Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Electrospun gelatin/polyurethane blended nanofibers for wound healing

In this study, we prepared a blended nanofiber scaffold using synthetic and natural polymers, polyurethane (PU) and gelatin respectively, using the electrospinning method to prepare a material for wound dressing. In order to confirm the properties of this gelatin/PU blended nanofiber scaffold, we performed scanning electron microscopy, atomic force microscopy, attenuated total reflectance Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy, thermal gravimetric analysis, contact angle, water uptake, mechanical property, recovery, and degradation tests, and cellular response. The results obtained indicate that the mean diameter of these nanofibers was uniformly electrospun and ranged from 0.4 to 2.1 µm. According to the results, when the amount of gelatin in the blended solution decreased, the contact angle increased and water uptake of the scaffold decreased concurrently. In the mechanical tests, the blended nanofibrous scaffolds were elastic, and elasticity increased as the total amount of PU increased. Moreover, as the total amount of gelatin increased, the cell proliferation increased with the same amount of culture time. Therefore, this gelatin/PU blended nanofiber scaffold has potential application for use as a wound dressing.
Business key success factors in China and the West

The study researched business key success factors (KSFs) in China and the West. Researchers reviewed 30 prior studies related to business KSFs in China and 30 prior studies related to business KSFs in the West. In addition, one focus group and one individual depth interview were conducted to further investigate business KSFs in China. Six business KSFs divided into three levels according to their importance were distinguished in China: leadership, research, development, and innovation, business strategy, market demand, human resources management and development, and corporate culture. The top priority business KSF in China is leadership. In order to be successful, companies in China must give it considerable attention. Business KSFs in the West do not directly transform into business KSFs in China, and Western companies should be aware of it when conducting business in China. Key words: Business key success factors, China, West
A review of the main parameters effecting customer loyalty, customer satisfaction and retention in internet retail services

Customer satisfaction is one of the primary factors leading to the continuation of relationships. There are several main streams in services and retail research (both offline & online): customer satisfaction, customer loyalty, and customer retention. In this paper we will review the main antecedents of customer satisfaction and its consequences, such as purchase intentions and attitude (e.g., Oliver, 1980; LaBarbera and Mazursky, 1983), which lead to customer loyalty and retention (Bolton, 1998). The forerunner of customer satisfaction may differ between offline and online channels (Balasubramanian et al. 2003). In offline environment, some traditional service quality dimensions that determine customer satisfaction are unobservable. The traditional/offline channel characteristics that determine customer satisfaction and service quality are: physical appearance of facilities, and employees’ empathy and responsiveness (Balasubramanian et al. 2003). On the other hand, Online environment is originated towards self-service with little human interaction, therefore other parameters, such as trust (or assurance) in the online channel, perceived security of the online service, and operational competence (e.g., high system availability, best prices, and fast response times) may play a central role in enhancing customer satisfaction (e.g., Balasubramanian et al. ,2003; Chiou and Droge, 2006). We will demonstrate the differences between online retail services and offline (traditional) retail services, and review main service parameters in online retailing (in contrast to traditional service characteristics).
Picking up Speed

In this chapter, Monte Hellman goes to Seattle for a retrospective of his films, mounted by Scarecrow Video. The store draws up a petition, ultimately with more than 2,000 signatures, to request Universal to put Two-Lane Blacktop out on video, but it is not until several years later, in 1999, that Anchor Bay Entertainment releases the film for home viewing, and the videos sell many copies. New Hollywood, the ear in the late ‘60s to early ‘80s when studios empowered auteur directors, has now gained cachet and is regarded nostalgically, and the reviews for the video are much more favourable than those for the theatrical release years earlier. The film’s timelessness due to its lack of trendy clothes, hairstyles and set dressing, or prominent musical score that would date the film, add to its appeal.
Proposal for a High Precision Tensor Processing Unit

This whitepaper proposes the design and adoption of a new generation of Tensor Processing Unit which has the performance of Google's TPU, yet performs operations on wide precision data. The new generation TPU is made possible by implementing arithmetic circuits which compute using a new general purpose, fractional arithmetic based on the residue number system.
Diaspora and E-Commerce: The Globalization of Lebanese Baklava

