Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The effect of integrated information technology on innovative capability and its impact on firm performance

The firm performance constituted a serious problem for Indonesian Logistics Service Providers (LSP), so that the performance improvement is important and urgent matter for the companies particularly in the context of ASEAN Economic Community. Conceptually, some previous researches showed that the firm performance was influenced by innovative capability and the capability influenced by resources. The researches also showed that not all resources had positive and significant effect on innovative capability. The integrated IT as one of resources and it must be owned by logistics service provider in Indonesia in accordance with government regulation. This research aimed to assess the effect of integrated information technology (IT) on firm performance pass through innovative capability. This research used causal research methodology and analyzed by Partial Least Squares (Smart-PLS 2.0). It was found that integrated IT had positive and significant effect on firm performance pass through innovative capability. It showed that resources must be modified into capabilities in order to have a positive and significant impact on firm performance.
Pairwise HITS: Quality Estimation from Pairwise Comparisons in Creator-Evaluator Crowdsourcing Process

A common technique for improving the quality of crowdsourcing results is to assign a same task to multiple workers redundantly, and then to aggregate the results to obtain a higher-quality result; however, this technique is not applicable to complex tasks such as article writing since there is no obvious way to aggregate the results. Instead, we can use a two-stage procedure consisting of a creation stage and an evaluation stage, where we first ask workers to create artifacts, and then ask other workers to evaluate the artifacts to estimate their quality. In this study, we propose a novel quality estimation method for the two-stage procedure where pairwise comparison results for pairs of artifacts are collected at the evaluation stage. Our method is based on an extension of Kleinberg's HITS algorithm to pairwise comparison, which takes into account the ability of evaluators as well as the ability of creators. Experiments using actual crowdsourcing tasks show that our methods outperform baseline methods especially when the number of evaluators per artifact is small.
Tax Elasticities and the Impact of Discretionary Tax Measures on Government Revenue in Papua New Guinea, 1975–92

This paper evaluates tax elasticities and the impact of discretionary tax measures on government revenue in Papua New Guinea (PNG) using a dynamic macroeconometric model of taxation which captures the interaction between GDP, individual tax systems and individual tax revenues and bases. Our findings show that economic growth and discretionary tax changes have both been effective in mobilizing additional tax revenue. However, the responsiveness of the individual tax system reflected base‐to‐GDP elasticity except personal income tax whose elasticity reflected increased tax rates.
Isolation of photorespiratory mutants from Lotus japonicus deficient in glutamine synthetase.

A mutagenesis programme using ethyl methanesulphonate (EMS) was carried out on Lotus japonicus (Regel) Larsen cv. Gifu in order to isolate photorespiratory mutants in this model legume. These mutants were able to grow in a CO2-enriched atmosphere [0.7% (v/v) CO2] but showed stress symptoms when transferred to air. Among them, three mutants displayed low levels of glutamine synthetase (GS; EC 6.3.1.2) activity in leaves. The mutants accumulated ammonium in leaves upon transfer from 0.7% (v/v) CO2 to air. F1 plants of back crosses to wild type were viable in air and F2 populations segregated 3 : 1 (viable in air : air-sensitive) indicative of a single Mendelian recessive trait. Complementation tests showed that the three mutants obtained were allelic. Chromatography on DEAE-Sephacel used to separate the cytosolic and plastidic GS isoenzymes together with immunological data showed that: (1) mutants were specifically affected in the plastidic GS isoform, and (2) in L. japonicus the plastidic GS isoform eluted at lower ionic strength than the cytosolic isoform, contrary to what happens in most plants. The plastidic GS isoform present in roots of wild type L. japonicus was also absent in roots of the mutants, indicating that this plastidic isoform from roots was encoded by the same gene than the GS isoform expressed in leaf tissue. Viability of mutant plants in high-CO2 conditions indicates that plastidic GS is not essentially required for primary ammonium assimilation. Nevertheless, mutant plants did not grow as well as wild type plants in high-CO2 conditions.
The Effect of Conscious Control on Handwriting in Children With Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder

Two experiments were performed regarding the effect of conscious control on handwriting fluency in healthy adults and ADHD children. First, 26 healthy students were asked to write a sentence under different conditions. The results indicate that automated handwriting movements are independent from visual feedback. Second, the writing performance of 12 children with ADHD was examined on their usual medication with methylphenidate and under placebo. In comparison to placebo, medication with methylphenidate resulted in a reduced fluency of handwriting. Automated handwriting movements could be elicited in children with ADHD on medication. The results suggest that both visual and mental control of handwriting movements affect the automation of handwriting movements. Furthermore, a simple training procedure was designed and performed in a case study of a boy with ADHD.
Reduction in Needle Sharing among Community Wide Samples of Injecting Drug Users

