Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Investigation of the Effects of Business Risks on the Performance of Commercial Banks in Nairobi, Kenya

The research project was an investigation of the effects of business risk on the performance of commercial banks in Kenya. In the late 1980's margins attained from traditional banking business began to diminish and the past decade has seen dramatic losses in the banking industry, Banks that had been performing well suddenly announced large losses for example, the disastrous losses of the 1990's, such as those at Orange county in 1994 and Barings bank in 1995. Commercial banks expose many risks in their ordinary course of business, such as interest rate, foreign exchange risks, environmental and operational risks that could minimize their profits by increasing their financial loss. This proposal determines how the financial institutions could reduce its financial loss from risk exposure by having risk management tools in place. The. issues prompting the organization to manage risk are not necessarily identical to the issues leading it to purchase insurance. For example, cost reduction might be the reason for establishing a loss prevention, program, a motive less likely to be served by purchasing insurance. This study used descriptive survey type of research, a descriptive study aims at determining the what, when and how of a phenomenon which is the concern of the study. The target population for this study was commercial banks that are registered and regulated by the Central Bank of Kenya (CBK). According to the CBK (2010), there are 43 commercial banks in Kenya. These banks are all involved in providing banking services in the country. A census study was used given that not all commercial banks responded, the population of 29 commercial banks is considered to be small and selecting a sample from a small population would be meaningless. Primary data was collected by use of a structured questionnaire. Target respondents were risk managers. nl~questionnaire used both open and closed questions and largely has been designed to use likert scale. The questionnaires were administered on the basis of drop and pick method. Secondary data were used to supplement primary data. Data collected was both quantitative and qualitative; the qualitative data will be analyzed using content analysis and descriptive statistics was used to analyze the quantitative data. The data was presented using both statistical techniques as well as graphical techniques. The statistical techniques included frequency distribution and measure of central tendency whereas graphical techniques included tables, pie charts and bar charts. Questionnaires used to collect data were edited, coded and analyzed with the help of SPSS program. Findings of this study were presented by the use of tables, graphs and charts, which was interpreted to assist the researcher in making valid conclusion and recommendations. Conclusions derived were generalized to all commercial banks operating in Kenya.
Longitudinal Study of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder in the Community: Risk and Recovery Factors

Abstract Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a multicausal phenomenon and a final end point of the combination of a number of potential causes. Our study aimed to examine potential risk and recovery factors of PTSD in general adult population at 1-year follow-up period. The sample consisted of 640 subjects in the initial phase, chosen by random walk technique in five regions of the country, and 100 in the follow-up. The assessment has been carried out by the following instruments: Mini-International Neuropsychiatric Interview, Life Stressor Checklist-Revised, Brief Symptom Inventory, and Manchester Short Assessment of Quality of Life Scale. Older age, low education, and lower monthly income are potential risk factors for current PTSD, as well as decreased quality of life, psychiatric comorbidity, and higher personal distress. Urban population, higher quality of life, smaller number of stressors, and lower personal distress contributed to recovery of PTSD. It is essential to know the risk and resilience factors that contribute to the development and recovery of PTSD, which is important for prevention and treatment of this disorder.
Germanium-based transistors for future high performance and low power logic applications

High mobility channel materials could replace strained Si to enhance speed performance and/or reduce power consumption in future transistors. Ge has the highest hole mobility among common elemental and compound semiconductors, and an electron mobility that is two times larger than that of Si. Ge is thus a promising channel material for future CMOS (Fig. 1). Key challenges include cost-effective integration of Ge on Si in a manufacturable process, formation of high-quality gate stack on Ge for n- and p-FETs at aggressively scaled EOTs that deliver high channel mobilities, and leakage issues related to its small bandgap. In this paper, we discuss recent research progress in advancing Ge-based transistor technologies. Integration of Ge on Si substrate to enable fabrication of high performance devices and formation of high-quality gate stack for Ge FETs (particularly for n-FETs) will be discussed. We also explore opportunities to boost the mobility of Ge, e.g. by incorporating Sn in Ge to form Ge1-xSnx. Furthermore, by raising the Sn composition, the band gap EG of Ge1-xSnx becomes smaller and transits from indirect to direct, making Ge1-xSnx a promising material for tunneling transistors.
The WiggleZ Dark Energy Survey: the selection function and z = 0.6 galaxy power spectrum

