Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Implementing Marketing Strategy Through a Market Orientation

The adoption of specific marketing strategies is related to several factors in an organization including the organization's mission, objectives, resources, and market orientation. We report an exploratory study in which we define relationships between market orientation and marketing strategy in a high technology environment - the telecommunications industry in the United States. Market orientation is defined as a culture that influences how employees think and act. Our results indicate that a market orientation provides a context for the implementation of specific marketing strategies by serving as a moderator of operational marketing strategy. For example, those organizations who possess a strong market-oriented culture (high-spirited cultures) engage in value creation strategies such as market segmentation, developing new products/services for new markets, and product or service customisation. Those organizations possessing low market orientations (ineffectual cultures) generally practice less aggressive and internally focused strategies such as charging lower prices, providing limited customer service, product/service standardization, and undertake limited market research.
An Investigation of the Methodologies of Business Process Reengineering

Companies continue to reexamine and fundamentally change the way they do business. Intense competitive pressures and a sluggish economy provide the motivation for continued efforts to "deliver more with less. " Properly executed, reengineering can be an effective tool for organizations striving to operate as effectively and efficiently as possible. This study examines various methodologies of business process reengineering (BPR) and the reasons for failure of BPR efforts. Our examination of BPR research shows that companies need a BPR methodology that takes a holistic and systematic approach.
Policy Credibility and Sovereign Credit - the Case of New EU Member States

References to policy credibility, particularly with regard to fiscal policy, are ubiquitous in both economic literature and financial markets, even though it is not directly observable. The case of the EU new member states (NMS) - emerging markets joining a supranational entity that is generally considered to have higher policy credibility - provides a unique experiment to assess the effects of credibility on sovereign credit. This paper examines the impact of EU accession on three key variables that can reflect in varying degrees policy credibility: sovereign ratings, foreign currency spreads, and local currency yields. The results suggest that the NMS appear to have enjoyed higher credibility compared to their peers.
Channel estimation for OFDM systems with transmitter diversity in mobile wireless channels

Transmitter diversity is an effective technique to improve wireless communication performance. In this paper, we investigate transmitter diversity using space-time coding for orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) systems in high-speed wireless data applications. We develop channel parameter estimation approaches, which are crucial for the decoding of the space-time codes, and we derive the MSE bounds of the estimators. The overall receiver performance using such a transmitter diversity scheme is demonstrated by extensive computer simulations. For an OFDM system with two transmitter antennas and two receiver antennas with transmission efficiency as high as 1.475 bits/s/Hz, the required signal-to-noise ratio is only about 7 dB for a 1% bit error rate and 9 dB for a 10% word error rate assuming channels with two-ray, typical urban, and hilly terrain delay profiles, and a 40-Hz Doppler frequency. In summary, with the proposed channel estimator, combining OPDM with transmitter diversity using space-time coding is a promising technique for highly efficient data transmission over mobile wireless channels.
Essays in Corporate Finance and Labor Economics

My dissertation is composed of three essays addressing the following three questions: First, how do mergers and acquisitions create value? Second, what role does labor union play in affecting merger outcomes? Third, how do CEOs' career concerns impact firms' restructuring decisions? In the first essay, I investigate the underlying sources of gains from takeovers. Using plant-level data from the U.S. Census Bureau, I show that acquirers significantly reduce investments, wages, and employment in target plants, though output is unchanged relative to comparable plants. Acquirers also aggressively shut down target plants. Moreover, these changes help explain the merging firms' announcement returns. The total announcement returns to the combined firm are driven by improvements in the target firm's productivity. Also, targets with greater post-takeover productivity improvements receive higher premiums from acquirers. These results provide some of the first empirical evidence on the direct relation between productivity, labor, and stock returns in the context of takeovers. In the second essay, I examine the role of labor unions in takeovers. I show that gains to merging firms' shareholders are positively associated with target's union membership. Also, target's shareholders capture a larger share of joint gains when the target's union is weaker. I then analyze the wage and employment outcomes for a large sample of firms that were acquired between 1981 and 2002. I find that after a takeover, target establishments exhibit net decline in wages and employment, especially when target's union membership is high. These results highlight the role of takeovers in unlocking the economic rents previously captured by labor unions. In the third essay, I compare how career concerns affect the real investment decisions of younger and older CEOs. I show that younger CEOs undertake more active investment activities. They are more likely to enter new lines of business, as well as exit existing lines of business. They prefer growth through acquisitions, while older CEOs prefer to build new plants. This busier investment style of the younger CEOs appears to be relatively successful since younger CEOs are associated with higher plant-level efficiency compared to older CEOs.
Structural genomics of the SARS coronavirus: cloning, expression, crystallization and preliminary crystallographic study of the Nsp9 protein

