Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
COMPUTER EXPERIENCES, SELF-EFFICACY, AND KNOWLEDGE OF UNDERGRADUATE STUDENTS ENTERING A LAND-GRANT COLLEGE OF AGRICULTURE BY YEAR AND GENDER

The purpose of this five-year study was to describe the computer experiences, self-efficacy, and knowledge of students (N = 336) entering a college of agriculture, and determine if significant differences existed by year of entry, gender, or the interaction of year and gender. There were few significant differences in computer experiences by year or gender. While there were significant year x gender interactions in some computer-related experiences, no trends were noted. Overall, students had a slightly below average level of computer self-efficacy. The mean self-efficacy of students in the 2002 group was significantly higher than for the 1999 group, although the effect size for year was small. There were no significant differences in computer self-efficacy by gender or by the interaction of year and gender. Students had a fairly low level of computer knowledge. Both overall and by all sub-groupings, mean student scores were below the 50% correct level. Exam scores for students in the 2002 and 2003 student groups were significantly higher than were the scores for the 1999 student group; however, again, the effect size for year was small. There were no significant differences in exam scores by gender or by the interaction of year and gender.
When Small Bandages Fail: The Field-Level Repair of Severe and Protracted Institutional Breaches

We present the first elaboration of the field-level institutional repair work enacted by government inquiry reports into severe and protracted breaches of the institution of medicine in the English National Health Service. Our examination of the interplay between the rhetorical argumentation strategies communicated, the modes and types of institutional work conveyed, and the institutional pillars targeted for repair enhances understanding of field-level institutional repair work in three ways. First, our analysis of forensic and deliberative rhetoric reveals how these communicate aligned ethos, logos, and pathos appeals in a tactical buttressing manner that simultaneously harnesses maintenance, adapted creative and disruptive modes of institutional work. Ensuing repair work is primarily directed to the regulatory and normative pillars of the breached institution, though their consequential effects seek to realign the cultural-cognitive pillar. Second, adapted creative and disruptive modes interact to generate elaborative and/or eliminative institutional work. This fosters a dynamic form of institutional maintenance, wherein the breached institution evolves in order to endure within the changing terrain of the field. Finally, our elaboration of field-level institutional repair work offers insight into the relative plasticity of the institution of medicine, and contributes to understanding of the dark side of institutional work.
Design and Realization of an S-Band Microwave Low-Noise Amplifier for Wireless RF Subsystems

This study undertakes the theoretical design, CAD modeling, realization, and performance analysis of a microwave low-noise amplifier (LNA) which has been accurately developed for operation at 3.0 GHz (S-band). The objective of this research is to thoroughly analyze and develop a reliable microstrip LNA intended for a potential employment in wireless communication systems, and satellite applications. The S-band microwave LNA demonstrates the appropriateness to develop a high-performance and well-established device realization for wireless RF systems. The microwave amplifier simulations have been conducted using the latest version of the AWR Design Environment software.
Does needle rotation improve lesion targeting?

Image‐guided robots are manipulators that operate based on medical images. Perhaps the most common class of image‐guided robots are robots for needle interventions. Typically, these robots actively position and/or orient a needle guide, but needle insertion is still done by the physician. While this arrangement may have safety advantages and keep the physician in control of needle insertion, actuated needle drivers can incorporate other useful features.
Live Cell Imaging of Bacillus subtilis and Streptococcus pneumoniae using Automated Time-lapse Microscopy

During the last few years scientists became increasingly aware that average data obtained from microbial population based experiments are not representative of the behavior, status or phenotype of single cells. Due to this new insight the number of single cell studies rises continuously (for recent reviews see 1,2,3). However, many of the single cell techniques applied do not allow monitoring the development and behavior of one specific single cell in time (e.g. flow cytometry or standard microscopy). Here, we provide a detailed description of a microscopy method used in several recent studies 4, 5, 6, 7, which allows following and recording (fluorescence of) individual bacterial cells of Bacillus subtilis and Streptococcus pneumoniae through growth and division for many generations. The resulting movies can be used to construct phylogenetic lineage trees by tracing back the history of a single cell within a population that originated from one common ancestor. This time-lapse fluorescence microscopy method cannot only be used to investigate growth, division and differentiation of individual cells, but also to analyze the effect of cell history and ancestry on specific cellular behavior. Furthermore, time-lapse microscopy is ideally suited to examine gene expression dynamics and protein localization during the bacterial cell cycle. The method explains how to prepare the bacterial cells and construct the microscope slide to enable the outgrowth of single cells into a microcolony. In short, single cells are spotted on a semi-solid surface consisting of growth medium supplemented with agarose on which they grow and divide under a fluorescence microscope within a temperature controlled environmental chamber. Images are captured at specific intervals and are later analyzed using the open source software ImageJ.
Long-pulsed dye laser for the treatment of erythromelanosis follicularis faciei: report of two clinical cases.

