Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Public Entrepreneurship and Delivering Public Services Effectively: A Study in Public Organizations in Galle District, Sri Lanka

There are three major sectors contribute to national economy: the private sector, the social or non-profit sector, and the public or government sector. Due to their extreme mutual dependency, the effectiveness in combined functionality of these three sectors significantly determines the economic performance of a country. This kind of uplifted economic performance will contribute to better living standards and reputation as a recognized nation within the global community. In comparison with many economies in the world, the economic and social indicators have proved that the performances of above three sectors in Sri Lanka need still to be improved. This research study argues that entrepreneurship in delivery of services remains a potential avenue as an alternative option to resolve incompetent government performances. The main objective of this study is to find out the factors affecting the attitudes of Administrative Employees to promote “Public Entrepreneurship” within the public sector organizations in Galle District, Sri Lanka. The study is based on data gathered from eighty seven officials attached to the Sri Lankan Administrative Service in the public sector organizations in Galle District. Officers at the managerial level have been specifically chosen from central administration, field administration, provincial administration, local governments and public corporations. The correlation and regression analysis results suggest that public manager’s managerial skills (human and conceptual skills), managerial autonomy, performance based reward systems are positively associated with entrepreneurship in the delivery of service in public sector organizations. Based on the research findings, the study proposes managerial and administrative reforms to ensure entrepreneurship behavior in the public sector organizations in Sri Lanka.
Assessing the performances of residential ESSs control by means of a Monte Carlo analysis

The integration of energy storage systems (ESSs) co-located with distributed PV units in LV networks allows increasing self-consumption of energy and supporting DSO for grid management. In fact, ESSs may help the distribution network in reducing the mismatch between demand and PV generation making such power source dispatchable. Here, we perform a Monte Carlo analysis to assess the impact that two different control strategies have on the grid: a classical consumer strategy and a control that allows providing an ancillary service to DSO for improving voltage quality. In the last, we propose a control strategy based on the limitation of the charging/discharging periods of the ESSs in two time periods. We implement Monte Carlo simulations to assess the charge/discharge time intervals of ESSs. Unbalanced power flow simulations take into account the variation of power demand, penetration and locations of PV/ESSs for a summer day on a LV Italian network.
Interfaces Between the Detection, Signaling, and Repair of DNA Damage

Left unrepaired, the myriad types of damage that can occur in genomic DNA pose a serious threat to the faithful transmission of the correct complement of genetic material. Defects in DNA damage signaling and repair result in genomic instability, a hallmark of cancer, and often cause lethality, underlining the importance of these processes in the cell and whole organism. The past decade has seen huge advances in our understanding of how the signal transduction pathways triggered by DNA damage radically alter cell behavior. In contrast, it is still unclear how primary DNA damage is detected and how this interfaces with signal transduction and DNA repair proteins.
Structural equation modelling of overall satisfaction and full use of services for ATMs

Tests an hypothesized model which measures the overall satisfaction gained from, and the full spectrum of services attached to, the use of automated teller machines (ATMs). Sees overall satisfaction as the end result of a combined number of antecedents. Uses a LISREL model to test the structural effects of a number of exogenous variables (i.e. expectations and perceived risk) on a number of latent variables (desires congruency, self‐congruity, perceptions of relative influence and behavioural intentions) to a number of endogenous variables (satisfaction, recommendations to others, full use of services and the frequency of use). Overall, establishes a number of important structural links within the model which suggest that if banks wish to increase customers’ overall satisfaction and the usage of available services they must target factors which directly affect customers’ expectations and perceived risk.
Theoretical Framework of Social Marketing Effectiveness: Drawing the Big Picture on its Functioning

Social marketing involves campaigns that aim to change individual behavior as well as prosocial behavior in diverse fields, such as health prevention and environment protection. Restricted public funds, debates about the social responsibilities of governments, nonprofit organizations and societies, as well as financial crises have increased interest in effective social marketing as a means of mitigating existing social problems. This article aims to draw the big picture on social marketing effectiveness by developing its theoretical framework. This framework brings together fragmented findings on social marketing effectiveness and incorporates a framework as a theoretically grounded process from relevant stimuli to intended responses. It provides a basis for further research. Recommendations for improved social marketing campaigns are derived. Managerial implications have great relevance for public and nonprofit management, as social marketing strongly influences the work and mission of public and nonprofit organizations.
Spinal Cord Stimulation in Failed Back Surgery Syndrome: Effects on Posture and Gait—A Preliminary 3D Biomechanical Study