Evidence of reduced levels of needle sharing among injecting drug users (IDUs) has largely been confined to IDUs attending needle exchanges or receiving treatment. In this paper we present the results of a serial cross-sectional study of needle sharing conducted in Glasgow using a multisite sampling strategy. Of the estimated 9400 IDUs in the city, 503 were interviewed in 1990 and 535 in 1991. The proportion of IDUs reporting injecting with, or passing on used needles and syringes in the last 6 months fell significantly as did the number of individuals from whom equipment was received or passed on to. The impact of this level of sharing has been limited in terms of HIV transmission; the prevalence of HIV among the 1990 sample was 2.0% and 1.1% for the 1991 sample. However, the fact that a third of IDUs in Glasgow continue to inject, even occasionally, with used equipment gives cause for concern in view of the other pathologies known to be associated with poor injecting hygiene.
Input-Output Approach in an Allocation System

An input-output transaction matrix may be conceived in terms of an equilibrium position of two sets of interacting forces. The broadest way in which we can define them is 'to denote one set of forces as technical factors expressed through production functions and the other set as market factors expressed through allocation functions. Though technical factors influence production, it is widely recognised that there are various alternative technical combinations in any economy and under different market situations different combinations are actually taken up. An input-output matrix then represents an equilibrium solution for two sets of equations somewhat analogous to demand and supply functions. Under a competitive market and non-scarce resources allocation functions will play a minor role in the set up, and special conditions may be formulated under which production coefficients will determine the equilibrium. But under a monopolistic market with scarce resources allocation functions will determine which among a large group of alternative processes and combinations will be taken up by any particular sector. That is, production functions are forced to play a minor role. We can in this sense associate with an input-output matrix two sets of coefficients. One of these sets has been familiarised by Leontief as production coefficients, or, technical coefficients. They express the relationship xjj =ccjX5 where x, is the output of the ith sector sold to the jth sector and Xi is the output of the jth sector. We can similarly also assume the' existence under different circumstances of the relation xi, =A jXi where xi, is as before the output of the ith industry going to the jth sector and Xi is the output of the ith sector. According as supply or demand conditions predominate either of the relations may approximate reality or neither of these simplified situations may actually approximate reality at all. Leontief has formulated an idealised situation where the set oc, is assumed fixed and the set Ail is allowed to change freely with any change in the final demand. Such conditions may be assumed to hold approximately so long as there is no scarce factor and so long as suppliers are able to offer more of any commodity at the existing price. Leontief's formulation thus takes up for consideration a situation where there is even in the short period a large unused capacity in most sectors such that any change in the final demands do not set
Offline signature authentication: A back propagation-neural network approach

In the field o f Information Technology, security is the most important aspect to ensure confidentiality and avoid forgery. When we think about security, authentication is play an important role. To identify the authenticated person various biometric authentication techniques are used (like iris, fingers print, plum vain, signature authentication etc.). These techniques measures behavioral or physiological characteristics like a voice sample or a signature. In case of offline signature deals with the image of signature and the image is acquired by a digital camera or a scanner. In this case, the handwriting order, writing speed variation and skillfulness are the key points. Previously offline signature was verified u sing Hidden Markov Model (HMM), Support Vector Machine (SVM) or using some unique features of a signature. Some unique feature like global feature (like pixel density, pixel distribution and pixel axils), mask feature or grid feature. In any type of authentication technique three things are most important (i) False Acceptance Rate (FAR), (ii) False Rejection Rate (FRR) and (iii)Accuracy. In this paper, we deal with off-line signature and that signature was verified using Artificial Neural Network (ANN) u sing Back Propagation Neural Network; obtain satisfactory results when compared with existing approaches. Here after comparing target and predicted output, the error calculated is always less than 0.5.
COPPER CRISIS AND AGRICULTURAL RENAISSANCE IN ZAMBIA: AN ECONOMY-WIDE ANALYSIS

Zambia's strong dependence on copper exports has suppressed other tradables sectors, indicative of a Dutch disease phenomenon. The current copper crisis will have strong economic effects, possibly reversing such Dutch disease effects. We use a computable general equilibrium model built around a 1995 social accounting matrix to simulate the short- and long-run effects of two scenarios that reflect the current crisis, a 20 percent reduction in world copper prices and a complete collapse of copper mining. Compared to the short run, the long run is characterized by more flexibility in production technology and capital allocation. Both scenarios require a significant reduction in the "non-copper" trade deficit, absorption, and household consumption. The strongest effects occur under the short-run mining-collapse scenario where household consumption falls by 13 percent and the real exchange rate depreciates by 42 percent. In the long run, these effects are approximately half as strong. The short- and long-run impacts of a 20 percent fall in world copper prices include a cut in household consumption by 4-5 percent and real depreciation by 7-10 percent. For all scenarios, the welfare losses for rural households are below the national average. Given that per-capita consumption is lower in rural areas, inequality falls. This distributional outcome is driven by the fact that the agro-food-fiber complex, which produces outputs that are relatively tradable, expands relative to the rest of the economy in terms of value-added, employment, and exports, suggesting that the copper crisis may induce an agricultural renaissance.
Intangible Assets and the Network Structure of MNCs

