Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Interactive reference descriptions of cellular electrophysiology models

With the advent and popularization of technologies such as CellML and SBML it has become relatively easy to share and exchange mathematical models of biological systems. However, as such technology evolves it is inevitable that not all tools will correctly interpret the full range of models able to be described. It is also necessary to completely describe the mathematical models allowing model users to appropriately use each model. To address these issues we have previously developed methods and tools based on community defined standards which allow for the specification of a reference description of a mathematical model. Such reference descriptions provide a comprehensive description of both the mathematical model and the outcomes expected when performing specific numerical simulations using the model. Thus providing for quantitative validation of tool interpretation of a given model as well as informing the model user as to all aspects of the model definition. Further development of this work has led to the conclusion that presenting such reference descriptions in a user friendly and interactive manner provides a powerful tool for the dissemination and understanding of the mathematical model. Furthermore, such a tool is seen as an invaluable teaching aid in the education of biomedical engineers and scientists allowing for anything from a superficial to a very comprehensive interaction with the mathematical model.
Corporate Mission Statements: The Bottom Line

Developing a mission statement is an important first step in the strategic planning process, according to both practitioners and research scholars. ' Several recent books on strategic management include entire chapters on mission statements, which attest to their perceived importance in the strategy formulation process. Nevertheless, the components of mission statements are among the least empirically examined issues in strategic management. No reported empirical studies describe the composition of business mission statements, only a few conceptual articles suggest desirable component characteristics, and no reported attempts have been made to link mission statements to corporate performance. This neglect is surprising since several studies have concluded that firms that engage in strategic planning outperform firms that do not.2 Thus, the research reported in this paper focused on the nature and role of mission statements in organizational processes; its goal was to improve our understanding of the link between strategic planning and firm performance.
Laboratory evidence on the effectiveness of corporate leniency programs

The number of cartels detected in the United States and in Europe has increased considerably since the introduction of corporate leniency programs in antitrust legislation. It cannot, however, be ruled out that this apparent success results in part from increased cartel activity. We explore the effects of corporate leniency programs on pricing and cartel activity by use of an experiment. We find that in the lab (i) fewer cartels are established when a leniency program is in place, and (ii) cartels that do exist are less successful in charging prices above the static Nash equilibrium price and have lower survival rates.
On the Choice of the Pair Conjunction–Implication Into the Fuzzy Morphological Edge Detector

In this paper, the fuzzy morphological gradients from the fuzzy mathematical morphologies based on t-norms and conjunctive uninorms are deeply analyzed in order to establish which pair of conjunction and fuzzy implications are optimal, in accordance with their performance in edge detection applications. A novel three-step algorithm based on the fuzzy morphology is proposed. The comparison is performed by means of the so-called Pratt's figure of merit. In addition, a statistical analysis is carried out to study the relationship between the different configurations and to establish a classification of the conjunctions and implications considered. Both the objective measure and the statistical analysis conclude that the pairs nilpotent minimum t-norm and the Kleene-Dienes implication, and the idempotent uninorm obtained with the classical negation as a generator and its residual implication, are the best configurations in this approach, because they also obtain competitive results with respect to other approaches.
Impediments to CSR assurance in an emerging economy

Purpose - – This study explores the factors that impede the growth of the voluntary adoption of independent corporate social responsibilities assurance (CSRA) practices among manufacturing companies in Malaysia. Despite the argument that independent CSRA appraisals would improve the credibility of information disclosed, the majority of CSR reports in Malaysia are still not independently assured. The aim of this study is to understand the factors that impede CSRA practices among public-listed manufacturing companies in Malaysia. The theory of reasoned action was used to underpin arguments on the reluctance of managers to undertake CSRA. Design/methodology/approach - – Online questionnaire surveys were employed to obtain respondents' perceptions on the factors that hinder CSRA practices. The target respondents comprised of CSR managers, corporate communications executives and customer relations personnel. Findings - – This study provides evidence that the behavioural reluctance of managers to undertake CSRA was due to their attitudes and subjective norms towards independence assurance. The subjective norms due to the risk towards corporate reputation and the exposure to public scrutiny were the main factors that impede CSRA practices among manufacturing companies in Malaysia. The managers' attitude towards cost, data management systems and the uncertainty of the merits of CSRA were also compelling factors that hinder independent CSRA. These factors seemed to override incentives to provide credible information to stakeholders. Research limitations/implications - – The findings of the study are limited to the perceptions of CSR managers, corporate communications executives and customer relations personnel responsible for CSR activities of the manufacturing industries in Malaysia. The results of the study suggest that further initiatives or pressure from stakeholders or regulatory authorities may be needed to convince the companies of the benefits of undertaking third-party assurance practices as such actions would provide a platform for the companies to enhance the credibility of their CSR reporting. Practical implications - – The findings gleaned from this study would be of interest to the relevant corporate bodies and regulatory authorities with a view to formulating strategies to improve CSRA practices among organisations in Malaysia. Originality/value - – The findings from the study offer initial insights into the impediments to CSRA practices in an emerging economy. It adds substantially to the existing literature that focuses mainly on CSRA practices in developed countries.
Causes and Consequences of Venture Capitalist Litigation

