Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Bank Failure: A New Approach to Prediction and Supervision

Bank failures are costly to customers and the wider market. Prevention is always better than cure but in light of recent economic downturns, it has become increasingly difficult for regulators to allocate more resources towards in-depth monitoring of banking practices. In this paper, we construct a tool that is able to predict bank failures ahead of time with reasonable accuracy. Through a logistic regression on a matched sample of 536 failed and non-failed US banks, we determine the financial indicators that most accurately predicts bank failure. From the regression, we construct a Bank Health Index that assesses a bank’s propensity to failure. In-sample and out-of-sample tests show that our model is about 90% accurate two years prior to failure, and 95% accurate the year before failure. The accuracy and efficiency of the model and index provides a more efficient and effective tool for assessing a bank’s propensity to failure besides requiring far less resources. With these methods, regulators will be able to take preventive measures at least one year before failure, saving the economy millions if not billions in the process.
Digital tools for physically impaired visual artists

We present work-in-progress that is exploring the potential for visual artists with physical impairments to use new non-intrusive mid-air gesturing sensors to enhance and extend their practice. We highlight the key results from an initial informal user evaluation with two disabled and two non-disabled visual artists examining use of the Leap Motion sensor as an artistic tool. Future work will explore how related technologies can be better utilized to support disabled artists in their practice.
Data Driven Customer Experience and the Roadmap to Deliver Happiness

Happiness is a choice, in which individuals have the ability to create lasting and genuine happiness for themselves. They make choices and take actions to be happy, choosing what to wear, what to eat, whom to love, and where to work. It is very subjective to delimit whether our choices are good while others are not but all based on individual profound desire to be happy. In some related work, researchers have found a strong correlation between customer satisfaction, happiness, and organization performance. Many organizations have spent money and effort in innovating and implementing initiatives, which were focusing on increasing customers’ satisfaction; however, customers are not happier today compared to what they were before. Therefore, the need for studying on mechanism of achieving customer happiness is crucial to ensure effectiveness and efficiency of customer service initiatives. In fact, it is important to identify factors that can elevate customer happiness and shift customers from comfort to happiness zone. This will motivate organizations to design products and services that can meet customer needs and exceed customer expectation in every touch point. In UAE, customers come from 202 countries with diverse cultures, religions, habits and ethnicity, which force government, semi-government and private sector to deliver services that not only meet but also exceed customer expectations. Accordingly, the paper will take you through the journey of UAE government for exceeding customer expectations starting from understanding drivers of happiness using a research framework that segment customers in different zones (Trust vs. Control &amp; Stand out vs. Fit in) until quantifying drivers to measure service happiness score.
Lean production in SMEs: literature review and reflection on future challenges

ABSTRACT It is an opportune moment to an extended literature review of lean implementation in SMEs given the recent serious research attention. Therefore, this paper presents an extensive review of more than 100 published papers on lean in SMEs. A classification scheme is then suggested. Accordingly, the reviewed papers were classified first according to their research content to six categories: Literature survey, Impact on performance, Critical Success factors, Implementation Framework, Status of implementation, Measurement. Afterwards, research methodologies employed in previous studies were categorized into conceptual, descriptive, comparative, empirical, exploratory cross‐sectional and exploratory longitudinal approaches. Consequently, various emerging issues in this topic were identified, namely, status of lean implementation in SMEs in developing countries, integration of lean in SMEs with green manufacturing, critical success factors of lean implementation in SMEs, suitability of lean tools for SMEs, framework of implementation of lean in SMEs and measurement system of lean change in SMEs.
THE AFRICAN VIEW ON GENDER AND ITS IMPACT ON IMPLEMENTED GENDER POLICIES AND

Whereas African gender policies and programmes have been crafted and implemented to eradicate gender gaps, this paper situates debate on their failure to attain their goal. The paper amply demonstrates that the African worldview continues to be relevant to the success of the implemented gender policies and programs in Africa and concludes that, unless thorough research into the African lifeworld is contacted before crafting and implementation of the gender policies and programs to understand the African psyche, and establish a gender communicative interchange between the African and the Western views on gender, ills of ineffectiveness will continue to be witnessed regardless of how grand the gender projects of the West may be. The paper finds this critical for the sustainability of development efforts in Africa. Insights informing the paper were gleaned from various texts, researches done on African gender policies and programs and the world wide website. The paper recommends a research- informed crafting and implementation of African gender policies and programs.
The HRM-performance link: a longitudinal, business-unit investigation