Two Japanese men complained of redness of their jowls and requested treatment of those areas. Examination revealed welldemarcated reddish-brown pigmentation with granular texture on both sides of the cheeks. The redness of the lesion was mainly caused by dilation of superficial vessels and vanished when pressure was applied. Both patients were diagnosed as EFF by the classical triad, which is composed of erythema, hyperpigmentation, and follicular prominence.
Discriminative, Syntactic Language Modeling through Latent SVMs

We construct a discriminative, syntactic language model (LM) by using a latent support vector machine (SVM) to train an unlexicalized parser to judge sentences. That is, the parser is optimized so that correct sentences receive high-scoring trees, while incorrect sentences do not. Because of this alternative objective, the parser can be trained with only a part-of-speech dictionary and binary-labeled sentences. We follow the paradigm of discriminative language modeling with pseudo-negative examples (Okanohara and Tsujii, 2007), and demonstrate significant improvements in distinguishing real sentences from pseudo-negatives. We also investigate the related task of separating machine-translation (MT) outputs from reference translations, again showing large improvements. Finally, we test our LM in MT reranking, and investigate the language-modeling parser in the context of unsupervised parsing.
Uniformity of monkey striate cortex: A parallel relationship between field size, scatter, and magnification factor

This paper is concerned with the relationship between orientation columns, ocular‐dominance columns, the topographic mapping of visual fields onto cortex, and receptive‐field size and scatter. Although the orientation columns are an order of magnitude smaller than the ocular‐dominance columns, the horizontal distance corresponding to a complete cycle of orientation columns, representing a rotation through 180°, seems to be roughly the same size as a left‐plus‐right ocular dominance set, with a thickness of about 0.5–1 mm, independent of eccentricity at least out to 15°. We use the term hypercolumn to refer to a complete set of either type (180°, or left‐plus‐right eyes).
An Alternative Approach of Steganography using Reference Image

This paper is to create a practical steganographic implementation for 4-bit images. The proposed technique converts 4 bit image into 4 shaded Gray Scale image. This image will be act as reference image to hide the text. Using this grey scale reference image any text can be hidden. Single character of a text can be represented by 8-bit. The 8-bit character can be split into 4X2 bit information. If the reference image and the data file are transmitted through network separately, we can achieve the effect of Steganography. Here the image is not at all distorted because said image is only used for referencing. Any huge amount of text material can be hidden using a very small image. Decipher the text is not possible intercepting the image or data file separately. So, it is more secure.
Applications of fractional constitutive models for finite deformation to viscoelastic materials

In a previous paper several fractional derivative models for finite deformation of viscoelastic materials are proposed (Journal of Vibration and Control, vol. 20, 1033-1041, 2014). In this paper these models are applied to three types of materials to evaluate the responses subjected to impulsive forces. It is found that the constitutive equations of the models derived from the cylindrical shape of affine deformation, which is valid for small lateral deformation, are also valid for large lateral deformations (the barrel form deformation), if a proper correction is made for the material constants.
Activity-Based Cost Management Practices in India: An Empirical Study

This is a study of activity-based cost management practices being followed by the corporate India. The aim is to understand the whether corporate India practices cost management in a value-chain analytic framework. A nationwide survey has been conducted to capture the issues in the design and applications of contemporary cost and performance management tools. The universe for the present study consisted of the bt-500 private sector companies and 75 most valuable PSUs, which is a fair representation of the corporate India. Fifty-three completed questionnaires have been received. The study is essentially of large-sized corporate firms using activity-based cost management. The examination of responses conditional on ABC-adoption revealed that the firms who have adopted ABC were significantly more successful in capturing accurate cost information for value chain analysis and supply chain analysis vis-a-vis the firms who had not adopted ABC. The extent of ABCM adoption in the service sector had not been found significantly different from that in manufacturing sector. To have detailed information on value added and non-value added activities followed by the need to be competitive in the industry in terms of price quality and performance is the major motivation for the introduction of the activity-based costing. The management motivations for adoption of activity-based costing is significantly higher in case of manufacturing sector firms vis-a-vis service sector firms only in case of product/service pricing decisions. The need for customer profitability analysis and budgeting led the corporate India to extend their ABC-systems from basic level to advanced level, extending it to facility level and customer level activities. The ABCM-user respondent firms faced problems in the area of developing activity dictionary, inability of traditional costing system to capture the information needs of ABC, and lack of review of ABC implementation initiative, while introducing activity-based cost systems. The resources, both management time and funds have not been found to be limiting factor. The introduction of activity based costing system in corporate India has brought quantum change and associated incremental cash benefits in different areas such a focus on profitable customers, change in product pricing strategy, elimination of redundant activities through the entire value chain, product mix and outsourcing decisions. It led to change in the strategic focus. The ABCM-user respondent firms are using activity-based cost management in value chain analytic framework.
Electronic health records in ambulatory care--a national survey of physicians.

