Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Corporate Take - Overs in Malaysia: Market - Based Assessments

This study seeks to assess the take-over performance of the Malaysian public listed companies, using the market-based event study method. It also aims to examine managerial motives for take-overs, take-over transaction characteristics and ownership characteristics to infer any possible sources of value creation or possible agency conflicts that could have a profound impact upon announcements of the combined firms. It was found the cumulative average abnormal returns (CAR) were significantly positive around the announcement dates of a take-over. The results show that agency related issues, namely ownership concentration and related party transaction, had greater explanatory power for take-over performance than the managerial motives for efficiency and transaction characteristics. The negative impact of concentrated ownership and related party transaction implies that the market perceived that large shareholders of the acquiring firm might entrench themselves by acquiring their own companies.
Sex Determination Using Nonmetric Characteristics of the Mandible in Koreans *

ABSTRACT: The mandible is the largest and hardest facial bone and retains its shape better than other bones in the forensic and physical anthropologic field. The mandible can be used to distinguish among ethnic groups and between sexes. We examined the morphological characteristics of the mandibles of 102 Koreans of either sex. Of 13 nonmetric items of the mandible, the characteristic that best allowed the sexes to be distinguished was the contour of the lower border of the mandible: rocker‐shaped mandibles predominated in males (68.1%), whereas most females (84.6%) exhibited a straight mandible. In addition, the mental region was shaped differently between the sexes: the shape of the chin in most males was generally bilobate or square (91.7%), whereas the chin in females was either square (45.5%) or pointed (54.5%). In this study, the positive predict values of male and female were 92.5% and 73.7%, respectively. Therefore, the nonmetric method used to analyze the mandible in this study can be used for sex discrimination.
Recognition of on-line handwritten chemical expressions

In this paper, we study the major modules of on-line handwritten chemical expressions recognition. We propose a novel algorithm that combines two separate methods to segment expressions, one of which is based on structural information and the other on partial recognition. The algorithm improves the traditional algorithm at the stage of recognition, which consists of a substance recognizer and a character recognizer. To meet the demand of actual applications, the paper also designs a standard feature set to deal with the related issues and presents a flexible process of human-computer interaction to help users modify the recognition result. The experimental results show that the presented algorithm is reliable.
RRA-based multi-objective optimization to mitigate the worst cases of placement

As VLSI/PCB design keeps going through higher complexity, it is increasingly important to mitigate the worst cases of placement in physical design in order to get an acceptable solution within shorter runtime. This paper mainly focuses on the worst-case mitigation for multi-objective placement by using relay-race algorithm (RRA). Several intuitive advantages of RRA are discussed by comparing with simulated annealing (SA) and genetic algorithm (GA). MCNC and ami49_X benchmarks are used to test the effectiveness of RRA for placement with multiple objectives. Based on the experimental data comparing with SA, RRA obtains near 24% worst-case improvement for interconnect power consumption on average without any degradation of maximal delay. With respect to area minimization, RRA gets worst-case improvement for all tested benchmarks with near 50% runtime of SA (2X speedup).
Public service space remodeling based on service design and behavioral maps

The main purpose of this study is to remodel and improve public services by analyzing behavioral maps in relation to service design elements in public spaces. Modeling human spatial behavior in public spaces is of great interest to public service providers for creating the maximal benefit for the users. Adequate observations reveal significant information about the users’ preferences, an essential consideration for public service designers. This study used behavioral maps and designed elements of public service spaces to document five human factors: physical, cognitive, social, cultural, and emotional reactions/adaptations. Prototype designs of the smart bench and the green trellis were placed in the case study area to assess user reactions. The results of this study show that the methodology proposed here can be used to investigate and develop a deeper understanding of the users’ emotions, experiences, and preferences so as to enhance the design of public spaces and services.
Effect of Sub Maximal Dynamic and Static Exercises on QTc interval in Healthy Young Men.

