Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Appraising and Evaluating PFI for NHS Hospitals

This paper explores the use of appraisal in the development of proposals to use private finance to provide acute hospitals under the Private Finance Initiative (PFI). It addresses the extent to which value for money (VFM) and affordability (which must be satisfied to enable a scheme to be approved) are demonstrated in the documents prepared by hospital Trusts. It identifies a number of issues (such as the transfer of risk and the development of public sector comparators) that pose new problems for investment appraisal, which are specific to its application to PFI.
Sensitive boarder method for control performance indices adjustment

The aim of the paper is to introduce a new approach for the Regions of Required Quality (RRQ) construction under the Control Systems computer-aided analysis and design. Application of the Artificial Neural Networks (ANNs) as a tool in the proposed techniques is represented under the title “Method of Sensitive Border”. The developed Neural network model of the RRQ-region's border allows one to get more available information on the performance indices' behavior in the vicinity of the border. Calculation of recommended value for scanning step norm and performance indices gradient enclosed in the ANNs model (NDM) enables the use of the NDM-model as a source of important information under solving interpolation or extrapolation problems. As opposed to traditional approaches mostly based on approximations through preliminary stored and classified experimental data files, the Sensitive Boarder method exploits the NDM-model as an element of searching procedure via successive experimentation. The theoretical results were applied for the RRQ-regions construction with reference to 320 KW Synchronous Machine control. The obtained regions allowed one to define the best combinations of tunings for provision of the desired levels for appointed performance indices related to output voltage, frequency, power and system stability.
The complete mitochondrial genome of Schizothorax pseudaksaiensis (Cypriniformes: Cyprinidae)

Abstract The complete mitochondrial genome of Schizothorax pseudaksaiensis was cloned and sequenced in the present study. The genome was 16,582 bp in size, which had a mostly conserved structural organization in comparison with that of other teleost fish. It consisted of 37 genes (13 protein-coding genes, 22 transfer RNA genes and 2 ribosomal RNA genes), and 2 main non-coding regions (the control region and the origin of the light strand replication). All protein-coding genes started with ATG except for COX1, which began with GTG. However, the termination codons of 13 protein-coding genes varied with TAA, TA, T or TAG. The overall base composition of S. pseudaksaiensis in descending order was A 30.18%, C 27.08%, T 25.37% and G 17.37%, with a slight A + T bias. The complete mitochondrial genome sequence may provide useful information for phylogenetic analysis and studies of population genetics of S. pseudaksaiensis.
Race-Conscious Student and the Equitable Distribution

TO REFLECT ON THEIR EXPERIENCES at a private liberal arts college, ten students of color met with the president, key administrators, and several white faculty members a few weeks before graduation. All from low-income families and urban environments, these undergraduates had entered the institution through a program designed to protect them from the alienation and disengagement often experienced by underrepresented students. Before the start of their freshman year, this cohort was equipped with resistant responses to the racist stereotypes and differential treatment they would likely encounter, they were socialized to rely on each other for friendship and support, and they were exposed to recent liberal arts college alumni who shared with them useful navigational insights. In sum, they entered this predominantly white institution prepared to productively confront racially stressful educational conditions. Four years later, they attended a meeting to reflect as seniors on how strikingly different their college experiences were from what they had initially expected. Most notably, they felt institutional agents had done a commendable job of engaging them, both inside and outside the classroom. Each student described meaningful collaborative experiences with professors on campus. Given the racial homogeneity of the faculty and administration, they were admittedly surprised to have been sought out for participation in an array of enriching educational experiences. The four who studied abroad characterized the experience as life-changing. Those who spent summers working in professional settings related to their majors spoke enthusiastically about the value internships added to their classroom learning and readiness for postcollege endeavors. All expressed gratitude for the effort educators expended not only to make them feel welcome, but also to ensure they graduated with the same outcomes and portfolios of rich learning experiences long enjoyed by white students at the college. Finally, seven of the ten attributed their admission to highly selective graduate schools to the investment professors had made in them; the remaining three suspected they would have fared less well on the job market had they not been afforded opportunities to enhance their leadership, problem-solving, and communication skills via out-of-class activities, student organizations, and service learning experiences. This fictitious story indicates what is possible when educators and administrators take seriously the responsibility of engaging diverse student populations in educationally purposeful ways. The ten students’ reflections substantiate claims regarding equity and inclusiveness that institutions make in admissions materials, on Web sites, and in mission statements. Furthermore, their assessment of the college experience differs markedly from what has been routinely reported in higher education research concerning the disengagement and alienation of racial minorities at predominantly white institutions. In this article, race-conscious student engagement is offered as a method likely to F E A T U R E D T O P I C
The Impact of Welfare State Regimes on Barriers to Participation in Adult Education