BACKGROUND Electronic health records have the potential to improve the delivery of health care services. However, in the United States, physicians have been slow to adopt such systems. This study assessed physicians' adoption of outpatient electronic health records, their satisfaction with such systems, the perceived effect of the systems on the quality of care, and the perceived barriers to adoption. METHODS In late 2007 and early 2008, we conducted a national survey of 2758 physicians, which represented a response rate of 62%. Using a definition for electronic health records that was based on expert consensus, we determined the proportion of physicians who were using such records in an office setting and the relationship between adoption and the characteristics of individual physicians and their practices. RESULTS Four percent of physicians reported having an extensive, fully functional electronic-records system, and 13% reported having a basic system. In multivariate analyses, primary care physicians and those practicing in large groups, in hospitals or medical centers, and in the western region of the United States were more likely to use electronic health records. Physicians reported positive effects of these systems on several dimensions of quality of care and high levels of satisfaction. Financial barriers were viewed as having the greatest effect on decisions about the adoption of electronic health records. CONCLUSIONS Physicians who use electronic health records believe such systems improve the quality of care and are generally satisfied with the systems. However, as of early 2008, electronic systems had been adopted by only a small minority of U.S. physicians, who may differ from later adopters of these systems.
Diethylmaleate activates the transcription factor Pap1 by covalent modification of critical cysteine residues

During the last decade, much has been learnt about the mechanisms by which oxidative stress is perceived by aerobic organisms. The Schizosaccharomyces pombe Pap1 protein is a transcription factor localized at the cytoplasm, which accumulates in the nucleus in response to different inducers, such as the pro‐oxidant hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) or the glutathione‐depleting agent diethylmaleate (DEM). As described for other H2O2 sensors, our genetic data indicates that H2O2 reversibly oxidizes two cysteine residues in Pap1 (Cys278 and Cys501). Surprisingly, our studies demonstrate that DEM generates a non‐reversible modification of at least two cysteine residues located in or close to the nuclear export signal of Pap1 (Cys523 and Cys532). This modification impedes the interaction of the nuclear exporter Crm1 with the nuclear export signal located at the carboxy‐terminal domain of Pap1. Mass spectrometry data suggest that DEM binds to the thiol groups of the target cysteine residues through the formation of a thioether. Here we show that DEM triggers Pap1 nuclear accumulation by a novel molecular mechanism.
Fuzzy Controller Design for Nonlinear Impulsive Fuzzy Systems With Time Delay

The stabilization problem is investigated for continuous-time Takagi-Sugeno (T-S) fuzzy systems with time delay and impulsive effects in this paper. Some delay-independent and delay-dependent stabilization approaches are developed for both state feedback and observer-based feedback cases, which are based on the Lyapunov-Krasovskii functional approach and a parallel distributed compensation scheme. The time delay is dealt by Lyapunov theory allied with the Halanay Lemma. The restriction on the interval between each impulsive instant and output sampled instant needs not be equal to or less than a constant scalar, but it only requires an inequality satisfaction. When the impulsive effects vanish, the results can be extended to the corresponding sufficient conditions for the cases of a nonlinear continuous time-delay system with a state feedback and observer-based sampled output feedback. Finally, some examples are given to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method.
Clinical and ultramicroscopic myocardial randomized study of beating versus arrested heart for mitral surgery.

INTRODUCTION Beating heart surgery on normothermic bypass simulates physiologic cardiac status. OBJECTIVES This study compared clinical and transmission electron microscopic aspects of myocardial protection during mitral valve replacement using warm retrograde perfusion in empty beating versus arrested heart with cold blood anterograde cardioplegia. METHODS Randomized study to evaluate myocardial cellular ischemia-reperfusion of both techniques to replace the mitral valve. Thirty-four patients were randomly assigned into group A (beating heart) and group B (arrested heart). The following parameters were assessed: echocardiography, blood chemistry, hemoglobin, lactate. During the surgical procedure a total of 102 myocardial biopsies were performed for ultrastructural analysis from anterior left ventricular wall: before cardiopulmonary bypass, before aortic desclamping and 10 minutes after reperfusion. RESULTS Elevation of lactate at 3 hours during the procedure was higher in group A, but similar at the end of surgery (P=0.06). Cardioversion was necessary in 5/17 (A) vs. 13/17 (B) P=0.07. Median intraoperative systemic temperature was significantly lower in the group B compared to A (32° C vs. 36° C), P<0.001. There was no significant difference of the ultramicroscopic aspects of the heart biopsies before, during and after surgery in both groups. Cellular and mitochondrial transient abnormalities such as mitochondrial swelling, glycogen loss and cytosol swelling were detected independently of the moment of the biopsies. CONCLUSION Myocardial protection and ultrastructural abnormalities were similar for both types of mitral valve replacement beating or arrested heart techniques.
A construction of actions on Kirchberg algebras which induce given actions on their K-groups