Using longitudinal data from over 10,000 employees and 123 business units, this paper investigates the relative correlation of 16 human resource (HR) practices with employee engagement and organisational performance. The research addresses limitations levelled at previous research (such as being cross-sectional, using single raters, and analysing at the organisational level) by analysing longitudinal data from multiple raters and analysing at the business-unit level. All HR practices showed positive correlations with engagement and performance, with the strongest correlations for ethics, leadership, involvement, safety and cross-unit cooperation, and weakest correlations for worklife balance, in-group teamwork and supervision. These results may help researchers and practitioners channel limited resources into improving practices that have the strongest impact on organisational outcomes.
Analysis of Omega 3 Fatty Acid in Natural and Enriched Chicken Eggs by Capillary Zone Electrophoresis

Qualitative differentiation between natural and enriched chicken eggs through omega ( ω ) 3 fatty acid profiles by capillary zone electrophoresis (CZE) under direct UV detection at 200 nm is proposed. The electrolyte background consisted of 12.0 mmol L^−1 tetraborate buffer (pH 9.2) mixed with 12.0 mmol L^−1 Brij 35, 17% acetonitrile (ACN) and 33% methanol (MeOH). Omega 3 fatty acid profile in chicken egg samples were analyzed by CZE system and confirmed by single-quadrupole mass spectrometry with an electrospray ionization probe set to negative ionization mode after sample preparation by the Folch method. The results showed that ω fatty acid profiles analyzed by the CZE approach can be used to chemical markers to monitor fraud, presenting simplicity, short analysis time (10 min) and low cost as advantages.
Ultrasurf Traffic Classification: Detection and Prevention

Anti-censorship applications are becoming increasingly popular mean to circumvent Internet censorship, whether imposed by governments seeking to control the flow of information available to their citizens, or by parental figures wishing to shield their “parishioners” from the dangers of the Internet, or in organizations trying to restrict the Internet usage within their networking territory. Numerous applications are readily accessible for the average user to aid-in bypassing Internet censorship. Several technologies and techniques are associated with the formation of these applications, whereas, each of these applications deploys its unique mechanism to circumvent Internet censorship. Using anti-censorship applications in the work environment can have a negative impact on the network, leading to excessive degradation in the bandwidth, immense consumption of the Internet data usage capacity and possibly open the door for security breaches. Triumphing the war on anti-censorship applications has become more difficult to achieve at the network level due to the rapid updates and the adopted new technologies to circumvent censorship. In this study, a comprehensive overview on Internet censorship and anti-censorship applications is provided by analyzing Ultrasurf behavior, classifying its traffic patterns and proposing a behavioral-based solution that is capable of detecting and preventing the Ultrasurf traffic at the network level.
Bottom Line Competitive Intelligence

Once in a while a special CI book comes along that makes us re-think what we’re doing, and change our direction for the better. John McGonagle and Carolyn Vella have accomplished this with Bottom Line Competitive Intelligence, the latest of their nine CI books. This book is designed for experienced CI professionals – the people who have been in the trenches, have lots of mud on them, and are looking for ways to improve their situation. These individuals constantly struggle to show how CI impacts their company’s bottom line. This book very skillfully illustrates ways that they can improve that impact. McGonagle and Vella suggest that CI professionals may be:
Electronic Medical Record System as a central ICT tool for quality healthcare services: Nigeria as a case study

This study uses mixed methods to evaluate the benefits and challenges of implementing the Electronic Medical Record System (EMRS). Using Southwestern Nigeria as a case study, the study focuses on the factors that have been delaying the introduction of EMRS; the perception of both the staff and patients and the risks associated with the implementation of the EMRS in the Nigerian health sector. The results reveal that the majority of the hospitals in the study area still engage in manual record-keeping which is time consuming and keeps the patient waiting, and is very frustrating, especially in emergent conditions. The results show that 99% of participants in the study survey perceived that EMRS would bring better effectiveness to healthcare services in Nigeria. This is evident from the representativeness that about 67.2% of respondents strongly agreed that EMRS would bring fast and efficient healthcare services while 96.7% believed that improved power supply would aid its effectiveness. Thus, the key finding of this study is that erratic power supply is an important challenging factor in the introduction and implementation of EMRS in Nigeria. Over the past decades, healthcare providers have been under pressure to give medical services in a complex and bureaucratic settings with increasing population of patients. There is a need for constant power supply for effective running of any information system project like EMRS.
Comparison of the effects of intravenous premedication: Midazolam, Ketamine, and combination of both on reducing anxiety in pediatric patients before general anesthesia

