Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Financial Performance of Saudi Arabian IPO Firms

We examine changes in the Saudi listed firms' performance around their initial public offerings. It is found that Saudi IPOs exhibit a sharp decline in the post-IPO performance compared to the pre-IPO period as measured by the ROA and ROS. We also find that the performance deterioration is significantly associated with the IPO event. Surprisingly, the performance decline comes with a significant increase in sales and capital expenditures, which do not support the lack of opportunities theory. Instead Saudi firms' performance decline can be attributed to the owners' desire to cash out as the windows of opportunity theory suggests.
Farmers Markets as Retail Spaces

Farmers' markets have long been popular sites of small retail trade and local cultural exchange in Europe, and have experienced recent rapid growth and diffusion in many parts of the world, including Australasia. This paper reports results from a study of farmers' markets in New Zealand, which takes particular interest in the motives for participation of both stallholders and customers, and their perceptions of the functioning of markets as representational and co-created sites of local food production, retail and consumption. It finds that product quality is the key motivator, with price not a significant barrier to purchase or visits. The 'retail environment' has only a modest influence on customer choices, with stallholders valuing interaction with customers more than the reverse.
Forecasting and analysis of marketing data using neural networks: a case of advertising and promotion impact

The paper explores the use of neural networks in analyzing the effects of advertising and promotion in the retail business. In retailing, one of the key problems is the optimal allocation of advertising expenses and the forecasting of the total sales levels across a wide product range where significant cross-effects among products are likely. Various statistical and econometric methods can be used for such analyses. However, neural networks can offer an alternative and potentially beneficial approach to handling this ill-structured problem. The study evaluates their performance in studying the impact of advertising and promotion on sales. The results reveal that the predictive quality of neural networks depends on the different frequency of data observed i.e. daily or weekly-data models, and the specific learning algorithms used. The study shows that neural networks are capable of capturing the nonlinear aspects of complex relationships in non-stationary data. By performing sensitivity analysis, neural networks can potentially single out important input variables, thereby making it useful for scenario development and practical use. <<ETX>>
Packet acquisition for spatially coupling information transmission

The problem of packet timing acquisition for random access multi-user communications is considered. The users employ coupling information transmission format to encode and modulate their data packets and communicate them to the common receiver. Two reception strategies are studied: the case in which packet acquisition is followed by multi-user decoding of the coupled data packets and the case in which packet acquisition is included into the iterative multi-user decoding loop. An analysis of the iterative acquisition and decoding is presented and communication rates achievable for various preamble lengths are computed. It is demonstrated that incorporation of packet acquisition into the data decoding and interference cancellation loop is essential for establishing near-capacity communications with practical preamble lengths.
Road damage detection from high-resolution RS image

This paper presents a road damage extraction method based on object-oriented change detection method using road vector data overlaid on post-earthquake image. It is complex to identify all kinds of road damages in earthquakes. For the purpose of traffic capacity analysis, focusing on roads in good condition will simplify the problem, no matter how the roads are destroyed. The whole road line is provided by road network vector of appropriate scale. Subtract the good road and the damaged parts are clearly shown. This method can realize quantitative analysis on road seismic damage when lack of pre-earthquake images. In this paper it is applied to road damage extraction in Wenchuan earthquake, using high resolution remote sensing images shot just several days after the event.
A Unified Framework for Coarse-to-Fine Recognition of Traffic Signs using Bayesian Network and Visual Attributes

Recently, impressive results have been reported for recognizing the traffic signs. Yet, they are still far from the real-world applications. To the best of our knowledge, all methods in the literature have focused on numerical results rather than applicability. First, they are not able to deal with novel inputs such as the false-positive results of the detection module. In other words, if the input of these methods is a non-traffic sign image, they will classify it into one of the traffic sign classes. Second, adding a new sign to the system requires retraining the whole system. In this paper, we propose a coarse-to-fine method using visual attributes that is easily scalable and, importantly, it is able to detect the novel inputs and transfer its knowledge to the newly observed sample. To correct the misclassified attributes, we build a Bayesian network considering the dependency between the attributes and find their most probable explanation using the observations. Experimental results on the benchmark dataset indicates that our method is able to outperform the state-of-art methods and it also possesses three important properties of novelty detection, scalability and providing semantic information.
Task value, goal orientation, and employee job satisfaction in high-tech firms

