Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Transformation of firm innovation activities into brand effect

Purpose Brand effect is an important source of innovation performance, but rarely any study in the past has paid attention to explore the way firm innovation activities transform into brand effect. The purpose of this paper is to investigate how firm innovation activities transform into brand effect. Design/methodology/approach A set of hypothesis has been developed to show the relationships among firm innovation activities, brand prototype, brand preference and brand recommendation. The online survey method was used for data collection. In total, 546 valid questionnaires were retrieved. The study used confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modeling technique to test the hypothesis. Findings Results indicate that brand prototype leads the process of cognitive processing from innovation activities’ perception to brand preference and recommendation. The consumer perception of process innovation, marketing innovation, product innovation and the store environment have direct impact on brand prototype that further influences product sophistication, brand preference and brand recommendation. But, the most powerful influence is on brand preference. Moreover, product sophistication–attribute-specific brand knowledge has direct impact on brand preference and indirect impact on the brand recommendation. The whole process from brand prototype to brand preference and brand recommendation mainly reflects the strength of the brand effect formation. Practical implications This study provides useful managerial insights so that firms can learn the way to maximize brand effect through the management of innovation perception and cultivation of innovation soft capability to enhance innovation performance. Originality/value This study unfolds the transformation of firm innovation activities into brand effect that provides a new theoretical explanation and a holistic framework for the source of innovation performance.
Termination Fees and Contract Design in Public-Private Partnerships

We study the effects of granting an exit option that enables the private party to early terminate a PPP project if it turns out to be loss-making. In a continuous time setting with hidden information about stochastic operating profits, we show that a revenue-maximizing government can optimally trade-off direct subsidies for capital investment against the right of opting out the PPP. In particular, the exit option, acting as a risk-sharing device, can soften agency problems and increase the value-for-money of public spending, even while taking into account the budgetary resources needed to resume the project in the event of early termination by the contractor.
Design-space exploration of the configurable 32 bit VLIW processor CoreVA for signal processing applications

In this paper we present the results of a design-space exploration for a classification algorithm with respect to the inherent parallelism of the CoreVA CPU. The CoreVA is a configurable VLIW processor which has been mainly designed for energy-constrained applications. Energy-efficient signal-processing is essential for real-time applications on wireless body sensors (WBSs). Using a velocity-estimation algorithm for a runner as an example, we show which hardware and algorithm configurations perform best in respect to classification accuracy, runtime and energy consumption. We obtained 9 Pareto-optimal configurations out of 504 simulations. The highest classification accuracy of 93.4% requires 34687 clock cycles and has an energy consumption of 1.559 μJ. The lowest energy requirements of 0. 015μJ per classification are observed with a Pareto-optimal configuration at 76.3% accuracy. The three-issue VLIW configuration shows the best results with respect to the area-energy trade-off.
Penetration Strategies of Turkish Corporations in Kosovo's Market

Rapid developments and increasing competition in recent years have prevented companies from producing and selling only in domestic markets, but also causing their foreign resources and investments to be directed to foreign markets. In this case, once businesses decide to join a particular market, they have to decide which is the best way to penetrate there. Turkish multinational corporations, which have been spreading all over the world with their investments, have conquered world markets with their exports, initiatives and acquisitions, they have entered in foreign markets in various forms and have a significant share in world trade volume with their successful investments. From this point of view, this study examines the strategies by which Turkish multinationals enter foreign markets especially in Kosovo and the impact that those companies have had in the development of the Kosovo economy and the strategies by which Turkish multinationals enter foreign markets.
Heavy-Ion Collisions at the Dawn of the Large Hadron Collider Era

In this paper I present a review of the main topics associated with the study of heavy-ion collisions, intended for students starting or interested in the field. It is impossible to summarize in a few pages the large amount of information that is available today, after a decade of operations of the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider and the beginning of operations at the Large Hadron Collider. Thus, I had to choose some of the results and theories in order to present the main ideas and goals. All results presented here are from publicly available references, but some of the discussions and opinions are my personal view, where I have made that clear in the text.
Improvement of L-Lactate Production by CYB2 Gene Disruption in a Recombinant Saccharomyces cerevisiae Strain under Low pH Condition

Using a DNA microarray, we found that expression of the genes related to lactate metabolism was upregulated in a lactate-producing recombinant Saccharomyces cerevisiae strain. Disruption of the CYB2 gene encoding L-lactate dehydrogenase improved the L-lactate production by S. cerevisiae under low pH condition.
Net-Metered Distributed Renewable Energy: A Peril for Utilities?

