Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Co-deterministic relationship between ownership concentration and corporate performance: Evidence from an emerging economy

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to test whether dominant shareholder(s) of a firm enhance performance in Bangladesh and thus examines the arbitrary moves by the regulatory bodies, in the name of promoting “good corporate governance”, to restrict ownership concentration. Design/methodology/approach - Building on the established literature, a simultaneous equations approach is applied to model the relationship between ownership concentration and performance and is tested on a sample of 567 observations on firms listed on the Dhaka Stock Exchange over a seven-year period. The two equations model consists of firm performance and ownership concentration as endogenous variables along with other governance variable. Findings - The results suggest a significant positive co-deterministic relationship between ownership concentration and firm performance indicating that ownership concentration and firm performance simultaneously impact each other. It suggests that the ownership restriction imposed by the Securities and Exchange Commission is unjustified and detrimental to firm performance/growth in emerging countries such as Bangladesh. Practical implications - This new evidence from an emerging market enhances our understanding of corporate governance in Asian countries. The study has implications for stakeholders, regulators and policy makers to revisit their attempt to limit founder-family ownership holdings. Instead, their aim should be to balance the home-grown unique features, such as a Top-1 dominant shareholder, with Western governance mechanisms. Originality/value - The paper is the first to consider Top 1 shareholder's ownership as the measure of ownership concentration, which is an important feature of the corporate sector in emerging markets. In emerging markets, founder-family ownership concentration acts as an alternative governance mechanism substituting for strong and effective legal backing and other market-driven monitoring mechanisms.
Understanding Lack of Trust in Distributed Agile Teams: A grounded theory study

Background: Trust fuels team performance and contributes to build an effective and cohesive team. The self-organizing and collaborative nature of Agile teams increases the importance of trust in software development teams. Trust is, however, affected in distributed teams. Aim: To investigate the emergent key concerns, particularly the impact of trust, in distributed Agile teams. Method: Through a Grounded Theory study that explores distributed software development from the specific perspective of Agile practitioners, we interviewed 45 participants from 28 different software companies in the USA, India, and Australia. Results: In this paper, we present the reasons for lack of trust and its adverse effects in distributed Agile teams that emerged from our analysis, using the causal-consequences theoretical model. Conclusion: Understanding the causes and consequences of lack of trust can develop awareness of the importance of trust in distributed teams, and pave ways for effectively building trust in project-oriented contexts.
The ages and colours of cool helium‐core white dwarf stars

0.406, 0.360, 0.327, 0.292, 0.242, 0.196 and 0.169 M( and follow their evolution from the end of mass-loss episodes, during their pre-white dwarf evolution, down to very low surface luminosities. We find that when the effective temperature decreases below 4000 K, the emergent spectrum of these stars becomes bluer within time-scales of astrophysical interest. In particular, we analyse the evolution of our models in the colour ‐ colour and in the colour ‐ magnitude diagrams and find that helium-core white dwarfs with masses ranging from ,0.18 to 0.3 M( can reach the turn-off in their colours and become blue again within cooling times much less than 15 Gyr and then remain brighter than MV < 16:5. In view of these results, many low-mass helium white dwarfs could have had enough time to evolve to the domain of collision-induced absorption from molecular hydrogen, showing blue colours.
THE PRECIPITIN REACTION BETWEEN TYPE III PNEUMOCOCCUS POLYSACCHARIDE AND HOMOLOGOUS ANTIBODY

The precipitin reaction between the specific polysaccharide of Type III pneumococcus and homologous antibody formed in the horse can be accounted for quantitatively by assuming the chemical combination of the components in a bimolecular reaction, followed by a series of competing bimolecular reactions which depend upon the relative proportions of the components. These reactions would lead to the formation of larger and larger aggregates until precipitation ultimately occurred. The mathematical formulation of this theory on the basis of the mass law is described. The derived expressions are shown to be in accord with the experimental findings and the constants used in these expressions are shown to have definite significance. In spite of the wide variation in the properties of individual sera these expressions permit the complete description of the behavior of an unknown serum with S III without an unduly burdensome number of analyses. The quantitative theory presented has been found applicable to other instances of the precipitin reaction, as will be shown in subsequent papers.
Issues Associated With Polarization Independence in Silicon Photonics

