Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Transformational, Transactional Leadership and Rational Decision Making in Services Providing Organizations: Moderating Role of Knowledge Management Processes

The study is based on moderating role of knowledge management processes in the relationship between transformational, transactional leadership and rational decision making in services providing organizations. The study also examined the effect of transformational leadership and knowledge management processes on the predication of rational decision making. Information from services providing organizations including banks, hospitals, and universities is collected through Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire, Knowledge Management Process Scale and General Decision Making Styles Questionnaire. A purposive sample of 1200 employees participated in the present study. Moderated Regression analysis confirmed that transformational, transactional leadership and knowledge management processes positively predicted rational decision making. Finally, knowledge management processes moderated between transformational, transactional leadership and rational decision making.
A Taxonomy of Born-global Firms

■ This study develops a taxonomy to better understand "born-global" firms, a breed of young companies that begin selling their products in foreign markets at or near the firm's founding. ■ The study describes each firm grouping with regard to its basic orientations and the generic strategies that it applies, as well as associated international performance outcomes.
An Energy-Efficient Multilevel Clustering Algorithm for Heterogeneous Wireless Sensor Networks

Wireless Sensor Networks WSNs are generally believed to be homogeneous, but some sensor nodes of higher energy can be used to prolong the lifetime and reliability of WSNs. This gives birth to the concept of Heterogeneous Wireless Sensor Networks HWSNs. Clustering is an important technique to prolong the lifetime of WSNs and to reduce energy consumption as well, by topology management and routing. HWSNs are popular in real deployments Corchado et al., 2010, and have a large area of coverage. In such scenarios, for better connectivity, the need for multilevel clustering protocols arises. In this paper, the authors propose an energy-efficient protocol called heterogeneous multilevel clustering and aggregation HMCA for HWSNs. HMCA is simulated and compared with existing multilevel clustering protocol EEMC Jin et al., 2008 for homogeneous WSN. Simulation results demonstrate that the proposed protocol performs better.
Imaging Cognition: An Empirical Review of PET Studies with Normal Subjects

We review PET studies of higher-order cognitive processes, including attention (sustained and selective), perception (of objects, faces, and locations), language (word listening, reading, and production), working memory (phonological and visuo-spatial), semantic memory retrieval (intentional and incidental), episodic memory retrieval (verbal and nonverbal), priming, and procedural memory (conditioning and skill learning). For each process, we identify activation patterns including the most consistently involved regions. These regions constitute important components of the network of brain regions that underlie each function.
Complete Genome Sequence of Bacillus velezensis YJ11-1-4, a Strain with Broad-Spectrum Antimicrobial Activity, Isolated from Traditional Korean Fermented Soybean Paste

ABSTRACT Bacillus velezensis YJ11-1-4 is a strain that exhibits broad-spectrum antimicrobial activity against various pathogens. It was isolated from doenjang, a traditional Korean fermented soybean paste. The genome comprises a single circular chromosome of 4,006,637 bp with 46.42% G+C content without plasmids.
Patterns and Cultivation of Talents′ Vocational Attainment

To become a country which is strong in manufacturing,it is necessarily to cultivate a large number of skilled talents with high qualities.This paper analyzes the meaning of vocational qualities and its functions in students′ vocational life.Forming patterns of vocational qualities of skilled talents in manufacturing is also explained.Practical teaching is irreplaceable in the forming of students′ vocational habits,vocational conscious and vocational morality.Cultivation of vocational qualities should be combined with the theoretical teaching of the major.The basic method to improve students′ vocational qualities is to take fully advantage of the practical teaching,especially the post practice.Teachers should lead students in the practical teaching phase,scientifically arrange courses and professionally organize teaching so as to insure effects of practice.
Fast Depth-integrated 3D Motion Estimation and Visualization for an Active Vision System

In this paper, we present a fast 3D motion parameter estimation approach integrating the depth information acquired by a stereo camera head mounted on a mobile robot. Afterwards, the resulting 3D motion parameters are used to generate and accurately position motion vectors of the generated depth sequence in the 3D space using the geometrical information of the stereo camera head. The proposed approach has successfully detected and estimated predefined motion patterns such as motion in the Z direction and motion vectors pointing to the robot which is very important to overcome typical problems in autonomous mobile robotic vision such as collision detection and inhibition of the ego-motion defects of a moving camera head. The output of the algorithm is part of a multi-object segmentation approach implemented in an active vision system.
"Understanding the scope of private labels": A case of the organised agri-food retail business

The case viewpoint is to draw attention to credible attributes or propositions and to evaluate the comparative analysis of the organised agri-food retail chains in India. There is a need to explore the possibilities of marketing private labels in agri-food retail business and consumer acceptability. The research problem tries to highlight a distinct formulation as to why purchase of private brands in the agri-food segment is not highlighted. There is need to study the consumer perception relating to purchase of agri-food private labels. This study tries to create the importance of agri-food retailing in the Indian context followed by the significance of loyalty and repurchase on it.
Does ovarian hyperstimulation in intrauterine insemination for cervical factor subfertility improve pregnancy rates?