The paper argues that new technologies allow small and medium enterprises in developing countries, especially those with “ethnic” or “nostalgic” merchandise, to carve a niche for their products in the international market. Taking e-commerce in baklava production as an example, this study shows how the main producers of this delicacy used ICT to tap into the Lebanese diaspora, as described in “business to diaspora” theory. The paper argues that shipping across international borders has required the producers to comply with international standards and to be creative in packaging and labelling their products. This process has also created the need for Lebanese financial institutions to facilitate credit card payment and verification. In conclusion, a case can be made for the need for a more enabling legal and telecommunication environment in this sector if it is to expand and thrive in the future.
Vibration research on winding faults of induction motor based on experiment modal analysis method

By the experiment modal research for rotor winding faults of induction motors, the electric motor fault diagnosis by means of vibration mode analysis is explored. Motor (the model is Y2-90S-4 in China), which is given an artificial rotor bar broken, is analyzed to study the difference of motor vibration mode under fault condition and normal condition respectively. By the experiment modal analysis, it is noticed that, when running at load situation, there would be some special frequency components in the vibration spectrum of the rotor winding fault motor. Particularly, the amplitudes of second-order and third- order modal frequency components would have a sharp increase along with the deterioration of motor fault condition. A new idea that the amplitude ratio of second-order (or third-order) modal frequency component to first-order modal frequency component can be used as characteristic quantity of rotor winding faults of induction motors is proposed. In this paper, the variation of vibration spectrum is used to diagnose rotor winding faults of induction motor.
Organizational transformation for service excellence in a public hospital in Hong Kong

Kwong Wah Hospital was founded by the charity organization, Tung Wah Group of Hospitals, some 88 years ago, with management transfer to the Hong Kong Hospital Authority in 1991. Capitalizing both from the traditional caring culture of its founder, as well as opportunities in the new management environment, the hospital has scored remarkable successes in service quality, community partnership, organizational effectiveness, and staff development. Underpinning these transformations were structure, process, people, and culture strategies. The learning imperative is heavily mandated for the success of each of these strands of development. Indeed, the embodiment of a learning organization culture provides the impetus in sustaining the change momentum, towards achieving the vision of becoming a “most preferred hospital” in Hong Kong.
EFFECTS OF EARNINGS ANNOUNCEMENT ON SHARE PRICE: THE CASE OF GHANA STOCK EXCHANGE

The study examines the effects of corporate earnings announcement on the Ghana Stock Exchange (GSE). A sample of 19 listed companies was selected from which 57 observations of earnings announcements documented from 2009 to 2012 were collected for the study. The naive expectation model was applied to determine the investor’s expectation towards earnings announcements. A 15 trading days inclusive of the day of announcement of earnings was defined as the event window which includes 7 days before and 7 days after earning announcement. The market portfolio index was used in terms of its movements as a substitute for the expected returns which was compared to the actual returns generated from the changes in stock prices for the duration of the event window to determine the existence of abnormal returns. An observation was made which is that there is well built evidence which suggests that earnings announcements do carry weight when it comes to investors making decision on share prices. This shows a very clear position that the investors on the Ghana Stock Exchange rely on the signals that come out as a result of announcements made on earnings in making investment decisions. The findings of this study conform to previous findings of Aharony and Swary (1980); and the recent findings of Dasilas et al (2008).
Mathematics-assisted mapping in analysis of medical disease

Genetic mapping in analysis of medical disease is performed under several assumptions and (experimental) conditions, which are made about the data in general and the disease in particular. Here we discuss these conditions, what they mean, and what kind of deleterious effects they might have on the analysis. We also illustrate how to proceed and what kind of possibilities the statistical analysis may provide to medical scientists.
What is the Wind Behind this Sail? Can Fund Managers Successfully Time Their Investment Styles?