We report one of the most accurate measurements of the three-dimensional large-scale galaxy power spectrum achieved to date, using 56 159 redshifts of bright emission-line galaxies at effective redshift z ≈ 0.6 from the WiggleZ Dark Energy Survey at the Anglo-Australian Telescope. We describe in detail how we construct the survey selection function allowing for the varying target completeness and redshift completeness. We measure the total power with an accuracy of approximately 5 per cent in wavenumber bands of Δk= 0.01 h Mpc^(−1). A model power spectrum including non-linear corrections, combined with a linear galaxy bias factor and a simple model for redshift-space distortions, provides a good fit to our data for scales k < 0.4 h Mpc^(−1). The large-scale shape of the power spectrum is consistent with the best-fitting matter and baryon densities determined by observations of the cosmic microwave background radiation. By splitting the power spectrum measurement as a function of tangential and radial wavenumbers, we delineate the characteristic imprint of peculiar velocities. We use these to determine the growth rate of structure as a function of redshift in the range 0.4 < z < 0.8, including a data point at z= 0.78 with an accuracy of 20 per cent. Our growth rate measurements are a close match to the self-consistent prediction of the Λ cold dark matter model. The WiggleZ survey data will allow a wide range of investigations into the cosmological model, cosmic expansion and growth history, topology of cosmic structure and Gaussianity of the initial conditions. Our calculation of the survey selection function will be released at a future date via our website wigglez.swin. edu.au.
Inter-ring traffic management for global fairness in bridged resilient packet rings

One of the key characteristics of resilient packet rings (RPR) is that the bandwidth is fairly shared among all the nodes in the same ring. This fairness is accomplished through the use of local fairness algorithms. However, there has yet to be research conducted on fairness in bridged RPR networks. In this paper, we assert the need to consider fairness between rings for inter-ring traffic, or global fairness. We present the global fairness reference model for defining global fairness and for calculating the global fair rate. By having the nodes limit in transmit rate to the global fair rate, global fairness can be achieved in the bridged network. Existing local fairness algorithms will be shown not to support global fairness. As a result, we will also propose a global fairness algorithm for global fairness. Simulation results show that the proposed algorithm is successful in ensuring global fairness in the bridged network.
Plasma Assisted Ignition at High Pressures and Low Temperatures. PAI Kinetics and Fast Gas Heating

Abstract : This is the final report for this three year effort with the most important results presented herein. These are: (i) experiments and modeling of the fast gas heating at low (3 9 mbar) pressures at high reduced electric fields E/N = 200-400 and specific deposited energy up to 0.1 eV/molecule in synthetic air; (ii) experiments and modeling of the fast gas heating at moderate (up to 60 mbar) pressures at high electric fields and specific deposited energy more than 1 eV/molecule leading to dissociation degree up to 100%; (iii) experiments on measurements of a density of metastable N2 molecules in the afterglow of the pulsed nanosecond discharge by technique of a cavity ring down spectroscopy; (iv) experiments on electric field measurements in nanosecond high voltage surface dielectric barrier discharge in air together with analysis of the combustion initiation by this type of discharge in C2H6:O2 stoichiometric mixture at P = 1 atm.
Enhanced Breadth of CD4 T-Cell Immunity by DNA Prime and Adenovirus Boost Immunization to Human Immunodeficiency Virus Env and Gag Immunogens

