Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The Impact of Institutional Influences on Perceived Technological Characteristics and Real Options in Cloud Computing Adoption

Cloud computing has been marketed as having multiple benefits. However, organizations remain hesitant to adopt it. For cloud computing providers, it is important to understand how to influence organizations’ adoption decision. However, extant literature has focused on cloud computing’s architecture, potential applications, and costs and benefits without understanding how organizations’ perceptions are formed. Building on the institutional perspective and real options theory, this study examines how institutional influences may affect organizations’ perceptions about the technological characteristics of cloud computing and recognition of real options. A preliminary survey of 101 IT professionals indicates that institutional influences significantly affect perceptions related to the accessibility, scalability, cost effectiveness, and lack of security of cloud computing. Perceptions about these technological characteristics influence the recognition of growth, abandonment, and deferral options in the adoption of cloud computing and subsequently the intention to adopt the technology. Implications and potential contributions for research and practice are discussed.
Liquidity and Information-Based Trading on the Order Driven Capital Market: The Case of Prague Stock Exchange

This paper investigates the relation between liquidity and information-based trading in the context of an order-driven auction. A model similar in spirit to that of Easley et al. (1996) is used to determine how often new information occurs and how it influences the composition of orders submitted to the market. The risk of information-based trading is estimated for a sample of Prague Stock Exchange listed stocks. The empirical results agree with previous findings that the risk of information-based trading is lower for more active stocks. Surprisingly, information based trading is apparently less common on the recently created Prague Stock Exchange than on more well-established markets.
MEK 1 / 2 inhibition decreases lactate in BRAF-driven human cancer cells

Cancer Research UK and EPSRC Cancer Imaging Centre, Division of Radiotherapy and Imaging, The Institute of Cancer Research and The Royal Marsden NHS Foundation Trust, Sutton, Surrey SM2 5PT, UK, Division of Imaging Sciences and Biomedical Engineering, The Rayne Institute, St Thomas Hospital, London SE1 7EH, UK Cancer Research UK Centre for Cell and Molecular Biology, Division of Cancer Biology, The Institute of Cancer Research, London SW3 6JB, UK Cancer Research UK Cancer Therapeutics Unit, Division of Cancer Therapeutics, The Institute of Cancer Research, Sutton, Surrey SM2 5NG, UK.
Excess Volatility and Investment Trusts

The variance of returns to investment trust shareholders may be split into three components variance of net asset value (NAV) returns, variance of discount returns and twice the covariance between NAV returns and discount returns. Using historical data, the relative importance of each of these components is estimated for different return intervals, different periods of observation and different sub-sectors. There is clear evidence of excess volatility of trust share returns compared with NAV returns. Since Big Bang in 1986, there has been a significant ‘double whammy’ effect, meaning that discounts tend to widen when NAVs fall and narrow when NAVs rise. Overall, the results are consistent with the noise trader model.
Towards a shared understanding of skill shortages: differing perceptions of training and development needs

The question of how to develop human capabilities to meet current and future needs of organisations has become an important issue at national, organisational and individual levels. An essential ingredient is shared understanding of the skills and competences deemed necessary and/or desirable for current and future performance. Current indications in the UK are that this may not exist and that there is an incompatibility between supply and demand. This paper reports on a research project undertaken in the UK automotive sector to explore the extent and nature of the differences in perception among stakeholders relating to the skills and development needs of current and future employees. Using the template approach data were collected from those providing training and those who are consumers of training. Comparison identified competing demands and differences in expectation and attainment, particularly in relation to prospective employees, potentially resulting in dissatisfaction and disappointment for all concerned.
A network perspective on organizational architecture: performance effects of the interplay of formal and informal organization

We take a network perspective to organizational architecture, conceptualizing it as multiple networks of both formal and informal interactions and argue that their interplay is key to better understanding individual organizational member performance. We develop and test the concept of network consistency as the overlap between the informal network of advice and information with formal structures and processes, expressed as networks. We theorize that consistency between formal and informal networks exerts differing effects on performance. We test our theory in a financial services firm, using secondary data to create formal networks and annual performance evaluations for our dependent variable, along with primary survey data from organizational members to obtain the informal advice and information network. Results support our network approach to organizational architecture. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Synergy, Coordination Costs and Diversification Choices

