Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
What Factors Determine the Number of Trading Partners?

The purpose of the paper is to provide a simple model explaining buyer-supplier relationships and show what factors determine the number of trading partners. We show that when the supplier is able to determine the number of trading partners, the optimal number is small if the supplier's bargaining power with them is weak, the economy of scope in the supplier's variable costs is significant, and that in its sunk investment is weak. Investment may be greater when the number of trading partners is small. The results may be consistent with the formation of Japanese buyer-supplier relations.
First Principles Study on Structure Stability and Mechanical Properties of YNi 2 B 2 C and LuNi 2 B 2 C under Pressure

The pressure effects on the lattice parameters and elastic constants of the tetragonal RNi2B2C (R=Y, Lu) are investigated by means of the first principles. The predicted lattice constants and elastic constants of YNi2B2C and LuNi2B2C at 0 GPa agree well with the available data. By the elastic stability criteria under isotropic pressure, it is predicted that YNi2B2C and LuNi2B2C with tetragonal structure are not mechanically stable above 93 GPa and 50 GPa, respectively. Pugh’s modulus ratio, Poisson’s ratio, Vickers hardness, elastic anisotropy and Debye temperature of YNi2B2C in the pressure range of 0–100 GPa and LuNi2B2C in the pressure range of 0-60 GPa are further investigated. It is shown that the ductility and Debye temperature of tetragonal RNi2B2C (R=Y, Lu) increase with increasing pressure, and LuNi2B2C is more ductile and lower Debye temperature than YNi2B2C under different pressures.
Analysis of time‐dependent covariates in a regressive relative survival model

Relative survival is a method for assessing prognostic factors for disease‐specific mortality. However, most relative survival models assume that the effect of covariate on disease‐specific mortality is fixed‐in‐time, which may not hold in some studies and requires adapted modelling. We propose an extension of the Esteve et al. regressive relative survival model that uses the counting process approach to accommodate time‐dependent effect of a predictor's on disease‐specific mortality. This approach had shown its robustness, and the properties of the counting process give a simple and attractive computational solution to model time‐dependent covariates. Our approach is illustrated with the data from the Stanford Heart Transplant Study and with data from a hospital‐based study on invasive breast cancer. Advantages of modelling time‐dependent covariates in relative survival analysis are discussed. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Authentication method for the keyboard usage based on fuzzy logic

The aim of this work is to develop an authentication method using keyboard typing based on fuzzy logic. The paper considers a function that takes into account the minimum and maximum limits of biometric characteristics and the dependence of the stability of keyboard typing on its stability. As a result, a deviation factor is introduced to determine how much the biometric characteristic of the user after normalization will vary from the average value, which in its turn allows to determine the percentage of authenticity of the computer information system user. As a result, the probability of occurrence of errors of the first and second kind is reduced in comparison with the existing methods of authentication.
New power-efficient FPGA design combining with region-constrained placement and multiple power domains

Multiple power domain design architectures have been studied for the power-efficient FPGAs. But, most of these researches pay attention on the clustered logic block's fine-grain power gating which increases the FPGA size significantly. This paper presents a fast placement algorithm for coarse-grain FPGAs architecture, by which the circuit with multiple power domains is mapped into several regions for low power consumption. Each region uses one or several sleep transistors in order to conserve leakage energy. Using the CAD framework, we discuss the power efficiency of sleep region FPGA architecture by using the benchmarks assumed in multiple power domains. Simulation result shows that 9.1% power consumption of FPGA can be reduced on average by the proposed placement algorithm, compared to the traditional algorithm. Furthermore, when the dual power domains are individually power-on and -off, our proposed method can reduce the power more than 20%.
Transrenal fixation of aortic stent-grafts: short- to midterm effects on renal function--a systematic review.