ABSTRACT A variety of gene-based vaccination approaches have been used to enhance the immune response to viral pathogens. Among them, the ability to perform heterologous immunization by priming with DNA and boosting with replication-defective adenoviral (ADV) vectors encoding foreign antigens has proven particularly effective in eliciting enhanced cellular and humoral immunity compared to either agent alone. Because adenoviral vector immunization alone can elicit substantial cellular and humoral immune responses in a shorter period of time, we asked whether the immune response induced by the prime-boost immunization was different from adenoviral vaccines with respect to the potency and breadth of T-cell recognition. While DNA/ADV immunization stimulated the CD8 response, it was directed to the same epitopes in Gag and Env immunogens of human immunodeficiency virus as DNA or ADV alone. In contrast, the CD4 response to these immunogens diversified after DNA/ADV immunization compared to each vector alone. These findings suggest that the diversity of the CD4 immune response is increased by DNA/ADV prime-boost vaccination and that these components work synergistically to enhance T-cell epitope recognition.
Occlusion-aware Video Temporal Consistency

Image color editing techniques such as color transfer, HDR tone mapping, dehazing, and white balance have been widely used and investigated in recent decades. However, naively employing them to videos frame-by-frame often leads to flickering or color inconsistency. To solve it generally, earlier methods rely on temporal filtering or warping from the previous frame, but they still fail in the cases of occlusion and produce blurry results. We introduce a new framework for these challenges: (1) We develop an online keyframe strategy to keep track of the dynamic objects, where more temporal information can be acquired than a single previous frame. (2) To preserve image details, local color affine model is employed. The main concept of this post-processing step is to capture the color transformation from editing algorithms and maintain the detail structures of the raw image simultaneously. Practically, our approach takes a raw video and its per-frame processed version, and generates a temporally consistent output. In addition, we propose a video quality metric to evaluate temporal coherence. Extensive experiments and subjective test are done to show the superiority of the proposed framework with respect to color fidelity, detail preservation, and temporal consistency.
Set approximation via minimum-volume polynomial sublevel sets

Motivated by problems of uncertainty propagation and robust estimation we are interested in computing a polynomial sublevel set of fixed degree and minimum volume that contains a given semialgebraic set K. At this level of generality this problem is not tractable, even though it becomes convex e.g. when restricted to nonnegative homogeneous polynomials. Our contribution is to describe and justify a tractable L1-norm or trace heuristic for this problem, relying upon hierarchies of linear matrix inequality (LMI) relaxations when K is semialgebraic, and simplifying to linear constraints when K is a collection of samples, a discrete union of points.
The regulation of mDia 1 by autoinhibition and its release by Rho K GTP

Formins induce the nucleation and polymerisation of unbranched actin filaments via the formin-homology domains 1 and 2. Diaphanous-related formins (Drfs) are regulated by a RhoGTPase-binding domain situated in the amino-terminal (N-terminal) region and a carboxyterminal Diaphanous-autoregulatory domain (DAD), whose interaction stabilises an autoinhibited inactive conformation. Binding of active Rho releases DAD and activates the catalytic activity of mDia. Here, we report on the interaction of DAD with the regulatory N-terminus of mDia1 (mDiaN) and its release by RhoKGTP. We have defined the elements required for tight binding and solved the three-dimensional structure of a complex between an mDiaN construct and DAD by X-ray crystallography. The core DAD region is an a-helical peptide, which binds in the most highly conserved region of mDiaN using mainly hydrophobic interactions. The structure suggests a twostep mechanism for release of autoinhibition whereby RhoKGTP, although having a partially nonoverlapping binding site, displaces DAD by ionic repulsion and steric clashes. We show that RhoKGTP accelerates the dissociation of DAD from the mDiaNKDAD complex. The EMBO Journal (2005) 24, 4176–4187. doi:10.1038/ sj.emboj. 7600879; Published online 17 November 2005 Subject Categories: signal transduction; structural biology
Effects of vasoactive autacoids on the human umbilical‐fetal placental vasculature