Sharing common inputs across business lines can potentially generate synergy that justifies related diversification. The pursuit of such synergy through diversification is, however, fundamentally driven by the indivisibility of inputs between firms. Following Penrose’s insight, I argue that to realize the synergy a firm needs to actively manage the interdependencies between different business lines, which increases its coordination costs. The coordination costs may increase faster than synergy and set a limit to related diversification. This is particularly salient when the firm’s existing business lines already have complex interdependencies among them. I test these arguments on a dataset of U.S. equipment manufacturers from 1993 to 2003. The results show that a firm is more likely to diversify into a new business when its existing business lines can potentially share more inputs with the new business; however, the firm is less likely to diversify into any new business when its existing business lines are complex. Importantly, the firm’s likelihood of diversifying into a new business decreases more with the complexity in the firm’s existing business lines if they share more inputs with the new business. These results suggest that increasing coordination costs counterbalance the potential synergistic benefits associated with related diversification.
Direct multichip-to-wafer 3D integration technology using flip-chip self-assembly of NCF-covered known good dies

We demonstrated surface tension-driven self-assembly and microbump bonding using NCF (non-conductive film)-covered chips with Cu/Sn-Ag microbumps for high-throughput and high-yield direct multichip-to-wafer 3D integration. The NCF is a promising candidate to completely fill gaps between fine-pitch microbumps, and is essential for realizing highly-reliable microbump-to-microbump interconnections. Here, by applying the self-assembly method with strong water surface tension, the NCF-covered chips were precisely aligned to hydrophilic assembly sites defined on host Si substrates in a face-down manner with alignment accuracies of approximately 1 μm. The self-assembled chips having Cu/Sn-Ag microbumps covered with NCF were thermally compressed to obtain electrical joints between the chips and substrate after the self-assembly process. The resulting daisy chains showed good electrical characteristics with contact resistance of 53 mΩ/joint.
A study of risk based auditing barriers: Some Iranian evidence

In developing countries, such as Iran, since risk based auditing would be more benefited through progressive technology and its advantages than the traditional auditing method, auditors need to welcome risk based auditing as a common, as well as a desirable one. The aim of the current study is to find out the main barriers experienced due to risk based auditing in Iran. The results show firstly the individual competency and ability in using statistical methods; secondly, the professional and legislation references effort in selecting risk based auditing standards; thirdly, the timely financial information prepared by accountants; and finally, the auditors training via risk based auditing are the main barriers to the members of Iranian Certified Public Accountants to implementing risk based auditing in Iran. Key words: Auditing, risk based auditing, traditional auditing, Iran.
High Performance Work Practices in Indian Organisations: Exploration and Employees’ Awareness

In this age of high performance, the term ‘performance’ not only inscribes productivity or profitability but also deals with human aspect of work, too. High performance work practices (HPWPs) are largely viewed as a mechanism for value creation and value enhancement of employees, employer and the organisation as well. The present article attempts to access the awareness level of employees of the HPWPs. In all, 35 dimensions of HPWPs were identified by the researchers and the awareness level was assessed on a 5-point scale. The categorisation of HPWPs has been done by applying factor analysis, and the variations in awareness level have been studied by applying t-test. Significant gender variations in employee awareness have emerged on ‘psycho-strengthening HPWPs’, and the sectoral variations in employee awareness have emerged on the ‘employee empowerment HPWPs’. In rest of the HPWPs, no significant variations in employee awareness emerged on any of the basis.
A sociology programme for medical students

There has been continuing concern about the place of the social and behavioural sciences in the medical school curriculum. Should medical students be taught sociology? If so, how much and when? How should it be taught? What should be taught? These are some of the questions confronting sociologists and physicians concerned with this issue. This paper, directed to these questions, is a programmatic statement rather than a report of an actual course in sociology for medical students. It is based on several years of experience of teaching sociology to university students, premedical students, medical students, postgraduate physicians, and even to medical school faculty. This experience has been both in the United States and Great Britain. In this paper I will outline a course in sociology for medical students and discuss some of the issues underlying such a course.2 Before discussing the content of a programme in sociology, we must consider three other matters: When should sociology be taught? Who should teach i t? Who should take it? In my opinion a programme in sociology will be more effective if it is taught in the clinical rather than the preclinical years. Whatever impact sociology will have on medical students, it will be greater once they have had some experiences with patients, and can relate sociological teachings to their own experiences.
Development of a short-form Health Literacy Dental Scale (HeLD-14).