Quantitative and qualitative findings on barriers to participation in adult education are reviewed and some of the defining parameters that may explain observed national differences are considered. A theoretical perspective based on bounded agency is put forth to take account of the interaction between structurally and individually based barriers to participation. The Bounded Agency Model is premised on the assumption that the nature of welfare state regimes can affect a person's capability to participate. In particular, the state can foster broad structural conditions relevant to participation and construct targeted policy measures that are aimed at overcoming both structurally and individually based barriers. Features of the Nordic model of adult education and empirical results from the 2003 Eurobarometer are discussed in relation to this theoretical perspective.
Women's sport leadership styles as the result of interaction between feminine and masculine approaches

There is a growing body of research focusing on women in the business sector using a transformational model of leadership that identifies the ways in which they lead yet little is known about the style of leadership women practise in sport. In attempting to redress this oversight in the literature, this article draws on data from a larger study to identify how women practise leadership within a sporting context. It identifies the leadership styles of women working at the community (club and regional) and elite (state and national) sectors of the Australian sport system in the state of Victoria as being feminine but which appropriate aspects of masculine styles. It also suggests that the women's early experiences of growing up played a significant part in shaping their leadership styles.
Trading directions and the pricing of Euro interbank deposits in the long run

We investigate the relation between aggregate trading imbalances and interest rates in the Euro money market. We use data for OTC contracts as well as information from the major electronic trading platform in Europe to study the presence of cointegration between trading pressures and money market rates. We report strong evidence of a long-term linear relation between trading imbalances and liquidity prices for Euro interbank deposits.
THE WELFARE COST OF INFLATIONARY FINANCE

IN RECENT years several governments have been tempted to resort to open inflation as a method of financing a desired diversion of resources to the government sector of the economy, because of the apparently painless character of this method of diversion. This temptation has not always been resisted in spite of the evidence from the past that this process is not so painless as it appears at first glance. On the other hand, most economists in this country have virtually taken it for granted that this method of finance is not desirable. In many cases the governments of other countries which desired to divert a substantial fraction of
Coexistence of Disposition Investors and Momentum Traders in Stock Markets: Experimental Evidence

Prior research documents that many investors disproportionately hold on to losing stocks while selling stocks which have gained in value. This systematic behavior is labeled the "disposition effect". The phenomenon can be explained by prospect theory's idea that subjects value gains and losses relative to a reference point like the purchase price, and that they are risk-seeking in the domain of possible losses and risk-averse when a certain gain is obtainable. Our experiments were designed to test whether individual-level disposition effects attenuate or survive in a dynamic market setting. We analyze a series of 36 stock markets with 490 subjects. The majority of our investors demonstrate a strong preference for realizing winners (paper gains) rather than losers (paper losses). We adopt different reference points and compare the behavioral patterns across three main trading mechanisms, i.e. rules of price formation. The disposition effect is greatly reduced only within high pressure mechanisms like a dealer market when the last price is assumed as a reference point which is a more market driven (external) benchmark. If disposition investors use the purchase price as a reference point which is a more mental-accounting driven (internal) benchmark they die hard in all market settings. Interestingly, our markets do not collapse or become illiquid by disposition investors' reluctance to trade. A main reason for this is the coexistence of two or more groups of investors, e.g. momentum traders and disposition investors.
Lies, Damned Lies, and Statistics? Examples from Finance and Economics

Reliable data analysis is one of the hardest tasks in sciences and social sciences. Often misleading and sometimes puzzling results arise when the analysis is done without regard for the special features of the data. In this exposition, I will focus on designing new statistical tools to deal with some prominent questions in Finance and Economics. In particular, I will talk about the following. (1) How to characterize the randomness of variables, motivated by a problem in the pricing of financial options. (2) Uncovering the relation between interest rates on different maturities, now and in the future; the "term structure of interest rates". (3) Modelling the unconventional nonlinear long-memory dynamics that arise from a general-equilibrium economic model, and their implications for exchange rates, stock market indexes, and all macroeconomic variables; with recommendations for trading in financial markets, but also for the design of macroeconomic stabilization policies by governments.
A novel approach for medical imagery storage by classifying the dissimilar regions