Studies have been made of the effects of autacoids on vascular tone of the human perfused fetal umbilical vein and placental lobule. The thromboxane A2 (TxA2)‐mimetic substance U46619, 5‐hydroxytryptamine and bradykinin were powerful constrictors of the vein. Prostaglandins E2 (PGE2), F2α(PGF2α), adrenaline, noradrenaline, histamine and angiotensin II were much less potent. Venoconstriction caused by U46619, bradykinin and 5‐hydroxytryptamine was reduced during inhibition of phospholipase A2 with mepacrine. Responses to U46619 were also reduced after inhibition of cyclo‐oxygenase with indomethacin whereas those to bradykinin and 5‐hydroxytryptamine were potentiated. In the placenta U46619 was the most potent vasoconstrictor, bradykinin, 5‐hydroxytryptamine, angiotensin II, PGE2 and PGF2α being 10–100 times less active. Responses to U46619 were reduced by either mepacrine or indomethacin. Arachidonic acid caused umbilical venoconstriction but vasodilatation in the placenta. Both effects were reduced by indomethacin. Prostacyclin (PGI2) caused vasodilatation in both preparations. It is suggested that TxA2 in the placenta and TxA2, 5‐hydroxytryptamine and bradykinin in the umbilical vein could contribute to control of vascular smooth muscle tone. Their vasoconstrictor effects are partly indirect and affected by the concomitant local release of eicosanoids. The results add suort to previous conclusions that these autacoids may normally have important influences on blood flow in the fetal extra‐corporeal circulation. Agents inhibiting their synthesis, eg non‐steroidal anti‐inflammatory agents, should only be prescribed during pregnancy with these facts in mind.
Store patronage prediction for foreign‐owned supermarkets

Attitudes of Australian and Greek‐Australian consumers towards hypothetical foreign‐owned and domestic‐owned supermarkets in Australia were studied. Although attitudes towards the domestic‐owned supermarket were found to be identical between the Australians and the Greek‐Australians, the latter were significantly more supportive of the foreign supermarket. Consumer ethnocentrism was found to be correlated with a negative attitude towards a foreign‐owned supermarket. Finally, the more the migrants identified with their cultural origin, the more support they showed towards the foreign supermarket. The findings of this paper provide an insight to the complex nature of the relationship between ethnic identity and consumer behaviour.
Riding the coat‐tails of a positive review: rave reviews and attitude transfer

Investigates the attitude transfer that can occur when a product receives rave reviews. As expected, incorporating rave reviews into an advertisement positively influences the evaluation of the advertised product and the parent company. In addition, our findings indicate that the positive evaluation from the rave reviews transfers to other products. Further, the results show that attitude transfer occurred not only to related products within the brand, but also had a small effect on related products outside the brand family. These findings are discussed in terms of a model of memory as an associational network. The results suggest several advertising strategies that will allow a firm to accrue benefits from a product that has received some form of rave reviews.
Exploring the link between cause-related marketing and brand building

The use of cause-related marketing (CRM) is increasing around the world and provides benefits to both firms and causes, by linking the two organisations together. Most of the CRM literature examines this strategy from a for-profit perspective. This paper examines how this literature could be equally applicable to examining CRM from a not-for-profit perspective. That is CRM programmes can positively and negatively impact on a not-for-profit's brand, which is frequently its most valuable asset. In this way CRM can be related to a number of not-forprofit brand and brand equity issues including brand awareness, brand attitude and intention to support the CRM programme. Copyright © 2000 Henry Stewart Publications
FORECAST AND ANALYSIS OF COORDINATED INDEX BETWEEN REGIONAL ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT AND ENVIRONMENT IN CHINA

