Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Disclosing improvements in human capital : comparing results to the rhetoric

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine the reasons for and outcomes of the rhetoric of disclosures of human capital (HC) management practices and to discuss how disclosures could be changed to be more meaningful and appropriate in practice. Thus, the research question of interest to this paper is “Is the rhetoric of HC disclosure achieved in practice? ”Design/methodology/approach – Using a case study approach, the paper utilises content analysis to examine the rhetoric of HC disclosures and the results of HC management practices utilising corporate social responsibility (CSR) reports, newsletters, annual reports, and other publicly available information, with an emphasis on media reports. The case study organisation is Westpac Bank (Australia), chosen because of the transformation in its approach to HC management since 2001 and its reputation as a global leader in CSR practice and reporting.Findings – The paper illustrates how highly exposed HC disclosures are to scrutiny by both internal and ex.
An Empirical Investigation of the Nexus between Sovereign Bond Yields and Stock Market Returns - A Multiscale Approach

This paper studies comovement between changes in sovereign bond yields and stock market returns for ten Eurozone countries (Austria, Belgium, Finland, France, Ireland, Italy, Germany, Netherlands, Portugal, and Spain) in the period from January 2000 – end of August 2011, applying the maximal overlap discrete wavelet transform (MODWT) variance and correlation tools. We found that the for all but one country (namely Portugal) the stock return volatility is higher than the volatility of sovereign bond yield changes across all wavelet scales. The highest volatility in stock indices’ returns and bond yield changes is captured by lower level MODWT wavelet coefficients (i.e., level 1 ( ) MODWT wavelet coefficients, associated with dynamics over 2 to 4 days and level 2 ( ) MODWT wavelet coefficients associated with dynamics over 4 to 8 days). A practical implication stemming from this finding is that investors with short investment horizons that want to efficiently manage the risk of their portfolio investments have to respond to every fluctuation in realized returns or bond yield changes, while for an investor with a much longer horizon, the need to do this is reduces, as long-run risk is significantly smaller as indicated by the variance. The results of the paper show also that the estimated wavelet correlation changes with the time scale and is mostly positive for all countries but Portugal. The statistical evidence against hypothesis of no multiscale dependence yet is weak. Thus we cannot statistically claim that the wavelet coefficients at higher scales are significantly different (either higher or lower) that those at lower scales. For the financial markets of Portugal and Germany we proved that the dependence between stock and sovereign bond market dynamics may not be just a multiscale phenomenon, but may also exhibits time dynamics across scales. The rolling-window wavelet correlation estimates show that at all scales correlation turned negative for Portugal at the start of 2010 – this is when the Eurozone debt crisis started which also hit hard the Portugal sovereign bond market – thus probably causing the ˝average˝ wavelet correlation for Portugal for the whole observed period to be negative. DOI: http://dx.doi. org/10.5755/j01.ee. 26.2. 6416
Evidence on the Validity of Cross-Sectional and Longitudinal Labor Market Data

This article investigates error properties of survey reports of labor market variables. We use the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID) Validation Study, a two-wave panel survey of workers employed by a large firm that shared its detailed payroll records. Individuals' reports of annual earnings are fairly accurate. Errors are negatively related to true earnings, reducing bias due to measurement error when earnings are used as an independent variable. Biases are moderately larger for changes in earnings. Earnings per hour are less reliably reported than annual earnings. Biases in estimating earnings functions are relatively small, but those in labor supply functions may be important.
The relationships among acculturation, biobehavioral risk, stress, corticotropin-releasing hormone, and poor birth outcomes in Hispanic women.