Everyday medical is capturing thousands of images which need to be classified in a proper way. In this paper, we address the problem of replacing the existing images with the captured one. We provide a new solution by storing only the nonexisting part of the image. Though medical images have been classified in past by using various techniques, the researchers are always finding alternative strategies for medical image classification so that they may be prepared to select the most appropriate technique for the feature extraction task in hand. In order to overcome this difficulty, we propose an efficient approach, which consists of an algorithm that can adopt robust feature kernel principle component analysis (KPCA) to reduce dimensionality of image. Concerning image clustering, we utilize Fuzzy N-Means algorithm. Finally data is stored into database according to specific class by utilizing support vector machine classifier. Thus the proposed scheme improve the efficient storage of medical images in the database, save time consumption and make the correction of the medical images more proficiently.
High-Content Phenotypic Profiling of Drug Response Signatures across Distinct Cancer Cells

The application of high-content imaging in conjunction with multivariate clustering techniques has recently shown value in the confirmation of cellular activity and further characterization of drug mode of action following pharmacologic perturbation. However, such practical examples of phenotypic profiling of drug response published to date have largely been restricted to cell lines and phenotypic response markers that are amenable to basic cellular imaging. As such, these approaches preclude the analysis of both complex heterogeneous phenotypic responses and subtle changes in cell morphology across physiologically relevant cell panels. Here, we describe the application of a cell-based assay and custom designed image analysis algorithms designed to monitor morphologic phenotypic response in detail across distinct cancer cell types. We further describe the integration of these methods with automated data analysis workflows incorporating principal component analysis, Kohonen neural networking, and kNN classification to enable rapid and robust interrogation of such data sets. We show the utility of these approaches by providing novel insight into pharmacologic response across four cancer cell types, Ovcar3, MiaPaCa2, and MCF7 cells wild-type and mutant for p53. These methods have the potential to drive the development of a new generation of novel therapeutic classes encompassing pharmacologic compositions or polypharmacology in appropriate disease context. Mol Cancer Ther; 9(6); 1913–26. ©2010 AACR.
The Determinants of Bank Interest Margins: Theory and Empirical Evidence

This paper has developed a model of bank margins or spreads in which the bank is viewed as a risk-averse dealer. It was demonstrated that an interest spread or margin would always exist, and that this was the result of transactions uncertainty faced by the bank. Moreover, it was shown that this pure spread depended on four factors: the degree of managerial risk aversion; the size of transactions undertaken by the bank; bank market structure; and the variance of interest rates. The model implied that liability and asset structures had to be analyzed together since they were directly interrelated through transactions uncertainty. It was shown that because of this transactions uncertainty, hedging behavior was perfectly rational within an expected utility maximizing framework. Extending the model from a structure with one kind of loan and deposit to loans and deposits with many maturities should lead to further interesting insights into margin determination especially as “portfolio” effects may become apparent.
Academic research, technological specialization and the innovation performance in European regions: an empirical analysis in the wireless sector

In this paper, we carry out an empirical analysis to test the existence of localized interrelations between academic research and private sector innovation performance. The analysis is based on patents and scientific publications for two panels of 15 European Countries and 33 selected regions. By adopting a technological specialization approach, we find evidence of a regional co-localization pattern between scientific specialization and industrial specialization. Furthermore, the local presence of a large innovative company positively affects the extents of knowledge spillovers from the academic sector.
A method to investigate agricultural information use by small‐scale Mauritian cattle keepers

Summary A study of whether, and how, small‐scale cattle keepers in a selected village in Mauritius were managing information was conducted with respondents in 59 households. A qualitative approach was followed using ethnography based on direct and participant observation, in‐depth semi‐structured interviews and grounded theory. Postulated structures of information were used as a starting point for data collection to identify the actual structures, and associated management practices. An ‘OPI’ approach to respondents was followed, involving an outside ('O'), periphery ('P') and inside (T) approach. These were a succession of interactions of increasing depth. Triangulation gave to the responses more validity and reliability. Recording of data was done after the interviews and away from the households. Content analysis of the data established patterns, concepts and categories of structures to show how the information was being managed. The outcomes included new findings about aspects of financial management by these small‐scale and part‐time cattle keepers, of use to extension programmes. The method is suggested as a structured, formal process to guide extension workers or consultants in their understanding of the situations in which they work.
Capturing Order Book Dynamics in the Interbank EUR/PLN Spot Market

In this paper, I examine order submissions and cancellations in the Reuters Dealing 3000 Spot Matching System, the main order-driven market for interbank trading of the euro/złoty (EUR/PLN) currency pair. I generalize the asymmetric autoregressive conditional duration (AACD) model of Bauwens and Giot (2003) with respect to more than two competing risks. With the new multistate AACD model, I examine the timing of different order submissions and cancellations that take place on different sides of the market and vary according to their level of aggressiveness. I investigate different liquidity or information-oriented factors that exert an influence on the dynamics of the limit order book.
Oculopharyngeal muscular dystrophy