Operating in highly competitive environments, high-tech firms leverage capital-intensive facilities, technology-intensive products and computer applications to earn competitive advantages. Doing so requires employees perform tasks that are relatively more complex in comparison with other industry sectors. Employee job satisfaction, a surrogate measure of organizational effectiveness/performance, is an important management index for practitioners and researchers. However, the impact that task value and goal orientations, as perceived by employees during task execution, have on individual and organizational effectiveness/performance has not received sufficient attention in the context of high-tech firms. This study integrated two theories, expectancy-value and achievement goal, to explore the effect of task value and goal orientation on high-tech employee job satisfaction. After surveying 156 respondents in six Taiwan-based multinational high-tech manufacturers, results show that task value and goal orientation affect employee job satisfaction in the high-tech sector positively. Findings provide guidance to managers for improving employee job satisfaction and in-depth insights for researchers interested to test or further develop organizational development theories. Key words: Effectiveness, task value, goal orientations, job satisfaction.
How network competence and network location influence innovation performance

Purpose – As developed countries experience a decline of manufacturing industries, national governments increasingly turn to innovation‐based cluster initiatives to secure the long‐term prosperity of a region. However, the mechanisms that help translate cluster membership into higher innovativeness are not well understood. This paper seeks to propose a framework which sees a firm's network competence and network location as being key to superior innovation performance.Design/methodology/approach – The deductive quantitative study applies a combination of statistical tools and tools for social network analysis to test the hypothesized relationships.Findings – The results show that none of the cluster companies has so far been able to operate at the expected level of innovation performance. Findings further support the hypothesis that network competence and central network positions are positively related to innovation performance. Therefore, while innovation performance proves to be unsatisfactory for all .
Customer complaints and complaint behaviours in Turkish hotel restaurants: An application in Lara and Kundu areas of Antalya

The aim of this study is to investigate the level of relationship between the complaints and complaint behaviours of the customers who benefit from the services offered by hotel restaurants and to determine if the complaint behaviours show a difference according to the nationalities. The data necessary for the determination of differences or similarities between the main complaints gathered as a result of literature study (price and payment, tastiness and quality, equipment and atmosphere, staff and service) and complaint behaviours (neutral and switch, private responses, voice responses, third party responses), were collected through questionnaire method from 1,148 customers (Turkish, Russian, German and Dutch) and analyzed. Pearson coefficient of correlation was used for the determination of factors related to complaint behaviours and one way ANOVA test was used for the comparison of factors in terms of nationalities. As the result of analysis, a relationship between the customer complaints and complaint behaviours was found and it is determined that customer complaint behaviours show basic differences between the customers coming from different countries such as Turkey, Russia, Holland and Germany. In the light of results, the reasons for the differences between customer complaints and complaint behaviours were discussed and some recommendations were made in order to contribute to hotel/restaurant managers. Key words: Customer complaint, complaint behaviour, customer satisfaction, nationality.
Climate Change Vulnerability of the Vermont Ski Tourism Industry (USA)

Abstract Climate change represents one of the most significant challenges to humanity in the 21st century and is anticipated to have major consequences for the climate‐sensitive winter sports tourism sector. This study examined the vulnerability of Vermont's (US A) 18 ski areas. Under the six climate change scenarios examined, shortened ski seasons and increased snowmaking requirements were projected at all ski areas. Using two broad economic risk criteria (100‐day ski season, probability of being operational for the Christmas/New Year holiday period), only the two low‐elevation ski areas (Cochran and Suicide Six) were considered highly vulnerable to climate change. Consequently, it is not the entire Vermont ski tourism industry that is at risk to climate change but rather the individual low lying ski areas. The economic implications remain uncertain, but a possible outcome of a contraction of ski areas in the region is increased market share among the remaining ski areas.
Simultaneous separation of fifteen approved protease and reverse transcriptase inhibitors for human immunodeficiency virus therapy by capillary electrophoresis

In the present investigation, a novel approach towards a complete separation of all 15 protease and reverse transcriptase inhibitors which are currently approved for use in highly active antiretroviral therapy in a single analytical run is presented. The developed method employs an acidic background electrolyte with sodium polyanethol sulfonate (SPAS) as polyanionic electroosmotic flow (EOF) modifier to establish a strong cathodic EOF, sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS) as pseudostationary selector, and acetonitrile and ethanol as organic modifiers. Separation of the analytes is based on two different mechanisms. The more basic analytes are protonated at the prevailing pH conditions and thus migrate in front of the cathodic EOF, whereas the less basic and neutral analytes interact with the SDS and are retained after the EOF. By optimizing electrolyte pH, the amount of solvents and SDS concentrations in the background electrolyte it is possible to completely separate all compounds of interest.
IPO Offer Prices and Firm Performance

