Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
FAMILY BUSINESS SUCCESSION PLANNING: UNLEASHING THE KEY FACTORS OF BUSINESS PERFORMANCE

Family business studies are becoming more pervasive in Malaysia, and several studies have focused on factors that shape family-owned business performance levels. Succession planning issues, and specifically the succession issues and experiences of second or third generation family business owners (2GO/3GO), have not yet been explored at length. This study aims to revisit various factors that shape family firm performance by examining succession issues and transition experiences encountered by successors. Data were drawn from self-administered surveys completed by 55 2GOs and 3GOs. Descriptive, correlation and regression analyses were conducted to interpret our findings. The findings show that management styles, relationships between family members, values and beliefs and successor training significantly influence family business performance levels. The relationship between antecedents and business performance is found to be partly mediated by succession issues and fully mediated by sucession experience. Both theoretical and practical implications and avenues for future research are discussed
Effects of cytochrome P450 inducers and inhibitors on the pharmacokinetics of intravenous furosemide in rats: involvement of CYP2C11, 2E1, 3A1 and 3A2 in furosemide metabolism.

OBJECTIVES It has been reported that the non-renal clearance of furosemide was significantly faster in rats pretreated with phenobarbital but was not altered in rats pretreated with 3-methylcholanthrene. However, no studies on other cytochrome P450 (CYP) isozymes have yet been reported in rats. METHOD Furosemide 20 mg/kg was administered intravenously to rats pretreated with various CYP inducers--3-methylcholanthrene, orphenadrine citrate and isoniazid, inducers of CYP1A1/2, 2B1/2 and 2E1, respectively, in rats--and inhibitors--SKF-525A (a non-specific inhibitor of CYP isozymes), sulfaphenazole, cimetidine, quinine hydrochloride and troleandomycin, inhibitors of CYP2C6, 2C11, 2D and 3A1/2, respectively, in rats. KEY FINDINGS The non-renal clearance of furosemide was significantly faster (55.9% increase) in rats pretreated with isoniazid, but slower in those pretreated with cimetidine or troleandomycin (38.5% and 22.7% decreases, respectively), than controls. After incubation of furosemide with baculovirus-infected insect cells expressing CYP2C11, 2E1, 3A1 or 3A2, furosemide was metabolized via CYP2C11, 2E1, 3A1 and 3A2. CONCLUSIONS These findings could help explain possible pharmacokinetic changes of furosemide in various rat disease models (where CYP2C11, 2E1, 3A1 and/or CYP3A2 are altered) and drug-drug interactions between furosemide and other drugs (mainly metabolized via CYP2C11, 2E1, 3A1 and/or 3A2).
TEO separated AM-FM components for identification of apnea EEG signals

Sleep apnea event is occurred due to hindrance in respiration, which is most commonly observed in children and adults. It is noticed that, if this event sustained for long time it will cause several brain and heart disorders. Diagnoses of such disorders require identification of apnea event. Recently, electroencephalogram (EEG) signals show proficiency for assessing the sleep quality and detection of apnea event. In this work, amplitude modulated (AM) and frequency modulated (FM) components based features extracted from EEG signals, are using for identification of sleep apnea event. Teager energy operator (TEO) is uses for separation of AM-FM components but it requires band limited signals. The nature of EEG is highly non-stationary, so an adaptive empirical mode decomposition technique is applied, which convert the non-stationary EEG signals into band limited intrinsic mode functions (IMF). TEO separates each IMF into AM-FM components. The extracted features from separated components are applied as input to least square support vector machine (LS-SVM) classifier and obtained better performance parameters for identification of apnea event compared to existing methods.
Immigrant Mental Health, A Public Health Issue: Looking Back and Moving Forward

