Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
New integrated approach to the problem of ranking and supplier selection under uncertainties

The problem of ranking and supplier selection in the uncertain environment is part of a purchasing plan and its relationship has a critical effect on the competitive advantage (high-quality products at lower cost with higher customer satisfaction) of each industrial organization. The considered problem can be stated as a multicriteria decision problem which includes both quantitative and qualitative criteria. The criteria present supplier performances which are defined by the purchasing Management Team depending on the size of industrial organizations and on production type. In this paper, the Management Team, using European Union (EU) recommendations, made a choice of criteria for supplier evaluation. The fuzzy rating weights of each pair of the considered criteria and uncertain criteria values are described by linguistic expressions which are modelled by triangular fuzzy numbers. The fuzzy extent approach for the synthetic extent values of the pairwise comparison for handling fuzzy analytic hierarchical process (AHP) is used to calculate the weight vector. The extension of the fuzzy technique for order preference by similarity to ideal solution (TOPSIS) is applied to rank the suppliers. The proposed model is illustrated by an example. It is shown that the developed model is highly suitable as a decision-making tool for reaching decisions about supplier selection.
Translational Triggering and Feedback Fixation in the Control of Fungal Development.

morphogenesis. This review focuses on two regulatory genes, bristle (brlA) and abacus (abaA), whose activities are essential for conidiophore development. These genes encode transcriptional regulators that activate expression of developmentally important structural genes and are themselves developmentally regulated. Recent data support the hypothesis that brlA expression is initially activated by a translational control mechanism and in turn activates abaA. abaA next activates additional structural genes, brlA, and downstream regulatory genes. Moreover, abaA is subject to positive autoregulation and may be capable of retaining itself in the active state. Thus, it is likely that an initial developmental trigger working at the leve1 of translation activates a set of feedback loops that fix the core developmental pathway in the active state. This is likely to represent the molecular basis for developmental determination in this system.
Prasugrel inhibits platelet-leukocyte interaction and reduces inflammatory markers in a model of endotoxic shock in the mouse

Summary Prasugrel, through its active metabolite, reduces atherothrombosis and its clinical manifestations by inhibiting platelet activation and aggregation. Platelets also contribute to inflammation through interaction with different classes of leukocytes. We investigated whether the inhibitory effect of prasugrel on platelets also counteract inflammatory responses. The effect of prasugrel active metabolite, R-138727, was investigated on platelet P-selectin expression, platelet adhesion to polymorphonuclear leukocytes (PMN) and monocytes (MN) and Mac-1 expression in PMN and MN, in vitro, in human cells. The ex vivo effect of prasugrel administration on P-selectin, thromboxane (TXB)2 formation, platelet-PMN conjugates and Mac-1 expression in PMN triggered by PAR-4 agonist peptide was examined in whole blood from healthy mice as well as from mice in which an acute inflammatory reaction was induced by treatment with endotoxin. The effect of prasugrel on inflammatory markers in endotoxin-treated animals was also tested in vivo. R-138727 inhibited agonist-stimulated expression of platelet P-selectin, platelet-PMN and platelet-MN adhesion and platelet-dependent Mac-1 expression in leukocytes. Addition of aspirin did not modify the inhibitory effect elicited by R-138727. Treatment of mice with prasugrel resulted in a profound inhibition of platelet P-selectin expression, TXB2 production, platelet-PMN adhesion and Mac-1 expression in PMN induced by ex vivo stimulation with PAR-4 agonist peptide of whole blood from healthy or endotoxin-treated mice. Measurement of markers revealed that prasugrel reduced TXB2 and tumour necrosis factor-α synthesis and increased nitric oxide metabolites in endotoxin-treated mice in vivo. In conclusion, prasugrel reduces platelet interactions with PMN and MN. Through these effects prasugrel may curb platelet-mediated inflammatory responses.
Determinationof Tissue PlasminogenActivatorand Its “ Fast ” Inhibitorin Plasma