There is a considerable body of literature that examines the behaviour of institutional investors as a potential source of market price movement. Most existing studies focus on the market timing abilities of active fund managers and find mixed evidence for their fund timing skills. However, few studies have investigated fund manager timing abilities within segments of the market, such as factor timing and sector timing. This study investigates the style timing behaviour of US domestic equity funds existing at any time during the period 1992-2002. Specifically, I examine the timing activities of actively managed mutual funds within different market segments based on such established systematic risk factors as size, book-to-market, momentum, and across different fund styles such as aggressive growth, growth and income, and small company funds, etc. Mutual fund timing strategy can be viewed as the fund manager's response to his/her private information regarding future factor premiums. Instead of directly observing how fund managers make their timing decisions, an alternative approach is to look at the direct outcomes of their decisions, which are related to the factor timing loadings derived from a factor timing model. I significantly expand on the work of Bollen and Busse (2001) and Volkman (1999) by combining systematic risk factors unique to equity markets with timing factors unique to actively managed portfolios. Within this empirical timing-activity evaluation framework, I additionally investigate fund timing behaviour in the context of Morningstar star rating performance record, investment objectives, fund age, turnover, and load expense, etc. This paper is an original contribution to the literature of fund timing activities, which seeks to contribute to our understanding in terms of investigating mutual fund managers' timing strategies with respect to specific systematic risk factors and their evolution over time. This research has important implications both for extant asset pricing theories and for practitioners especially in the evaluation of portfolio performance and investigation of fund managers' timing activities.
IMPACT OF KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT STRATEGY ON ORGANIZATIONAL LEARNING : A SIMULATION STUDY

The main objective of this study is to examine how an organization can implement knowledge management strategies that are best suited to its s tructure, culture and knowledge needs. We employ March’s (1991) model for organizational lear ning in the context of knowledge management and analyze the effectiveness of the cod ification and personalization strategies in different organizational settings. This paper devel ops insights into the effectiveness of knowledge management systems in different organizat ion l environments and into the learning behaviors of individuals in the presence of these s y tems. The results indicate that KMS that codify the knowledge of only the superior performin g organizational members are more effective than KMS that codify the knowledge of all the organ iz tional members, though this discrepancy in performance decreases when the frequency of the codification process is low. Personalization strategies that enhance the ability of organization l members to locate other better performing individuals are found to be more effective in the l ong term than in the short term. However, when such personalization strategies are implemente d i conjunction with codification strategies, the combined impact is not beneficial in the long t erm.
Ab Initio Study of Non‐Peptidic Antihypertensives

In this study, the authors report ab initio molecular orbital calculations on natural hormone angiotensin II (ANG II) that induces activity at AT1 receptor leading to vasoconstriction and subsequent hypertension. Optimized conformations and charge distributions of various conformers of natural hormone and AT1 antagonists have been studied. The major pharmacophoric features have been deduced. The charge environment of ANG II and drugs guided us in exploring the two possibilities: substrate inhibition and competitive inhibition. The results indicate that more potent drugs avoid ‘wastage’ in substrate inhibition and undergo strong competitive antagonism at the receptor. Specific binding interactions are essential for competitive antagonism. Slight differences in conformation may effect to differences in interactions with the receptor, hence modulating the antagonistic properties of the drug.
Research Issues In Community Based Question Answering

Community based Question Answering (CQA) services are defined as dedicated platforms for users to respond to other users’ questions, resulting in the building of a community where users share and interactively give ratings to questions and answers (Liu et al., 2008). CQA services are emerging as a valuable information resource that is rich not only in the expertise of the user community but also their interactions and insights. However, scholarly inquiries have yet to dovetail into a composite research stream where techniques gleaned from various research domains could be exploited for harnessing the information richness in CQA services. This paper explores the CQA domain by first understanding the service and its modules and then exploring previous studies that was conducted in this domain. This paper then compares a CQA service with traditional question answering (QA) systems to identify possible research challenges that need to be focused. This paper also identifies two nontrivial research issues that are prominent in this domain and proposes various recommendations for addressing them in future.
Control of a DC generator based on a Hybrid Excitation Synchronous Machine connected to a PWM rectifier

This paper deals with the control of an hybrid excitation synchronous generator which is used to supply an isolated grid for aircraft applications. This grid is supposed to be a 270 V DC bus. Thus, a rectifier is required between the machine and the DC bus. Two structures can be used: diode or PWM rectifier. Here, only the structure with a PWM rectifier is studied. With a such system, it is possible to use a vector control applied to the structure in order to obtain minimal copper losses in the machine. The controller is synthesized here using a methodology based on a graphical representation of the system and then it is validated by simulation
Patterns of differentiation between human local populations.