Through relation between economic development and ecological environment deterioration has always been an important subject worldwide, existing researches seldom involve in qualitative analysis. The paper first interprets the Coordinated Index Model (CIM) on the relation between stage of economic development and capacity of environment, and also introduces principles of the Grey System Theory in the inadequate information system. By using GM(1,1) model of the Grey System, the Coordinated Index at provincial scale in China in 1990s is calculated, which has a satisfying precision. Accordingly, coordination index from 2005 to 2010 for every province in China is forecasted according to the Grey System Theory consequently. The result indicates that with the improvement of economical level, almost every province decline it's coordinated ration, which is mainly resulted from the decline of environment carrying capacity, particularly in middle west region. Spatial distribution of the Coordinated Index is in line with the “U” curve in China, which demonstrates that the pattern of economic development in our country is not ideal. Coordinated Index of provinces in the turning point is fluctuant acutely and most of them are middle provinces. Therefore, it is necessary to decrease the fluctuant scale and achieve the turn as soon as possible. If existing development pattern continues, ecological environment in the western provinces will be more serious. Since China is going to accelerate the Western China Development, this conclusion is expected to provide references for decision makers.
PARAMETRIC FAMILIES OF HERMITE SUBDIVISION SCHEMES IN DIMENSION 1

We introduce a class of stationary 1-D interpolating subdivision schemes, denoted by Hermite(m, L, k), which classifies all stationary Lagrange or Hermite interpolating subdivision schemes with prescribed multiplicity, support and polynomial reproduction property: Given m > 0, L > 0 and 0 ≤ k ≤ 2mL − 1, Hermite(m, L, k) is a family parametrized by m2L− m(k +1)/2 (in the symmetric case) or 2m2L−m(k +1) (in the asymmetric case) parameters which characterizes all Lagrange (when m = 1) or Hermite (when m > 1) interpolating subdivision schemes with multiplicity m, support width L and degree of polynomial reproduction k. We develop analytical and computational tools to determine upper and lower bounds for the critical Hölder exponents of Hermite schemes and report the so obtained bounds for various (m, L, k). Motivated by these computational results, we conjecture that a well-known property of Deslauriers-Dubuc schemes, which implies that the critical Hölder exponents of Deslauriers-Dubuc schemes are determined by the spectral radii of finite matrices, has a nature extension to all Hermite(m, L, 2mL − 1). We prove this conjecture in a few specific cases and, in particular, show that the Hermite(2, 2, 7) scheme is almost C3. We introduce the notion of smoothest scheme among these parametric families; and use our tools for regularity analysis in conjunction with optimization techniques to show that the smoothest scheme in S k<7 Hermite(2, 2, k) is at least C4, i.e. two differentiation orders higher than Hermite(2, 2, 7).
Managing Hybridity: (Inter-)Organizational Strategies in the Fair Trade Field

This paper aims to examine the concrete strategies through which organizations may reach compromises between conflicting logics. To reach this goal, this paper tries to capture some of the interactions between the organizational, inter-organizational and field levels in terms of management and diffusion of plural logics, using the case of social enterprises in the Fair Trade field. Social enterprises, defined as „not-for-profit private organizations providing goods and services directly related to their explicit aim to benefit the community’ (Defourny & Nyssens 2008:5), may be considered as exemplary hybrid organizations. Their combination of economic and social goals and their location on the boundary between market and civil society makes them an interesting laboratory of hybridity experimentation as a response to multiple institutional orders (Battilana & Dorado 2010; Pache & Santos 2010a). Fair Trade is one of the most illustrative fields of social enterprise activity resulting from an advanced integration of a social movement into the market (Gendron et al. 2009; Nicholls forthcoming; Wilkinson 2007). Yet, Fair Trade as a field hybridizing market and civil society logics – as well as other logics linked for instance to regional contexts –, and particularly the role of Fair Trade social enterprises (FTSEs) in managing and fostering such hybridity, have received very little academic attention. This paper aims to examine how organizations have both managed and fostered hybridity in the Fair Trade field. To this end, a qualitative methodology was chosen, using case studies to build theory rather than testing pre-existing hypotheses (Eisenhardt 1989; Eisenhardt & Graebner 2007). Two sets of data were used and triangulated to increase the validity of the observations (Patton 2002). First, a study was conducted from January 2007 to April 2009 on twelve social enterprises in four European countries: Belgium, France, Italy and the United Kingdom. These FTSEs represent different organizational models and different roles within the field, as derived from the author‟s previous work.