Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The relative impact of actual and potential rivalry on firm profitability in the pharmaceutical industry

This paper estimates the effects of actual and potential rivalry on profitability of firms in the U.S. pharmaceutical industry during the 20-year period 1963–82. The results show that during the 1960s actual rivalry among the sampled firms did not materially affect firm profitability, but that during the 1970s competition among incumbents had an increasingly adverse effect on their profitability. The results also show that potential competition significantly reduced drug firms’ profitability during the entire 20-year period. Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Switch selection & sizing in CMOS implementation of variable output switched capacitor step-down DC-DC converter

This paper describes the CMOS implementation of an open-loop variable output voltage switched capacitor step-down DC-DC converter with large number of target voltages. The number of target voltages generated using n-flying capacitors are of the order of 2n. A scheme for selection of transistor type and size is given that optimizes silicon area and efficiency of a given design. Expressions for equivalent series resistance (Req), conduction, switching power loss and efficiency are derived in terms of switching frequency (Fsw), flying capacitor value and compared with the simulated results. The effect of flying capacitor on efficiency is shown with the plots of efficiency vs. output voltages and bottom plate capacitance. The 3/4 step-down converter circuit is described and analysed by varying switching frequency and load for different values of bottom plate capacitance. An efficiency of about 87% is achieved with 15% bottom plate capacitance for load current of 10mA and input voltage of 1.8V at 4MHz of switching frequency.
THE STRATEGIC FACILITIES MANAGEMENT ORGANISATION IN HOUSING: IMPLICATIONS FOR SUSTAINABLE FACILITIES MANAGEMENT

Two houses in the same street can be built in the same year, they can look the same, and still they might provide very different support for sustainable living. This article points to the Strategic Facilities Management Organisation (SFMO) as the most important concept, to understand and manage implementation of sustainable facilities management in housing administration. The concept provides a frame for understanding the roles and relations of tenants, owners, administrators and operators. The paper is based on a Danish research project on environmentally sound building operation including literature studies, workshops, questionnaire and case studies. The article offers an analysis of the strengths and weaknesses of 3 different constellations of SFMO, reflecting 3 different types of ownership: Social housing, owner occupied/private coops and private rented. It is a contribution to the expanding literature on sustainable facilities management, where it fills a gap as it deals with housing and strategic FM. Intended readers are those interested in housing administration and especially the transition of existing housing into more sustainable housing. Intended readers include building owners, policy makers, building administrators and FM-providers and others interested in process management and sustainability.
Counting Problems for Parikh Images

Given finite-state automata (or context-free grammars) A,B over the same alphabet and a Parikh vector p, we study the complexity of deciding whether the number of words in the language of A with Parikh image p is greater than the number of such words in the language of B. Recently, this problem turned out to be tightly related to the cost problem for weighted Markov chains. We classify the complexity according to whether A and B are deterministic, the size of the alphabet, and the encoding of p (binary or unary).
The Relationship of Learning Orientation to Organizational Performance

The fundamental premise of successful firms possessing resources that are superior to those of their competitors has been prevalent in the related literature. This has fostered a wealth of research to determine the source, as well as the necessary maintenance of these resources. Resources should possess certain characteristics that would benefit the firm, given that effective strategic deployment of resources at any time is moderated by time, the actions of competitors, and the dynamics of the external environment. It is through this ongoing process of competing and ultimately succeeding through ideocyncratic resources that provides the catalyst for superior financial performance. These capabilities, which are developed over time, provide a source of advantage that must be continually protected and improved. As the external environment changes, dynamism in the environment requires a departure from established organizational strategies; the entrepreneurial firm pursues competitive advantage through innovation, considered essential to competitive advantage. The competitive marketplace becomes the impetus for innovation, and innovation in turn becomes a key form of organizational learning.
Potassium efflux in heart muscle during activity: extracellular accumulation and its implications.

1. Extracellular K+ activity and transmembrane potential were simultaneously monitored with a K+‐selective micro‐electrode placed in the extracellular space and a standard KCl‐filled micro‐electrode in the intracellular space of the frog ventricular muscle. 2. K+ was found to accumulate during activity and had the approximate magnitude and time course to account for the measured membrane depolarization. 3. The magnitude of the K+ accumulation depended on the frequency of stimulation, diameter of the muscle and temperature of the bathing solution. 4. The time constants of accumulation and decay were dependent only on the diameter and the temperature of the strip. A Q10 of 2 was measured for the decay of accumulated K+. 5. Double barrelled K+‐electrodes were used to monitor the change in K+ activity accompanying a single action potential, since the reference barrel allowed for rapid compensation of the electrical potential fluctuations encountered in the subendothelial space. 6. K+ accumulated continuously during the plateau to a level which increased external K concentration by about 1 mM. This increase in the subendothelial space corresponds to about 1‐3 muA/cm2 or 10‐30 pmole/cm2‐sec‐1 of net K+ efflux. These values are at least an order of magnitude larger than required to discharge the membrane capacitance. 7. There is no direct relation between action potential duration and rate of development or magnitude of K+ accumulation during that action potential. 8. Increase in the external K concentration, while shortening the action potential and depolarizing the membrane, does not lead to an increased rate of accumulation of K+. The presence of Ni2+, on the other hand, prolongs the action potential and decreases the rate of K+ accumulation. 9. The results suggest that there is a substantial and continuous efflux of K+ during the action potential, which sums during rapid beating, resulting in membrane depolarization and alteration of action potential duration. The change in action potential duration in response to rate may be caused by alteration of EK in the local micro‐environments.
Mitochondrial genes of Schistosoma mansoni