Interest in silicon photonics is experiencing a dramatic increase due to emerging applications areas and several high profile successes in device and technology development. Despite early work dating back to the mid-1980s, dramatic progress has been made only in the recent years. While many approaches to research have been developed, the striking difference between the work of the early to mid-1990s, and more recent work, is that the latter has been associated with a trend to reduce the cross sectional dimensions of the waveguides that form the devices. The question arises therefore, as to whether one should move to very small strip waveguides (silicon wires) of the order of 250 nm in height and a few hundred nanometres in width for improved device performance but with little hope of polarization independence, or to utilize slightly larger rib waveguides that offer more opportunity to control the polarization dependence of the devices. In this paper, we discuss the devices suitable for one approach or the other, and present the designs associated both with strip and rib waveguides. In particular, we present the designs of polarization-independent ring resonators with free spectral ranges up to 12 nm, we propose modulators for bandwidths in the tens of gigahertz regime, and present grating-based couplers for rib and strip waveguides, and/or for wafer scale testing, as well as a novel means of developing Bragg gratings via ion implantation
Dynamic Global PID Sliding Mode Control for MEMS Gyroscope Using Adaptive Neural Controller

This paper derived a dynamic global proportional integral derivative (PID) sliding mode control based on adaptive radial basis function (RBF) neural controller for a micro electromechanical systems (MEMS) gyroscope. This approach gives a new dynamic global PID sliding mode manifold, which not only enables system trajectory to run on the global sliding mode surface at the start point more quickly and eliminate the reaching phase of the conventional sliding mode control, but also restrains the steady-state error and reduces the chattering via a dynamic PID sliding surface. Meanwhile, a RBF neural network (NN) system is employed to estimate the lumped uncertainty and eliminate the chattering phenomenon. Additionally, adaptive laws and dynamic global PID sliding control gains that ensure system stability in a Lyapunov sense are proposed, together with the techniques for deciding which basis function should be selected. Finally, the effectiveness of RBFNN dynamic global PID sliding mode control method is demonstrated.
Balanced Parity Update Algorithm with Queueing Length Awareness for RAID Arrays

In parity-based RAID arrays, to update a data chunk, the corresponding parity chunk(s) must be updated accordingly so as to keep data consistency and availability. To achieve this, either read-modify-write (RMW) or read-constructwrite (RCW) could be used. Traditional parity update algorithm always selects the one requiring fewer pre-reads so as to reduce the total number of I/Os, but it may aggravate the skewness of I/O queues on disks, and thus degrades the system performance. In this paper, we propose a balanced parity update algorithm with queueing length awareness, BPU, which takes the number of pre-reads, the skewness of I/O queues on disks, and realtime workload into consideration when selecting RCW or RMW to update parity chunks. We implement a prototype system with BPU to evaluate its performance. Experimental results show that the length of I/O queues on disks in a RAID array may be highly skewed when using traditional parity update algorithm, and thus severely degrades the system performance. With BPU, we can reduce the average response time by up to 10%. We also study the performance of BPU under different system configurations, and provide multiple insights for adjusting the parameters of BPU so as to optimize its performance.
Draft Genome Sequences of Two Ulvan-Degrading Isolates, Strains LTR and LOR, That Belong to the Alteromonas Genus

ABSTRACT Here, we report the draft genome sequence of two ulvan-degrading Alteromonas spp. isolated from the feces of the sea slug, Aplysia. These sequenced genomes display a unique ulvan degradation machinery compared with ulvanolytic enzymes previously identified in Nonlabens ulvanivorans.
Lag Synchronization of Memristor-Based Coupled Neural Networks via  $\omega $ -Measure

This paper deals with the lag synchronization problem of memristor-based coupled neural networks with or without parameter mismatch using two different algorithms. Firstly, we consider the memristor-based neural networks with parameter mismatch, lag complete synchronization cannot be achieved due to parameter mismatch, the concept of lag quasi-synchronization is introduced. Based on the ω -measure method and generalized Halanay inequality, the error level is estimated, a new lag quasi-synchronization scheme is proposed to ensure that coupled memristor-based neural networks are in a state of lag synchronization with an error level. Secondly, by constructing Lyapunov functional and applying common Halanary inequality, several lag complete synchronization criteria for the memristor-based neural networks with parameter match are given, which are easy to verify. Finally, two examples are given to illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed lag quasi-synchronization or lag complete synchronization criteria, which well support theoretical results.
Emergence of learning: an approach to coping with NP-complete problems in learning

Various theoretical results show that learning in conventional feedforward neural networks such as multilayer perceptrons is NP-complete. In this paper we show that learning in min-max modular (M/sup 3/) neural networks is tractable. The key to coping with NP-complete problems in M/sup 3/ networks is to decompose a large-scale problem into a number of manageable, independent subproblems and to make the learning of a large-scale problem emerge from the learning of a number of related small subproblems.
The cancer-testis antigens SPANX-A/C/D and CTAG2 promote breast cancer invasion