This paper explores the determinants of IPO prices and studies the relationship between price choice of firms going public and post-issue stock performance and firm characteristics. I find that IPO prices positively relate to median industry prices, underwriter reputation, and book-to-market ratio of the firm going public. I further show that raw and risk-adjusted stock returns of IPOs monotonically increase with the ratio of offer price to average industry price. The difference in returns between IPOs with the highest and lowest relative offer prices averages 9% during one year following the issuance, and exceeds 60% over five years. The group of IPOs with high relative prices does not exhibit any underperformance relative to matches at any horizon. I also document a positive relation between underpricing and relative offer prices. I further show that firms with high relative prices generate better earnings after going public. These firms have larger market betas around the IPO, and spend considerably more on investment during five years following the offering.
Conformation of tau protein , the subunit of Alzheimer paired helical filaments , studied by solution X-ray scattering

Tau protein is a neuronal microtubule-associated protein. Its main role is to stabilize the microtubules in axons of nerve cells. This in turn enables microtubules to serve as tracks for intracellular transport of cellular cargoes from the cell body to the nerve terminals and back again. Examples are cell organelles (mitochondria, peroxisomes), vesicles containing proteins and lipids (such as synaptic vesicles and other types of vesicles), or protein complexes (e.g. components of receptors). Tau is a highly soluble protein, however, in brain diseases such as Alzheimer's disease tau becomes modified (mainly by phosphorylation at multiple sites) and aggregates into the pathologically "paired helical filaments" that are a hallmark of Alzheimer's and other neurodegenerative "tauopathies". In the adult human central nervous system, tau occurs mainly as 6 isoforms which are generated by alternative splicing from a single gene located on chromosome 17. In previous studies we have investigated the conformation of tau and its aggregation into fibers by biochemical and spectroscopic methods [1]. The results showed that tau is a prototype of a "natively unfolded protein" in which secondary structure elements such as αhelices and β-sheets are nearly absent. Nevertheless, the hydrodynamic behavior of tau shows that its structure is distinct from molten-globule or denatured states [2]. This suggests that there must be elements of folding which are retained in an otherwise "random chain" environment which may be responsible for the functions of tau, such as binding and stabilizing microtubules or the pathological function of aggregation into fibers [3].
Markov chain model of schema evolution and its application to stationary distribution

Markov chain is a powerful tool for analyzing the evolutionary process of a stochastic system. To select GA parameters such as mutation rate and population size are important in practical application. The value of this parameter has a big effect on the viewpoint of Markov chain. In this paper, we consider properties of stationary distribution with mutation in GAs. We used Markov chain to calculate distribution. If the population is in linkage equilibrium, we used Wright-Fisher model to get the distribution of first order schema. We define the mixing time is the time to arrive stationary distribution. We adopt Hunter's mixing time to estimate the mixing time Tm of the first order schema.
Laterally coupled solidly mounted BAW resonators at 1.9 GHz

Laterally coupled bulk acoustic wave resonators fabricated onto an acoustic mirror are studied. The acoustic mirror comprises two W-SiO2 pairs. Thin-film AlN is used as the piezoelectric material with a Mo bottom electrode and an Al top electrode. Structures consist of laterally acoustically coupled electrodes 2.5 µm wide and 300 µm long, with gaps of 4 µm in-between. Acoustical coupling between the electrodes results in two resonances forming an electrical bandpass response at 1.9 GHz. A device with two coupled electrodes features a 1.5% relative to center frequency bandwidth, 10 dB insertion loss in 50-Ω environment and 3.9 dB insertion loss after matching. Electrical frequency responses are presented and compared to simulations. Mechanical vibration fields in the devices are studied with a laser interferometer.
Yangians and quantizations of slices in the affine Grassmannian

We study quantizations of transverse slices to Schubert varieties in the affine Grassmannian. The quantization is constructed using quantum groups called shifted Yangians --- these are subalgebras of the Yangian we introduce which generalize the Brundan-Kleshchev shifted Yangian to arbitrary type. Building on ideas of Gerasimov-Kharchev-Lebedev-Oblezin, we prove that a quotient of the shifted Yangian quantizes a scheme supported on the transverse slices, and we formulate a conjectural description of the defining ideal of these slices which implies that the scheme is reduced. This conjecture also implies the conjectural quantization of the Zastava spaces for PGL(n) of Finkelberg-Rybnykov.
Added pilot semiblind iterative channel estimation for OFDM packet transmission

Orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) is a promising technique for achieving high bit-rate transmission in radio environments. Various techniques to estimate channel attenuation have been proposed for OFDM transmission. In these techniques, the added pilot semiblind (APSB) channel estimation has been proposed, which does not require any additional bandwidth. For an OFDM packet transmission that includes preambles, it is difficult to track the channel variation of the latter of packet due to time-varying channels in fast fading environments. We expect that channel estimation is improved by applying the APSB channel estimation technique to the last symbols of packets. In this paper, we propose an OFDM packet transmission system with APSB channel estimation technique to track the variation of channel attenuations. We show that the proposed system can track the channel variation and achieve better performance than the conventional system in fast fading channels.
An ultra-wideband Rotman lens using modified dummy sidewalls

A wideband design model for 4×4 microstrip Rotman lens is presented, with a precise behavior of return loss of the ports and their phase centers. The procedure for choosing the optimum geometrical parameters of lens and modifying the curvature of sidewalls yield a very wideband lens. Based on the presented model, a prototype has been built for the true time delay phasing of an antenna array for the frequency range from 8GHz to 26GHz. The fabricated 4×4 Rotman lens has an average amplitude error of 0.5dB and phase errors of 2 degree. All the beams have a fixed position in frequency band and the maximum deviation of the beams from the ideal position is less than 0.65 degree.
An experimental approach to investigating satisfaction and continuity in marketing alliances

Extant research on strategic alliances has relied mainly on case and survey methodologies to examine strategic, structural and operational issues in alliance relationships. Demonstrates that experimental methodology can usefully be employed to examine important strategic and behavioural issues in ongoing alliances. Reports on an experiment involving role‐playing among 221 managers which was conducted to investigate determinants of satisfaction and continuity in a hypothetical marketing alliance. Indicates that alliance satisfaction and continuity are influenced positively by a partner′s commitment, competence and strategic compatibility. Finds commitment to be the strongest determinant of both satisfaction and continuity. Discusses implications of the findings and methodology employed and suggests future research directions.
ON-CHIP PROCESSING AND DNA EXTRACTION FROM LARGE VOLUME URINE SAMPLES FOR THE DETECTION OF HERPES SIMPLEX VIRUS TYPE 2

We present a sample introduction interface that allows direct on-chip processing of crude, large volume urine samples for the detection of Herpes Simplex Virus 2 (HSV-2). Sample introduction, cell lysis, DNA purification and sample volume reduction from a 600 μL urine sample down to a 10 μL elution volume were achieved in 7 min, offering great potential for use in point-of-care diagnostic devices.
Review on Supply Chain Management Research—An Indian Perspective

In India, Supply Chain Management (SCM) has gained significant importance due to opening up of domestic economy as a result of globalization. However, a review of literature revealed that not many papers are available which attempt to document and understand the importance of SCM within the Indian business context. Hence, the purpose of this research is to fill in this research gap by analyzing the contributions of academicians and practitioners addressing various supply chain issues—specifically from an Indian perspective. Papers focusing on SCM scenario in India were collected from multiple sources by following the established methodologies available in the literature for carrying out such reviews. Furthermore, a new taxonomy was proposed on the basis of content and research methodology utilized. Based on this taxonomy, significant trends were observed and some unique inferences were drawn, apart from identifying the directions for future research. It is hoped that this work would add value by offering a unique contribution to the body of knowledge on SCM, as there is no article available in the literature, which has attempted to summarize the works from India related to SCM.
PRM index: an innovative tool for measuring partner relational aspects in Indian automobile sector

This research work aims at developing a valid and authentic partner relationship management (PRM) index specific to Indian automobile industry. Review of existing literature reveals that majority of organisations have implemented PRM for building and maintaining value-laden relationship with their channel partners but no standard measure is available to evaluate how effectively PRM is being implemented and what can be the possible strategies one must formulate for utilising best benefits out of PRM practices. This study focuses on bridging this gap. Factors contributing towards PRM were identified through exhaustive review of literature followed by depth interview and questionnaire survey. A standard methodology for scale development is used followed by index development through case-based method. PRM has emerged as a multi-dimensional construct comprising factors namely, trust, collaboration, commitment, flexibility and knowledge management. The proposed index can be tested across other business and national contexts so as to judge its robustness. Effective use of PRM index will ultimately add value to the value chain of any company.
Detection of blocking artifacts of compressed still images

A novel frequency domain technique for image blocking artifact detection is presented. The algorithm detects the regions of the image which present visible blocking artifacts. This detection is performed in the frequency domain and uses the estimated relative quantization error calculated when the DCT coefficients are modeled by a Laplacian probability function. Experimental results illustrating the performance of the proposed method are presented and evaluated.