This paper examines the nature of the relationship between corporate intangible assets and the multinational network structure of the firm. Specifically, the question addressed in this paper is whether the nature of corporate intangible assets determines the mode of geographic expansion of the MNC. The interactive effects between the level and type of corporate intangibles and the foreign expansion path of MNCs are also examined. Based on the analysis of 362 MNCs, representing 88 three-digit SIC industries, the results of this study show that R&D-intensive MNCs maintain substantially more geographically diversified and less geographically focused operating networks than advertising-intensive MNCs. Furthermore, R&D-intensive MNCs' foreign investments create more value through geographic diversification, while non-R&D-intensive MNCs benefit the most by increasing the geographic focus of their foreign investment activities. We also document that MNCs without significant levels of technology know-how and marketing based intangible assets can benefit the most from geographic-focused rather than geographic-diversified foreign business operations.
Overview of the European and North American studies on HPV testing in primary cervical cancer screening

Several studies suggest that HPV testing is more sensitive than cytology in primary cervical screening. These studies had different designs and were reported in different ways. Individual patient data were collected for all European and North American studies in which cytology was routinely performed and HPV testing was included as an additional parallel test. More than 60,000 women were included. The sensitivity and specificity of HPV testing were compared with routine cytology, both overall and for ages <35, 35–49 and 50+. The age‐specific prevalence of high risk HPV (hr‐HPV) was also analysed. HPV testing was substantially more sensitive in detecting CIN2+ than cytology (96.1% vs. 53.0%) but less specific (90.7% vs. 96.3%). The sensitivity of HPV testing was similar in all studies carried out in different areas of Europe and North America, whereas the sensitivity of cytology was highly variable. HPV sensitivity was uniformly high at all ages, whereas the sensitivity of cytology was substantially better in women over the age of 50 than in younger women (79.3% vs. 59.6%). The specificity of both tests increased with age. Positivity rates for HPV testing in women without high‐grade CIN were region dependent. These results support the use of HPV testing as the sole primary screening test, with cytology reserved for women who test HPV positive. Large demonstration projects are needed to fully evaluate this strategy. © 2006 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Street Names and Political Identity: The Case of East Berlin

Street names are convenient and popular political symbols, a fact not generally recognized. Street names reflect and manifest a certain political identity they are indicators of political identity while at the same time being part of it. They also help form a desired political consciousness among the population. It is not surprising, therefore, that major political changes are reflected in the renaming of streets, as instanced in Tehran in 1978 and Managua in 1979. The regime of the Sozialistische Einheitspartei Deutschlands (SED) in East Germany was not the first'in Germany to politicize street names, which, up till 1918, reflected the official political ideology of the Kaiserreich. The nazis, in turn, removed those street names denoting an undesirable democratic political tradition and replaced them with appropriate nazi names. Little attention has been paid to the relationship between street names and official political ideology in East Germany. Ralf Dahrendorf has pointed out the difference between street names in East and West Germany' and P.J. Lapp has investigated new street names in the city of Leipzig.2 This article will examine one set of East German street names as indicators of political identity and communicators of political propaganda, those of East Berlin, the capital of the German Democratic Republic (GDR). It will consider the symbolic value of both the names which have disappeared and those which have replaced them. It will also study the political and ideological background against which some particularly notable renamings were made. In short, it will attempt to follow and analyse the political process which brought about changes in the names of hundreds of streets in East Berlin after 1945.
Tapping into the next talent generation

Purpose – Business has always been dependent on talent to drive performance. But as the war for talent heats up the competition for talented employees is at an all time high. Driving widespread adoption of a talent management mindset and utilizing the second generation of the web are vital to success. The purpose of this paper is to outline methods that organizations can use to attract and retain talent to beat the competition.Design/methodology/approach – The paper demonstrates the efficiencies that can be gained by focusing on a talent management system implementation at DeticaDFI.Findings – Talent is defined as an ability or quality possessed by a person in a particular field or activity. In business it is also recognized as the only true and sustainable competitive advantage. As the criticality of attracting and retaining the best people has increased, so has the necessity to manage talent holistically on a unified and business‐centric talent management platform. Talent management is evolving to becom.
Controller–observer design and dynamic parameter identification for model-based control of an electromechanical lower-limb rehabilitation system