We describeefficient,accuratemethodsfor specificdeterminationof tissue plasminogenactivator(t-PA, EC 3.4.21.31) and its “fast” inhibitorin plasma. In this coupled assay, a sample containing t-PA is incubated with plasminogen, a plasmin (EC 3.4.21.7) substrateof low i#{231} and high i#{231}, and fibrinas a stimulator.The inhibitorof t-PA is determinedby incubatingthe sample with a known amount of t-PA in excess, then determiningthe residualt-PA. Both t-PA and tPA inhibitorcan be determined in many samples simultaneouslywithina few hours.These assays are modifications of procedures described by us (Clin Chim Acta 1983;1 27:279-88 and Thromb Res 1983;31:427-36). Their accuracy as assessed by analytical recoveryof pure t-PA added to blood samples (91 ± 4%) or of partly purified inhibitoradded to plasma samples (102 ± 10%) is satisfactory, as is their precision.For the t-PA assay the CV was 1.6% (withinrun)or 4.1% (between run). The corresponding valuesfor the inhibitorassay were 4.5% (withinrun)or 8.4% (between run) if the inhibitorconcentrationexceeded 3 arb. units/mL.
Induction of endogenous insulin-like growth factor-I secretion alters the hypothalamic-pituitary-testicular function in growth hormone-deficient adult dwarf mice.

To evaluate the influence of growth hormone (GH) on hypothalamic-pituitary-testicular function, GH-deficient adult male Ames dwarf mice were treated (s.c.) twice daily for 8 days with either vehicle or bovine GH (25 micrograms/injection/mouse). Normal male siblings treated with vehicle served as controls. Two in vivo experiments were conducted. In experiment 1, on Day 8, mice were treated (i.p.) with either saline or LHRH (1 ng/g b.w.) in saline. Fifteen minutes later, blood was obtained via heart puncture to assess plasma insulin-like growth factor-I (IGF-I), LH, and testosterone (T) levels by RIAs. In experiment 2, on Day 7, mice were bilaterally castrated and received injections of either oil or T propionate (1 microgram/g b.w.) in oil. Eighteen to twenty hours later, blood was obtained as in experiment 1, and plasma IGF-I and LH levels were determined. In addition to these in vivo experiments, testicular androstenedione and T responses to hCG stimulation in vitro were evaluated. Administration of GH to dwarf mice increased (p < 0.001) plasma IGF-I levels, whereas IGF-I was not detectable in control dwarf mice. Plasma IGF-I concentrations were higher in normal mice than in treated dwarf mice. Basal LH levels were lower (p < 0.025) in dwarf mice than those in normal mice. In dwarf mice, GH treatment increased (p < 0.001) plasma LH levels. The effect of LHRH on LH secretion was increased (p < 0.001) in dwarf mice pretreated with GH, but this LH response was lower than in normal siblings that received vehicle only. (ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)
Performance Analysis of Multi-Hop Underwater Wireless Optical Communication Systems

In this letter, we analytically evaluate the end-to-end bit error rate (BER) of point-to-point multi-hop underwater wireless optical communication (UWOC) systems with respect to all degrading effects of the UWOC channel, namely absorption, scattering, and turbulence-induced fading. To do so, we first derive the BER expression of a single-hop UWOC link as the building block for end-to-end BER evaluation. We also apply Gauss–Hermite quadrature formula to obtain the closed-form solution for the system BER in the case of lognormal underwater fading channel. Numerical results demonstrate that multi-hop transmission, by alleviating channel impairments, can significantly improve the system performance and extend the viable end-to-end communication distance.
Rainfall regimes of the Green Sahara