Sticking with an analysis of the situation postdeal, Liu, Paeglis, and Walker take us into the scary world of SEC lawsuits thrown at venture-backed public companies. Does the strong reputation of a venture firm appear to attract litigation due, perhaps, to the deep pockets of the organization? That's a scary thought and these authors test it. Are the lawsuits frivolous or do they appear to have merit? Do firms continue to fund companies after the imposition of litigation? Do venture firms named in lawsuits tend to keep or lose their reputational rankings? Can you avoid lawsuits by monitoring your portfolio firms more intensively? We thought you might be interested in the answers to some of these provocative questions.
Patient satisfaction and the content of general practice consultations.

Interviews conducted with 81 patients after their initial visit with trainee general practitioners in the UK indicated that patient satisfaction was associated with 3 factors: 1) the patient feeling understood, 2) the patient actually telling the doctor what he or she wanted from the visit, and 3) increasing age of the patient. Satisfaction was not associated with the patients' feeling improvement in their medical problem or having their specific requests granted. 67 patients (83%) had specific requests they wanted to make of the general practitioner, most commonly prescription drugs (45%) or examination (19%). However, only 25 patients (37%) actually expressed these requests to the doctor. These findings suggest the importance of encouraging patients to express their requests. Such requests can provide the doctor with information about the patient's wishes, health beliefs, and expectations. In addition to improved understanding of patient needs, the encouragement of verbalization of requests will result in more effective physician-patient communication and thus greater compliance in the utilization of health services.
Disruption of the Corticoreticular Tract in Pediatric Patients With Trunk Instability: A Diffusion Tensor Tractography Study

The authors report the diffusion tensor tractography (DTT) findings of three pediatric patients with gait dysfunction and corticoreticular tract (CRT) disruption. All three patients showed unilateral trunk instability, but they did not show any spasticity or weakness of the distal extremities. Clinical evaluation of trunk instability using a Trunk Control Measurement Scale (TCMS) revealed that the more affected side had a lower score than the contralateral side. DTT showed disrupted CRTs in hemispheres contralateral to the hemiparetic sides, which were associated with unilateral proximal instability, although conventional MRI showed no abnormal lesion explaining the hemiplegic symptom. Compared to the results in age-matched controls, these three patients had decreased values of fractional anisotropy (FA) and tract volumes (TV) of the affected CRTs, and these values were also decreased compared to those in the contralateral side. On the other hand, values of FA and TV of the corticospinal tracts on the ipsilateral and contralateral sides were only marginally different. In conclusion, diffusion tensor imaging can be helpful for investigating the state of the CRT in pediatric patients with trunk instability and gait dysfunction.
Measuring Guest Satisfaction and Competitive Position in the Hospitality and Tourism Industry

The measurement of guest satisfaction and delight is the focus of this article. An application of a quantitative methodology known as stance-shift analysis is proposed and demonstrated on data composed of Internet blog narratives. The authors argue that the method provides both an efficient and effective means to determine a firm’s competitive position in producing satisfied guests who will not only come back but also recommend the firm to others. Specifically, the method produces relatively detailed evaluations to determine the following: How satisfied are my guests? What are they telling others about their experiences? How is my property performing in creating satisfying guest experiences when compared with the competition? What are my property’s strengths and weaknesses in its competitive environment?
Blocking techniques for efficient entity resolution over large, highly heterogeneous information spaces