ABSTRACT Rehabilitation is a hazardous task for a mechanical system, since the device has to interact with the human extremities without the hands-on experience the physiotherapist acquires over time. A gap needs to be filled in terms of designing effective controllers for this type of devices. In this respect, the paper describes the design of a model-based control for an electromechanical lower-limb rehabilitation system based on a parallel kinematic mechanism. A controller–observer was designed for estimating joint velocities, which are then used in a hybrid position/force control scheme. The model parameters are identified by customising an approach based on identifying only the relevant system dynamics parameters. Findings obtained through simulations show evidence of improvement in tracking performance compared with those where the velocity was estimated by numerical differentiation. The controller is also implemented in an actual electromechanical system for lower-limb rehabilitation tasks. Findings based on rehabilitation tasks confirm the findings from simulations.
EMPIRICAL EVIDENCE ON CORPORATE SOCIAL DISCLOSURE (CSD) PRACTICES IN JORDAN

This study provides empirical evidence on corporate social disclosure practices in a sample of 143 companies. Chosen from four different industry groupings, these companies form 83% of the total population of companies listed on the Amman Financial Market. The results of the analysis reveal that CSD received modest attention from most surveyed companies in terms of space devoted and subjects covered in such disclosure in the annual reports. There is a limited number, however, of Jordanian companies operating in the banking and manufacturing sectors which have articulated their CSD responsibilities in a convincing manner. The themes most commonly disclosed across the four industry groupings were human resources and community involvement. Environmental disclosure needs much more attention by the Jordanian shareholding companies. Significant differences among various industry groupings were, on the other hand, noted with respect to the amounts, methods and locations of CSD in the annual reports of the sampled companies.
Land Productivity Changes in a Trade Liberalization Environment: Mexico under NAFTA

The focus of this research is the understanding of a fundamental aspect of the Mexican agricultural sector: the evolution of land productivity and the sources behind its changes. The study takes place in a period that runs from 1990 to 2011, a period of large structural transformations in the Mexican economy. The research offers answers regarding how the sector has adapted in terms of crop selection. Results show that a large share of total agricultural land productivity changes happened due to intrinsic changes in crop productivity; while these changes have different sources, most of them were the result of changes in production patters across states. Furthermore, around one quarter of total productivity, changes resulted from a better selection of crops in terms of productivity levels.
Flash Reliability Boost Huffman coding (FRBH): Co-optimization of data compression and Vth distribution modulation to enhance data-retention time by over 2900x

Highly reliable data compression technique. Flash Reliability Boost Huffman coding (FRBH) is proposed for TLC NAND Flash memory. By decreasing the write data size and optimizing the memory cell Vth distribution at the same time, FRBH decreases data-retention errors by 92% and increases data-retention time by over 2900 times.
Identification and Characterization of Protein Arginine Methyltransferase 1 in Acanthamoeba castellanii

Protein arginine methyltransferase (PRMT) is an important epigenetic regulator in eukaryotic cells. During encystation, an essential process for Acanthamoeba survival, the expression of a lot of genes involved in the encystation process has to be regulated in order to be induced or inhibited. However, the regulation mechanism of these genes is yet unknown. In this study, the full-length 1,059 bp cDNA sequence of Acanthamoeba castellanii PRMT1 (AcPRMT1) was cloned for the first time. The AcPRMT1 protein comprised of 352 amino acids with a SAM-dependent methyltransferase PRMT-type domain. The expression level of AcPRMT1 was highly increased during encystation of A. castellanii. The EGFP-AcPRMT1 fusion protein was distributed over the cytoplasm, but it was mainly localized in the nucleus of Acanthamoeba. Knock down of AcPRMT1 by synthetic siRNA with a complementary sequence failed to form mature cysts. These findings suggested that AcPRMT1 plays a critical role in the regulation of encystation of A. castellanii. The target gene of AcPRMT1 regulation and the detailed mechanisms need to be investigated by further studies.
Dynamic Linkages Among Financial Markets in the Greater China Region: A Multivariate Asymmetric Approach

This study examines the volatility dynamics of the Greater China stock markets by employing a multivariate framework that incorporates the features of asymmetries, persistence and time-varying correlations. The multivariate framework with these features will contribute to a better understanding of the interdependence and integration among the stock markets in the Greater China region. Our results confirm the existence of volatility persistence and asymmetries, and there is some evidence of a common degree of persistence (‘co-persistence’) among the markets. It is also found that the Mainland Chinese markets are actually less volatile than the Taiwan and Hong Kong stock exchanges in the late 1990s and early 2000s. The Shenzhen and Shanghai stock exchanges are positively (not perfectly) correlated with each other, but they show a weaker correlation with the Hong Kong and Taiwan markets. These findings have important implications for hedging and portfolio management.