Electricity end-users have been increasingly generating their own electricity via rooftop solar panels. We study the impact of such distributed renewable energy (DRE) on utility profits and social welfare under net metering, which is a widespread policy in the United States. Utilities have been lobbying against net-metered distributed solar based on the common belief that it harms utility profits. We find that when wholesale market dynamics are considered, net-metered DRE may be a positive for utilities. That is, net-metered DRE strictly improves the expected utility profit when the utility’s self-supply is below a threshold and the wholesale electricity price is sufficiently responsive to wholesale demand fluctuations. Our paper distinctively considers both downstream and upstream impacts of net-metered DRE on utilities and analyzes the tradeoff between these impacts. Net-metered DRE can increase utilities’ expenses because of their required buyback from generating customers, and reduces their retail sales revenues. In addition, it can either reduce utilities’ wholesale procurement costs or affect their wholesale market revenues. Our results suggest that utilities might benefit from emerging business strategies that motivate their customers to install solar panels. Our numerical study uses data on the distributed solar in California and the wholesale electricity market operated by the California Independent System Operator, and demonstrates that our findings hold under realistic parameters. This paper was accepted by David Simchi-Levi, operations management.
How social media increase selling trend in clothes industry? (Case study: selling brand clothes named Cotton in Iran via Instagram)

Social media changed different aspects of human life. More and more people use this tool for different aims such as make communication, find friends and family members, share the information and idea, and speak about products’ experience and even searching for advice about special brands and goods. Companies have been started to think about the way they can use this tool for advertising and earn more benefits. Although most companies put social media in the top of marketing strategy. The difference in marketing method and strategy which happened recently based on social media makes a big question about the effective method for using this opportunity. The aim of this article is to identify the different variables which have an effect on increase selling brand clothes named Cotton via Instagram in Iran. Instagram has the ability for sharing the photos and it is a big benefit for advertise clothes. Although previous studies have shown interest in social media for making the new strategy, this article aims to focus on increasing the selling process, finding effective variables and ranking them. The results of the survey revealed there are four effective factors on grow selling including social media capability, the power of the brand, marketing strategy, and customer reaction. The result can be useful for the owner of the cotton brand and the strategy designer in the clothes shop to have the better understanding and view of the customer and their behavior and the researcher who wants to do research in this area.
CT and PET: early prognostic indicators of response to imatinib mesylate in patients with gastrointestinal stromal tumor.

OBJECTIVE We report results from a pilot study aimed at optimizing the use of CT bidimensional measurements and 18F-FDG PET maximum standardized uptake values (SUVs-(max)) for determining response to prolonged imatinib mesylate treatment in patients with advanced gastrointestinal stromal tumors (GISTs). SUBJECTS AND METHODS Sixty-three patients enrolled in a multicenter trial evaluating imatinib mesylate therapy for advanced GIST underwent FDG PET at baseline and 1 month after initiation of treatment. Of these 63 patients, 58 underwent concomitant CT. Time-to-treatment failure (TTF) was used as the outcome measure. Patients were followed up over a range of 23.7 to 37 months (median, 31.7 months). The predictive power of change in CT bidimensional measurements, change in PET SUVmax, and PET SUVmax at 1 month after initiation of treatment were determined, optimized, and compared. The effectiveness of combining metrics was also evaluated. RESULTS Both a threshold PET SUVmax value of 2.5 at 1 month (p = 0.04) and the European Organization for Research and Treatment of Cancer (EORTC) criteria for partial response on FDG PET (25% reduction in PET SUVmax) at 1 month (p = 0.004) were predictive of prolonged treatment success. The Southwest Oncology Group (SWOG) criteria for partial response ((3) 50% reduction in CT bidimensional measurements) at 1 month were not predictive (p = 0.55) of TTF. Optimizing metrics improved results performance. An optimized PET SUVmax threshold of 3.4 (p = 0.00002), a reduction in the SUVmax of 40% (p = 0.002), and an optimized CT bidimensional measurement threshold--that is, no growth from baseline to 1 month (p = 0.00005)--outperformed the existing standards (i.e., EORTC and SWOG criteria). Combinations of metrics did not improve performance. CONCLUSION The two best metrics were the optimized PET SUVmax threshold of 3.4 at 1 month (p = 0.00002) and the optimized CT bidimensional measurement threshold (no growth from baseline to 1 month, p = 0.00005) in this patient group.
Information Fusion for Urban Road Extraction From VHR Optical Satellite Images