Two clones, totalling 8068 bp and spanning over half of the coding region of the mitochondrial genome of Schistosoma mansoni, have been sequenced. Complete sequences are presented of the large and small ribosomal RNA subunits, CO2, ND3, ND4, ND6 and ATPase 6 genes. Incomplete sequences were found for the CO1, ND2 and CytB genes. At least 10 tRNAs were also detected and alternative structures for some of these discussed. The gene order of S. mansoni is unique and differs from that of Fasciola hepatica, the only other trematode for which any information is available.
Time domain integral equation methods for analyses of transient radiation and scattering problems

A stable solver of the time domain integral equation (TDIE) methods with quadratic B-spline temporal basis functions (TBFs) for analyses of transient radiation and scattering problems is proposed. This TBF permits consistent approximations of the induced currents and charges, leading to proper representations of the fields contributed by both the vector and scalar potentials. This TBF also has the least support width among all the polynomial basis functions of the same order, generating most possible sparse system matrices. Numerical examples show that the proposed scheme is stable and accurate.
A Direct Comparison of Metabolic Responses to High-Fat Diet in C57BL/6J and C57BL/6NJ Mice

Although nicotinamide nucleotide transhydrogenase (NNT)–deficient C57BL/6J (6J) mice are known to be highly susceptible to diet-induced metabolic disease, this notion stems primarily from comparisons of 6J mice to other inbred strains. To date, very few studies have directly compared metabolic disease susceptibility between NNT-deficient 6J mice and NNT-competent C57BL/6 substrains. In this study, comprehensive profiling of the metabolic response to a high-fat/high-sucrose diet (HFD) were compared across time in 6J and C57BL/6NJ (6N) mice. Given that increased peroxide exposure drives insulin resistance, coupled with the fact that NNT regulates peroxide detoxification, it was hypothesized that 6J mice would experience greater derangements in redox homeostasis/metabolic disease upon HFD exposure. Contrary to this, both lines were found to be highly susceptible to diet-induced metabolic disease, as evidenced by impairments in glucose tolerance as early as 24 h into the HFD. Moreover, various markers of the metabolic syndrome, as well as peroxide stress, were actually blunted, rather than exacerbated, in the 6J mice, likely reflecting compensatory increases in alterative redox-buffering pathways. Together, these data provide evidence that the susceptibility to HFD-induced metabolic disease is similar in the 6J and 6N substrains. Given the numerous genetic variances in the 6J stain, including loss of NNT function, these findings suggest that the 6N substrain is the more logical and representative genetic background model for metabolic studies.
Estimating fractal dimension of natural terrain from irregularly spaced data

The authors propose a method to estimate terrain roughness directly from the depth information. They estimate the fractal dimension of terrain using the fractal Brownian function approach. For experiments with real data, they extend the approach to accommodate irreguarly sampled elevation data supplied by a scanning laser rangefinder. Applying this extended method to noisy range imagery of natural terrain (sand and rocks), the authors find that the resulting estimates of fractal dimension correlate closely to human perception of the roughness of the terrain, showing that the fractal dimension of the sensed point set is a practical and effective measure of the roughness of natural terrain.
Identifying Technical Content Training Needs of Georgia Agriculture Teachers

Joerger (2002)emphasized the need for appropriate and timely pre-service and in- service activities for agriculture teachers to ensure that they are properly equipped to contend with changing conditions in agriculture education. The Committee on Agricultural Education in Secondary Schools Board on Agriculture of theNational Research Council (1988)stated “. in-service education programs must be revised and expanded to develop more competent teachers. in and about agriculture” (p. 7). While researchers can agree that appropriate pre-service and in-service training need to be provided to teachers, it is much more difficult to identify what trainings are most appropriate and most needed.
Effects of xenobiotics on macrophage function: evaluation in vitro.

