Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
BUDGETING AND BUDGETETARY CONTROL PRACTICES AND PROCEDURES IN TIMBER FIRMS WITHIN KUMASI METROPOLIS

The purpose of this study was to examine the budgeting and budgetary control practices and procedures in the timber firms in the Kumasi Metropolis. Specifically, the study examined the budgeting practices and approaches that exist in the timber firms, the importance of budgeting and budgetary control system as a performance measures at the timber firms, and the challenges that exist in the timber firms in Kumasi during the process of budget preparation and implementation. To tackle these objectives, opinions were elicited from all the 35 heads of departments and 53 deputies in four selected timber firms in the Kumasi Metropolis using census method. Questionnaire and interview guide were the main instruments used in eliciting data from the respondents. Frequency and percentage were used to analyse the quantitative data. Results of the study showed budgeting and budgeting control measures are an integral part of timber firms. It serves as a basis of planning, controlling cost of operations and evaluating performance of workers of these firms. Despite the laudable benefits of budgeting, its preparation, implementation and execution need to be controlled and monitored to avoid deviations from the plan and serve as a basis for revising the budget put in place. Challenge of preparation, implementation and human factors that also tend to affect budgeting. Therefore, management should ensure that in the preparation of the budgets, serious thought would be given to the external environment, emerging technologies, organisational structure and size as well as culture of the organisation and the setting where the timber firms operate.
A preliminary study into optimising the shape of a wave energy collector using a genetic algorithm

This paper describes an initial study into the optimisation of the shape of a wave energy collector using a genetic algorithm. The study investigates three descriptions of the surface geometry of a surging device, which are both compatible with panel-based hydrodynamic analysis software and form a suitable representation in the genetic algorithm. The analysis has been simplified by considering only the two-dimensional problem, that of optimising the cross-sectional shape of the surging body. Real-valued representation and continuous search space recombination and mutation are used in the genetic algorithm. A basic power absorption cost function is used to assess the relative performance of each candidate shape. The contribution of the results to the overall understanding of the optimization procedure and the direction of future research is discussed. In addition, the relative merits of the different geometric descriptions, and their value for further development are considered.
Higher physical fatigue predicts adherence to a 12-week exercise intervention in women with elevated blood pressure.

OBJECTIVE To investigate predictors of exercise adherence to a 12-week exercise intervention for sedentary women and men with elevated blood pressure (BP). METHODS Fifty-one otherwise healthy and unmedicated adults (27 women and 24 men) with elevated BP (≥120/80 mmHg but <179/109 mmHg) participated in a 12-week exercise intervention involving cardiovascular and strength training. Participants kept weekly exercise logs detailing minutes spent exercising each week. The following were assessed before and after the intervention: cardiorespiratory fitness (in mL/kg/min), body mass index (BMI), level of habitual physical activity, physical fatigue, self-efficacy for exercise habits, and social support. RESULTS Regression analysis revealed that mean exercise minutes/week were predicted by higher age (p < .05), higher cardiorespiratory fitness (p < .05), and a gender by physical fatigue interaction (p < .01; R2 = 0.34, F = 3.248, p < .01). Women who reported higher physical fatigue prior to the intervention spent more time exercising during the 12-week intervention than those with lower levels of physical fatigue. This relationship persisted after controlling for age, BMI, cardiorespiratory fitness, level of habitual physical activity prior to the intervention, self-efficacy for exercise habits, and social support (p < .01). The gender by physical fatigue interaction explained 13.9% of the variance in mean minutes exercised/week above and beyond the effects of covariates. CONCLUSION Both gender and fatigue should be considered when developing exercise interventions, such that more initial physical fatigue in women is associated with a tendency to devote greater amounts of time to exercising.
Board Characteristics and the Quality of Environmental Reporting in Nigeria