Abstract We prove that every action of a finite group all of whose Sylow subgroups are cyclic on the K-theory of a Kirchberg algebra can be lifted to an action on the Kirchberg algebra. The proof uses a construction of Kirchberg algebras generalizing the one of Cuntz-Krieger algebras, and a result on modules over finite groups. As a corollary, every automorphism of the K-theory of a Kirchberg algebra can be lifted to an automorphism of the Kirchberg algebra with same order.
Stream-wise detection of surreptitious traffic over DNS

The Domain Name System (DNS) belongs to crucial services in a computer network. Because of its importance, DNS is usually allowed in security policies. That opens a way to break policies and to transfer data from/to restricted area due to misusage of a DNS infrastructure. This paper is focused on a detection of communication tunnels and other anomalies in a DNS traffic. The proposed detection module is designed to process huge volume of data and to detect anomalies at near real-time. It is based on combination of statistical analysis of several observed features including application layer information. Our aim is a stream-wise processing of huge volume of DNS data from backbone networks. To achieve these objectives with minimal resource consumption, the detection module uses efficient extended data structures. The performance evaluation has shown that the detector is able to process approximately 511 thousand DNS flow records per second. In addition, according to experiments, a tunnel that lasts over 30 seconds can be detected in a minute. During the on-line testing on a real traffic from production network, the module signalized on average over 60 confirmed alerts including DNS tunnels per day.
Influence of Leadership Behavior and Participatory Decision Making on the Employees Organizational Commitment

A large number of studies have examined the antecedents of organizational commitment in the western countries.Research in the area of leadership behavior, organizational commitment and employees’ job satisfaction is noticeably absent in Pakistan.The objective of this thesis is to examine the effect of leadership behavior, participation of employees in the organizational decision making, and their effect on organizational commitment.Job satisfaction and morale is also observed as an outcome.The subject used in this study is faculty members of different private and public universities of Pakistan. A survey was conducted and then complemented by some semi structured interviews.A total of 300 questionnaires were distributed to faculty in eighteen public and private sector universities, from which 237 usable completed questionnaires were returned (79% response rate). Correlation and regression were performed to investigate the relationship between faculty’s commitment to their universities and the other variables measured in the study. A model of commitment was developed using a multiple regression analysis in which a link of the role of leadership behavior and employees’ participation in decision making with organizational commitment was explored. It is observed that organizational leadership and participatory decision-making exert a significant impact on commitment.The two leadership behaviors – task oriented behavior and participative style of management – have a positive effect on commitment while the laissez-faire style had a negative effect on commitment. The results of this study are in agreement with the model proposed by Bass & Avolio (1995) in which relation-oriented behavior is more significant. As compared to Steers model, the continuance commitment shows higher significance than affective commitment in this study The results of this study also reveal that job satisfaction has a strong association with faculty’s organizational commitment and also that the faculty’s morale is affected by university leadership’s behavior.
Expected Returns and the Cross-Sectional Skewness of Book-to-Market Ratios

The skewness of the cross-sectional distribution of book-to-market ratios is shown to be an important state variable. It varies through time in correlation with the business cycle and with indicators of investor sentiment. When times are ‘good’ a tail of low book-to-market stocks causes a left skew in the distribution. In ‘bad’ times high book-to-market stocks make the distribution more symmetric. The variable is valuable for forming conditional expectations for returns on various long-short strategies. These include ones based on firm characteristics such as size, age, volatility, profitability and dividend payment, and ones based on book-to-market and momentum. It is also instrumental in predicting the excess return on the equal-weighted market portfolio. Significant predictive ability remains even when controlling for other proxies for investor sentiment and for macroeconomic conditions. August 13, 2008 *** JOB MARKET PAPER *** † University of California at Los Angeles, Anderson School of Management. epeleg@anderson.ucla. edu. I am grateful to Shlomo Benartzi, Avanidhar Subrahmanyam, Richard Roll, Mark Grinblatt, Alessio Saretto, Itzhak Ben-David and Nicholas Barberis for their excellent comments. I also thank the participants of the UCLA and UC Irvine finance seminars, and my colleagues, Yuzhao Zhang and Albert Sheen for great discussions. USC FBE FINANCE SEMINAR presented by Ehud Peleg FRIDAY, Sept. 12, 2008 10:30 am – 12:00 pm, Room: JKP-202