The Mental Health Commission of Canada’s (MHCC) strategy calls for promoting the health and wellbeing of all Canadians and to improve mental health outcomes. Each year, one in every five Canadians experiences one or more mental health problems, creating a significant cost to the health system. Mental health is pivotal to holistic health and wellbeing. This paper presents the key findings of a comprehensive literature review of Canadian research on the relationship between settlement experiences and the mental health and well-being of immigrants and refugees. A scoping review was conducted following a framework provided by Arskey and O’Malley (Int J Soc Res Methodol 8:19–32, 2005). Over two decades of relevant literature on immigrants’ health in Canada was searched. These included English language peer-reviewed publications from relevant online databases Medline, Embase, PsycInfo, Healthstar, ERIC and CINAHL between 1990 and 2015. The findings revealed three important ways in which settlement affects the mental health of immigrants and refugees: through acculturation related stressors, economic uncertainty and ethnic discrimination. The recommendations for public health practice and policy are discussed.
Effects of Cover Crops on Pratylenchus penetrans and the Nematode Community in Carrot Production

Abstract Cover cropping is a common practice in U.S. Midwest carrot production for soil conservation, and may affect soil ecology and plant-parasitic nematodes—to which carrots are very susceptible. This study assessed the impact of cover crops—oats (Avena sativa), radish (Raphanus sativus) cv. Defender, rape (Brassica napus) cv. Dwarf Essex, and a mixture of oats and radish—on plant- parasitic nematodes and soil ecology based on the nematode community in Michigan carrot production systems. Research was conducted at two field sites where cover crops were grown in Fall 2014 preceding Summer 2015 carrot production. At Site 1, rootlesion (Pratylenchus penetrans) and stunt (Tylenchorhynchus sp.) nematodes were present at low population densities (less than 25 nematodes/100 cm3 soil), but were not significantly affected (P . 0.05) by cover crops. At Site 2, P. penetrans population densities were increased (P # 0.05) by ‘Defender’ radish compared to other cover crops or fallow control during cover crop growth and midseason carrot production. At both sites, there were few short-term impacts of cover cropping on soil ecology based on the nematode community. At Site 1, only at carrot harvest, radish-oats mixture and ‘Dwarf Essex’ rape alone enriched the soil food web based on the enrichment index (P # 0.05) while rape and radish increased structure index values. At Site 2, bacterivore abundance was increased by oats or radish cover crops compared to control, but only during carrot production. In general, cover crops did not affect the nematode community until nearly a year after cover crop growth suggesting that changes in the soil community following cover cropping may be gradual.
Estimating Reliability of Mobile Agent System for Mobile Ad Hoc Networks

A mobile agent is a particular type of agent with the ability to migrate from one host to another where it can resume its execution. Mobile agents can be used in applications for wireless network to save bandwidth and time. In this paper we consider dependability aspect, especially reliability issues that need to be addressed before the mobile agents can be used for a broad range of commercial applications in mobile adhoc network (MANET). The MANET introduces new aspects to dependability affecting reliability of the services of the mobile agent based system. In this paper, we propose an algorithm for estimating the task route reliability of mobile agent systems (MAS), which are based on the conditions of the underlying wireless network. The agents can select their route dynamically. The complexity of mobile agent network systems makes it hard to obtain the route reliability of the MAS theoretically; instead we estimate it using Monte Carlo simulation. In this paper, we assume that the MAS consist of a number of independent mobile agents operating simultaneously. The paper estimates the reliability of mobile agent system considering different failures of the underlying network. The results achieved demonstrate the robustness of the proposed algorithm. This paper demonstrates a reliability estimation model for MAS in MANET and shows that reliability is almost independent on the no. of agents (for higher no. of agents) or no. of mobile nodes but highly dependent on the condition of the links especially on the connectivity of the graph.
Key Role of MicroRNA in the Regulation of Granulocyte Macrophage Colony-stimulating Factor Expression in Murine Alveolar Epithelial Cells during Oxidative Stress*