This study examines how board characteristics interact with quality of environmental reporting. Data obtained from twenty one environmentally sensitive firms was analysed using logistic regression. Content analysis was utilised to identify firms that disclose qualitative environmental reports. All investigated board dynamics except for gender mix were ascertained to have significant impact on environmental reporting. We identify an inverse relationship between board size and environmental reporting. The study offers revelation on the implications of board mechanisms on environmental concerns and recommends further investigation into other explanatory factors exogenous to the model employed in this study.
Empirical Study of the Consumption Structure of Chinese Residents

The paper conducts an empirical analysis of the consumption structure of urban and rural residents by using ELES.The study shows an overall weak current consumption of rural residents,and that the rural people's consumption structure has lagged behind that of the urban residents,and the consumption expenditure of rural residents is to meet basic living mainly.And the enjoyment-type and development-type consumption of urban residents is growing but still inadequate;the factors affecting urban and rural residents consumption level and consumption structure are not only income and price,the residents consumption habits and the relevant policies of the government in education,health,housing,pension system are also important for the elimination of rural residents' worries and fears.It is indicated that there is great potential in China's consumption structure optimization,and great room for consumption improvement.
Health-related quality of life and depressive symptoms in children with suspected sleep-disordered breathing.

STUDY OBJECTIVES Snoring and sleep-disordered breathing (SDB) are highly prevalent among children. The increasing trends of obesity in the pediatric population further predict an exacerbation of this public health problem. However, the impact of SDB on mood and quality of life and the confounder effect of obesity in this setting are unclear. DESIGN We studied a group of 85 clinically referred children, aged 8 to 12 years, with snoring and suspected SDB and 35 asymptomatic children (controls). All children completed validated questionnaires for the presence of depression (Children's Depression Inventory) and for health-related quality of life (PedsQL), and parents completed the Parent Report version of the PedsQL. Children referred to the Sleep Medicine Center for sleep-disordered breathing were further subdivided according to their body mass index > 95% for age and sex (n = 44) and with BMI < 95% for age and sex as ClinN1 (n = 41). RESULTS Parentally reported quality of life and physical health differed between obese and nonobese children. However, both groups with SDB had more-impaired quality of life and depressive symptoms than did controls. CONCLUSIONS Children with suspected SDB, regardless of the severity of apnea-hypopnea index or the presence of obesity, had more impairments in quality of life and depressive symptoms than did children who did not snore.
Augmenting a SSVEP BCI through single cycle analysis and phase weighting

Single cycle analysis of the Steady State Visual Evoked Potential (SSVEP) response allows use of standard significance tests to determine a subject's gaze. This allows standard criterion levels to be set across all subjects rather than individually by empirical analysis. Furthermore once a subject's gaze has been classified it is possible to extract a notion of expected phase to a SSVEP stimulus. This expected phase value can then be used to augment classification of attention to a four class Brain Computer Interface system improving transfer rates.
Analysis on Innovation Driving Force of Region High-tech Industry:Based on the View Point of Industrial Cluster

Industrial cluster and technical innovation is the two paths for developing the high-tech industry in China. This paper improves the classical knowledge productive function, designs a knowledge productive function containing RD and knowledge stack, introduces two factors, knowledge spillover in industrial cluster and government sustaining strength, uses spatial panel data models, and analyses the innovation driving force of region high-tech industry. The result shows that the knowledge productive function containing the RD and knowledge stack can show up the relationship between input-output in knowledge production, and the industrial cluster in the region and the knowledge spillover among regions influence the innovation production in region high-tech industry very obviously.
Transactional risk-based decision

The credit crunch and economic crisis have demonstrated the need to properly understand, characterize and assimilate risk in business activities. Failure 10 do this has resulted in serious consequences to the users involved. So the analysis and management of risk is one of the important pre·requisites to ensure a successful outcome in a business activity in any domain. In this paper we propose an approach by which an interaction initiating user in the domain of e·business ascertains beforehand the level of transactional risk in the successful completion of its business activity and utilizes it to determine on an interaction. The proposed model considers the different sub·categories and characteristics of transactional risk and ascertains in numeric and semantic terms the different levels and severities of its occurrence. It then utilizes the determined analysis of transactional risk to recommend on an informed int! ;'raction·based decision to the interaction initiating user.
Walking Gait of a Biped with a Wearable Walking Assist Device