PURPOSE To perform a systematic review of the short- to midterm effects of transrenal fixation of aortic stent-grafts on renal function in patients with abdominal aortic aneurysms. MATERIALS AND METHODS A search of the PubMed, MEDLINE, and EMBASE databases for English-language literature was performed. Studies with at least 10 patients were included for data analysis. Only studies on transrenal fixation of aortic stent-grafts that included follow-up results for renal function were included. A log-linear model was used for meta-analysis to compare transrenal fixation with infrarenal fixation. RESULTS Twenty-two studies met the inclusion criteria. Because two studies analyzed the same group of patients, one was excluded, for a total of 21 studies. Comparisons between transrenal fixation and infrarenal fixation were found in seven studies. For transrenal versus infrarenal fixation, the combined odds ratio, 95% confidence interval, and P value were found to be statistically significant with respect to postprocedural renal infarction only (combined odds ratio, 5.189; 95% confidence interval: 3.198, 8.420; P < .001). No significant difference was found between transrenal and infrarenal fixation with respect to renal dysfunction, renal artery occlusion, or endoleaks (P > .05). CONCLUSION Transrenal fixation of aortic stent-grafts seems to be a relatively safe alternative compared with infrarenal fixation in terms of short- to midterm follow-up. Postprocedural renal infarction, however, was significantly higher for transrenal fixation.
Risk Management Strategies for Drought-Prone Rice Cultivation: A Case Study of Tamil Nadu, India

This study aimed to understand the issues associated with rainfed rice production in dry and semidry areas in Tamil Nadu, India. Farmers face risks such as input, output, market-price, and income, as these areas are prone to rainfall shortage. Secondary data about Tamil Nadu and various waterlimited rice environments were studied. A farm survey of 230 farm households in selected districts was conducted in 2001-02 and 2003-04. Fertilizer use in rainfed areas was reduced due to rainfall shortage. In drought period, crop response to fertilizer declined, causing a decrease in rice yields. Yield variability was higher (44 percent to 60 percent) in drought-prone areas. In rainfed areas, a 10-percent increase in drought risk resulted in a 5.4 percent decline in the yield of modern varieties. In contrast, the effect on landraces was minimal. Farmers in the rainfed areas are operating at sub-optimal level of production. About 90 percent were inefficient since crop yields were lower than the optimal yield. Farmers incurred an additional cost of Rs 899 to increase yield by 228 kg/ha. An increase in rice productivity by one ton per hectare would replace rice area by 189,208 hectares in Tamil Nadu. Area expansion under rice was noticed in the selected rainfed areas, revealing that infusing high productivity traits in drought-tolerant rice varieties enable farmers to allocate part of their land to other crops. Traits (genetic and marketability) of widely adopted modern varieties and landraces should be considered in breeding varieties for water-limited environments to earn profits. The results confirm that drought intensity is higher during the maximum-tillering stage, therefore, continued research on development of drought-tolerant rice varieties to withstand early drought is crucial. Finally, rice income variability in rainfed areas was explained more by variability in yields rather than prices both during normal and risk periods. In other areas, income variability was due to price variability. Yield stabilization would be more effective in keeping revenues stable in rainfed areas, while price stabilization, is an appropriate strategy for reducing revenue risk in irrigated areas.
Ultrasonic velocity measurements in the ternary mixtures water-lactose-lactate, for the purpose of monitoring the lactic acid fermentation of lactose

A preliminary study of the lactic acid fermentation of lactose using an ultrasonic velocity technique is presented. During this fermentation, lactose (milk sugar) is transformed into lactate (lactic acid) by the action of bacteria. It is shown that the changes occurring during the course of the process can be monitored on-line by measuring the changes experienced by ultrasonic waves propagating through the fermenting media. Measurements of density and ultrasonic velocity in the ternary mixtures water-lactose-lactate and during the fermentation of a lactose solution were carried out. The ultrasonic propagation velocity has been correlated with the mass concentration of the mixture components using a semi-empirical model. These relations may be used to achieve an on-line concentration control for microbial lactic acid production.
A STUDY ON BEHAVIOURAL FACTORS INFLUENCING CONSUMER DEBT IN THE SULTANATE OF OMAN