We estimate rainfall during the “Green Sahara” period. During the “Green Sahara” period (11,000 to 5000 years before the present), the Sahara desert received high amounts of rainfall, supporting diverse vegetation, permanent lakes, and human populations. Our knowledge of rainfall rates and the spatiotemporal extent of wet conditions has suffered from a lack of continuous sedimentary records. We present a quantitative reconstruction of western Saharan precipitation derived from leaf wax isotopes in marine sediments. Our data indicate that the Green Sahara extended to 31°N and likely ended abruptly. We find evidence for a prolonged “pause” in Green Sahara conditions 8000 years ago, coincident with a temporary abandonment of occupational sites by Neolithic humans. The rainfall rates inferred from our data are best explained by strong vegetation and dust feedbacks; without these mechanisms, climate models systematically fail to reproduce the Green Sahara. This study suggests that accurate simulations of future climate change in the Sahara and Sahel will require improvements in our ability to simulate vegetation and dust feedbacks.
Developing a Model of Citizens' Perception of e-Government System Performance and Their Attained Benefit

Governments world wide have been, increasingly, implementing e-government initiatives for their potential significant benefits; among which is delivering better services to citizens through increasing citizens’ convenience, satisfaction, and independency; and saving their time, effort, and cost. Achieving each benefit is an objective to these governments; and fulfilling each objective is considered a critical success factor. Hence, governments need to assess whether they were able to obtain their preset goals, and to which degree they were able to do so. This study merely focuses on the citizens’ perspective of the evaluation. However, the relevant literature seem to lack adequate studies that propose such evaluation tool that is sufficient and has been reliably validated. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to fill this gap by proposing a conceptual model which measures the e-government performance from citizens’ perspective and their psychological and tangible benefits. While developing the model we also consider the attributes which impact citizens’ perceptions and obtained values which, in turn, influence their adoption.
Peer-Reviewed Technical Communication Long-Range Detection and Location of Shallow Underwater Explosions Using Deep-Sound-Channel Hydrophones

Underwater explosions with energy yields equivalent to less than 40 kg of TNT are detected at hydrophones in the deep-sound channel at distances up to 16000 km. The arrival times and azimuths of the signals are compared with values based on known explosion locations and times. Arrival-time mismatches are of the order of 10 s. Azimuth mismatches are less than half a degree. Signal arrival times and azimuths are input to a seismo- logical global association algorithm and the resulting estimates of explosion times and locations are compared with actual values. Estimated locations are shown to lie within tens of kilometers of the actual explosions and estimated explosion times to be correct to within tens of seconds. All location estimates have spatial error ellipses that contain the location of the relevant explosion.
Rural transformation and land use change in northern Thailand

Northern Thailand is undergoing rapid changes in rural areas where new opportunities linked to national and international market demand have arisen for farmers, both on-farm through cash crop demands and off-farm through industrialisation. Using socio-economic data and multilevel regression, we show how modernisation of farming systems and commercialisation of crop production reach villages to various degrees. Most changes in the rural sector are directed towards cash cropping and accentuate socio-economic disparities between households. Most land use changes are linked to social networks but different changes imply different degrees of involvement in agriculture. An analysis of land cover changes identifies the landscape determinants of the location of land use changes.
Decomposition of the Sales Impact of Promotion-Induced Stockpiling

Promotion-induced consumer stockpiling has a negative impact on manufacturers because it moves forward in time brand sales that would have occurred later at full margin. However, the resultant increase in consumer inventory has two potential benefits: increased category consumption and preemptive brand switches (the additional inventory of the promoted brand preempts the consumer's purchase of a competing brand in the future). Furthermore, there is a potential impact on repeat purchases of the stockpiled brand after the promotion. In this article, the authors present a model and simulation-based method to measure the benefits and costs of stockpiling and assess their relative magnitudes. They find that the benefits are substantial, but consumption appears to be the most important, followed by preemptive switching and then an increase in repeat purchases. These benefits easily offset the negative aspect of consumer stockpiling—namely, purchase acceleration by loyal customers who would have bought the brand at regular price at a later date.
A model of financial securities salespersons’ job stress