The aetiologic agent of the recent epidemics of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) is a positive‐stranded RNA virus (SARS‐CoV) belonging to the Coronaviridae family and its genome differs substantially from those of other known coronaviruses. SARS‐CoV is transmissible mainly by the respiratory route and to date there is no vaccine and no prophylactic or therapeutic treatments against this agent. A SARS‐CoV whole‐genome approach has been developed aimed at determining the crystal structure of all of its proteins or domains. These studies are expected to greatly facilitate drug design. The genomes of coronaviruses are between 27 and 31.5 kbp in length, the largest of the known RNA viruses, and encode 20–30 mature proteins. The functions of many of these polypeptides, including the Nsp9–Nsp10 replicase‐cleavage products, are still unknown. Here, the cloning, Escherichia coli expression, purification and crystallization of the SARS‐CoV Nsp9 protein, the first SARS‐CoV protein to be crystallized, are reported. Nsp9 crystals diffract to 2.8 Å resolution and belong to space group P61/522, with unit‐cell parameters a = b = 89.7, c = 136.7 Å. With two molecules in the asymmetric unit, the solvent content is 60% (V M = 3.1 Å3 Da−1).
Effector Specificity Mutants of the Transcriptional Activator NahR of Naphthalene Degrading Pseudomonas Define Protein Sites Involved in Binding of Aromatic Inducers*

This work reports a genetic analysis of the interactions between NahR, the LysR-type regulator of the NAH operons for biodegradation of naphthalene in Pseudomonas, and its aromatic effectors. Six mutants encoding NahR variants responsive to salicylate analogs such as benzoate, which is not an inducer for the wild type regulator, were isolated with a polymerase chain reaction-based saturation mutagenesis protocol. Most mutants displaying a specific change of effector profile bore single amino acid substitutions within a short protein segment of 60 residues located at the central portion of the NahR sequence. Some of the protein variants exhibited an increased affinity for salicylate and also for otherwise suboptimal effectors, with apparent Ks′ values 5-100-fold lower than those of the wild type NahR protein. In addition, all mutants were activated by inducers bearing novel substituents at positions 1 or 2 of the aromatic ring and displayed also an enhanced tolerance to changes at positions 3 and 4. Correlation between mutations in NahR and the structures of the new effectors suggested that protein sites Met116, Arg132, Asn169, and Arg248 are involved in effector recognition and binding during the earlier steps of the process leading to transcriptional activation of cognate NAH promoters.
Machine-learning approaches for modelling fish population dynamics

Ecosystems consist of complex dynamic interactions among species and the environment, the understanding of which has implications for predicting the environmental response to changes in climate and biodiversity. Understanding the nature of functional relationships (such as prey-predator) between species is important for building predictive models. However, modelling the interactions with external stressors over time and space is also essential for ecosystem-based approaches to fisheries management. With the recent adoption of more explorative tools, like Bayesian networks, in predictive ecology, fewer assumptions can be made about the data and complex, spatially varying interactions can be recovered from collected field data and combined with existing knowledge. In this thesis, we explore Bayesian network modelling approaches, accounting for latent effects to reveal species dynamics within geographically different marine ecosystems. First, we introduce the concept of functional equivalence between different fish species and generalise trophic structure from different marine ecosystems in order to predict influence from natural and anthropogenic sources. The importance of a hidden variable in fish community change studies of this nature was acknowledged because it allows causes of change which are not purely found within the constrained model structure. Then, a functional network modelling approach was developed for the region of North Sea that takes into consideration unmeasured latent effects and spatial autocorrelation to model species interactions and associations with external factors such as climate and fisheries exploitation. The proposed model was able to produce novel insights on the ecosystem’s dynamics and ecological interactions mainly because it accounts for the heterogeneous nature of the driving factors within spatially differentiated areas and their
Alpha globulin decreases resistance of mice to infection with group A Streptococcus.