INTRODUCTION The QTc interval depends largely on cardiac repolarization since the duration of cardiac depolarization is fairly constant in the normal heart. QTc at rest as well as during exercise has many clinical implications. In this study, we have compared the relative effects of dynamic and static exercise on QTc. AIM To measure QTc interval in young men at rest and also assess how it is further modulated by submaximal dynamic and static exercises. MATERIALS AND METHODS This observational study was conducted in the Department of Physiology on 30 non-obese young men randomly selected from the students of our institute after obtaining the consent and institutional ethical clearance. Continuous blood pressure monitoring and ECG recording was done in the subjects. Baseline (pre-exercise), post submaximal dynamic (Harvard's step test) and post submaximal static exercise (hand-grip exercise) recordings of ABP and ECG were taken for analysis. The measured QT interval was corrected for heart rate using the formula of Bazett et al., {QTc=QT/RR(1/2)}. Statistical analysis was done using Graph pad Prism 5 software (California, USA). The baseline and post-exercise data were compared using paired t-test. A p<0.05 was taken to be statistical significant. RESULTS There were statistically significant increases in HR, SBP, DBP and QTc interval after dynamic exercise in comparison to the baseline values (p<0.05). Significant increase in HR (p<0.05) with no significant change in QTc and other cardiovascular parameters were recorded following static exercise (p>0.05). CONCLUSION Significant increase in QTc interval was observed after dynamic exercise, however, no change in QTc was observed following static exercise, and hence we conclude that static exercises may not be useful in assessing the cardiovascular status of an individual or in predicting cardiovascular events.
Impact of Sales Promotion on the Consumer Loyalty in the Telecommunication Industry in Pakistan

In today's dynamic and competitive environment, every business depends on the acceptance of the customers. Customers have numerous choices to make the final decision and they are heavily influencing the companies in regard to the product price, quality and sizes. Among the different marketing communication tools, companies are giving attention to the sales promotion to attract the customers. Therefore, the aim of this research paper is to determine the impact of sales promotion on the consumer loyalty in the telecommunication industry of Pakistan. Survey method was used to collect the data from the mobile phone users. A sample of 157 was studied by applying the descriptive and inferential statistics techniques with the use of SPSS software. The results highlighted the fact that there exist a positive relationship between the sales promotion and consumer loyalty. It also adds that the non loyal customers exhibit more switching behavior than loyal customers.
Application of UPFC to improve the LVRT capability of wind turbine generator

Variable speed wind turbine generators installation has been significantly increased worldwide in the last few years. Voltage sag at the grid side may call for the disconnection of the wind turbine from the grid as under such faults it may not comply with the recent developed grid codes for wind energy conversion systems (WECS). In this paper, a Unified Power Flow Controller (UPFC) is applied to improve the low voltage ride through (LVRT) capability of doubly fed induction generator (DFIG)-based WECS during voltage sag at the grid side. Simulation is carried out using MATLAB/Simulink software. Results show that UPFC can significantly improve the LVRT capability of DFIG-based WECS and hence maintaining wind turbine connection to the grid during certain levels of voltage sag at the grid side.
Multiple CArG boxes in the human cardiac actin gene promoter required for expression in embryonic cardiac muscle cells developing in vitro from embryonal carcinoma cells

Chimeric genes composed of the human cardiac actin promoter driving the Escherichia coli lacZ reporter gene were constructed, transfected, and stably integrated into genomes of P19 embryonal carcinoma cells. The transfected constructs were expressed actively in cardiac myocytes formed following dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO)-induced cell differentiation but poorly in undifferentiated cultures and in cultures treated with retinoic acid to develop into derivatives of the neuroectoderm. A number of deletions of the promoter were constructed and tested. Three regions required for efficient expression in P19-derived cardiac muscle were identified, each containing sequences referred to as CArG boxes (CC[AT-rich]6GG). This analysis indicated that regulatory sequences important for expression in cardiac muscle were present upstream of the core promoter identified previously by transient assays in skeletal myoblasts. Expression of the cardiac actin promoter was enhanced 10-fold in undifferentiated P19 cells in the presence of the myoD protein. The promoter regions important for expression in P19-derived cardiocytes were similar to those important for myoD-induced enhancement, a result we interpret to be consistent with the idea that cardiac muscle might contain a myoD-like activity.
A Logit Analysis of Car Ownership in Hong Kong Based on Stated Intention Information

In this paper, disaggregate car ownership choice models are developedfor Hong Kong using the results of a survey with both revealed preference and stated preference questions. The car ownership choice (Iogit-type) models are calibrated to Investigate the effects of economic chonges andfiscal measures on the choice of car ownership. In the study, households are classified into non-car owning and car owning groups. These separoted groups arefurther sub-divided into those respondents who have no plans to bUy cars and those who plan to bUy cars. The revealed preference survey results were mainly used to collect the relevant data Of the respondents. The stated preference results revealed that monthly household Income, car purchose cost, annuai licence fee, monthly home-end parking and monthly car usage costs are the keyfactors Of pertaining to car ownership in Hong Kong.
A revision of the genus Geomydoecus (Mallophaga: Trichodectidae) of the new world pocket gophers (Rodentia: Geomyidae).