Consumer debt is borrowed money used to meet individual consumption rather than investments. The key words in this economic definition are "borrowed" and "consumption. " Individuals who spend more than they earn from jobs will usually borrow the money in the form of credit cards or consumer loans. While easy to access, repayment of consumer debt can be difficult, time consuming, and expensive based on the assessed interest rate of the debt. Consumer debt is the debt held by individuals, not by governments. Consumer debt can come in the form of credit card debt, home mortgages , student loans, auto loans and other loans. Consumer debt is also known as household debt . Analysts fear that this unprecedented level of debt poses a significant risk to the financial health of global economies and more particularly the developing economies of the East. Household debt behaviour has been understudied, especially empirically, despite the heightened debate on rising household debt, personal bankruptcy filings, and arrears. The aim of this paper is to analyze the link between behavior and over indebtedness and to shed light on the effectiveness of policy measures to tackle household financial fragility. The paper will also explore behavior leading to over indebtedness which is often put down to social and psychological factors that reduce an individual’s capacity to evaluate the consequences of his/her consumption and borrowing decisions. In a developing economy like Oman, rising household debt and its impact on the individual, society at large and the country has not been given the due consideration.
Interactive Digital Advertising vs. Virtual Brand Community

ABSTRACT This study explores the influence of user motivation to engage in online social networking on responses to social media marketing. It addresses two aspects of user motivation, need for online social capital and psychological well-being, and two types of social media marketing, interactive digital advertising and virtual brand community. Facebook provides the target social networking site. A survey among 502 college-aged Facebook users in Taiwan reveals that these users responded to Facebook advertising and virtual brand communities differently. Users’ motivation for online social networking had varying effects on their social media marketing responses. These results have key implications for social media marketing use in social networking online.
Exopolysaccharide-Producing Bacteria from Sugar Beets

ABSTRACT Six hundred microorganisms were isolated from sugar beets collected from different parts of Finland to study their slime production. A total of 170 of them produced exopolysaccharides, of which 35% were heteropolysaccharides. The yield of heteropolysaccharides from sucrose was lower than that of dextrans. Five isolates, which were chosen for closer study, were identified as Leuconostoc mesenteroides(two species), Rahnella aquatilis (two species), andEnterobacter amnigenus.
Improving collaborative recommender systems via emotional features

Nowadays, by communication networks expansion, recommender systems play an important role in our daily life. Recommender system tries to recommend items that are attractive and pleasant for user. At the same time, collaborative filtering approaches is one of the most successful approaches which recommend to the customer other users pleasant items which have similar interests with him/her in the past. In this paper, we present a novel approach of these systems by entering user's emotions in recommender system. Then, by emotion matrix definition, the users who are similar emotionally are searched to improve the performance of traditional user-based collaborative filtering (UBCF). The proposed algorithm offers items to him/her by considering user's current emotion which users with similar emotion like them. This algorithm identifies suitable number of neighbors automatically and chooses high-quality neighbors to do predictions by applying pre-processing phase. Our proposed algorithm has a solution for user cold-start problem. Evolution results in Jester database show that proposed method has better prediction accuracy and makes high quality recommendations.
Oral potentially malignant disorders: Revisited