Macrophages participate in a variety of inflammatory and immunologic functions (e.g., phagocytosis, cytokine production, killing of microbes and tumor cells, and processing and presentation of antigen to T lymphocytes). Because these cells are widely distributed in the circulation and throughout tissue, the effects of xenobiotics on macrophage function can be significant. Measures in vitro of altered function elicited by xenobiotic exposure can include changes in expression of cell surface proteins, in production of oxygen and nitrogen free radicals, in production of cytokines [interleukin (IL)-1, IL-6, IL-12, tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNFalpha)], in expression of adhesion molecules (ICAM-1), in phagocytosis and intracellular killing, and in antigen presentation.
The R-Calculus and the Finite Injury Priority Method

The R-calculus is a Gentzen-type deduction system to deduce a consistent theory from a theory to be revised and a theory to revise. Because the semi-decidability of the deduction in the first-order logic, the R-calculus is semi-decidable. By using the limit lemma and finite injury priority method in recursion theory, we shall recursively construct a sequence of formula sets such that the limit of exists, say is provable in the R-calculus, and each formula in is enumerated in or extracted from only finitely often, where Θ is a maximal consistent set of by . Moreover, a Gentzen-type deduction is constructed to deduce the sequence by the deduction rules in which the deduction is recursive (decidable, computable).
Effects of Perceived Control on College Students’ Evaluation of Higher Education Institutions

Students are known to experience significant amounts of stress and challenges during their academic pursuit at college. This study explores a way to enhance student satisfaction by incorporating a concept called perceived control to the existing service quality model. To be specific, this study proposes and tests that perceived control could be a promising factor which may enhance service quality, satisfaction, and recommendation intention among college students. Data were collected a major college in South Korea. A set of three hypotheses developed for this study were partially supported. Managerial implications are provided.
Dynamic systems and their distributed termination

This paper describes a new model for dynamic distributed systems, where new processes are added and terminated at execution time. It is an extension of the static model underlying CSP. The model uses CSP I/O commands as the basic means of communications among processes, unlike the model underlying ADA, we insist that each process knows with whom it can communicate. We actually view communication as a fully symmetric operation in which values are exchanged between two processes. A problem of distributed termination arises sometimes in a distributed system. We present a new algorithm to detect distributed termination in a dynamic system. It is better than previously published solutions.
Outage analysis of cooperative multi-path relay channels with virtual full-duplex relaying

In this paper, we study a cooperative multi-path relay channel (MPRC) in which multiple relay terminals assist in the packet transmissions from a source to the corresponding destination opportunistically. Among the relays that successfully decode the source packet, the best one in terms of the instantaneous relay-destination channel is selected to forward the decoded packet to the destination. Meanwhile, the source transmits a new packet and the rest relays attempt to decode this packet. This results in a virtual full-duplex MPRC through which a new source packet can be served in each time slot. However, due to the simultaneous relay transmission and source transmission, inter-relay interference (IRI) exists that affects decoding at the rest relays. Conditioned on whether IRI exists in each time slot, a Markov chain analysis model is proposed to characterize the decoding performance at the relays as well as the end-to-end outage performance of MPRC. Simulation results demonstrate that with proper parameter designs to mitigate the IRI, performance gains are achieved by the proposed virtual full-duplex MPRC over a conventional half-duplex MPRC.
Knowledge of the Digestive Microflora: Evaluation of Breastfeeding on the Establishment of the Gut Microbiota of the Newborn

At birth, the newborn has no bacteria in its gut. This last is rapidly colonized by microbial flora (microbiota) from, mainly of the mother and environment. The main objective is the study of the influence of breastfeeding in the establishment of the intestinal microbial flora in the newborn. The secondary objective of this work was to analyze the bacterial diversity in feces of breast-fed infants and to compare it with that of formula-fed ones. Five pairs of mother-child and 5 fed formula have participated in the study. The Samples were taken at 1, 7, 30 and 90 days and plated out on various culture media. The present study shows that breast milk plays a major role in the development of the intestinal microbiota of the child. The results of this comparative study showed that the fecal matter of a mother breast-fed infants are more rich in probiotics and less rich in pathogenic bacteria that infants receiving infant formula.
Analysis of the Salmonella typhimurium Proteome through Environmental Response toward Infectious Conditions*