OBJECTIVE To determine the predictive ability of acculturation as an antecedent of stress, biobehavioral risk, corticotropin-releasing hormone levels, and poor birth outcomes in pregnant Hispanic women. DESIGN A prospective, observational design with data collected at 22-25 weeks of gestation and at birth through medical record review. SETTING Public prenatal health clinics in south Texas serving low-income women. PARTICIPANTS Self-identified Hispanic women who had singleton pregnancies, no major medical risk complications, and consented to answer questionnaires as well as a venipuncture and review of their prenatal and birth medical records. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES Gestational age, Apgar scores, length, weight, percentile size, and head circumference of the infant at birth. RESULTS Significant differences were seen in infant birth weight, head circumference, and percentile size by acculturation. English acculturation predicted stress, corticotropin-releasing hormone, biobehavioral risk, and decreased gestational age at birth. CONCLUSIONS Investigation must continue to understand the circumstances that give rise to the decline in birth outcomes observed in Hispanics with acculturation to the dominant English culture in the United States.
Risk-return tradeoffs from investing in the Australian cash management industry

This study analyses the use of cash as an asset class by professional funds managers and compares the returns generated over time by these fund managers with a direct investment in three ‘risk free’ interest rate securities – overnight cash, a 180 day bank bill and a medium term Commonwealth Government bond – over the period January 1993 to July 1999. The findings show that wholesale investors are obtaining lower risk but at some cost to returns. In contrast retail investors appear to obtain both higher return and lower risk relative to traditional banking products.
A Large T Cell Invagination with CD2 Enrichment Resets Receptor Engagement in the Immunological Synapse1

T cell activation is driven by the TCR and complemented by costimulation. We have studied the dynamics of ligand-engagement of the costimulatory receptor CD2 in T cell/APC couples. Thousands of ligand-engaged CD2 molecules were included in a large T cell invagination at the center of the cellular interface within 1 min of cell couple formation. The structure and regulation of this invagination shared numerous features with phagocytosis and macropinocytosis. Three observations further characterize the invagination and the inclusion of CD2: 1) numerous ligand-engaged receptors were enriched in and internalized through the T cell invagination, none as prominently as CD2; 2) dissolution of the T cell invagination and CD2 engagement were required for effective proximal T cell signaling; and 3) the T cell invagination was uniquely sensitive to the affinity of the TCR for peptide-MHC. Based on this characterization, we speculate that the T cell invagination, aided by CD2 enrichment, internalizes parts of the TCR signaling machinery to reset T cell signaling upon agonist-mediated, stable APC contact.
Hybrid SVM for Multiclass Arrhythmia Classification

Automatically classifying ECG recordings for Malignant Ventricular Arrhythmia is fraught with several difficulties. Even normal ECG signals exhibit only quasi-periodic nature, and contain various irregularities. The key to more accurate detection is the use of position, and amount of local singularities in the signals.In this paper, we propose a Holder-SVM detection algorithm using a novel hybrid arrangement of binary and multiclass SVMs designed to take care of class imbalance rampant in biomedical signals. As a result, we significantly reduce the number of false negatives – patients falsely classified as normal. We used the MIT-BIH Arrhythmia database for even different arrhythmias. We compare our hybrid SVM with a suitable conventional SVM, and show better results.We also use the new arrangement for features proposed earlier, and demonstrate the gain in accuracy. Our concept of hybrid SVM is applicable to a wide variety of multiclass classification problems.
Rodriguez syndrome with SF3B4 mutation: A severe form of Nager syndrome?

We report on the findings of a novel heterozygous de novo SF3B4 mutation in a long‐surviving patient with clinical features of Rodriguez syndrome including severe acrofacial dysostosis, phocomelia with pre‐ and post‐axial limb defects, fibular agenesis, rib, and shoulder girdle anomalies. Since SF3B4 mutations have been recently associated with Nager syndrome, this suggests that at least some cases of Rodriguez syndrome are either allelic to or represent unusually severe manifestations of Nager syndrome. Although clinical overlap is obvious, this is somewhat surprising given the presumed autosomal recessive inheritance of Rodriguez syndrome. Investigation of other Rodriguez syndrome patients is needed to clarify the genetic mechanism and possible heterogeneity in patients with clinical features of Rodriguez syndrome. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
Recent Developments in Regional Memorandums of Understanding on Port State Control