In 1805, a panel of European physicians suggested that oral precancers are benign diseases which will always develop into invasive malignancies, if followed long enough. In 1978, the WHO proposed the terms “precancerous conditions” and “precancerous lesion” and defined precancerous lesion as “a morphologically altered tissue in which cancer is more likely to occur than in its apparently normal counterpart. ” Confusion prevailed over this terminology, and many opined that the prefix “pre” quotes that all precancerous lesions will eventually become cancer, whereas literature argues against this general belief. In 2005, the WHO recommended abandoning this terminology and instead proposed to use the term “oral potentially malignant disorders” (OPMDs), which is defined as “the risk of malignancy being present in a lesion or condition either at the time of initial diagnosis or at a future date. ” It has been well established by researchers that virtually all oral cancers are preceded by visible clinical changes in the oral mucosa usually in the form of white or red patches which may or may not be associated with additional features of significant discomfort. Information about the real prevalence of OPMDs among the general population worldwide is scarcely available; however it is reported to be from 1% to 5%. The average age of patients with OPMDs is 50–69 years. However, recent studies suggested that about 5% of OPMDs had been observed in persons under the age of 30 years. A 10‐year survey in our referral center (Dr. R. Ahmed Dental College, Kolkata) comprising 1874 patients from eastern part of India showed a significant increase of oral submucous fibrosis (OSMF) cases, specifically among males, in the last 4–5 years. We observed pan masala and gutkha to be the main causative agents for the development of OSMF. However, the most alarming fact was that about 67% of OSMF cases were of age within 40 years. Among these relatively younger OSMF cases, ~76% were males and the remaining 24% were females. Among the genders, OPMDs have traditionally shown a predilection for males. However, recent studies show a 1:1 male‐to‐female ratio. We also observed OSMF cases, only above 40 years of age, with 1:1 male‐to‐female ratio. This could be due to the increased habitual use of areca nut products, tobacco and alcohol among women. Premalignant disorders are usually found on the buccal mucosa, followed by gingivae, tongue and floor of the mouth. Prevention and early detection of OPMDs have the potential of not only decreasing the incidence, but also in improving the survival of those who develop oral cancer in later stages.
Diversification through Acquisition: Co-Operative Banks as Dynamic Players in Competitive Markets

Mainstream strategic management literature has for long considered acquisition as one of investor-owned firms’ options when pursuing growth – to survive competition and gain greater profits. Relatively little attention has been given to this option in literature on co-operative enterprises. Therefore, the main purpose of the qualitative study at hand is to advance knowledge on strategic management of consumer co-operatives with a focus on acquisitions. Our interview data concerns one of the biggest corporate acquisitions in Finland, which served to give birth to the country’s leading financial services constellation: OP-Pohjola Group. Analysing the data we depict the context of the acquisition decision, identifying particular themes (forces and boundary conditions) seen as setting the stage for the strategic move and generate a model that helps explain when and why acquisition becomes a relevant strategy for a consumer co-operative (bank). Our study shows that mainstream strategic management doctrine can be integrated into co-operative management theory to the extent it fits the purpose of co-operative organizations.
Primates as pets in Mexico City: An assessment of the species involved, source of origin, and general aspects of treatment

The large human populations in cities are an important source of demand for wildlife pets, including primates, and not much is known about the primate species involved in terms of their general origin, the length of time they are kept as pets, and some of the maintenance problems encountered with their use as pets. We report the results of a survey conducted in Mexico City among primate pet owners, which was aimed at providing some of the above information. We used an ethnographic approach, and pet owners were treated as informants to gain their trust so that we could enter their homes and learn about the life of their primate pets. We surveyed 179 owners of primate pets, which included 12 primate species. Of these, three were native species (Ateles geoffroyi, Alouatta pigra, and A. palliata). The rest were other neotropical primate species not native to Mexico, and some paleotropical species. Spider monkeys and two species of howler monkeys native to Mexico accounted for 67% and 15%, respectively, of the primate cases investigated. The most expensive primate pets were those imported from abroad, while the least expensive were the Mexican species. About 45% of the native primate pets were obtained by their owners in a large market in Mexico City, and the rest were obtained in southern Mexico. Although they can provide companionship for children and adults, primate pets are subject to a number of hazards, some of which put their lives at risk. The demand by city dwellers for primate pets, along with habitat destruction and fragmentation, exerts a significant pressure on wild populations in southern Mexico. Am. J. Primatol. 61:53–60, 2003. © 2003 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
The inter-relationships between entrepreneurial culture, knowledge management and competitive advantage in a transitional economy