Objective: In some medical circumstances, pediatric patients may need premedication for transferring to the operating room. In these situations, using intravenous premedication is preferred. We assessed the efficacy and safety of intravenous midazolam, intravenous ketamine, and combination of both to reduce the anxiety and improve behavior in children undergoing general anesthesia. Methods: In a double-blind randomized clinical trial, 90 pediatric patients aged 6 months to 6 years with American Society of Anesthesiologist grade I or II were enrolled. Before anesthesia, children were randomly divided into three groups to receive intravenous midazolam 0.1 mg/kg, or intravenous ketamine 1 mg/kg, or combination of half doses of both. Behavior types and sedation scores were recorded before premedication, after premedication, before anesthesia, and after anesthesia in the postanesthesia care unit. Anesthesia time, recovery duration, blood pressure, and heart rate were also recorded. For comparing distribution of behavior types and sedation scores among three groups, we used Kruskal–Wallis test, and for comparing mean and standard deviation of blood pressure and heart rates, we used analysis of variance. Findings: After premedication, children's behavior was significantly better in the combination group (P < 0.001). After anesthesia, behavior type was same among three groups (P = 0.421). Sedation scores among three groups were also different after premedication and the combination group was significantly more sedated than the other two groups (P < 0.001). Conclusion: Combination of 0.05 mg/kg of intravenous midazolam and 0.5 mg/kg of intravenous ketamine as premedication produced more deep sedation and more desirable behavior in children compared with each midazolam 0.1 mg/kg or ketamine 1 mg/kg.
Production , Manufacturing and Logistics Analytical and managerial implications of integrating product substitutability in the joint pricing and procurement problem

This paper studies the analytical and managerial implications of product substitutability on the joint pricing and procurement decisions. We consider a single-period model with two products: an existing product and an improved new product that can substitute the demand for the existing product in case of a shortage. Demand for each product follows a general distribution with an expected value that is a linear function of the price of the new product. While the price of the existing product is determined by the market, it is necessary to determine the new product’s price and the procurement quantities of both products so as to maximize the profits. We analytically show that the expected profit function is unimodal and in the existence of substitution: the expected total profit is higher; the optimal price and the safety stock of the new product are higher; and the optimal safety stock of the existing product is less. Using these properties an efficient algorithm is developed. We also provide a numerical analysis to demonstrate that considering substitution in advance could increase the profitability by 58% and the new product price by 5% while decreasing the total procurement quantity by 15%. 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
The Physiological and Operative Severity Score for the enUmeration of Mortality and morbidity (POSSUM)

The development of the Physiological and Operative Severity Score for the enUmeration of Mortality and morbidity (POSSUM) is described and its methods of analysis and value in a modern surgical practice are reviewed. A computerized search of all published data in Medline, the Cochrane Library and Embase was made for the last 12 years. Relevant articles were then searched manually for further papers on risk analysis, case‐mix comparison and POSSUM methodology.
A local voting method by scanning high-confidence level voters for vanishing point detection

Vanishing point estimation algorithms based on Gabor filters have been widely published. By applying Gabor filters, the texture orientation and the confidence level at every pixel of the image can be estimated. An adaptive soft-voting method to obtain a vanishing point was proposed in other research. Although that method can detect a proper vanishing point in most cases, its computational cost is very high. The goal of this paper is to reduce the computational cost of the algorithm. For this purpose we propose a new local voting method by scanning voters having high confidence levels.
Interactions among PIN-FORMED and P-Glycoprotein Auxin Transporters in Arabidopsis[W]

Directional transport of the phytohormone auxin is established primarily at the point of cellular efflux and is required for the establishment and maintenance of plant polarity. Studies in whole plants and heterologous systems indicate that PIN-FORMED (PIN) and P-glycoprotein (PGP) transport proteins mediate the cellular efflux of natural and synthetic auxins. However, aromatic anion transport resulting from PGP and PIN expression in nonplant systems was also found to lack the high level of substrate specificity seen in planta. Furthermore, previous reports that PGP19 stabilizes PIN1 on the plasma membrane suggested that PIN–PGP interactions might regulate polar auxin efflux. Here, we show that PGP1 and PGP19 colocalized with PIN1 in the shoot apex in Arabidopsis thaliana and with PIN1 and PIN2 in root tissues. Specific PGP–PIN interactions were seen in yeast two-hybrid and coimmunoprecipitation assays. PIN–PGP interactions appeared to enhance transport activity and, to a greater extent, substrate/inhibitor specificities when coexpressed in heterologous systems. By contrast, no interactions between PGPs and the AUXIN1 influx carrier were observed. Phenotypes of pin and pgp mutants suggest discrete functional roles in auxin transport, but pin pgp mutants exhibited phenotypes that are both additive and synergistic. These results suggest that PINs and PGPs characterize coordinated, independent auxin transport mechanisms but also function interactively in a tissue-specific manner.
Medical Malpractice Liability Exposure and OB/GYN Physician Delivery Decisions.