Port states have a major role to play in combating substandard ships. Port states have grouped together under various regional memorandums of understanding on port state control to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of each state's port enforcement. Nine regional MOUs have been established that cover nearly all the regions of the world. This article examines the regional MOUs with a focus on their operational strengths and weaknesses.
SAR image reconstruction with joint off-grid target and phase error corrections

Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) has significant importance in many remote sensing applications. Errors due to the platform motion or measurement model uncertainties can cause degradations in the constructed SAR images. Most of the methods deal with the phase errors which cause defocusing on the image. For efficient processing of the measurements, they discretize the fast time-slow time plane and then employ autofocus algorithms on this discrete grid. However, the reflectors which are not placed exactly on the grid degrade the image quality considerably. This is the most probable case in the practical SAR operation and it causes blur or spark like affects on the image. This is called the off-grid target problem. In this work, a Compressed Sensing based technique is developed which constructs spotlight mode SAR image, handles the off-grid target problem and makes autofocus simultaneously. A gradient descent type iterative solution is used.
Chinese Outward Foreign Direct Investment Performance: The Role of Learning

Abstract We define the ‘Chinese way’ of internationalization as oriented toward experimental learning, in contrast to traditional internationalization models, such as the Uppsala model. Analyses of survey data of private Chinese firms that have made outward foreign direct investments (OFDI) show that only 50 percent follow the Uppsala model in which firms follow a staged approach. The other 50 percent follow more risky explorative OFDI approaches in which the firms learn on the ground experimentally from their OFDI. We further investigate how the founders’ congenital learning, firms’ inward international experience, potential absorptive capabilities, and motivations to learn, influence OFDI performance and how learning outcomes mediate these relationships. We show that the relationship between the firm’s potential absorptive capacity and its OFDI performance is fully mediated by what the firm learned from the OFDI project. Also the firm’s motivation to learn directly affects performance and is partially mediated by what the firm has learned.
Solution Structure of Microtubule-associated Protein Light Chain 3 and Identification of Its Functional Subdomains*

Microtubule-associated protein (MAP) light chain 3 (LC3) is a human homologue of yeast Apg8/Aut7/Cvt5 (Atg8), which is essential for autophagy. MAP-LC3 is cleaved by a cysteine protease to produce LC3-I, which is located in cytosolic fraction. LC3-I, in turn, is converted to LC3-II through the actions of E1- and E2-like enzymes. LC3-II is covalently attached to phosphatidylethanolamine on its C terminus, and it binds tightly to autophagosome membranes. We determined the solution structure of LC3-I and found that it is divided into N- and C-terminal subdomains. Additional analysis using a photochemically induced dynamic nuclear polarization technique also showed that the N-terminal subdomain of LC3-I makes contact with the surface of the C-terminal subdomain and that LC3-I adopts a single compact conformation in solution. Moreover, the addition of dodecylphosphocholine into the LC3-I solution induced chemical shift perturbations primarily in the C-terminal subdomain, which implies that the two subdomains have different sensitivities to dodecylphosphocholine micelles. On the other hand, deletion of the N-terminal subdomain abolished binding of tubulin and microtubules. Thus, we showed that two subdomains of the LC3-I structure have distinct functions, suggesting that MAP-LC3 can act as an adaptor protein between microtubules and autophagosomes.
Public service performance evaluation: A strategic perspective

Performance evaluation of government activities is essential in any democracy. Government, no matter the level (central/federal, state, or local), should be accountable and responsible to the electorate and a host of other stakeholders. Accountability involves, among other things, an assessment of policy outcomes, along with the means and processes used to deliver the policies. Were the policies suitable for the problems that the electorate wanted to be solved? Were the policies implemented efficiently and effectively? Did the electorate, taxpayers, and users of public services (often these aw distinct groups) obtain value‐for‐money?
A Fuzzy Logic-Based Clustering Algorithm for WSN to Extend the Network Lifetime