We studied 8 patients with spinal cord stimulation (SCS) devices which had been previously implanted to treat neuropathic chronic pain secondary to Failed Back Surgery Syndrome. The aim of our study was to investigate the effects of SCS on posture and gait by means of clinical scales (Short Form Health Survey-36, Visual Analogue Scale for pain, and Hamilton Depression Rating Scale) and instrumented evaluation with 3D Gait Analysis using a stereophotogrammetric system. The latter was performed with the SCS device turned both OFF and ON. We recorded gait and posture using the Davis protocol and also trunk movement during flexion-extension on the sagittal plane, lateral bending on the frontal plane, and rotation on the transversal plane. During and 30 minutes after the stimulation, not only the clinical scales but also spatial-temporal gait parameters and trunk movements improved significantly. Improvement was not shown under stimulation-OFF conditions. Our preliminary data suggest that SCS has the potential to improve posture and gait and to provide a window of pain-free opportunity to optimize rehabilitation interventions.
Variable length space time coded modulation

A Variable Length Space Time Coded Modulation (VL-STCM) scheme capable of simultaneously providing coding, multiplexing and diversity gains is proposed. The scheme advocated achieves its best performance for correlated sources, where the source symbols exhibit a nonuniform probability of occurrence. The source symbols are encoded using an optimal trellis encoder into variablelength modulated signals and mapped to both the spatial and time domains. More explicitly, the proposed VL-STCM arrangement is a jointly designed source coding, channel coding, modulation and spatial diversity/multiplexing scheme. It is shown that the higher the source correlation, the higher the achievable performance gain of the scheme. Furthermore, the performance of the VL-STCM scheme is about 6 dB better than that of the Fixed Length STCM (FL-STCM) benchmarker at a source symbol error ratio of 10? 4.
Transcatheter mitral valve replacement with a novel self-expandable prosthesis: single institutional experience procedural outcomes and follow-up

Aims We report our experience with the CardiAQ prosthetic valve using both transapical and transseptal access. Aim of our study was proving the feasibility, safety and effectiveness of a novel transcatheter mitral valve bioprosthesis. Methods Four patients with severe mitral regurgitation, not eligible for mitral valve surgery, were treated with the CardiAQ valve. The procedures were performed under general anaesthesia, fluoroscopic and transesophageal echocardiographic guidance. We used a transapical approach in two patients and transseptal access in the others. Results Procedural success was obtained in all patients without extracorporeal circulation support. Mean procedure time was 128 min (range 90–180) and mean hospitalization duration was 12 days (range 4–24). The transseptal approach resulted in significantly shorter in-hospital stay with quick recovery. One patient died on day 35 from septicaemia and another one died after 5 months from major bleeding. The survival patients are presently in New York Heart Association I-II with improved left ventricular ejection fraction and normal quality of life. Conclusion CardiAQ valve placement is safe using a transapical or transseptal approach. Following valve replacement, there was a marked functional improvement in survivors. Transcatheter mitral valve replacement is a promising therapy for mitral regurgitation in a selected patient population.
Authentication revisited

In a paper published in 1978 (Needham & Schroeder) we presented protocols for the use of encryption for authentication in large networks of computers. Subsequently the protocols were criticised (Denning and Sacco) on the grounds that compromise' of a session key and copying of an authenticator would enable an enemy to pretend indefinitely to be the originator of a secure conversation. In the notation of that paper, where A is the initiator and B is the other participant, A's first communication to B was: A-> B {CK,A} KB, CK being the session key and KB being B's private key. If an enemy obtained CK and had copied the authenticator quoted above, he could always pretend to B that he was A. Denning and Sacco proposed a solution based on time-stamps, which we had rejected on the grounds that it required a good-quality time value to be universally available. Other possible solutions depended upon having state recorded in the authentication server, and more transactions with it. In 1986 one of us (RMN) gave a lecture at the University of TromsO which included the 1978 protocol, the criticism of it, and also a general principle about the use of nonce identifiers. This was that the identifier should always be generated by the party that sought reassurance about the time integrity of a transaction. In discussion Dr Sape J. Mullender of CWI Amsterdam pointed out that this should apply to the reassurance of B against the attack outlined. It may be achieved as follows: A-> B A B-> A {A,J}KB, where J is a nonce identifier which will be kept by B This quantity is passed by A to AS as an additional argument to A's opening call. The authentication server, knowing KB, deerypts it, checks that the partner name (A) matches the caller, and creates a slightly enhanced authenticator: AS-> A {CK,A,J}KB On receipt of this, when decrypting to find CK, B can also check his nonce identifier and is thus protected. Discussion This proposal takes an extra interaction between A and B but requires no extra interactions with the authentication server and no accurate distributed clock-something that can only itself be maintained at the cost of interactions (see for example Lamport and Melliar-Smith). B has to maintain some extra state, but this is much better than a server doing so. Both A and B are assured of the freshness of the …
Surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy for biomedical applications: A review