Genes that are normally biased towards expression in the testis are often induced in tumor cells. These gametogenic genes, known as cancer-testis antigens (CTAs), have been extenstively investigated as targets for immunotherapy. However, despite their frequent detection, the degree to which CTAs support neoplastic invasion is poorly understood. Here, we find that the CTA genes SPANX-A/C/D and CTAG2 are coordinately induced in breast cancer cells and regulate distinct features of invasive behavior. Our functional analysis revealed that CTAG2 interacts with Pericentrin at the centrosome and is necessary for directional migration. Conversely, SPANX-A/C/D interacts with Lamin A/C at the inner nuclear membrane and is required for the formation of actin-rich cellular protrusions that reorganize the extracellular matrix. Importantly, SPANX-A/C/D was required for breast cancer cells to spontaneously metastasize to the lung, demonstrating that CTA reactivation can be critical for invasion dependent phenotypes in vivo. Moreover, elevated SPANX-A/C/D expression in breast cancer patient tumors correlated with poor outcome. Together, our results suggest that distinct CTAs promote tumor progression by regulating complementary cellular functions that are integrated together to induce invasive behavior.
Intraocular pressure in inbred mouse strains.

PURPOSE To develop a protocol to measure the intraocular pressure (IOP) of living mice and to determine the IOP of genetically different mouse strains. METHODS Eyes of anesthetized animals were cannulated with a very fine fluid-filled glass microneedle. The microneedle was connected to a pressure transducer, and the pressure signal was analyzed with a computer system. Intraocular pressures of male C3H/He iota, C57BL/ 6 iota, A/iota, and BALB/c iota mice were determined. RESULTS Differences in IOP were detected between genetically distinct mouse strains maintained in virtually identical environments. C3H/He iota was the strain with the highest average IOP (13.7 +/- 0.8 mm Hg). This strain average was 1.4 mm Hg higher than that for C57BL/6 iota (12.3 +/- 0.5 mm Hg; P = 0.14), 4.3 mm Hg higher than that for A/iota (9.4 +/- 0.5 mm Hg; P < 0.001), and 6 mm Hg higher than that for BALB/c iota (7.7 +/- 0.5 mm Hg; P < 0.001). CONCLUSIONS The authors have developed an accurate and reliable procedure for measuring intraocular pressure in living mice. This procedure can detect IOP differences between groups of mice that differ by genotype.
Heterogeneity-Aware Peer-to-Peer Multicast

A P2P system has to be able to tolerate, and where possible, leverage heterogeneity [10]. The reasons may be functional, for example, in order to deal with Network Address Translation, or simply to improve performance and robustness. In this position paper we show how SelectCast, an Application-Level Multicast protocol, leverages the information provided by Astrolabe, a P2P system that mines the hosts for information about resources.
Pathophysiology, diagnosis and prognostic implications of endothelial dysfunction

Endothelial dysfunction (ED) in the setting of cardiovascular risk factors such as hypercholesterolemia, hypertension, diabetes mellitus, chronic smoking as well as in patients with heart failure has been shown to be at least in part dependent on the production of reactive oxygen species (ROS) such as superoxide and the subsequent decrease in vascular bioavailability of nitric oxide (NO). Methods to quantify endothelial dysfunction include forearm plethysmography, flow‐dependent dilation of the brachial artery, finger‐pulse plethysmography, pulse curve analysis, and quantitative coronary angiography after intracoronary administration of the endothelium‐dependent vasodilator acetylcholine. Superoxide sources include the NADPH oxidase, xanthine oxidase, and mitochondria. Superoxide produced by the NADPH oxidase may react with NO released by the endothelial nitric oxide synthase (eNOS) thereby generating peroxynitrite (ONOO−), leading to eNOS uncoupling and therefore eNOS‐mediated superoxide production. The present review will discuss current concepts of how to assess endothelial function, prognostic implications of ED, mechanisms underlying ED with focus on oxidative stress and circulating biomarkers, which have been proposed to indicate endothelial dysfunction and/or damage, respectively.
Performance Comparison of Optimal Routing and Dynamic Routing on Low-earth Orbit Satellite Networks

We compare the performances of two diierent routing schemes for LEO satellite networks through simulation. The rst one is a dynamic routing scheme based on the shortest-path algorithm. Its routing table is updated according to cost estimation based on link status information that is broadcasted periodically. The second one is an optimal routing scheme proposed by the authors of this paper, where a LEO satellite network is modeled by a Finite State Automaton (FSA). The states of the FSA are derived from the relative visibility on the basis of the constellation data. In each state, the LEO satellite network has a xed topology. Since LEO satellite networks exhibit periodic orbit movements, they can have only a nite number of states. In the proposed scheme, the link assignment and routing problems are solved oo-line for each state in the FSA using simulated annealing and the optimal routing algorithm. The resulting link assignment table and the routing table are stored at each satellite. As the system enters a new state, a new set of pre-computed tables are retrieved and used throughout the state. We also propose a scheme by which we can reduce probability of ongoing call blocking and analyze a proposed scheme through simulation.
Implementation of HMM and radial basis function for speech recognition