BACKGROUND Intrauterine insemination (IUI) can be performed with or without controlled ovarian hyperstimulation (COH). Studies in which the additional benefit of COH on IUI for cervical factor subfertility is assessed are lacking. We assessed whether COH in IUI improved pregnancy rates in cervical factor subfertility. METHODS We performed a historical cohort study among couples with cervical factor subfertility, treated with IUI. A cervical factor was diagnosed by a well-timed, non-progressive post-coital test with normal semen parameters. We compared ongoing pregnancy rate per cycle in groups treated with IUI with or without COH. We tabulated ongoing pregnancy rates per cycle number and compared the effectiveness of COH by stratified univariable analysis. RESULTS We included 181 couples who underwent 330 cycles without COH and 417 cycles with COH. Ongoing pregnancy rates in IUI cycles without and with COH were 9.7% and 12.7%, respectively (odds ratio 1.4; 95% confidence interval 0.85-2.2). The pregnancy rates in IUI without COH in cycles 1, 2, 3 and 4 were 14%, 11%, 6% and 15%, respectively. For IUI with COH, these rates were 17%, 15%, 14% and 16%, respectively. CONCLUSIONS Although our data indicate that COH improves the pregnancy rate over IUI without COH, IUI without COH generates acceptable pregnancy rates in couples with cervical factor subfertility. Since IUI without COH bears no increased risk for multiple pregnancy, this treatment should be seriously considered in couples with cervical factor subfertility.
Analysis on microstrip patch antennas for wireless communication

Microstrip patch antennas are the most one used for wireless communication. Its main characteristics are narrow in bandwidth, feasibility in cost, fabrication is easier. This paper describes about the analysis in different type of microstrip patch antennas with different frequency band. A dual frequency microstrip patch antenna, Star shaped patch antenna, E-shaped patch antenna, Octagonal shaped patch antenna are taken into account has been used in various wireless communication. Sometimes, the patch antennas are called UWB antenna if the same covers wide range of frequencies.
Biomass Estimation Using 3D Data from Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Imagery in a Tropical Woodland

Application of 3D data derived from images captured using unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) in forest biomass estimation has shown great potential in reducing costs and improving the estimates. However, such data have never been tested in miombo woodlands. UAV-based biomass estimation relies on the availability of reliable digital terrain models (DTMs). The main objective of this study was to evaluate application of 3D data derived from UAV imagery in biomass estimation and to compare impacts of DTMs generated based on different methods and parameter settings. Biomass was modeled using data acquired from 107 sample plots in a forest reserve in miombo woodlands of Malawi. The results indicated that there are no significant differences (p = 0.985) between tested DTMs except for that based on shuttle radar topography mission (SRTM). A model developed using unsupervised ground filtering based on a grid search approach, had the smallest root mean square error (RMSE) of 46.7% of a mean biomass value of 38.99 Mg·ha−1. Amongst the independent variables, maximum canopy height (Hmax) was the most frequently selected. In addition, all models included spectral variables incorporating the three color bands red, green and blue. The study has demonstrated that UAV acquired image data can be used in biomass estimation in miombo woodlands using automatically generated DTMs.
Online learning of mixture experts for real-time tracking

Template tracking has been extensively investigated in computer vision to track objects for various applications. Tracking based on gradient descent algorithm using image gradient is one of the most popular object tracking method. However, it is difficult to define the relationship between the observed data set and the warping function due to the unobserved heterogeneity of the data set which inevitably results in poor tracking performance. This study proposes a novel method based on hierarchical mixture of expert to perform robust, real-time tracking from stationary cameras. By extending the idea of hyperplane approximation, the proposed approach establishes a hierarchical mixture of generalised linear regression model instead of a single model which reduces the non-linear error. The experiments’ results show significant improvement over the traditional hyperplane approximation (HA) approach.
Rejuvenating importance‐performance analysis

Purpose – Importance‐performance analysis (IPA) is a simple marketing tool commonly used to identify the main strengths and weaknesses of a value proposition. The purpose of this paper is to propose a revision of traditional IPA prompted by intuitions arising from the three‐factor theory of customer satisfaction. The ultimate goal is to propose a decision support method, which is as simple and intuitive as the original IPA, but more precise and reliable than the solutions proposed thus far.Design/methodology/approach – In order to estimate indirect measures of attribute importance, the study uses the coefficients of a multiple regression with overall satisfaction ratings as the dependent variable. Additional calculations are then introduced in order to manage non‐linear effects.Findings – Using empirical data from a survey among 5,209 customers of a European bank, the authors show how the proposed method can be more accurate than other solutions, especially as disregarding non‐linear effects can prompt su.
Consumers Trust in Online Shopping: The Case of Singapore