This paper presents a novel method exploiting fusion at the information level for urban road extraction from very high resolution (VHR) optical satellite images. Given a satellite image, we explore spectral and shape features computed at the pixel level, and use them to select road segments using two different methods (i.e., expectation maximization clustering and linearness filtering). A road centerline extraction method, which is relying on the outlier robust regression, is subsequently applied to extract accurate centerlines from road segments. After that, three different sets of information fusion rules are applied to jointly exploit results from these methods, which offer ways to address their own limitations. Two VHR optical satellite images are used to validate the proposed method. Quantitative results prove that information fusion following centerline extraction by multiple techniques is able to produce the best accuracy values for automatic urban road extraction from VHR optical satellite images.
Anaesthesia mumps in a child: A rare entity

1. Moore MS, Wong AB. GlideScope intubation assisted by fiberoptic scope. Anesthesiology 2007;106:885. 2. Xue FS, Li CW, Zhang GH, Li XY, Sun HT, Liu KP, et al. GlideScope-assisted awake fibreoptic intubation: Initial experience in 13 patients. Anaesthesia 2006;61:1014-5. 3. Choi GS, Park SI, Lee EH, Yoon SH. Awake Glidescope® intubation in a patient with a huge and fixed supraglottic mass-A case report. Korean J Anesthesiol 2010;59 Suppl:S26-9. 4. Apfelbaum JL, Hagberg CA, Caplan RA, Blitt CD, Connis RT, Nickinovich DG, et al. Practice guidelines for management of the difficult airway: An updated report by the American Society of Anesthesiologists Task Force on Management of the Difficult Airway. Anesthesiology 2013;118:251-70.
Governance Structure of Strategic Alliances - Evidences From the South Moravian Region

The objective of the paper is to explore the governance structure of strategic alliances created by small and medium enterprises in the South Moravian Region. It deeper examines contractual alliances between strategic partners with focus on the contract and also deals with the protection of intellectual property rights in the investigated firms. To gain data for investiga tion, both primary and secondary research have been applied. Within the former the main data collection methods were the questionnaire survey and semi-structured personal interviews. The overall goal of the paper is to enhance the knowledge about the creation and functioning of strategic alliances in the Czech Republic. This paper is organized in the following way: first of all, the notion of strategic alliance is in troduced. Next, the main forms of governance structure are presented in more details. This is followed by the objective and the methods of research. The results present the main findings of the research and discuss them in broader context. The conclusions recall the main findings and reveal the space for further investigation.
Compact three-port printed diversity array with combined antenna types

Compact antenna arrays are more and more used in mobile terminals with MIMO technology. However, mutual couplings between the radiation elements degrade the performance of arrays with respect to radiation efficiency, diversity, impedance matching and so on. In this paper, a simple compact three-element printed diversity array operating around 6 GHz is designed and measured. This array consists of two compact printed monopoles and one quasi Yagi antenna. The mutual coupling is reduced by implementing partially extended ground plane structures. Good matching, decoupling, diversity performances and broad operation bandwidth are achieved.
P for Platform. Architectures of large-scale participatory design

Participatory Design (PD) has traditionally been committed to extensive interaction between developers and situated users to mitigate the disempowering consequences of computerization, such as the deskilling of labour workers. However, the widespread adoption of off-the-shelf software and the emergence of complex information system architectures with interdependencies across user groups and organizations challenge the applicability of traditional custom PD. Pressure is put on PD to scale with initiatives that span an increasing number and distribution of heterogeneous settings, developers, users and uses over time. In this article, we follow a PD project that started out in post-apartheid South Africa more than two decades ago. The project, which centres on the development of a software product for decentralised public health care management, has since grown into a venture with a significant footprint in the Global South. In order to problematise the scaling of key aspects of PD, such as the politics of design, the nature of participation and participatory design techniques, we first review extant literature and develop a classification of four different types of PD with respect to scale. We then apply the typology to our empirical case to discuss PD in relation to architectural traits at different stages of project scale. We contribute to PD literature by addressing the exploratory research question: What role does architecture play in large scale PD? Specifically, the study highlights how an emergent platform architecture and its surrounding ecosystem co-constitute a platform for participation in design.
Board Effectiveness and Company Performance in Malaysian Companies

The separation of ownership and control in companies limits the involvement of shareholders in management decision-making. Therefore, shareholders have to rely on the board of directors to evaluate and challenge management decisions. The way a board discharges their duties is referred to as the board process. This study examines the relationship between board process and company performance of Malaysian public listed companies. This study used two types of data; a questionnaire survey of Malaysian directors and data derived from company annual reports from 2007 to 2009. Based on a sample of 175 companies, the findings of the study reveal that board’s risk oversight and performance of independent directors are positively correlated to company performance. However, CEO performance evaluation and directors’ accessibility to information have no effect on company performance. Overall findings are expected to serve as a basis for more effective corporate governance policies and practices in Malaysia in ensuring the sustainability of the listed companies.
Witnessing: creating visual research memos about patient experiences of body mapping in a dialysis unit.