Background: Accelerated mRNA turnover results in suppression of lung epithelial cell GM-CSF expression during oxidative stress. Results: We found that microRNAs 133a and 133b, targeting GM-CSF, are both necessary and sufficient for this accelerated turnover. Conclusion: MicroRNAs play a central role in determining cell-specific GM-CSF expression during stress. Significance: Regulation of microRNA offers a new therapeutic approach to protect the lung during injury. GM-CSF is an endogenous pulmonary cytokine produced by normal alveolar epithelial cells (AEC) that is a key defender of the alveolar space. AEC GM-CSF expression is suppressed by oxidative stress through alternations in mRNA turnover, an effect that is reversed by treatment with recombinant GM-CSF. We hypothesized that specific microRNA (miRNA) would play a key role in AEC GM-CSF regulation. A genome-wide miRNA microarray identified 19 candidate miRNA altered in primary AEC during oxidative stress with reversal by treatment with GM-CSF. Three of these miRNA (miR 133a, miR 133a*, and miR 133b) are also predicted to bind the GM-CSF 3′-untranslated region (UTR). PCR for the mature miRNA confirmed induction during oxidative stress that was reversed by treatment with GM-CSF. Experiments using a GM-CSF 3′-UTR reporter construct demonstrated that miR133a and miR133b effects on GM-CSF expression are through interactions with the GM-CSF 3′-UTR. Using lentiviral transduction of specific mimics and inhibitors in primary murine AEC, we determined that miR133a and miR133b suppress GM-CSF expression and that their inhibition both reverses oxidant-induced suppression of GM-CSF expression and increases basal expression of GM-CSF in cells in normoxia. In contrast, these miRNAs are not active in regulation of GM-CSF expression in murine EL4 T cells. Thus, members of the miR133 family play key roles in regulation of GM-CSF expression through effects on mRNA turnover in AEC during oxidative stress. Increased understanding of GM-CSF gene regulation may provide novel miRNA-based interventions to augment pulmonary innate immune defense in lung injury.
Processing of Lagging-Strand Intermediates In Vitro by Herpes Simplex Virus Type 1 DNA Polymerase

ABSTRACT The processing of lagging-strand intermediates has not been demonstrated in vitro for herpes simplex virus type 1 (HSV-1). Human flap endonuclease-1 (Fen-1) was examined for its ability to produce ligatable products with model lagging-strand intermediates in the presence of the wild-type or exonuclease-deficient (exo−) HSV-1 DNA polymerase (pol). Primer/templates were composed of a minicircle single-stranded DNA template annealed to primers that contained 5′ DNA flaps or 5′ annealed DNA or RNA sequences. Gapped DNA primer/templates were extended but not significantly strand displaced by the wild-type HSV-1 pol, although significant strand displacement was observed with exo− HSV-1 pol. Nevertheless, the incubation of primer/templates containing 5′ flaps with either wild-type or exo− HSV-1 pol and Fen-1 led to the efficient production of nicks that could be sealed with DNA ligase I. Both polymerases stimulated the nick translation activity of Fen-1 on DNA- or RNA-containing primer/templates, indicating that the activities were coordinated. Further evidence for Fen-1 involvement in HSV-1 DNA synthesis is suggested by the ability of a transiently expressed green fluorescent protein fusion with Fen-1 to accumulate in viral DNA replication compartments in infected cells and by the ability of endogenous Fen-1 to coimmunoprecipitate with an essential viral DNA replication protein in HSV-1-infected cells.
Real-Time Implementation of a Seven-Level Packed U-Cell Inverter with a Low-Switching-Frequency Voltage Regulator

In this paper, a new cascaded nonlinear controller has been designed and implemented on the packed U-cell (PUC) seven-level inverter. The proposed controller has been designed based on a simplified model of PUC inverter and consists of a voltage controller as an outer loop and a current controller as an inner loop. The outer loop regulates the PUC inverter capacitor voltage as the second dc bus. The inner loop is in charge of controlling the flowing current, which is also used to charge and discharge that capacitor. The main goal of the whole system is to keep the dc capacitor voltage at a certain level results in generating a smooth and quasi-sine-wave seven-level voltage waveform at the output of the inverter with low switching frequency. The proposed controller performance is verified through experimental tests. Practical results prove the good dynamic performance of the controller in fixing the PUC capacitor voltage for various and variable load conditions and yet generating low-harmonic seven-level voltage waveform to deliver power to the loads. Operation as an uninterruptible power supply (UPS) or ac loads interface for photovoltaic energy conversion applications is targeted.
Opportunistic Access to Spectrum Holes Between Packet Bursts: A Learning-Based Approach