Salmonella enterica serovar Typhimurium (also known as Salmonella typhimurium) is a facultative intracellular pathogen that causes ∼8,000 reported cases of acute gastroenteritis and diarrhea each year in the United States. Although many successful physiological, biochemical, and genetic approaches have been taken to determine the key virulence determinants encoded by this organism, the sheer number of uncharacterized reading frames observed within the S. enterica genome suggests that many more virulence factors remain to be discovered. We used a liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry-based “bottom-up” proteomic approach to generate a more complete picture of the gene products that S. typhimurium synthesizes under typical laboratory conditions as well as in culture media that are known to induce expression of virulence genes. When grown to logarithmic phase in rich medium, S. typhimurium is known to express many genes that are required for invasion of epithelial cells. Conversely stationary phase cultures of S. typhimurium express genes that are needed for both systemic infection and growth within infected macrophages. Lastly bacteria grown in an acidic, magnesium-depleted minimal medium (MgM) designed to mimic the phagocytic vacuole have been shown to up-regulate virulence gene expression. Initial comparisons of protein abundances from bacteria grown under each of these conditions indicated that the majority of proteins do not change significantly. However, we observed subsets of proteins whose expression was largely restricted to one of the three culture conditions. For example, cells grown in MgM had a higher abundance of Mg2+ transport proteins than found in other growth conditions. A second more virulent S. typhimurium strain (14028) was also cultured under these same growth conditions, and the results were directly compared with those obtained for strain LT2. This comparison offered a unique opportunity to contrast protein populations in these closely related bacteria. Among a number of proteins displaying a higher abundance in strain 14028 were the products of the pdu operon, which encodes enzymes required for propanediol utilization. These pdu operon proteins were validated in culture and during macrophage infection. Our work provides further support for earlier observations that suggest pdu gene expression contributes to S. typhimurium pathogenesis.
Some aspects of computing, data security and upcoming technologies

A number of concepts from theoretical computer science are discussed. These concepts allow to decide which problems can be solved and which problems cannot be solved. The ongoing process of miniaturization, which leads to ever faster computers, will necessarily come to an end when components approach the size of atoms. Two different technologies that possibly can play a role in computing in the future are quantum computers and DNA computers. The principles of these technologies and some of the possible impacts, as for example in cryptography are discussed.
Effectiveness of medication withdrawal in older fallers: results from the Improving Medication Prescribing to reduce Risk Of FALLs (IMPROveFALL) trial

Objectives To investigate the effect of withdrawal of fall-risk-increasing-drugs (FRIDs) versus ‘care as usual’ on reducing falls in community-dwelling older fallers. Design Randomised multicentre trial Participants Six hundred and twelve older adults who visited an Emergency Department (ED) because of a fall. Interventions Withdrawal of FRIDs. Main Outcomes and Measures Primary outcome was time to the first self-reported fall. Secondary outcomes were time to the second self-reported fall and to falls requiring a general practitioner (GP)-consultation or ED-visit. Intention-to-treat (primary) and a per-protocol (secondary) analysis were conducted. The hazard ratios (HRs) for time-to-fall were calculated using a Cox-regression model. Differences in cumulative incidence of falls were analysed using Poisson regression. Results During 12 months follow-up, 91 (34%) control and 115 (37%) intervention participants experienced a fall; 35% of all attempted interventions were unsuccessful, either due to recurrence of the initial indication for prescribing, additional medication for newly diagnosed conditions or non-compliance. Compared to baseline, the overall percentage of users of ≥3 FRIDs at 12 months did not change in either the intervention or the control group. Our intervention did not have a significant effect on time to first fall (HR 1.17; 95% confidence interval 0.89–1.54), time to second fall (1.19; 0.78–1.82), time to first fall-related GP-consultation (0.66; 0.42–1.06) or time to first fall-related ED-visit (0.85; 0.43–1.68). Conclusion In this population of complex multimorbid patients visiting an ED because of a fall, our single intervention of FRIDs-withdrawal was not effective in reducing falls. Trial Registration Netherlands Trial Register NTR1593.
The Buffer-Stock Model and the Marginal Propensity to Consume . A Panel-Data Study of the U . S . States .

We simulate a buffer-stock model of consumption, explicitly aggregate over consumers, and estimate (aggregate) state-level marginal propensities to consume out of current and lagged income using simulated data generated by the model. We calculate the predicted marginal effects of changing state-specific persistence of income shocks, uncertainty of statespecific output, and individual-level risk. Next, we estimate marginal propensities for U.S. states using panel-data methods. We find effects of persistence that clearly correspond to the predictions of the model and while the effect of state-level uncertainty cannot be determined precisely, indicators of individual-level uncertainty have strong effects consistent with the model. Overall, the buffer-stock model clearly helps explain differences in consumer behavior across states.
29-Norcucurbitacin Derivatives Isolated from the Indonesian Medicinal Plant, Phaleria macrocarpa (Scheff.) Boerl.

The new 29-norcucurbitacin, desacetylfevicordin A (1), together with three known 29-norcucurbitacin derivatives (2–4) were isolated from seeds of the Indonesian medicinal plant, Phaleria macrocarpa (Scheff.) Boerl. The structures of 1–4 were elucidated on the basis of spectroscopic analyses and chemical transformation. These compounds exhibited toxicity against the brine shrimp (Artemia salina).