A ballistic walking gait is designed for a planar biped equipped with a wearable walking assist device. The biped is a seven-link planar biped with two legs, two feet, and a trunk. The wearable walking assist device is composed of a bodyweight support, two upper legs, two lower legs, and two shoes. The dynamic model of the biped with its walking assist device, containing two closed kinematic chains, is calculated by virtually cutting each of both loops at one of their point. In the single support phase, the biped with its assist device moves due to the existence of a momentum, produced mechanically, without applying active torques in the inter-link joints. The biped and this assist device are controlled with impulsive torques at the instantaneous double support to obtain a cyclic gait. The impulsive torques are applied in the six inter-link joints of the biped and in several inter-link joints of the wearable walking assist device. The following distributions of impulsive torques, in the knees or the ankles, hips and knees, hips and ankles, or knees and ankles and the fully assist device, are compared with the case of no assistance for the biped. Each time, an infinity of solutions exists to find the impulsive torques. An energy cost functional defined from these impulsive torques is minimized to determine a unique solution. Numerical results show that for a given time period and a given length of the walking gait step, the assistance of the hips is a good compromise to help the biped.
Customer and non‐customer perspectives for examining corporate reputation

Purpose – Several studies on corporate reputation have proposed a customer‐based approach for assessing corporate reputation. Other studies proposed examining corporate reputation from the perspective of other primary stakeholder groups such as employees, investors or suppliers. Hence this paper aims to examine corporate reputation by considering both the customer's and the non‐customer's views.Design/methodology/approach – This study was applied to the US wireless telecommunications industry. A random sample of 1,088 respondents composed of 518 customers and 570 representing the non‐customers, was generated for this study. The sample was randomly distributed by age, gender, income, education and geographic location.Findings – The findings of this study revealed that the formation of perceptions about corporate reputation differ between customers and non‐customers. The dimension of emotional appeal is specific to the customer group and the dimension of vision and leadership is specific to the non‐customer.
Phylogenetic analysis of Fusobacterium prausnitzii based upon the 16S rRNA gene sequence and PCR confirmation.

In order to develop a PCR method to detect Fusobacterium prausnitzii in human feces and to clarify the phylogenetic position of this species, its 16S rRNA gene sequence was determined. The sequence described in this paper is different from the 16S rRNA gene sequence is specific for F. prausnitzii, and the results of this assay confirmed that F. prausnitzii is the most common species in human feces. However, a PCR assay based on the original GenBank sequence was negative when it was performed with two strains of F. prausnitzii obtained from the American Type Culture Collection. A phylogenetic tree based on the new 16S rRNA gene sequence was constructed. On this tree F. prausnitzii was not a member of the Fusobacterium group but was closer to some Eubacterium spp. and located between Clostridium "clusters III and IV" (M.D. Collins, P.A. Lawson, A. Willems, J.J. Cordoba, J. Fernandez-Garayzabal, P. Garcia, J. Cai, H. Hippe, and J.A.E. Farrow, Int. J. Syst. Bacteriol. 44:812-826, 1994).
Biochemical Analysis of the Kruppel-associated Box (KRAB) Transcriptional Repression Domain