OBJECTIVE This study examines the effect of physician medical malpractice liability exposure on primary Cesarean and vaginal births after Cesarean (VBACs). DATA SOURCES/STUDY SETTING Secondary data on hospital births from Florida Hospital Inpatient File, physician characteristics from American Medical Association Physician Masterfile, and physician malpractice claim history from Florida Office of Insurance Regulation. STUDY DESIGN Our study estimates the effects of physician malpractice liability exposure on Cesareans and VBACs using panel data and a multivariate, fixed effects model. DATA COLLECTION We merge three secondary data sources based on unique physician license numbers between 1994 and 2010. PRINCIPAL FINDINGS We find no evidence that the first malpractice claim affects primary Cesarean deliveries. We find, however, that the first malpractice claim decreases the likelihood of a VBAC (conditional on a prior Cesarean delivery) by 1.2-1.9 percentage points (approximately 10 percent relative to mean VBAC incidence). This finding is robust to focusing on obstetrics-related malpractice claims, as well as to considering different malpractice claims (first report, first severe report, and first lawsuit). CONCLUSIONS Given the increase in both primary and repeat Cesarean deliveries, our results suggest that physician malpractice liability exposure is responsible for a relatively small share of the VBAC decrease.
Supervised Learning Models to Predict Stock Direction Within Different Sectors in a Bull and Bear Market

II TABLE OF FIGURES . VII 1 INTRODUCTION . 1 1.1 BACKGROUND . 1 1.2 RESEARCH PROJECT/PROBLEM . 1 1.3 RESEARCH OBJECTIVES . 3 1.4 RESEARCH METHODOLOGIES . 4 1.5 SCOPE AND LIMITATIONS . 5 1.6 DOCUMENT OUTLINE . 6 2 LITERATURE REVIEW . 8 2.1 TRADING STRATEGIES . 9 2.1.1 TECHNICAL ANALYSIS . 9 2.1.2 FUNDAMENTAL ANALYSIS . 12 2.2 MARKET TRENDS AND BEHAVIOURAL INVESTMENT . 12 2.2.1 BULL AND BEAR MARKET . 13 2.3 MACHINE LEARNING . 13 2.3.1 SUPPORT VECTOR MACHINES . 14 2.3.2 RANDOM FOREST . 15 2.4 EVALUATION . 15 2.4. 1 CONFUSION MATRIX . 16 2.5 OVERVIEW . 18 3 DESIGN AND METHODOLOGY . 19 3.1 INTRODUCTION . 19 3.2 BUSINESS UNDERSTANDING . 20 3.2.1 BUSINESS GOAL . 21 3.3 DATA UNDERSTANDING . 21 3.3.1 COMPANY SELECTION . 22 3.3.2 COMPANY STOCK CRITERIA . 22 3.3.3 COMPANY STOCK DATA . 23 3.4 DATA PREPARATION . 25
Improving Localization in Wireless Sensor Network Using Fixed and Mobile Guide Nodes

Wireless sensor network contains very large number of tiny sensors; some nodes with known position are recognized as guide nodes. Other nodes with unknown position are localized by guide nodes. This article uses the combination of fixed and mobile guide nodes in wireless network localization. So nearly 20% of nodes are fixed guide nodes and three nodes are intended as mobile guide nodes. To evaluate the proficiency, the proposed algorithm has been successfully studied and verified through simulation. Low cost, high accuracy, and low power consumption of nodes and complete coverage are the benefits of this approach and long term in localization is the disadvantage of this method.
Information fusion of external flux sensors for detection of inter-turn short circuit faults in induction machines

This paper presents a method based on fusion technique applied to signatures obtained from external stray flux to detect an inter turn short circuits in induction machines. This technique uses the belief functions framework to represent and merge the information about short circuits obtained from sensors placed around the machine to be diagnosed. The influence of the sensors positions around the machine to detect faults is studied. This fusion technique leads to a new diagnosis method, which only uses the information captured from the stray magnetic field around the machine, having then the advantage of being non-invasive. Six external flux sensors placed on a belt fixed around the machine provide information used for the diagnostic technique. These signatures are obtained by experimental tests using a rewound induction machine that allows one to create inter-turn short circuit faults with different severity levels.
Combination of interferon and dexamethasone in refractory multiple myeloma

The present pilot study was designed to analyse the efficacy and toxicity of the association of interferon (IFN) and dexamethasone (Dx) in 32 resistant and relapsed myeloma patients. Among the evaluable cases. 15 (68 per cent) responded to treatment (32 per cent achieved an objective response—OR—and 36 per cent a partial response—PR—), the ‘remission’ status lasting for more than one year in six of them. Moreover, four out of the seven OR patients showed a reduction in B.M. plasma cells to < 5 per cent. Five out of 11 patients that were previously refractory to VBAD, that includes high dose dexamethasone (Dx), responded to IFN‐Dx. The protocol was generally well tolerated with only four patients discontinuing therapy due to adverse effects.