The work aims at recognizing words from a continuous speech. To achieve this, cepstrum analysis of the speech signal is carried out. The speech signal is processed and the features are extracted using cepstrum analysis. The extracted features are given as inputs for the hidden Markov model (HMM) followed by training radial basis function (RBF). During the testing process, the words are separated and compared in the database. If a word matches then subsequent action is carried out. If the word is not present, then it is added to the database.
Index generation for satellite image retrieval

Index generation for satellite image is an important task for retrieving satellite image in data warehouse. The goal of index generation is to find a polygon that represents the geographic image area. Using too many vertices for satellite images index can decrease retrieval speed. Therefore, the aim of this research is to develop an algorithm for generating index for satellite images using small amount of vertices and having high accuracy. The key idea of the algorithm is to decrease the number of vertices representing image shapes by mean of polygon simplification. The obtained polygon is expanded in order to make its cover the image area as much as possible. The experimental results showed that the proposed algorithm generated image index with high accuracy using small number of vertices comparing with other softwares i.e., ArcGIS 10.1, Global Mapper 15 and DIQB. In addition, the result is useful and quick for retrieving data from the spatial database.
POSTER: Reflected attacks abusing honeypots

We present the observation of distributed denial-of-service attacks that use reflection of the flooding traffic off reflectors. This type of attack was used in massive attacks against internet infrastructure of Czech Republic in March, 2013. Apart from common hosts in the network, honeypots were abused as the reflectors. It caused the false positive incident detection and helped attackers. Honeypots, which are by default set to accept any incoming network connection, unintentionally amplified the effect of reflection. We present an analysis of the attack from the point of view of honeypots and show the risks of having honeypots respond to any incoming traffic. We also discuss the possibilities of attack detection and mitigation and present lessons learned from handling the attack. We point out a lack of communication and data sharing during the observed attack.
Extendable blocking probe in reverse transcription for analysis of RNA variants with superior selectivity

Here we provide the first strategy to use a competitive Extendable Blocking Probe (ExBP) for allele-specific priming with superior selectivity at the stage of reverse transcription. In order to analyze highly similar RNA variants, a reverse-transcriptase primer whose sequence matches a specific variant selectively primes only that variant, whereas mismatch priming to the alternative variant is suppressed by virtue of hybridization and subsequent extension of the perfectly matched ExBP on that alternative variant template to form a cDNA–RNA hybrid. This hybrid will render the alternative RNA template unavailable for mismatch priming initiated by the specific primer in a hot-start protocol of reverse transcription when the temperature decreases to a level where such mismatch priming could occur. The ExBP-based reverse transcription assay detected BRAF and KRAS mutations in at least 1000-fold excess of wild-type RNA and detection was linear over a 4-log dynamic range. This novel strategy not only reveals the presence or absence of rare mutations with an exceptionally high selectivity, but also provides a convenient tool for accurate determination of RNA variants in different settings, such as quantification of allele-specific expression.
Hybrid passive optical network enabled by mode-division-multiplexing

Future passive optical network (PON) should combine various multiplexing method to realize larger-scale access. In this paper, mode division multiplexed (MDM) as a new multiplexing dimension is proposed, in which both the transmission few-mode fiber and the mode multiplexer/demultiplexer have low mode-crosstalk so that no multi-input-multi-output (MIMO) digital signal processing is required at the receiver. We show by experiments the feasibility of MDM-PON and hybrid MDM-TDM-PON. 10-Gb/s on-off keying (OOK) signals are successfully transmitted over 1.8-km 2-mode fiber without MIMO processing.
Inactivation of Retinoblastoma Protein (Rb1) in the Oocyte: Evidence That Dysregulated Follicle Growth Drives Ovarian Teratoma Formation in Mice

The origin of most ovarian tumors is undefined. Here, we report development of a novel mouse model in which conditional inactivation of the tumor suppressor gene Rb1 in oocytes leads to the formation of ovarian teratomas (OTs). While parthenogenetically activated ooctyes are a known source of OT in some mutant mouse models, enhanced parthenogenetic propensity in vitro was not observed for Rb1-deficient oocytes. Further analyses revealed that follicle recruitment and growth is disrupted in ovaries of mice with conditional inactivation of Rb1, leading to abnormal accumulation of secondary/preantral follicles. These findings underpin the concept that miscues between the germ cell and somatic compartments cause premature oocyte activation and the formation of OTs. Furthermore, these results suggest that defects in folliculogenesis and a permissive genetic background are sufficient to drive OT development, even in the absence of enhanced parthenogenetic activation. Thus, we have discovered a novel role of Rb1 in regulating the entry of primordial oocytes into the pool of growing follicles and signaling between the oocyte and granulosa cells during the protracted process of oocyte growth. Our findings, coupled with data from studies of other OT models, suggest that defects in the coordinated regulation between growth of the oocyte and somatic components in follicles are an underlying cause of OT formation.