A study of over 3800 adult specimens of Geomydoecus, representing material from over 3/4 of the recognized species pocket gophers, has resulted in the redescription of the 11 previously-described Geomydoecus species as well as the description of 31 new species and 3 new subspecies. Keys are provided for the identification of these forms.
Can Business Owners Form Accurate Counterfactuals? Eliciting Treatment and Control Beliefs About Their Outcomes in the Alternative Treatment Status

A survey of participants in a large-scale business plan competition experiment, in which winners received an average of U.S. $50,000 each, is used to elicit ex-post beliefs about what the outcomes would have been in the alternative treatment status. Participants are asked the percent chance they would be operating a firm, and the number of employees and monthly sales they would have, had their treatment status been reversed. The study finds the control group to have reasonably accurate expectations of the large treatment effect they would experience on the likelihood of operating a firm, although this may reflect the treatment effect being close to an upper bound. The control group dramatically overestimates how much winning would help them grow the size of their firm. The treatment group overestimates how much winning helps their chance of their business surviving and also overestimates how much winning helps them grow their firms. In addition, these counterfactual expectations appear unable to generate accurate relative rankings of which groups of participants benefit most from treatment.
Supervised Attention for Sequence-to-Sequence Constituency Parsing

The sequence-to-sequence (Seq2Seq) model has been successfully applied to machine translation (MT). Recently, MT performances were improved by incorporating supervised attention into the model. In this paper, we introduce supervised attention to constituency parsing that can be regarded as another translation task. Evaluation results on the PTB corpus showed that the bracketing F-measure was improved by supervised attention.
Studies of variola virus and immunity in smallpox. 3. Measurement of antibodies to high-molecular-weight soluble antigens of variola virus using the bis-diazotized benzidine passive hemagglutination technique.

geneous mixture of soluble antigens specific for viruses are synthesized in cellular systems infected with pox viruses. These antigens have been separated on the basis of molecular size [6, 7], and evidence has been presented that the fraction with high molecular weight is comprised of antigens that have the capacity to combine with and elicit the formation of virus-neutralizing antibody [8, 9]. The assumption was made that if these highmolecular-weight soluble antigens of variola virus could be adsorbed onto the surface of erythrocytes treated with bis-diazotized benzidine, the agglutination of such erythrocytes by variola-immune serum might be employed as an in-vitro measurement of protective antibody and thereby serve as an index of immunity to smallpox.
Achieving Efficient Work-Stealing for Data-Parallel Collections

In modern programming high-level data-structures are an important foundation for most applications. With the rise of the multi-core era, there is a growing trend of supporting data-parallel collection operations in general purpose programming languages and platforms. To facilitate object-oriented reuse these operations are highly parametric, incurring abstraction performance penalties. Furthermore, data-parallel operations must scale when used in problems with irregular workloads. Work-stealing is a proven load-balancing technique when it comes to irregular workloads, but general purpose work-stealing also suffers from abstraction penalties. In this paper we present a generic design of a data-parallel collections framework based on work-stealing for shared-memory architectures. We show how abstraction penalties can be overcome through callsite specialization of data-parallel operations instances. Moreover, we show how to make work-stealing fine-grained and efficient when specialized for particular data-structures. We experimentally validate the performance of different data-structures and data-parallel operations, achieving up to 60X better performance with abstraction penalties eliminated and 3X higher speedups by specializing work-stealing compared to existing approaches.
The Antecedents and Consequences of Effective Brand Positioning

This study investigates which variables most effectively influence the positioning strategy of a brand. In addition, we test the connection between the positioning strategy of the brand and loyalty. Finally, we explore how brand experience effects the relationship between brand position and brand loyalty. To this end, this study employs the street-intercept method to collect data on consumers’ perception of home appliances in Japan and conducts structural equation modeling analysis to test our hypotheses. Specifically, we find that assessments of product, service, and image have a significant impact on a brand’s position which, in turn, drives brand loyalty. In addition, brand experience seems to moderate the relationship between service and brand positioning effectiveness. We also find that price promotions negatively affect brand loyalty. The research provides a consumer-centered, experiential view of how firms can develop strategies to more effectively position brands and increase loyalty among their customers. These results help both academics and practitioners to better understand how consumers assess a brand’s position in the marketplace.
Two-dimensional online efficiency optimization technique for dual active bridge converters