OBJECTIVE To develop a short-form version of the 29-item Health Literacy in Dentistry (HeLD-29) instrument. METHODS Deriving the short-form version used data from a cross-sectional study of 400 indigenous Australians aged 18+ years in Port Augusta, South Australia, which was split to enable short-form testing (N = 191). Internal reliability analysis, factor analysis and regression analysis were undertaken to derive a subset (HeLD-14) questionnaire. Its validity was evaluated by assessing associations with socio-demographic and self-reported oral health variables. Internal consistency of the HeLD-14 was evaluated using Cronbach's coefficient α. A HeLD-14 scale was derived from regression analysis. RESULTS The HeLD-14 accounted for 94% of variance in the HeLD-29 mean scores; had high reliability (α = 0.88); contained questions from each of the seven conceptual dimensions of the HeLD-29; and had a good distribution of prevalence for individual questions. HeLD-14 scores and HeLD-29 scores displayed the same pattern of variation among socio-demographic groups of indigenous Australians. Cronbach's α for the HeLD-14 was 0.87. In a multivariable analysis, the same socio-demographic and self-reported oral health variables were associated (P < 0.05) with both the HeLD-29 and the HeLD-14. CONCLUSIONS The reliability, validity and precision of the short-form version (HeLD-14) were acceptable when tested in a sample of rural dwelling indigenous Australians. However, it will be important to replicate these findings in other populations before it can be used in health services research to determine the effects of interventions or programs aimed at improving oral health outcomes. This short form will be easy and efficient for use in research and clinical settings.
Cooking identity and food tourism: the case of Japanese udon noodles

ABSTRACT Local food heritage plays a crucial role in developing the image and identity of a region. This study investigates the extent and the ways in which local food and identity of a region can be used as tools for tourism development. By using a qualitative research approach of personal interviews with 12 Japanese tourists, the study argues that an authentic locality which has provided traditional handmade udon noodles for the last 400 years for the local people can be developed as a food tourism destination. Since the main attraction of regional tourism in the Mizusawa region in Gunma prefecture of Japan is udon noodles, the study concluded that both tangible and intangible elements of udon noodle heritage contribute to the cultural values, identity construction, characteristics of the place and authentic tourist experiences. The study recommends examining cross-cultural differences in the interrelationships between food heritage, regional tourism and identity in a similar but broader Asian context for future studies.
Characterising the concept of service experience

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to review the characterisation of the concept of service experience in service marketing research.Design/methodology/approach – Using content analysis, 30 articles and two books published in the period from 2005 to 2007 are analysed.Findings – Three characterisations of the concept of service experience are identified in the literature review: phenomenological service experience (which relates to the value discussion in service‐dominant logic and interpretative consumer research); process‐based service experience (which relates to understanding service as a sequential process); and outcome‐based service experience (which relates to understanding service experience as one element in models of service linking a number of variables or attributes to various outcomes). Research limitations/implications – To facilitate meaningful research in this area, it is important that researchers critically consider the nature of the concept of service experience in terms of who experi.
A Fair Capacity Distribution Framework for Wireless Networks with Contention-based Medium Access

This paper presents a network-triggered feedback control framework for addressing an inherent hop-unfairness in random access wireless networks, it is experimentally shown that when multiple flows with varying hop-counts compete for wireless bandwidth, the shorter flows can consume an unfair share of the total bandwidth by diverting capacity from longer hop flows. Experimentally we also demonstrate that this effect is not mitigated by the end-to-end feedback mechanism used by rate adaptive transport protocols such as TCP. The goal of this paper is to devise an alternative feedback mechanism that can alleviate this problem of unfair capacity distribution, by introducing a hop-count independent feedback propagation mechanism. This has been accomplished by a network-triggered framework that, unlike TCP, relies on network generated feedbacks for application data rate adaptations. The proposed framework is developed using the ad hoc on-demand distance vector (AODV) routing protocol and is characterized using NS-2 network simulator. Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed mechanism can alleviate the described hop-unfairness problem to a great extent by trading the overall network capacity. Performance of the framework is evaluated for a large number of scenarios and is compared with optimal results, when feasible
Involvement of Endothelial Nitric Oxide Synthase, Caveolin and Haemoxygenase in Development of Experimental Diabetic Nephropathy in Rats