Surface-enhanced Raman scattering has recently become a powerful vibrational spectroscopic tool for numerous applications in physical, chemical, biological as well as medical science. Apart from a chemical enhancement process, plasmonic fields sustained by metal nanoparticles play a vital role in the surface enhancement phenomena. Thus most SERS based applications also involve metal nanostructures as substrates apart from the analyte molecules. High sensitivity, molecular selectivity, portability and low cost are some of the advantages of SERS over conventional spectroscopic methods that has led to its popularity. In particular, biomedical applications involving detection and sensing of biomolecules are now moving towards utilizing this new tool. This review provides an introduction of SERS for biomedical applications. The theory of SERS will be explained in the first section. A brief review on popular SERS substrates will be given in the subsequent section. The review will focus on certain biomedical applications such as glucose sensors, cancer detection and protein sensing using SERS. Copyright © 2016 IFSA Publishing, S. L.
Energy Minimization With Network Coding via Latin Hypercubes

Network coding is mostly used to achieve the capacity of communication networks. In this paper, motivated by the nanoscale communications where the energy cost for the channel symbols is asymmetric due to the widely employed on–off keying modulation, we design energy-minimizing network codes. We develop the best mapping between the input and output symbols at the network coding node that minimizes the average codeword energy using Latin squares, which we call the minimum energy network code (MENC). We define the class of networks composed of coding nodes with N incoming and 1 outgoing symbols as in-N networks. First, we derive the condition on the network code to minimize the average energy in in-two networks and propose two linear MENCs. Later, we investigate the MENCs for in-N networks using the Latin hypercubes and propose a low-energy network code (LENC) to reduce the average energy with network coding. We compare MENC with the classical XOR and random network codes for in-two networks. The performance comparison between LENC and random network codes for in-N networks shows that the proposed network codes provide significant energy gains.
Restructuring towards a Service Orientation: The Strategic Challenges

Reports results from in‐depth interviews with 80 senior managers in 16 US‐based multinational firms and from group discussions with 388 senior‐level executives from 241 firms. The results indicate an attempt by the majority of firms to move from product dominance towards a service orientation. Identifies two major strategic hurdles: a rethinking of the client′s role as co‐producer, including measurements of client productivity; and the design and management of a new service development process. The study identifies the client productivity measurement issue as a major strategic hurdle and the authors suggest that techniques used internally (such as behaviour modification, training, and self‐motivation) be turned externally onto the client to increase productivity. The area of new service development (NSD), another significant strategic hurdle, is an emerging and relatively untouched subject. Identifies differences between new service and new product development.
New-Onset Diabetes After Kidney Transplantation: Prevalence, Risk Factors, and Management

New-Onset Diabetes After Transplantation (NODAT) is an increasingly recognized severe metabolic complication of kidney transplantation causing lower graft function and survival and reduced long-term patient survival mainly due to cardiovascular events. The real incidence of NODAT after kidney transplantation is difficult to establish, because different classification systems and definitions have been employed over the years. Several risk factors, already present before or arising after transplantation, in particular the employed immunosuppressive regimens, have been related to the development of NODAT. However the responsible pathogenic mechanisms are still far to be perfectly known. Awareness of NODAT and of the NODAT-related factors is of paramount importance for the clinicians in order to individuate higher risk patients and arrange screening strategies. The risk of NODAT can be reduced by planning preventive measures and by tailoring immunosuppressive regimens according to the patient characteristics. Once NODAT has been diagnosed, the administration of specific anti-hyperglycemic therapy is mandatory to reach a tight glycemic control, which contributes to significantly reduce posttransplant mortality and morbidity.
Generation of biomaterial particles with controlled dimensions via electrospraying