The Kruppel-associated box (KRAB) domain is a 75-amino acid transcriptional repressor module commonly found in eukaryotic zinc finger proteins. KRAB-mediated gene silencing requires binding to the RING-B box-coiled-coil domain of the corepressor KAP-1. Little is known about the biochemical properties of the KRAB domain or the KRAB·KAP-1 complex. Using purified components, a combination of biochemical and biophysical analyses has revealed that the KRAB domain from the KOX1 protein is predominantly a monomer and that the KAP-1 protein is predominantly a trimer in solution. The analyses of electrophoretic mobility shift assays, GST association assays, and plasmon resonance interaction data have indicated that the KRAB binding to KAP-1 is direct, highly specific, and high affinity. The optical biosensor data for the complex was fitted to a model of a one-binding step interaction with fast association and slow dissociation rates, with a calculated K d of 142 nm. The fitted R max indicated three molecules of KAP-1 binding to one molecule of the KRAB domain, a stoichiometry that is consistent with quantitative SDS-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis analysis of the complex. These structural and dynamic parameters of the KRAB/KAP-1 interaction have implications for identifying downstream effectors of KAP-1 silencing and the de novo design of new repression domains.
Bourdieu’s Social Reproduction Thesis and The Role of Cultural Capital in Educational Attainment: A Critical Review of Key Empirical Studies

This critical review examines key quantitative evidence in studies regarding the role of cultural capital in the links between family social class, teachers, schools and students’ educational outcomes as specified in Bourdieu’s social reproduction thesis. Cultural capital is assumed to be one of the central family-based endowments whose social class value impacts offspring intergenerational educational probabilities unequally. Inequalities in educational stratification and occupational achievement are reproduced via schools. As an analytic concept, cultural capital has generated considerable interest. But as a mechanism of class analysis the social reproduction thesis, and the role of cultural capital in it, cannot be confirmed empirically in large-scale representative, longitudinal data (or across various national settings). The role of teachers and schools, argued in Bourdieu’s theory to be central agents of exclusion and reproduction of class inequality connecting families to stratification outcomes cannot be confirmed in quantitative research. Cultural capital seen strictly as a mechanism of class reproduction as specified in Bourdieu’s framework, has limited analytic potential that restricts its application in multicultural societies. Some alternative applications are discussed.
High-Impedance Fault Identification on Distribution Networks

This paper presents a transient-based algorithm for high-impedance fault identification on distribution networks. It uses the discrete wavelet transform to monitor high- and low-frequency voltage components at several points of the power system, being able to indicate the most likely area within which the disturbance has occurred, without requiring data synchronization nor the knowledge of feeder or load parameters. The proposed algorithm is evaluated through electromagnetic transients program simulations of high-impedance faults in a 13.8 kV system modeled from actual Brazilian distribution grid data. Solid faults, capacitor bank switching, and feeder energization are also simulated, considering the system with and without distributed generation. Obtained results show that the algorithm significantly reduces the search field of the high-impedance fault, reliably distinguishing it from other disturbances.
Unilateral spontaneous lens absorption and dislocation of the empty capsular bag into the anterior chamber.

Department of Ophthalmology, Seoul National University College of Medicine, Seoul 03080, Korea Department of Ophthalmology, Seoul Metropolitan Government Seoul National University Boramae Medical Center, Seoul 07061, Korea Department of Ophthalmology, Myongji Hospital Seonam University College of Medicine, Goyang 10475, Korea Correspondence to: Young Keun Han. Department of Ophthalmology, Seoul Metropolitan Government Seoul National University Boramae Medical Center, 20, Boramae-Ro 5-Gil, Dongjak-Gu, Seoul 07061, Korea. eye129@paran.com Received: 2015-10-17 Accepted: 2016-09-25
Contingent approaches to quality-based pricing within the agrifood industry

The issues associated with traditional standard costing and transfer pricing systems are well documented. These approaches are particularly problematic within the agrifood industry because of the natural variability of products, market price volatility, poor understanding of production costs and low levels of customer alignment. Continuing competitive pressures on this industry are driving the need to identify more effective mechanisms. This paper examines one such mechanism, quality-based pricing (QBP), to understand whether this merits consideration as a viable alternative. The paper presents evidence from case studies of two separate QBP implementations. The results show that both schemes address the sector-specific issues and are “fit for purpose”, designed to match specific product and market characteristics. It is concluded that holistic forms of QBP can play a significant role within the agrifood industry, and further research is proposed to test a generic model to understand the wider applicability across the industry.
Standardization vs. adaptation: consumer reaction to TV ads containing subtitled or English dubbed ads