This paper proposes an online efficiency optimization technique for Dual Active Bridge (DAB) Converters. Simultaneous output voltage regulation and efficiency optimization are achieved through an advanced modulation scheme by exploiting the degrees of freedom offered by the DAB topology and with no requirements of preliminary calibration or converter characterization. A digital closed-loop controller implements voltage regulation and a two-dimensional optimization algorithm which continuously tracks the converter optimal efficiency point. The optimization loop relies on the simplex algorithm, which can be implemented in a hardware-efficient manner and without involving gradient calculations. Experimental results on a digitally controlled 196 kHz, 12 V-to-5 V, 10 W DAB prototype are reported confirming the effectiveness of the technique.
Event-based microscopic analysis of the FX market

The foreign exchange (FX) market is the largest and most liquid nancial market in the world. Like the centre of a spider web, the foreign exchange market connects to all other nancial markets around the world. It is a global network that allows its participants to trade 24 hours 5 days a week from di erent geographical locations. Given this unique nature of the FX market, millions of daily tick data, referred to as high frequency data (HFD), are generated as a result of market participants' decisions and interactions. To understand market dynamics, our approach is to explore the microscopic world of the FX market by analysing in depth the millions of daily tick-by-tick prices and the micro-behaviour of FX participants, which in turn formulate a collective market macro-behaviour. This thesis conducts its analysis using an event-based approach. Events are actions taken by traders in the market. We carry out three studies with the aim to get an insight into how these events drive the FX market. With these studies, we aim to make general inferences about market behaviour. The rst two studies are empirical research based on analysing a unique high frequency real transaction data set of FX traders, whereas the third study formalises the market micro-dynamics. To prepare for our empirical studies, we have produced, to the best of our knowledge, the biggest set of HFD ever, which comprises tick transactions carried out by over 45,000 FX traders on an account level for over 2 years. In addition to cleaning the data set from any erroneous observations and validating the quality of the data, we provide strong indicators that the data set is representative of the of the global FX market. This con rms the reliability and validity of this research results. This data set is invaluable to future researchers. The rst empirical study tracks and analyses the FX market seasonal activity from a microscopic perspective, using the tick transactions of the HFD produced. We provide empirical evidence that the unique signature of the FX market seasonality is indeed due to the di erent time zones market participants operate from. However, once normalised using our custom-designed procedure, we observe a pattern akin to equity markets. Thus, we have revealed an important FX market property that has not been reported before. The second empirical study conducts a microscopic analysis of FX market activity of the produced data set along price movements. Given the high frequency
Supply Chain Resources: Advancing Theoretical Foundations and Constructs

type="main" xml:id="jscm12054-abs-0001"> Researchers have increasingly drawn on theories of resources to explain a variety of firm and supply chain outcomes. The concept of resources has become so important that it is now foundational to a large and growing body of supply chain research. In this introduction to the Special Topic Forum on Resources and Supply Chain Management, we provide some background on the concept of resources and recent theoretical advancements on why resources are important in the context of supply chains. We also offer some ways to advance theory related to resources in the supply chain management research. A key implication is that future supply chain management research must examine more granular issues regarding the management and allocation of supply chain resources.
Service Climate, Employee Identification, and Customer Outcomes in Hotel Property Rebrandings

ABSTRACT Rebrandings have become commonplace on the hotel landscape. Research has not directly examined rebrandings from the employee's perspective, nor has previous research considered the impacts of rebranding on service quality and customer outcomes. In this paper we discuss the role of service climate and employee identification in hospitality organizations and propose a conceptual model that links service climate and employee identification with customer service and related outcomes such as word of mouth communication behaviours. As part of a larger project, 228 employees in three hotels in Australia completed a self-report survey. At the time of the survey, the hotels were undergoing rebranding processes. Hierarchical multiple regression analysis investigated the relationships between the variables of interest. Preliminary findings demonstrate the significant role of customer-contact aspects of service climate and the role of employee identification with their department in predicting employee perceptions of customer outcomes. Future research is proposed.
The attitudinal response to alternative brand growth strategies

Purpose – Brand managers must decide between extension and alliance strategies to grow their brands. This paper aims to describe testing of consumers' responses to two alternative brand growth strategies: an extension strategy whereby a brand moves into a new category alone, and an alliance strategy whereby the same brand moves into the new category as a branded ingredient in a brand already established in that category. How far to stretch a brand is yet another strategic choice facing the brand manager, and the current research tests, under short and long category‐stretch conditions, the attitudinal responses to extension and alliance strategies.Design/methodology/approach – The paper builds on the categorisation and incongruence literature. An experiment was employed to test the main hypotheses in the study.Findings – Extensions outperform alliances, especially when the brand undertakes a long stretch, and short‐stretch strategies outperform long‐stretch strategies.Practical implications – An extension .