y Dis. 2014;64(5):xiii-xiv the Toronto Rehabilitation Institute in 2012. The research was part of my Master of Arts thesis research study at McMaster University. I became interested in studying this population following nearly 5 years of volunteering at Toronto Rehabilitation Institute with geriatric inpatients. I visited with patients in the geriatric unit before and after their dialysis treatments, and frequently heard their stories about dialysis therapy: feeling coldness in their hands and feet, and experiencing mysterious sensations, pain, and cramping in specific areas of the body at
High Mobility Group Protein N5 (HMGN5) and Lamina-associated Polypeptide 2α (LAP2α) Interact and Reciprocally Affect Their Genome-wide Chromatin Organization*

Background: HMGN5 is a nucleosome-binding protein that affects chromatin structure and function, and Lap2a is a lamin-binding protein that can also bind to DNA. Results: HMGN5 and LAP2α interact and reciprocally affect each other's genome-wide distribution. Conclusion: Nucleosome-binding proteins and lamin-binding proteins interact functionally. Significance: We report a novel type of link between the chromatin fiber and the nuclear lamin network. The interactions of nuclear lamins with the chromatin fiber play an important role in regulating nuclear architecture and chromatin function; however, the full spectrum of these interactions is not known. We report that the N-terminal domain of the nucleosome-binding protein HMGN5 interacts with the C-terminal domain of the lamin-binding protein LAP2α and that these proteins reciprocally alter their interaction with chromatin. Chromatin immunoprecipitation analysis of cells lacking either HMGN5 or LAP2α reveals that loss of either protein affects the genome-wide distribution of the remaining partner. Our study identifies a new functional link between chromatin-binding and lamin-binding proteins.
Evaluating Rule-Based and Statistical Filters to Detecting Arabic E-Mail Alert Messages

Detecting and filtering e-mail alerts that are related to criminal or terrorist activities is of great interest for both security agencies and people. This paper evaluates and compares the performance of both the rule-based filter and Paul Graham statistical filter for detecting alerts in Arabic e-mail messages. To evaluate the two filters, a set of 1500 Arabic messages related to criminal activities were collected manually from some news websites such as Al-Jazeera Net and BBC Arabic news. The e-mails have been preprocessed, normalized, and then the relevant features were extracted from the collected e-mails by involving categorical proportional difference (CPD) and term frequency variance (TFV) as features weighting methods for the rule-based filter. To test the performance of the two filters, several experiments have been conducted and the result show that the Paul Graham statistical filter was more accurate. It was able to detect about 85% of the e-mail alerts used in the experiments. The rule-based filter has achieved 80% accuracy using the CPD method and 70% accuracy using the TFV method.
Evaluating Rules of Interaction for Object Manipulation in Cluttered Virtual Environments

A set of rules is presented for the design of interfaces that allow virtual objects to be manipulated in 3D virtual environments (VEs). The rules differ from other interaction techniques because they focus on the problems of manipulating objects in cluttered spaces rather than open spaces. Two experiments are described that were used to evaluate the effect of different interaction rules on participants' performance when they performed a task known as the piano mover's problem. This task involved participants in moving a virtual human through parts of a virtual building while simultaneously manipulating a large virtual object that was held in the virtual human's hands, resembling the simulation of manual materials handling in a VE for ergonomic design. Throughout, participants viewed the VE on a large monitor, using an over-the-shoulder perspective. In the most cluttered VEs, the time that participants took to complete the task varied by up to 76 with different combinations of rules, thus indicating the need for flexible forms of interaction in such environments.
Translational Regulation of the Escherichia coli Stress Factor RpoS: a Role for SsrA and Lon

ABSTRACT Escherichia coli cell viability during starvation is strongly dependent on the expression of the rpoS gene, encoding the RpoS sigma subunit of RNA polymerase. RpoS abundance has been reported to be regulated at many levels, including transcription initiation, translation, and protein stability. The regulatory RNA SsrA (or tmRNA) has both tRNA and mRNA activities, relieving ribosome stalling and cotranslationally tagging proteins. We report here that SsrA is needed for the correct high-level translation of RpoS. The ATP-dependent protease Lon was also found to negatively affect RpoS translation, but only at low temperature. We suggest that SsrA may indirectly improve RpoS translation by limiting ribosome stalling and depletion of some component of the translation machinery.