Web Data have boomed during the last decade, due to their largely distributed way of production: corporations of any size, individual users as well as automatic extraction tools have contributed a constantly increasing volume of diverse, but also very heterogeneous and noisy information. Entity Resolution (ER) helps to reduce the entropy, leveraging the value of the fragmented Web Data by identifying those pieces of information that refer to the same real-world objects. To scale ER to the large and very large data sets, such as Web Data, data blocking techniques are typically employed. However, most of them rely on schema information and, thus, are inapplicable to the highly heterogeneous settings of Web Data — a situation that calls for novel approaches. This dissertation goes beyond existing blocking techniques, by introducing a novel methodology that is inherently crafted for the voluminous, highly heterogeneous, noisy collections of Web Data. Its goal is to place every pair of matching entities in at least one common block, while minimizing the number of unnecessary comparisons. At its core lie three independent, but complementary phases: first, block building techniques aim at clustering entities into blocks through a redundancy-bearing, schema-agnostic functionality, which associates every entity with multiple blocks without considering any schema information. In this way, the likelihood of missed matches is minimized even in the challenging context of Web Data. Second, meta-blocking relies on patterns of co-occurrence among entities sharing multiple blocks in order to restructure the resulting block collection into a new one that identifies practically the same portion of duplicates, while reducing significantly the computational cost. Third, block processing techniques further enhance efficiency, by discarding comparisons or even entire blocks that involve non-matching entities. We analytically examine the performance of every phase through a thorough experimental study that involves three large-scale, real-world data sets. Its outcomes demonstrate that our methodology achieves an excellent
Women workers and precarious employment in Shenzhen Special Economic Zone, China

In spite of the increase in transnational codes of conduct and legal mobilisation of labour, despotic labour regimes in China are still prevalent. Globalisation and 'race to the bottom' production strategies adopted by transnational corporations militate against the improvement of labour relations in China. The goal of this study is to provide a framework for understanding the working conditions of female migrant workers. While the inhumane working conditions of the women workers have been repeatedly observed, none of the existing studies has provided a solid analysis of the precarious employment system in China. This article aims to span global factors as well as local elements, demonstrating how they each contribute to precarious employment patterns. The hidden costs of the production and reproduction cycles are still unknown.
Changing economic environments, evolving diversification strategies, and differing financial performance: Japan’s largest textile firms, 1970–2001

Japan's largest textile firms have adopted the strategy of diversification into new product markets, since they started facing industry maturity and macroeconomic turbulences. We find that the nature and magnitude of capabilities had decisive impacts on the direction of diversification. Our panel data analyses show that different diversification paths actually yielded contrasting performances. The outcomes also suggest that the effectiveness of specific diversification schemes was contingent on macroeconomic environments. Ultimately, however, only the commitment to technology, not marketing or finance, ensured long-term profitability. Copyright 2005, Oxford University Press.
Immunoblot analysis of the serological response in invasive Trichosporon beigelii and Blastoschizomyces capitatus infections

The serological response to Trichosporon sp. was examined by the immunoblot technique. Antibodies to a range of antigens (200 to 16 kilodaltons) were detectable in three patients with invasive Trichosporon beigelii or Blastoschizomyces capitatus infections and 10 uninfected controls. High levels of preexisting antibodies may contribute to the rarity of systemic infections.
Why Do Energy Prices Matter? The Role of Interindustry Linkages in U.S. Manufacturing

There is considerable empirical evidence that energy prices had a large effect on the U.S. economy between World War II and the 1980s. This paper argues that linkages between manufacturing industries amplify the effect of an energy price shock and help explain the large effect. In particular, energy-intensive industries are important input suppliers to other industries. When the price of energy increases, energy-intensive industries contract, raising materials prices for other industries. Because of the reduction in materials supply, the downstream industries also contract, which I refer to as the supply effect. Using data from the Census of Manufactures, I find that the supply effect accounted for about one half of the sensitivity of value added to the price of energy. I use plant-level census data to show that the supply effect caused similar changes in value added per plant as in value added per industry. A price increase caused a small, although statistically significant, decrease in entry and had no effect on exit. Finally, the supply effect reduced plant-level labor demand.
Archaeal fibrillarin–Nop5 heterodimer 2′-O-methylates RNA independently of the C/D guide RNP particle

Archaeal fibrillarin (aFib) is a well-characterized S-adenosyl methionine (SAM)-dependent RNA 2′-O-methyltransferase that is known to act in a large C/D ribonucleoprotein (RNP) complex together with Nop5 and L7Ae proteins and a box C/D guide RNA. In the reaction, the guide RNA serves to direct the methylation reaction to a specific site in tRNA or rRNA by sequence complementarity. Here we show that a Pyrococcus abyssi aFib–Nop5 heterodimer can alone perform SAM-dependent 2′-O-methylation of 16S and 23S ribosomal RNAs in vitro independently of L7Ae and C/D guide RNAs. Using tritium-labeling, mass spectrometry, and reverse transcription analysis, we identified three in vitro 2′-O-methylated positions in the 16S rRNA of P. abyssi, positions lying outside of previously reported pyrococcal C/D RNP methylation sites. This newly discovered stand-alone activity of aFib–Nop5 may provide an example of an ancestral activity retained in enzymes that were recruited to larger complexes during evolution.
Presurgical Motivations, Self-Esteem, and Oral Health of Orthognathic Surgery Patients