day before bleeding the animals or bacterial challenge. These effects were dose dependent. The doses of a-globulin that significantly suppressed production of antibody to streptococci were ineffective in increasing the susceptibility of mice to infection and in depressing the bactericidal activity of the blood of mice. It is concluded that lymphocytes and macrophages are susceptible to different concentrations of a-globulin. A high incidence of myocardial, pericardial, and hepatic lesions was found in animals treated with a-globulin and challenged with streptococci, both virulent and nonvirulent for mice. Alpha globulin alone did not cause any similar effects. It is suggested that the depression of phagocytosis by a-globulin enhanced the proliferation of streptococci and allowed the in-vivo production of larger amounts of tissue-damaging toxins.
Are firms adopting a sustainable culture? Perspectives from the Mauritian business sector

There is some consensus that if firms are to adopt a sustainable culture and achieve economic growth, they need to look at sustainability beyond its 'green' roots which are also supported by the economic, social and cultural performance of business. The purpose of this paper is to assess the extent to which firms in Mauritius are adopting a sustainable culture. A representative sample of 182 local companies took part in the survey which was carried out using face-to-face interview and online method. Statistical analysis was carried out and the Cronbach's alpha score for the overall questionnaire was 0.96, indicating a high degree of reliability. Regression analysis showed that 'social pillar' had the strongest effect on sustainability (β = 0.756), followed by 'cultural pillar' (β = 0.421), then the 'environmental pillar' (β = 0.369), whereas for the 'economic pillar' β value was 0.012 indicating that this had little effect on the dependent variable. Implications from these findings are discussed together with directions for further research.
Design of planar matching loads for traveling-wave-fed SIW slot arrays

This paper presents a novel planar matching load for travelingwave-fed substrate integrated waveguide (SIW) slot arrays. The load consists of a planar grounded coplanar waveguide (GCPW) matching load and a planar GCPW to SIW transition which makes the GCPW matching load compatible with the SIW. In the GCPW matching load a high frequency resistor is used to dissipate the remaining power. A traveling-wave-fed SIW slot array with the novel load is designed, fabricated and measured. The measurement results show the proposed planar matching load performs well over a wide band 24.2–26.0GHz, and reflection coefficient and side lobe level (SLL) of the array is significantly reduced comparing with the array with no load.
The cost of integrating external technologies: Supply and demand drivers of value creation in the markets for technology

A classic decision faced by technology suppliers and buyers is whether to compete in the product markets or cooperate through licensing. We address this question by examining an important, demand-side barrier to licensing -- the buyers’ cost of integrating a licensed technology. We argue that this cost can be affected by suppliers’ knowledge-transfer capabilities, buyers’ absorptive capacity, and the cospecialization between R&D and downstream activities in the buyers’ industries. Following this argument and a stylized bargaining model, we hypothesize that the supplier’s knowledge-transfer capability stimulates licensing. Moreover, the importance of this capability increases when licensing to industries where potential buyers have weak absorptive capacity or R&D and downstream activities are cospecialized. We find support for our hypotheses using a panel dataset of small “serial innovators. ”
Improving the Accuracy of an Artificial Neural Network Using Multiple Differently Trained Networks

When either detection rate (sensitivity) or false alarm rate (specificity) is optimized in an artificial neural network trained to identify myocardial infarction, the increase in the accuracy of one is always done at the expense of the accuracy of the other. To overcome this loss, two networks that were separately trained on populations of patients with different likelihoods of myocardial infarction were used in concert. One network was trained on clinical pattern sets derived from patients who had a low likelihood of myocardial infarction, while the other was trained on pattern sets derived from patients with a high likelihood of myocardial infarction. Unknown patterns were analyzed by both networks. If the output generated by the network trained on the low risk patients was below an empirically set threshold, this output was chosen as the diagnostic output. If the output was above that threshold, the output of the network trained on the high risk patients was used as the diagnostic output. The dual network correctly identified 39 of the 40 patients who had sustained a myocardial infarction and 301 of 306 patients who did not have a myocardial infarction for a detection rate (sensitivity) and false alarm rate (1-specificity) of 97.50 and 1.63%, respectively. A parallel control experiment using a single network but identical training information correctly identified 39 of 40 patients who had sustained a myocardial infarction and 287 of 306 patients who had not sustained a myocardial infarction (p = 0.003).
Different progestins in the treatment of endometriosis – are there relevant differences?