The emergences of the Internet and World Wide Web have changed the way businesses ply their trades. Many organizations now have established an online presence, particularly businesses that provide products or services directly to consumers, the so-called business-to-consumer (B2C) e-business. Trust is an important component for the continued viability and success of online businesses, as unlike traditional businesses, consumers do not have physical contact with the products to evaluate their suitability and quality. In this paper, we adopt the trust model constructed by Lee and Turban (7) to study how the drivers of trust in B2C e-commerce would affect the level of trust consumers have in online shopping in Singapore. We will also investigate if there are any moderating effects due to consumer' trust propensity on the relationship between each trust driver and consumer trust in online shopping. Our results show that most of the trust drivers identified by Lee and Turban have a positive effect on the level of trust on online shopping and trust propensity also has a moderating effect on the relationship between the trust drivers and consumers' trust in online shopping.
Nitrogen Fixation by Anaerobic Cellulolytic Bacteria

Four strains of anaerobic nitrogen-fixing, cellulose-fermenting bacteria were isolated in pure culture from freshwater mud and soil. Nitrogenase activity was demonstrated in these strains and also in several previously described anaerobic cellulolytic bacteria isolated from various natural environments. These are the first anaerobic bacteria known to use cellulose as an energy source for nitrogen fixation. Because cellulose is a plant polysaccharide that abounds in nature, these results raise the possibility that nitrogen-fixing, cellulose-fermenting bacteria may be widespread and thus play a major role in carbon and nitrogen cycling.
Design of forest biofuel supply chains

Designing and building new biofuel supply chains is an emerging theme in the present world energy situation. This paper considers a real-life problem of supplying a bioenergy plant with forest fuel. A mixed-integer linear programming model is proposed to determine the optimal configuration of that supply chain. The model proves helpful in resolving trade-offs between decentralised early treatment of biofuel, resulting in lower transportation costs, and centralised final treatment, allowing to reap economies of scale. It is therefore advisable to apply integrated supply chain planning concepts to design biofuel logistics systems and to support policy making in the energy field.
A Characterization of Lower-Tier Supplier Visibility Practices in Supplier Relationship Management

This study explores industry perspectives on lower-tier supplier visibility (LTSV) with respect to various supplier stratifications. According to the analysis of our survey data collected from 74 companies and interviews with 19 industry executives from 15 companies, we found that companies with LTSV system are willing to expand their LTSV process to its suppliers that are of lesser overall importance rather than the traditional practice of restricting such requirement to suppliers with very high level of overall importance (i.e. strategic suppliers). Our findings also show that minimizing supply chain risks (MSCR) and ensuring supply performance (ESP) are primary motivations for companies to engender LTSV. Furthermore, we found that companies adopting LTSV process for strategic and collaborative suppliers focus on MSCR, but on ESP for custom suppliers. These findings contribute to the literature of supplier relationship management (SRM) on lower-tier supplier management and also provide a guideline for the industry to create appropriate LTSV strategies.
Convex relaxations in circuits, systems, and control

It is well known that a large variety of systems and control problems can be formulated as optimization problems. The classical approach pursued in typical contexts is to look for a closed form solution to the specific optimization problem at hand. The last decade has seen a noticeable shift in the meaning of "closed form" solution. The formidable increase of computational power has dramatically changed the feeling of theoreticians as well as of practitioners about what is meant by "tractable" and "untractable" problems. One of the main issues is convexity. While from a mathematical viewpoint there has been a large amount of work in the direction of "convexi- fying" nonconvex problems and studying structural features of convex problems, considerable advances on techniques for recognizing convexity and algorithms for solving convex problems have been made mainly in the last 15 years.
Functional Outcome After Air-Stirrup Ankle Brace or Fiberglass Backslab for Pediatric Low-Risk Ankle Fractures: A Randomized Observer-Blinded Controlled Trial