We present a cognitive radio (CR) mechanism for opportunistic access to the frequency bands licensed to a data-centric primary user (PU) network. Secondary users (SUs) aim to exploit the short-lived spectrum holes (or opportunities) created between packet bursts in the PU network. The PU traffic pattern changes over both time and frequency according to upper layer events in the PU network, and fast variation in PU activity may cause high sensing error probability and low spectrum utilization in dynamic spectrum access. The proposed mechanism learns a PU traffic pattern in real-time and uses the acquired information to access the frequency channel in an efficient way while limiting the probability of collision with the PUs below a target limit. To design the channel learning algorithm, we model the CR system as a hidden Markov model (HMM) and present a gradient method to find the underlying PU traffic pattern. We also analyze the identifiability of the proposed HMM to provide a condition for the convergence of the proposed learning algorithm. Simulation results show that the proposed algorithm greatly outperforms the traditional listen-before-talk algorithm which does not possess any learning functionality.
Efecto de transmisión de precio del mercado del maíz al mercado de la tortilla en México* Transmission effect of price from the maize market to tortilla market in Mexico

In the present investigation, the market price transmission of maize to tortilla market, in Mexico was studied through an econometric model. In order to obtain the relationship in these two markets, two time series on prices was selected: weighted average price of maize and the weighted average price of tortillas, comprising January 2007 to June 2012. First was applied the unit root test to the series, we observed that not reject unit root; that is, they are not stationary. Under this evidence, we proceeded to the implementation of the Akaike information criterion, to find the best lag in self-regressive vector representation and, be able to apply the test of co-integration by Johansen. So, the null hypothesis that the series are not co-integrated against the alternative that they are co-integrated arises. The results indicate a transmission unit elasticity, between the two sets of prices.
Conditional inactivation of MLH1 in thymic and naive T-cells in mice leads to a limited incidence of lymphoblastic T-cell lymphomas

Defects in the mismatch repair system (MMR) underlie hereditary non-polyposis colorectal cancer (HNPCC)/Lynch syndrome and also a significant number of sporadic colorectal cancers. Mice carrying a null allele for the MMR gene Mlh1 are preferentially prone to the development of lymphomas of B- and T-cell origin and to a lesser extent gastrointestinal tumors. Consistent with these findings in mice, MMR defects have also been observed in sporadic and hereditary hematological malignancies. To study the role of MLH1 for lymphomagenesis in more detail, we generated a new mouse model carrying a conditional Mlh1 allele (Mlh1flox/flox). Mating of these mice with EIIa-Cre recombinase transgenic mice allowed the constitutive inactivation of MLH1, and the resulting Mlh1Δex4/Δex4 mouse line displays complete MMR deficiency and a cancer predisposition phenotype similar to Mlh1−/− mice. For T-cell specific MMR inactivation we combined the Mlh1flox/flox allele with the Lck-Cre transgene. In the resulting Mlh1TΔex4/TΔex4 mice, MLH1 inactivation is limited to DP/SP thymocytes and naive peripheral T-cells. The development of T-cell lymphomas in Mlh1TΔex4/TΔex4 mice is significantly reduced compared to Mlh1−/− mice, implying that MMR functions either at very early stages during T-cell development or even earlier in lymphoid precursor cells to suppress lymphomagenesis.
The Three-Dimensional Behavior of a Twisted Flux Tube Expanding in the Corona: Reconnection, Writhe, and Jets

We discuss some aspects of magnetic reconnection which could help in understanding many aspects of magnetic plasma interactions. We will show that the helical structure often observed in polar jets is a natural consequence of magnetic helicity conservation in 3-D reconnection driven by a collision of two parts of an emerging flux tube within the single emerged loop. We perform 3-D simulations by solving the time-dependent ideal MHD equations with a uniform initial twist. We deduce that the emergence of highly twisted magnetic flux introduces several null points, which, in turn, causes reconnection between opposite directions of magnetic field within a single loop at the nearest part and the release of the trapped twist in the form of a helical jetlike emission.
Tourism spending behaviour before and after the 2008 financial crisis