Abstract Oral progestins without an estrogen component have been described to be effective in the treatment of endometriosis. Several different substances have been tested, which are on the one hand derivatives of the natural progesterone or of the C-17-OH-progesteron, or on the other hand derivatives of C-19-nortestosteron. Their common characteristic is the secretory transformation of estrogen primed uterine endometrium for which different dosages are necessary because of their different biological activities. They are different with regard to their profile and potency of action on hypothalamicpituitary axis, metabolic processes, breast tissue and genital organs. They are effectively similar with regard to endometriosis related complaints if sufficient doses are administered. No effects are noted on reduced fertility in endometriotic patients and the data are inconsistent concerning direct effects on the endometriotic cells.
Computational Systems Biology and Dose-Response Modeling in Relation to New Directions in Toxicity Testing

The new paradigm envisioned for toxicity testing in the 21st century advocates shifting from the current animal-based testing process to a combination of in vitro cell-based studies, high-throughput techniques, and in silico modeling. A strategic component of the vision is the adoption of the systems biology approach to acquire, analyze, and interpret toxicity pathway data. As key toxicity pathways are identified and their wiring details elucidated using traditional and high-throughput techniques, there is a pressing need to understand their qualitative and quantitative behaviors in response to perturbation by both physiological signals and exogenous stressors. The complexity of these molecular networks makes the task of understanding cellular responses merely by human intuition challenging, if not impossible. This process can be aided by mathematical modeling and computer simulation of the networks and their dynamic behaviors. A number of theoretical frameworks were developed in the last century for understanding dynamical systems in science and engineering disciplines. These frameworks, which include metabolic control analysis, biochemical systems theory, nonlinear dynamics, and control theory, can greatly facilitate the process of organizing, analyzing, and understanding toxicity pathways. Such analysis will require a comprehensive examination of the dynamic properties of “network motifs”—the basic building blocks of molecular circuits. Network motifs like feedback and feedforward loops appear repeatedly in various molecular circuits across cell types and enable vital cellular functions like homeostasis, all-or-none response, memory, and biological rhythm. These functional motifs and associated qualitative and quantitative properties are the predominant source of nonlinearities observed in cellular dose response data. Complex response behaviors can arise from toxicity pathways built upon combinations of network motifs. While the field of computational cell biology has advanced rapidly with increasing availability of new data and powerful simulation techniques, a quantitative orientation is still lacking in life sciences education to make efficient use of these new tools to implement the new toxicity testing paradigm. A revamped undergraduate curriculum in the biological sciences including compulsory courses in mathematics and analysis of dynamical systems is required to address this gap. In parallel, dissemination of computational systems biology techniques and other analytical tools among practicing toxicologists and risk assessment professionals will help accelerate implementation of the new toxicity testing vision.
Compact Wideband LNA With Gain and Input Matching Bandwidth Extensions by Transformer

This letter presents a compact wideband low-noise amplifier (LNA) with utilizing the transformers for gain and input matching bandwidth extensions based on the source degeneration topology. The wideband gain response is achieved by using a transformer gate–drain feedback technique to peak the gain at high frequency while the wideband input matching is obtained by employing a new transformer-based input matching network to produce two resonant points separately located at low and high frequencies within the operating band. Implemented in 65-nm CMOS process, the proposed LNA shows a measured peak gain of 10.2 dB with its 3-dB bandwidth ranging from 15.8 to 30.3 GHz and minimum noise figure of 3.3 dB. Taking advantage of the superior compactness from the transformer-based techniques, the LNA occupies very compact chip area of only 0.18 mm2, exhibiting as one of the most compact wideband LNAs.
Transforming the Value of Company Reports through Marketing Measurement

Company reports are primarily targeted at shareholders and analysts, and used by them to measure current performance and future prospects. Analysts place almost as much value on certain marketing metrics as they do on the primary financial metrics. However, while they are very satisfied with financial information provided, they are relatively dissatisfied with marketing data reported. Based on marketing literature, existing research among analysts and shareholders, and examples of current practice among 25 companies explored as part of this Paper, along list of 47 marketing metrics is developed. Four criteria to reduce these to a more manageable number are then suggested: • importance to analysts • practical ability to report • importance to management • economic importance to most companies Applying these, the preliminary conclusion of this Paper is that the 10 marketing metrics most likely to be valuable in corporate reporting are: • market trend • market share • major brand sales trends • customer rete.