Objectives Pediatric ankle fractures are usually treated by immobilization with either a posterior splint, cast, or ankle brace. We set out to determine if the below-knee fiberglass posterior splint was as effective as the Air-Stirrup ankle brace in returning children with a low risk ankle fracture to their normal level of activity. Methods This was a randomized, single-blinded, noninferiority, controlled trial at the Royal Children’s Hospital, Melbourne. Children aged 5 to 15 years presenting acutely with a low-risk ankle fracture were randomized to the Air-Stirrup ankle brace or fiberglass posterior splint. A validated self-reported outcome tool, the Activities Scale for Kids performance (ASKp), was used to measure physical functioning over the 4 week period. Main outcome was ASKp scores at 2 and 4 weeks with secondary outcomes including pain, weight-bearing ability, and acceptability of device. Results Forty-five patients were randomized: 23 in the posterior splint group and 22 in the Air-Stirrup ankle brace. Study groups were similar in terms of age, fracture type, and baseline pain. More of the posterior splint group were non–weight bearing “at enrolment” (96%) compared with the ankle brace group (77%). The median ASKp score at 4 weeks was 91.9 in the brace group and 84.2 in the posterior splint group. Scores on the ASKp as well as ASKp differences were favorable toward the brace in the 11- to 15-year age group at 2 weeks (69.6 vs 55.6) and 4 weeks (97.5 vs 90.2) but trended toward the posterior splint in the 5- to 10-year age group (47.5 vs 56). Conclusions There was no difference between the Air-Stirrup ankle brace and the fiberglass posterior splint in returning children to their normal levels of activity.
Measuring the operating efficiency of internet channels with DEA

The emergence of the internet has forced a wealth of firms to explore a new form of channels of distribution, i.e., internet channels. Managing the impact of introducing an internet channel into an existing distribution system is probably one of the greatest challenges today. This research employs data envelopment analysis (DEA) approach to measure the operating efficiency of internet channels. To improve the effectiveness of the DEA in contributing to group consensus and decision-making, the integration of DEA with Delphi method is proposed. Empirical data are collected from the financial service sector in Taiwan. The findings demonstrate the existence of large inefficiencies. In order to improve the logisitics economics of the inefficient firms, this study further provides guidelines for managers that will eventually benefit policy-making in resource allocation and in strengthening its management.
A cyclophilin gene marker confirming geographical differentiation of Norway spruce populations and indicating viability response on excess soil‐born salinity

A newly identified cyclophilin‐encoding cDNA clone was used to design a codominant inherited EST‐PCR marker in Norway spruce. The study of the current minor polymorphism revealed a geographically structured differentiation pattern across 17 test populations, showing a slight clinal variation south‐north through Europe. Based on the frequency of alleles, isolation‐by‐distance analysis and the Ewens‐Watterson test, we conclude that a selectively neutral random‐drift mutation recently occurred within the Alpine population group, thus being responsible for the genetic variation detected. Analysis of tolerant and susceptible subsets of two adjacent Bavarian spruce populations affected by soil‐born NaCl pollution, revealed that the cyclophilin marker locus also confirms biased genotype frequencies. Considering an unlinked PCR marker of a ribosomal protein‐encoding EST clone, deviations between pooled tolerant subsets and pooled sensitive subsets were proven to be more significant for two‐locus homozygous genotypes than for each locus alone. We suggest that both loci are linked to adaptive genomic regions. Their potential to test the feasibility of marker‐assisted selection of both NaCl‐tolerant and drought resistant tree populations is discussed.
Educating Students in Business Process Management with Simulation Games

The aim of this paper is to present a framework for empirical investigation of the effectiveness of simulation games for student learning of BPM concept. A future research methodology is explained and a normative model that extends the standard TAM model by introducing latent and mediating variables into the relationship between independent variables and dependent variable is developed. Future research propositions are defined in order to examine the benefits that can be achieved through the use of BPM simulation games in ERP courses.
Plasmon-controlled fluorescence: a new detection technology

Fluorescence is widely used in biological research. Future advances in biology and medicine often depend on the advances in the capabilities of fluorescence measurements. In this overview paper we describe how a combination of fluorescence, and plasmonics, and nanofabrication can fundamentally change and increase the capabilities of fluorescence technology. This change will be based on the use of surface plasmons which are collective oscillations of free electrons in metallic surfaces and particles. Surface plasmon resonance is now used to measure bioaffinity reactions. However, the uses of surface plasmons in biology are not limited to their optical absorption or extinction. We have shown that fluorophores in the excited state can create plasmons which radiate into the far field; additionally fluorophores in the ground state can interact with and be excited by surface plasmons. These interactions suggest that the novel optical absorption and scattering properties of metallic nanostructures can be used to control the decay rates, location and direction of fluorophore emission. We refer to this technology as plasmon-controlled fluorescence. We predict that plasmon-controlled fluorescence (PCF) will result in a new generation of probes and devices. PCF is likely to allow design of structures which enhance emission at specific wavelengths and the creation of new devices which control and transport the energy from excited fluorophores in the form of plasmons, and then convert the plasmons back to light.