This research note analyses the long-run and short-run relationships between tourism expenditure, income and transportation costs based on quarterly data for European countries spanning the period from 1996Q1 to 2014Q1. As the first macroeconomic study to explore how tourist spending behaviour potentially reacted to the 2008 financial crisis, this article uses the heterogeneous panel data technique of Pesaran et al. The results of this pilot study reveal interesting differences in the long-run relationships between the examined variables before and after 2008Q3. Since this study uses a rather simple expenditure model, future studies might extend their focus to other demand variables to obtain a better understanding of changed tourist spending behaviour induced by the crisis.
Methods for the identification and optimal exploitation of profitable betting scenarios

This thesis tackles the issue of how gamblers can profit from betting on the outcome of sporting events. In particular, it addresses issues which have arisen in recent years concerning both the inception of betting exchanges, and the technique of building complex statistical models to accurately predict the sporting outcomes. This thesis shows that bias in predictive models can be quantified from a collection of model outputs. It is shown that a Bayesian method can be constructed to derive accurate bias estimates, even when the model outputs are merely a collection of independent Bernoulli trials. In addition, the method is expanded, to allow the quantification of a time-varying bias, as long as it changes in a known, deterministic setting. The utility of this method is demonstrated via the correction of a simple football prediction model. The movements seen in betting markets before the event in question occurs are investigated. It is conjectured that the rate of increase of the amount of capital invested in the betting market is central to understanding other market movements. With this in mind, two approaches are derived, which both use a collection of historic market movements for past events for their predictions. It is shown that in many cases, some mix of the two approaches achieves the most accurate forecasts. A new gambling strategy, dubbed consolidated wagering is introduced. It is demonstrated that consolidated wagering outperforms all other candidate methods when considering string bets (multiple bets on the same event, at different odds). The application of these methods to investing in restricted markets in betting exchanges is demonstrated. Finally, the problem of string wagers under uncertainty is explored.
Tract‐based spatial statistics analysis of diffusion‐tensor imaging data in pediatric‐ and adult‐onset multiple sclerosis

Background: White matter (WM) microstructure may vary significantly in pediatric‐onset (PO) and adult‐onset (AO) patients with multiple sclerosis (MS), a difference that could be explained by the effects of an inherent plasticity in the affected pediatric brains early in the disease, and a phenomenon that does not occur later in life. This hypothesis would support the observation that disease progression is much slower in POMS compared to AOMS patients. Objectives: To examine WM microstructure in the brain of adults with POMS and AOMS, using tract based spatial statistics (TBSS) analysis of diffusion‐tensor imaging (DTI). Methods: Adults with relapsing‐remitting (RR) POMS, who were diagnosed before age of 18 years (n = 16), were compared with age‐matched (AOA, n = 23) and disease duration‐matched (AOD, n = 22) RR patients who developed MS after the age of 18 years. Scans were analyzed using the FSL software package (Oxford, UK) and statistics were performed using TBSS to evaluate WM microstructure between groups based on the mean fractional anisotropy (FA) values obtained from the DTI. Results: Widespread cortical and deep WM area differences characterized by increased FA values were seen in the AOAMS compared with POMS group (P < 0.05, TFCE corrected). Significantly increased FA values of posterior WM areas were detected in the AODMS compared with POMS group (P < 0.05, TFCE corrected). Conclusion: Increased FA values in WM areas of the AOMS compared with the POMS patients suggest that diffuse WM microstructure changes are more attributable to age of onset than a simple function of disease duration and age. Hum Brain Mapp 35:53–60, 2014. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
Practical heuristic approach to solve the Optimal Transmission Switching problem for Smart Grids

The optimal transmission switching (OTS) problem, a new hot research topic, has been receiving special attention from the power systems community. If implemented as a routine industry practice for smart grids, it could bring significant economic benefits. The computing time is one of the barriers to implement OTS in utility practice. In this work, the implementation of a very simple and efficient technique based on the backward approach is proposed to solve the OTS problem, both in its serial and parallel versions. This technique is also very practical and fast, and its implementation is based on the evaluation of simple optimal power flows. Tests with realistic power networks show the good and fast results obtained with this approach.