Wireless sensor network (WSN) brings a new paradigm of real-time embedded systems with limited computation, communication, memory, and energy resources that are being used for huge range of applications where the traditional infrastructure-based network is mostly infeasible. The sensor nodes are densely deployed in a hostile environment to monitor, detect, and analyze the physical phenomenon and consume considerable amount of energy while transmitting the information. It is impractical and sometimes impossible to replace the battery and to maintain longer network life time. So, there is a limitation on the lifetime of the battery power and energy conservation is a challenging issue. Appropriate cluster head (CH) election is one such issue, which can reduce the energy consumption dramatically. Low energy adaptive clustering hierarchy (LEACH) is the most famous hierarchical routing protocol, where the CH is elected in rotation basis based on a probabilistic threshold value and only CHs are allowed to send the information to the base station (BS). But in this approach, a super-CH (SCH) is elected among the CHs who can only send the information to the mobile BS by choosing suitable fuzzy descriptors, such as remaining battery power, mobility of BS, and centrality of the clusters. Fuzzy inference engine (Mamdani's rule) is used to elect the chance to be the SCH. The results have been derived from NS-2 simulator and show that the proposed protocol performs better than the LEACH protocol in terms of the first node dies, half node alive, better stability, and better lifetime.
Myocardial Reperfusion Improves Ventricular Isovolumic Relaxation in Patients with Acute Myocardial Infarction

The study aimed to investigate the effects of thrombolytic therapy and percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) on the time constant of left ventricular (LV) isovolumic relaxation. Of 38 patients with acute myocardial infarction (AMI) recruited in the work, 26 patients (treated group) received intravenously thrombolytic therapy within 12 hours after the AMI event, and 12 patients (controlled group) received PCI at fifth or sixth day after the AMI event. LV pressure was measured with Millar catheters during diagnostic catheterization both at first week after admission and at 3-month follow-up. We found that in the patients with the thrombolytic therapy, the time constant of the isovolumic relaxation significantly decreases from 50.1 plusmn 11.0 ms measured at the first week to 44.2 plusmn 8.8 ms measured at the 3-month follow-up (p < 0.05). In contrast, the time constant measured from the patients with PCI is significantly increased from 46.3 plusmn 8.4 at the first week to 63.1 plusmn 15.9 ms at the 3-month follow-up (p < 0.05). In addition, the time constant was considerably smaller in the treated patients than in the controlled patients three months after occurrence of AMI (p < 0.001). In conclusion, myocardial microvessels early reopened by the thrombolysis may dominantly contribute to the improvement in LV diastolic function, suggesting that the thrombolytic therapy may play a more progressive role in the AMI-related treatment as PCI equipment is not available.
Automobile driving support system evolved by Genetic Programming

We study a new approach, based on Genetic Programming, for generating automobile driving agents (driving rules). In a simulation environment, we develop agents for two tasks: lane departure recovery and risk avoidance lane change. The agents control a car by operating its front wheels using such observations as the distance between the car and the centerline. Our GP process generates an appropriate rule for front wheel operation. We experimentally demonstrate that our GP-based approach successfully generates an effective driving agent (rule).
Effects of Bulk Flow Pulsations on Film Cooling with Shaped Holes

Abstract: Experimental results are presented which describe the effects of bulk flow pulsations on injectant behavior and film cooling performance around shaped holes with compound angle orientations. The shaped holes have a 15° forward expansion with an inclination angle of 35°. The orientation angles considered are 0°, 30°, and 60°. The pulsation frequency is fixed at 32 Hz, but changes in the time‐averaged blowing ratios of 0.5, 1.0, and 2.0 produce three different coolant Strouhal numbers. Flow visualization shows that bulk flow pulsations cause significant periodic variations of the injectant flow rate, and produce severe crossflow ingestion at a high coolant Strouhal number. Although shaped holes show improved film coverage compared to round holes under steady condition, shaped holes are so sensitive to flow pulsations that a drastic reduction in the film cooling performance is observed at a high coolant Strouhal number.
Biological characterization and optical imaging of brain‐derived neurotrophic factor‐green fluorescent protein suggest an activity‐dependent local release of brain‐derived neurotrophic factor in neurites of cultured hippocampal neurons