The aim of this study is to gain a better insight into the effect of using linguistically standardized (in English) TV adverts as opposed to two types of linguistically adapted commercials (dubbed in the local language or subtitled in the local language) on attitude-towards-the-ad and attitude-towards-the-brand. We ran a between-subjects experiment in three countries (Italy, Germany, and Spain) with three different versions of commercials (English only, dubbed in the local language, and subtitled in the local language) and assessed the effect of three different versions of the ads on attitude-towards-the-ad and on attitude-towards-the-brand. Results indicate that English-only adverts were less preferred than the alternatives and led to lower brand attitudes as well. This result was consistent for three advertised products (mobile phone, canned drink, and automobile) and replicated in all three countries, showing that this effect is robust.
Reliability, repeatability and sensitivity to change of externally and self-paced walking tests in COPD patients.

In COPD, several walking tests have been proposed to measure exercise tolerance but their relative merits are uncertain. We studied 57 moderate-to-severe, stable COPD patients (mean FEV1 35 +/- 12% predicted). Within a 2-month period, we compared reliability (inter-subject variability) and repeatability (intra-subject variability) of the most widely used 6-min walks (6MWD), with self-paced 2-min walks (2MWD) and externally paced, incremental shuttles (Shuttle). On 9 separate days either of the three 6MWD, 2MWD or Shuttles were performed (nine walks of each type). Then, each walk was performed before and after bronchodilators (BD) to assess sensitivity to change (mean change/standard deviation of change (sensitivity index--SI)). For all exercise tests, reliability was >90% (2MWD 95%, 6MWD 92% and Shuttle 91%). Repeatability was excellent (overall <10% intra-subject variation; for 2MWD 5%, 6MWD 8% and Shuttle 9%). On average, the first walking distance was significantly shorter, but there were no significant differences between second and third walks. Dyspnoea scores were much less reproducible. BD produced highly significant improvements in Shuttle (pre-BD 27 SD=11 --> post-BD 30 SD=11), 6MWD (424 m SD=115 --> 462 m SD=106) and 2MWD (153 m SD=35 --> 162 m SD=34), (P < 0.0001). SI was similar for all walks (6MWD 0.84, 2MWD 0.75 and Shuttle 0.76). In moderate-to-severe COPD, 2MWDs are as informative as 6MWDs without their disadvantages. Self-paced walks are as useful as externally paced Shuttles.
Prognostic significance of Fas (CD95/APO‐1) positivity in patients with primary nodal diffuse large B‐cell lymphoma

Fas (CD95/APO‐1) is a protein that is mainly related to apoptosis of lymphoid cells. The increment of Fas expression is associated with long‐term survival in various malignancies. However, there are limited studies regarding the effect of Fas expression on the course and prognosis of non‐Hodgkin's lymphoma. The aim of this study was to investigate the significance of immunohistochemical Fas expression on the prognosis of nodal diffuse large B‐cell lymphoma.
Optimal data integrity attack on actuators in Cyber-Physical Systems

The security issues are of prime importance for Cyber-Physical Systems (CPSs). Most existing works mainly investigate the secure control schemes against malicious attackers. This article analyzes how to design an data integrity attack scheme from the viewpoint of an attacker. The formulation of our approach is basically similar to the one of conventional optimal control method, with different prerequisites and solutions. An output feedback control system under data integrity attacks on actuators is considered in this article. Our work is aimed at constructing an optimal feedback attack law to maximize the error between the attacked system's output and the healthy system's output. Numerical examples are presented to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method.