is thought to be key to this repair process, but a detailed view of how the process occurs is still missing. Here we used electron cryotomography to image the ultrastructural details of plasma membrane wound healing. We found that filopodia-like protrusions are built at damage sites, accompanied by retraction of neighboring filopodia, and that these repurposed protrusions act as scaffolds for membrane shedding. This suggests a new role for filopodia as reservoirs of membrane and actin for plasma membrane damage repair. Damage-induced shedding was dependent on F-actin dynamics and Myo1a, as well as Vps4B, an important component of the ESCRT machinery. Thus we find that damage shedding is more complex than current models of simple vesiculation from flat membrane domains. Rather, we observe structural similarities between damage-mediated shedding and constitutive shedding from enterocytes that argue for conservation of a general membrane shedding mechanism.
Quality of life among Elderly Living at Nursing Home in Shahroud city

Introduction and purpose: Improved quality of life is considered as the ultimate goal in the care provided for elderly residing in nursing homes. However, there is a tendency to believe that nature of living in the nursing homes is accompanied with lower quality of life. This study aimed to assess quality of life among elderlies living at nursing home in Shahroud city. Materials and Methods: This cross-sectional study employed census-sampling method to include 53 elderlies living in Shahroud nursing homes. Data were collected using Short Form Quality of Life (SF-36) questionnaire and analyzed by SPSS 18 via independent t-test, ANOVA and Kruskal-Wallis. Findings:The mean score of total QOL was 53.76 (SD=32.10). The highest and lowest quality of life belonged to "social performance" (69.80±45.23) and "Emotional role playing" (32.29±28.13), respectively. In addition, quality of life was significantly (p less-than 0.05) associated with age, gender, educational level and length of stay in nursing homes. Conclusion: Quality of life among nursing homes residents was low in emotional role-playing, physical performance and general health subscales. Accordingly, designing and implementing appropriate educational and supportive interventions to promote elderlys QOL are of great importance.
Non-CPAs and Office Audit Quality

During the time surrounding the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, the Big 4 firms either spun-off or downsized their consulting practices. However, in recent years, consulting service lines of the large accounting firms have seen a dramatic resurgence and growth. Regulators have taken notice of, and expressed concern over, this renewed focus on consulting. The accounting firms claim that such services enhance audit quality, mainly due to the prominent role of non-accounting specialists in today's external audit function. This study examines whether the availability of non-CPAs in U.S. Big 4 firm offices is associated with audit quality. We find that greater access to non-CPAs in the office is associated with higher audit quality and conclude that office audit quality is not just a function of audit-specific human resources but also the availability of non-CPAs to support audit engagement teams. JEL Classifications: M41; M42. Data Availability: All data are publicly available from sources identified in the study.
Translational Motion Compensation for ISAR Images Through a Multicriteria Decision Using Surrogate-Based Optimization

Inverse synthetic aperture radar (ISAR) image is constructed using 2-D spatial distributions of the radar cross section of a target. ISAR data gathered from moving targets might include interphase error that causes a blurry effect in the ISAR image. In this article, an efficient motion compensation (MC) scheme depending on multicriteria decision using surrogate-based optimization (SbO) for minimizing the entropy and maximizing the sharpness of the images is proposed to remove the blur from the images. In order to provide a multicriteria decision, Pareto optimality is exploited to balance two criteria of the entropy and sharpness synchronously. A signal with an interphase error is input to the MC system for determining the global optimal motion parameters of the velocity and acceleration so as to focus on the ISAR image. The proposed scheme is implemented to four simulated ISAR scenarios reported elsewhere through two aircraft models for performance demonstration and comparison with artificial bee colony (ABC), differential evolution (DE), and particle swarm optimization (PSO) implemented in the literature. It is pointed out that the proposed scheme is more successful and efficient in view of the image focusing quality as well as the numerical results such as the motion parameters, the entropy and sharpness, and structural similarity (SSIM) index. The results also show that the SbO outperforms the other methods as the velocity and acceleration increase.
Gender Differences in Academic Resilience Among International Students

The study was conducted on 500 International students studying in five universities of Punjab and Chandigarh. As per the nature of the study, descriptive survey method was applied. The study mainly focused on finding the gender differences among international students regardingacademic resilience. The data was further divided on the basis of nationality as well. The results of the study indicated that international students differ significantly regarding academic resilience. Academic resilience was found more in female students as compared to male international students.