To visualize the release dynamics of the brain‐derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) involved in neural plasticity, we constructed a plasmid encoding green fluorescent protein (GFP) fused with BDNF. First, several biological studies confirmed that this fusion protein (BDNF‐GFP) mimics the biological functions and the release kinetics of unfused (native) BDNF. Second, when BDNF‐GFP was expressed in cultured hippocampal neurons, we observed that this protein formed striking clusters in the neurites of mature neurons and colocalized with the PSD‐95 immunoreactivity. Such a clustered BDNF‐GFP rapidly disappeared in response to depolarization with KCl, as revealed by confocal microscopic studies. These data suggest that BDNF is locally and rapidly released at synaptic sites in an activity‐dependent manner. Optical studies using BDNF‐GFP may provide important evidence regarding the participation of BDNF in synaptic plasticity. J. Neurosci. Res. 64:1–10, 2001. © 2001 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
What is Aging?

In 1991, the book Evolutionary Biology of Aging offered the following definition of aging: a persistent decline in the age-specific fitness components of an organism due to internal physiological deterioration (Rose, 1991). This definition has since been used by others a number of times. However, it was only a modest generalization of a definition proffered by Alex Comfort over three editions (1956–1979) of his key book The Biology of Senescence (Comfort, 1979): “a progressive increase throughout life, or after a given stadium, in the likelihood that a given individual will die, during the next succeeding unit of time, from randomly distributed causes. ” The 1991 definition chiefly added reproductive fitness components to Comfort's definition, while adding the qualifiers that the fitness-component decline should be persistent and should be “due to internal physiological deterioration,” where the latter phrase was meant fairly broadly. Thus increases in mortality with age due to chronic infections such as HIV/AIDS were excluded by the 1991 definition.
Friends and relations: long‐term approaches to political campaigning

Proposes a prescriptive model for political marketing based loosely on the Six Markets Model of relationship marketing. The rationale for this is to be found in an analysis of the historical treatment of political marketing, from within both disciplines. Argues that many of the conventional axioms of marketing are inappropriate in politics, and observes how in political science, as in marketing itself, there is a questioning ofthe fundamental rational foundations of anumber of key theoretical constructs. In proposing a multiple markets model for politics, cites as evidence the fact that many of the approaches advocated appear already to have been adopted during the 1997 general election campaign of the British Labour Party.
Towards Multi-instances QoS Efficient RPL for Smart Grids

The Internet of Thing is an ongoing revolution which promises to interconnect most of our world with billions of connected devices. Hence, data routing and prioritization in IoT is a main challenge in this gigantic network. This is all the more true for the Smart Grids data management where heterogeneous applications and signalling messages have different requirements in terms of reliability, latency and priority. So far, standards on Smart Grid have recommended the use of RPL (Routing Protocol for Low-Power and Lossy networks) protocol for distributing commands over the grid. RPL assures Quality of Service (QoS) at the network layer in wireless sensor networks through the logical subdivision of the network in multiple instances, each one relying on a specific Objective Function. However, RPL is not optimized for Smart Grids, as its main objective function and its associated metric does not allow for QoS differentiation. In order to overcome this, we propose OFQS an objective function with a multi-objective metric that considers the delay and the remaining energy in the battery nodes alongside with the quality of the links. Our function automatically adapts to the number of instances (traffic classes) providing a QoS differentiation based on the different Smart Grid applications requirements. Simulations show that our proposal provides a low packet delivery latency and a higher packet delivery ratio while extending the lifetime of the network compared to literature solutions.