Oculopharyngeal muscular dystrophy is a genetic condition characterized by muscle weakness that begins in adulthood, typically after age 40. The term "oculopharyngeal" refers to the eyes (oculo-) and a part of the throat called the pharynx (-pharyngeal). Affected individuals usually first experience weakness of the muscles in both eyelids that causes droopy eyelids (ptosis). Ptosis can worsen over time, causing the eyelid to impair vision, and in some cases, limit eye movement. Along with ptosis, affected individuals develop weakness of the throat muscles that causes difficulty swallowing (dysphagia). Dysphagia begins with dry food, but over time, liquids can also become difficult to swallow. Dysphagia can cause saliva to accumulate and a wet-sounding voice. Many people with oculopharyngeal muscular dystrophy also have weakness and wasting (atrophy) of the tongue. These problems with food intake may cause malnutrition, choking, or a bacterial lung infection called aspiration pneumonia.
Working With Concepts in the Fuzzy Front End: Exploring the Context for Innovation for Different Types of Concepts at Volvo Cars

Automotive firms are balancing the increasing needs for cost and time efficiency with the necessity of developing more innovative products to stand out on in a competitive market. The strive for efficiency has led to an increasingly structured development process with limited allowances for deviations. Previous academic work has pointed out the importance and embedded potential of the fuzzy front end, where new concepts still have the possibility to impact the new product development (NPD) process. However, most research has focused on the transfer of new technologies, while concepts based on e.g. customer or market knowledge have been more or less neglected. This paper discusses the need for alternative and contingent approaches in the front end of NPD to also consider the transfer of other types of concepts. More specifically, it addresses the need to distinguish between different types of concepts and to explore their different prerequisites in NPD. It is argued that customer- and market-based concepts experience certain difficulties due to the history and power of technology in research and development (R&D) domains in the automotive context as well as a lack of support from the existing, formal processes. In this paper, we argue that all new concepts need to be conceptualized before being introduced to the NPD process, but that does not always suffice. Concepts other than technology concepts also need a contingent package to enable an evaluation in the context of the R&D process – they need to be contextualized. This paper draws on an in-depth case study of Volvo Cars within a long-lasting collaborative research setup. It is based on an interview study with key persons in the areas of concept work and NPD, and uses an insider/outsider approach.
A review of inventory lot sizing review papers

Purpose – This paper aims to give a comprehensive review, summary, and discussion on inventory models that have appeared in the literature. During these past ten decades, no seminal paper reviewing the field of inventory lot sizing has even been published. This limitation has been identified in the literature by several researchers over the years, with the sheer volume of the number of published inventory lot sizing models acting as a factor which has limited a research endeavor to review the literature on inventory lot sizing models. Design/methodology/approach – This article reviews research on inventory lot size models and provides a review of previously published literature review papers on inventory models. Based on this initial review, the literature extending current research practices on inventory modeling in supply chains and in sustainable practices is presented. Directions for expanding research in these two areas are examined in light of concerns expressed in the historical use of inventory mo.
Cellulases of Mesophilic Microorganisms

The cellulolytic activity of mesophilic bacteria and fungi is described, with special emphasis on the large extracellular enzyme complex called the cellulosome. The cellulosome is composed of a scaffolding protein, which is attached to various cellulolytic and hemicellulolytic enzymes, and this complex allows the organisms to degrade plant cell walls very efficently. The enzymes include a variety of cellulases, hemicellulases, and pectinases that work synergistically to degrade complex cell‐wall molecules.
An Examination of Audit Information Technology Use and Perceived Importance

Information technology (IT) use can directly impact audit judgment and ultimately audit effectiveness and efficiency. Although IT has significantly changed the audit process, few studies have examined the perceived importance of IT use across a diverse group of audit firms. Our descriptive study explores audit IT use and its perceived importance across several audit applications. To address regulator concerns about barriers to entry in public accounting and to advance auditing research, we examine whether audit IT use and perceived importance of IT varies by firm size. A field‐based questionnaire was used to collect data from 181 auditors representing Big 4, national, regional, and local firms. Our results indicate that auditors extensively use a variety of audit applications including analytical procedures, audit report writing, electronic work papers, Internet search tools, and sampling. Auditors perceive several applications as important (e.g., fraud review), but use them infrequently. In addition, IT .