According to a recent study, one of the ten most stressful occupations in the USA is that of a financial services salesperson. Severe job stress has been linked to decreased satisfaction, commitment and productivity, and increased absenteeism, burnout and turnover. Aims to test a model of job stress in the financial services profession, focussing on two central sources of stress: individual characteristics and organizational factors. Based on a sample of 288 stockbrokers in nine mid‐south metropolitan areas, finds that the major determinant of job stress is role overload. Recommends that managers impart better time management skills to salespeople, and hire highly competent sales assistants to handle much of the routine work. In order to reduce role conflict and role ambiguity, suggests that sales managers grant salespeople a high degree of autonomy and provide a high level of constructive feedback.
Research on aggregative index number method in water quality assessment based on SVM

On the basis of analysis of water quality assessment methods, an aggregative index number model in water quality evaluation is put forward in this paper. There are totally six indexes selected as evaluation parameters in this model, including DO, potassium permanganate, BOD5, NH3-N, total quantity of phosphorus and total quantity of nitrogen. Besides, this model fully considers their differences existed in different categories of water quality and pollutant contents of the same category water quality. And this established model overcomes its drawbacks of inadequate for the single factor model in water quality assessment. Further, combined with its advantages of Support vector machine (SVM) in solving small sample with, nonlinear and high dimension problems, an aggregative index number method in water quality assessment based on SVM is established. The test results show that the method proposed in this paper has a very high correct ratio of evaluation, and has a good engineering application prospect.
Internal coupled-fed four-element multi-wideband diversity antenna for LTE mobile handsets

In this paper, a diversity antenna with four printed, folded, and shorted monopoles is presented. The each folded and shorted radiating elements are deposed at the four corners of printed circuit board and leaving the enough space for other mobile circuits. The proposed antenna covers LTE700/GSM850 (0.747 GHz - 0.895 GHz), GSM1800/1900/UMTS/IMT2100 (1.58 GHz - 2.2 GHz), Wi-Fi/Bluetooth/LTE2300 (2.37 GHz - 2.6 GHz), and LTE2500 (2.65 GHz - 2.7 GHz) frequency bands based on the -6dB reflection coefficient. The isolation between Ant. 1 and Ant. 2 is -4dB whereas other combinations (Ant.1 & Ant.3 and Ant.1. & Ant.4) provide isolation below -10dB. The better isolation is selected based on the adaptive selection of the best two elements out of four elements. Moreover, proposed four-element antenna array provides the pattern diversity for each combination of antenna elements which helps to mitigate the multipath fading effect. The S-parameters, radiation performances, and diversity performances are presented.
Multidecadal trends in aerosol radiative forcing over the Arctic: Contribution of changes in anthropogenic aerosol to Arctic warming since 1980

Arctic observations show large decreases in the concentrations of sulfate and black carbon (BC) aerosols since the early 1980s. These near‐term climate‐forcing pollutants perturb the radiative balance of the atmosphere and may have played an important role in recent Arctic warming. We use the GEOS‐Chem global chemical transport model to construct a 3‐D representation of Arctic aerosols that is generally consistent with observations and their trends from 1980 to 2010. Observations at Arctic surface sites show significant decreases in sulfate and BC mass concentrations of 2–3% per year. We find that anthropogenic aerosols yield a negative forcing over the Arctic, with an average 2005–2010 Arctic shortwave radiative forcing (RF) of −0.19 ± 0.05 W m−2 at the top of atmosphere (TOA). Anthropogenic sulfate in our study yields more strongly negative forcings over the Arctic troposphere in spring (−1.17 ± 0.10 W m−2) than previously reported. From 1980 to 2010, TOA negative RF by Arctic aerosol declined, from −0.67 ± 0.06 W m−2 to −0.19 ± 0.05 W m−2, yielding a net TOA RF of +0.48 ± 0.06 W m−2. The net positive RF is due almost entirely to decreases in anthropogenic sulfate loading over the Arctic. We estimate that 1980–2010 trends in aerosol‐radiation interactions over the Arctic and Northern Hemisphere midlatitudes have contributed a net warming at the Arctic surface of +0.27 ± 0.04 K, roughly one quarter of the observed warming. Our study does not consider BC emissions from gas flaring nor the regional climate response to aerosol‐cloud interactions or BC deposition on snow.
Design and implementation of a paralleled inverter system with failure isolation and hot-swap features