PurposeThe aim of this study was to evaluate motivations, self-esteem, and oral health for undergoing orthognathic patients by gender in China before orthognathic surgery. Patients and MethodsUsing a prospective and control study design, 429 subjects in China were collected from December 2010 to May 2011. The patient group consisted of 210 consecutive healthy patients, and 219 young individuals comprised the control group. All the subjects filled out a questionnaire and were assessed by Self-esteem Scale and Oral Health Impact Profile validated for Chinese patients before surgery. To measure the discrepancy, the Student t test was computed. P <0.05 was considered significant. ResultsIn China, major motivations for orthognathic surgery are to improve facial appearance (83.33%), occlusion (50%), and self-confidence (48.1%). Females expect to improve facial appearance (83.87%), self-confidence (43.55%), and occlusion (41.94%). Males are for the improvement of facial appearance (82.56%), occlusion (63.95%), and self-confidence (54.65%). Self-esteem in the patient group is obviously lower (P < 0.01). There is a significant difference of self-esteem in female groups (P < 0.01), but none in male groups. Statistically significant differences were observed on oral health between both sexes. Conclusions(1) Special attention should be paid on patients’ ethnic, economic, cultural, and social aspects. In Chinese orthognathic patients, improving facial appearance is the primary motivation. Self-confidence has been more frequently mentioned, while headache far less than other countries. (2) Female patients have less self-esteem than females in the control group. (3) Patients’ oral health are worse than those in the control group.
Conjugative Plasmid Transfer between Bacteria under Simulated Marine Oligotrophic Conditions

Marine Vibrio S14 strains and an Escherichia coli strain were starved in artificial seawater (NSS) with no added carbon, nitrogen, or phosphorus. The broad-host-range plasmid RP1 was transferred between the starving S14 strains and also from the E. coli donor to the S14 recipient under oligotrophic conditions, in which mixtures of donor and recipient cells were held on Nuclepore filters either floated on NSS or held such that NSS flowed through the filter. Transconjugants were obtained from S14 donors and recipients starved for at least 15 days before being mixed together for conjugation, whereas transconjugants were recovered from the E. coli donor and S14 recipient for up to 3 days of prestarvation, but not after 5 days. Transconjugants were obtained when there were as few as about 105 and 104 cells of starving S14 donors and recipients, respectively, per ml held on the filters. Starved donor and recipient mixtures incubated at 4 or 26°C, as well as those allowed to mate for 2, 5, or 24 h, all yielded numbers of transconjugants which were not significantly (P > 0.05) different.
Physical edge detection in clothing items for robotic manipulation

The physical edges of an object contain valuable information to recognize its shape and also to manipulate it. In the case of handling clothing items automatically, the physical edges give important clues to determine its type and shape as well as to find good grasping points for many manipulation tasks. In this paper, we propose a method to extract the garment's physical edges from the three-dimensional observation of the garment. First, we calculate depth edges as candidate pixels, and then use a Deep Convolutional Neural Network for pixel-wise classification of the edges. Experimental results obtained by using various towels of different sizes and softness show the robustness of this method. To demonstrate the usefulness of this detected physical edge information, we also conducted experiments of opening towels with a dual-arm robot.
Massive Inborn Angiogenesis in the Brain Scarcely Raises Cerebral Blood Flow

The functional consequences of increased capillary densities in the brain resulting from vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF165) overexpression are unknown. Therefore, the authors measured local CBF using the iodo-[14C]antipyrine technique in transgenic mice expressing brain-specifically sixfold higher VEGF165 levels and in nontransgenic littermates. To reveal possible compensatory vasoconstriction, CBF was also measured during severe hypercapnia (PaCO2 > 130 mm Hg). Simultaneously, local capillary density, perfusion state, and blood–brain-barrier permeability were assessed. Using the 2-[14C]deoxyglucose method, metabolic effects of VEGF overexpression could be excluded. In transgenic mice all capillaries showed normal morphology and a tight blood–brain barrier. However, 3% nonperfused capillaries in some brain structures indicate ongoing angiogenesis. Capillary density was drastically increased in transgenic mice in white matter structures (70% to 185%), the dentate gyrus (143%), and caudate nucleus (86%). In all other brain structures investigated, capillary densities were moderately increased by approximately 20%. Normocapnic CBF did not differ between transgenic and nontransgenic mice. During maximal hypercapnic vasodilation, CBF was 20% to 30% higher in transgenic mice, although only in brain structures where capillary density was increased more than twofold. These findings suggest that attenuated CBF in transgenic mice during normocapnia is only partly due to a compensatory vasoconstriction, and that microvascular networks in transgenic brains might be ineffectively constructed.