The critical role of entrepreneurial culture in providing firms with a competitive advantage (CA) has been broadly discussed in the literature. This factor has also been identified as the key enabler in successfully managing firm-specific knowledge-based resources (Barney 1986; Davenport, DeLong & Beers 1998; Gold, Malhotra & Segars 2001). In today’s dynamic business environment with rapid and unpredictable changes, these knowledge management (KM) activities have, in turn, emerged as dynamic capabilities contributing to organisational CA (Nielsen 2006).
Robust Speech Recognition Using Generative Adversarial Networks

This paper describes a general, scalable, end-to-end framework that uses the generative adversarial network (GAN) objective to enable robust speech recognition. Encoders trained with the proposed approach enjoy improved invariance by learning to map noisy audio to the same embedding space as that of clean audio. Unlike previous methods, the new framework does not rely on domain expertise or strong assumptions, and directly encourages robustness in a data-driven way. We show the new approach improves simulated far-field speech recognition of vanilla sequence-to-sequence models without specialized front-ends or preprocessing.
The measurement of destination image : the case of Austria

This paper provides a short overview concerning the construct of the destination image as well as the importance of its measurement in travel context. Subsequently, the results of an empirical survey which was carried out in January 2003 with Polish students to measure the image of Austria is presented. The results particularly suggest that Austria should strengthen its cultural facilities as well as new intangible experiences, such as variety and fun or freedom and open-mindedness. (original abstract)
Low activity of -galactosidase in frameshift mutants of Escherichia coli.

16 lac frameshift mutants induced by an acridine derivative, ICR-191D, in E. coli are leaky for beta-galactosidase activity. Activities of all mutants differ from each other and from the wild type in their stability to thermal denaturation. The leakiness is under ribosomal control, since it is strongly reduced by strA restrictive mutations and is restored by ram mutations that reverse restriction. Addition of streptomycin during growth has an effect similar to the presence of the ram mutation. These ribosomal alterations do not modify the thermal stability of the enzyme.It is suggested that the leakiness is due to an infrequent 2- or 4-base reading close to the frameshift mutation site. The possibility that not only the ribosome, but also the reading context in the messenger, plays a role in securing code fidelity is discussed.
Association analysis of three ABCB1 (MDR1) gene variants (C1236T, G2677A/T and C3435T) and their genotype/haplotype combinations with the familial Mediterranean fever

Abstract 1. Familial Mediterranean fever (FMF) is considered an autosomal recessive disorder, associated with a single gene named Mediterranean fever (MEFV). The aim of this study was to perform genotyping and haplotyping analysis of the multidrug resistance (ATP-binding cassette, subfamily B, member 1 – ABCB1) gene in FMF patients. 2. Three ABCB1 gene polymorphisms (C1236T, G2677T/A and C3435T) were analyzed in 309 FMF patients and 250 healthy control subjects. All subjects were genotyped by PCR–restriction fragment length polymorphism analysis, and statistical analysis was performed using the Arlequin 3.1. 1 and SPSS 16.0 software packages. 3. The CT genotype frequency of the C3435T polymorphism (p = 0.003), the CT–GT–CT (C1236T–G2677T/A–C3435T) triple genotype (p = 0.001) and the C–G (C1236T–G2677T/A) haplotype (p = 0.030) were more common in the FMF patients. The CT–GG–CC triple genotype and T–G–C, C–T–T and T–G–T haplotypes (C1236T–G2677T/A–C3435T) were higher in the control subjects (p = 0.011, 0.001, 0.009 and 0.000, respectively). The CT–GG binary genotype and C–T and T–G haplotypes for C1236T–G2677T/A polymorphisms may have a high degree of protective effect against FMF (p = 0.0005, 0.002 and 0.000, respectively). 4. Our study showed that genotypes and haplotypes of ABCB1 gene polymorphisms may affect patients’ FMF susceptibility.
Soft Matter RSC Publishing

Please note that technical editing may introduce minor changes to the text and/or graphics, which may alter content. The journal’s standard Terms & Conditions and the Ethical guidelines still apply. In no event shall the Royal Society of Chemistry be held responsible for any errors or omissions in this Accepted Manuscript or any consequences arising from the use of any information it contains. Accepted Manuscript