Endothelin nitric oxide synthase plays a important role in diabetic nephropathy. Caveolae are the morphological distinct invaginations on the suface of the plasma membrane and are of 50-100nm in diameter. Caveolin decreases nitric oxide by increasing binding of eNOS with caveolin. Hemeoxygenase-1 (OH- 1) is a enzyme involve in the catabolism of heme and leads to the formation of NO. Hemeoxygenase level was found to be decreased in diabetes. It has been documented that OH-1 decreases the interaction of eNOS with caveolin by increasing the availibilty of NO. This study was designed to determine the role of caveolin & haemoxygenase in eNOS-mediated NO synthesis & and release in DN. Diabetic nephropathy was induced by administering single dose of streptozotocin in wistar rats. DN was clinically assessed by estimation of various biochemical parameters and histopathological studies of renal tissue. DN was assessed by measuring serum creatinine, blood urea nitrogen, proteinuria, lipid profile, serum nitrite/nitrate ratio. The combination of daidzein(caveolin inhibitor) and Hemin (Hemoxygenase activator) showed significant improvement in (BUN, serum creatinine, proteinuria, urinary output, serum nitrite/ nitrate level) renal parameters studied for DN in comparison with single drug administration. Moreover, NG-nitro-L- arginine methyl ester (L-NAME), a selective eNOS inhibitor abolished the ameliorative effect of combination of daidzein and hemin in DN in rats. The finding of this study suggest that haemoxygenase and caveolin plays a important role in the development of DN.
Regional impairment of intrinsic functional connectivity strength in patients with chronic primary insomnia

Several neuroimaging studies have suggested that brain impairment and plasticity occur in patients with chronic primary insomnia (CPI); however, the effects of insomnia on the intrinsic organization of the brain remain largely unknown. In this study, a voxel-based functional connectivity strength (FCS) assessment, a data-driven method based on a theoretical approach, was applied to investigate the effects of insomnia on the intrinsic organization of the whole brain in 27 treatment-naïve CPI patients and 26 well-matched healthy controls (HCs). Compared with HCs, CPI patients exhibited decreased FCS primarily in the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, the right medial prefrontal cortex (MPFC), the left basal ganglia/insula, and the right cerebellum anterior lobe (CAL) due to decreased functional connectivity patterns. These results suggest that poor sleep quality could impair FCS within the brain, including the MPFC and the CAL, which are important for cognitive control and modulating motor and limbic functions. Additionally, a receiver operator characteristic analysis revealed that altered FCS has moderate sensitivity (76.9%–88.5%) and specificity (59.3%–70.4%) as a reference indicator to discriminate CPI patients from HCs. Taken together, these findings provide evidence for abnormal intrinsic brain activity in CPI patients and might improve our understanding of the pathophysiological processes that occur in insomnia patients.
Oxidative stress in fibroblasts from patients with pseudoxanthoma elasticum: possible role in the pathogenesis of clinical manifestations

Pseudoxanthoma elasticum (PXE) is a genetic disease characterized by calcification and fragmentation of elastic fibres of the skin, cardiovascular system and eye, caused by mutations of the ABCC6 gene, which encodes the membrane transporter MRP6. The pathogenesis of the lesions is unknown. Based on studies of similar clinical and histopathological damage present in haemolytic disorders, our working hypothesis is that PXE lesions may result from chronic oxidative stress occurring in PXE cells as a consequence of MRP6 deficiency. Our results show that PXE fibroblasts suffer from mild chronic oxidative stress due to the imbalance between production and degradation of oxidant species. The findings also show that this imbalance results, at least in part, from the loss of mitochondrial membrane potential (ΔΨm) with overproduction of H2O2. Whether mitochondrial dysfunction is the main factor responsible for the oxidative stress in PXE cells remains to be elucidated. However, mild chronic generalized oxidative stress could explain the great majority of structural and biochemical alterations already reported in PXE. Copyright © 2005 Pathological Society of Great Britain and Ireland. Published by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Novel body tied FinFET cell array transistor DRAM with negative word line operation for sub 60nm technology and beyond

In this paper, a highly manufacturable 512M FinFET DRAM with novel body tied FinFET cell array transistor on bulk Si substrate has been successfully integrated and the characteristics were compared with RCAT (Recess Channel Array Transistor) and planar cell array transistor DRAM for the first time. We also propose the NWL (Negative Word Line) scheme with low channel doping body tied FinFET for a highly manufacturable FinFET DRAM for sub 60nm technology node.
Using information visualisation to support visual web service discovery

This paper presents the design and evaluation of SerViz -- a tool to support the visualisation of web service collections. The increasing number of web services available on the Internet highlights the need for an effective method of discovering these web services. Existing web service discovery methods do not, however, effectively support the user in finding suitable web services. Two information visualisation (IV) techniques, namely a network and tree IV technique, were used to visualise a large web service collection. A user study was conducted to compare these IV techniques. Participants provided high ratings for overall satisfaction for both IV techniques and low ratings for perceived cognitive load. Participants found both IV techniques easy to use and easy to learn. The results of the user study show that SerViz supports effective visual web service discovery. While the tree IV technique was faster for browsing for web services, the network IV technique was faster for searching.