It is well known that small biomaterial particles can lead to superior properties demanded by advanced applications in tissue engineering. Electrospraying has been considered as a promising approach to prepare fine particles, but reducing the particle size during such jetting process is always challenging. This is because the size of the as-sprayed particles is always limited by the device outlet diameter used. In the study we show that hydroxyapatite (HA) relics of 2 - 3 μm with low standard deviation can be deposited using a large nozzle (diameter of 1100 μm) only by reducing the nozzle tip angle from 90° to 15°. The mechanism of such phenomenon was extensively discussed, and a range of refined HA patterns were successfully prepared using the updated electrspraying configuration. We anticipate our findings to have a significant impact on the research of nanostructured biomaterials with superior properties which are realized by reducing the particle size using a greener electrically-driven processing technique.
Effects of Competitive Strategy, Knowledge Management and E-Business Adoption on Performance

The study analyzed and measured current business organizations use of competitive strategy, knowledge management and e-business adoption effect on performance. The study proposed that the use of a differentiation strategy, a greater capability of knowledge management and a higher level of e-business adoption, lead to higher organizational performance in the marketplace. Samples were selected the executives of 1,000 top Taiwanese companies in 2009. One thousand invitation questionnaires were sent to selected executives with 93 valid data collected, and this percentage was acceptable for the study. The results demonstrated: 1) the significant relationship between knowledge management capability and organizational performance, 2) the significant relationship between e-business adoption and organizational performance, 3) the different effect of capabilities of knowledge management and level of e-business adoptions on organizational performance, and 4) a firm with a differentiation strategy and a higher level of e-business adoption creating greater organizational performance. It also help organizations to find out what are the essential elements to create their value and advance better performance.
Serum Endocan Level and the Severity of Coronary Artery Disease

Endothelial-specific molecule 1 (endocan) is expressed in endothelial cells. We investigated the relationship between acute coronary syndrome (ACS) and serum endocan levels. We included 30 individuals as a control group and 53 patients diagnosed with ACS. The severity of coronary artery disease was assessed by a modified Gensini stenosis and SYNTAX scoring system. There was a significant difference in serum endocan levels between the control group and the ACS group (0.75 ± 0.13 vs 0.86 ± 0.25 ng/mL, P = .014). There was also a significant difference in serum endocan levels between diabetic patients with ACS and nondiabetic patients with ACS (1.02 ± 0.33 vs 0.81 ± 0.21 ng/mL, P = .016). There was no significant correlation between serum endocan level, Gensini, and SYNTAX score (r = .11, P = .53 and r = .16, P = .37). Endocan, a new biomarker of endothelial pathology, is significantly increased in patients with ACS.
Sparsity-based acoustic inversion in cross-sectional multiscale optoacoustic imaging.

PURPOSE With recent advancement in hardware of optoacoustic imaging systems, highly detailed cross-sectional images may be acquired at a single laser shot, thus eliminating motion artifacts. Nonetheless, other sources of artifacts remain due to signal distortion or out-of-plane signals. The purpose of image reconstruction algorithms is to obtain the most accurate images from noisy, distorted projection data. METHODS In this paper, the authors use the model-based approach for acoustic inversion, combined with a sparsity-based inversion procedure. Specifically, a cost function is used that includes the L1 norm of the image in sparse representation and a total variation (TV) term. The optimization problem is solved by a numerically efficient implementation of a nonlinear gradient descent algorithm. TV-L1 model-based inversion is tested in the cross section geometry for numerically generated data as well as for in vivo experimental data from an adult mouse. RESULTS In all cases, model-based TV-L1 inversion showed a better performance over the conventional Tikhonov regularization, TV inversion, and L1 inversion. In the numerical examples, the images reconstructed with TV-L1 inversion were quantitatively more similar to the originating images. In the experimental examples, TV-L1 inversion yielded sharper images and weaker streak artifact. CONCLUSIONS The results herein show that TV-L1 inversion is capable of improving the quality of highly detailed, multiscale optoacoustic images obtained in vivo using cross-sectional imaging systems. As a result of its high fidelity, model-based TV-L1 inversion may be considered as the new standard for image reconstruction in cross-sectional imaging.
Conducting Survey Research among Organisational Populations in Developing Countries: Can the Drop and Collect Technique Make a Difference?

This paper draws upon relevant empirical evidence to suggest the greater effectiveness of the drop and collect survey (DCS) method in enhancing response rates among sub-Saharan African (SSA) organisations. It proposes these improved response rates to be more likely among smaller organisations, and in situations where direct, face-to-face contact can be achieved with key informants, by appropriately trained/experienced field staff. The implications of these findings for improving the overall flow and validity of research information in SSA and beyond are discussed.