This paper presents design and implementation of a paralleled inverter system with failure isolation and hot-swap features. The system is controlled with a system control unit (SCU) to achieve output voltage regulation, inverter synchronization and the above-mentioned features. By incorporating a current weighting distribution control, the system allows inverters with different power ratings connected in parallel. The failure isolation feature is achieved with a scanning circuit associated with R-C circuits, which are also used in achieving the hot-swap one. To release a reset signal tentatively during start-up transient, another R-C circuit and transistors are introduced into each inverter module. This design can help achieve a hot-swap feature. Thus, system power capability can be expanded readily and inverter failure disturbance can be correspondingly reduced. Experimental results obtained from a two-inverter system with equal or different power ratings have demonstrated its feasibility. Additionally, the discussed failure isolation and hot-swap features have improved reliability and stability of the paralleled inverter system
Achieving effective academic/practitioner knowledge exchange in marketing

Marketing management research and teaching has been criticised for some time as being divorced from practice. However, there has been little research into the nature of knowledge exchange between academics and practitioners in the marketing field. In the exploratory research reported in this paper the authors conducted interviews with academics and practitioners. A number of different routes to knowledge exchange are identified and discussed. The effectiveness of the different routes is reviewed in relation to the circular process of turning learning into better practice and turning practice into better learning. Overall four broad factors (individual, institutional, content and relationship) are identified as being of prime importance in creating mutual value in knowledge exchange. A number of implications are then drawn out in order to aid academics, practitioners and policy makers in improving knowledge exchange in the marketing area.
Inhibition of superior colliculus neurons by a GABAergic input from the pretectal nuclear complex in the rat

The mammalian pretectal nuclear complex (PNC) is a visual and visuomotor control structure which is strongly connected to other subcortical visual structures. This indicates that the PNC also controls subcortical visual information flow during the execution of various oculomotor programs. A prominent, presumably GABAergic, projection from the PNC targets the superficial grey layer of the superior colliculus (SC), which itself is a central structure for visual information processing necessary for the generation of saccadic eye movements. In order to characterize the pretecto‐tectal projection in vitro, we performed whole‐cell patch‐clamp recordings from SC and PNC neurons in slices obtained from 3–6‐week‐old pigmented rats. Focal glutamate injections into the PNC and electrical PNC stimulation were used to induce postsynaptic responses in SC neurons. Electrical stimulation of the SC allowed electrophysiological identification of PNC neurons that provide the inhibitory pretecto‐tectal input. Only inhibitory postsynaptic currents could be elicited in SC neurons both by pharmacological and by electrical activation of the ipsilateral PNC. Concomitantly, a small number of PNC neurons could be antidromically activated from the ipsilateral SC. Most SC cells postsynaptic to the prectectal input showed the dendritic morphology of wide‐field and narrow‐field cells and are therefore regarded as projection neurons. All inhibitory currents evoked by PNC activation could be completely blocked by bath application of the selective GABAA receptor antagonist bicuculline. Together these results indicate that SC projection neurons receive a direct inhibitory input from the ipsilateral PNC and that this input is mediated by GABAA receptors.
Redefining industry structure for the information age

We are entering a new competitive age in which the basis of competition is being fundamentally altered through the introduction of advanced information technologies and public communication infrastructures, such as the Internet. In these environments, the nature and locus of competition will radically alter, as information becomes an increasingly important resource. This paper develops ideas around the strategic characteristics of information—information separability and information specificity. Moreover, it attempts to redefine the nature of industry structure in such a competitive environment by examining what constitutes the real boundaries of competition, industry concentration, related diversification, and innovation for firms competing in the Information Age. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.