Quantitative methods for describing infraspecific differentiation are introduced and applied to three questions about the nature of human differentiation. The first question is whether or not human local populations are differentiated consistently by different attributes; the second is whether or not human local populations are differentiated into geographical races; the third is whether or not human local populations show clinal differentiation. The anthropometric data used were published by Mahalanobis, Majumdar & Rao (1949), and Hiernaux (1956).
The role of scintimammography and mammography in recurrent breast cancer. Evaluation of their accuracy using ROC curves.

BACKGROUND With the increasing demand for breast conservation surgery, the probability of recurrent tumour within the breast increases. Traditionally x-ray mammography (XMM) was used to assess the post-surgical breast, but post-surgery and radiotherapy changes have reduced the accuracy of this method. Scintimammography (SMM) has also been proposed and appears to be more accurate than XMM. MATERIAL AND METHODS A total of 101 women received (Tc99m) MIBI SMM and 88 had a subsequent XMM. There were 142 sites suspected of loco-regional recurrence breast cancer. During the study the patients did not receive any treatment other then hormonotherapy. SMM was performed by the standard Diggles-Khalkhali method and XMM was performed using standard 2 views. Analysis was performed and the results of each type of imaging compared with histology. In the ROC curve analysis 5 points of certainty were used: from 1 being definitely normal to 5 being definitely cancer; grades 4 and 5 were counted as positive. RESULTS The overall sensitivity value of SMM was 84% and specificity was 85%, compared with a sensitivity of 52% for XMM and a specificity of 84%. Analysis of areas under ROC curves provides statistically significant difference between SMM and XMM (p < 0.05). Combining the two tests did not significantly improve the diagnostic accuracy of sequence imaging over SMM. CONCLUSION ROC curve analysis demonstrates that scintimammography should be the primary investigation in suspected local recurrence following breast conservation surgery.
TRUST ACROSS BORDERS: BUYER-SUPPLIER TRUST IN GLOBAL B2B E-COMMERCE.

The article examines effects of globalization on business-to-business (B2B) electronic commerce, focusing on the element of trust between buyer and supplier. Such trust is a vital element of electronic commerce due to the information asymmetry which exists between the two parties, in which the buyers lack complete information about suppliers. Means by which suppliers can close this information gap are discussed. The differences between indices and signals suppliers give buyers are examined. The importance of the suppliers' country of origin as an indication of its trustworthiness is discussed.
Conjoint Measurement- for Quantifying Judgmental Data

Conjoint measurement is a new development in mathematical psychology that can be used to measure the joint effects of a set of independent variables on the ordering of a dependent variable. In this (primarily expository) article, the techniques are applied to illustrative problems in marketing. In addition, a number of possible areas of application to marketing research are discussed, as well as some of the methodology's limitations.
Palliative Care Research--A Systematic Review of foci, designs and methods of research conducted in Sweden between 2007 and 2012.

BACKGROUND In 2007, a literature review was undertaken of palliative care research from Sweden during the 1970s-2006, paving the way for a follow-up study to explore the recent developments. The aim was to systematically examine palliative care research from Sweden between 2007 and 2012, with special attention to methods, designs and research foci. METHODS A literature review was undertaken. The databases Academic search elite, Age line, Ahmed, Cinahl, PsychInfo, PubMed, Scopus, Soc abstracts, Web of science and Libris were reviewed for Swedish palliative care research studies published from 2007 to 2012, applying the search criteria 'palliative care OR palliative medicine OR end-of-life care OR terminal care OR hospice care OR dying OR death'. RESULTS A total of 263 papers met the inclusion criteria, indicating an increased volume of research compared to the 133 articles identified in the previous review. Common study foci were symptom assessment and management, experiences of illness and care planning. Targeting non-cancer-specific populations and utilisation of population-based register studies were identified as new features. There was continued domination of cross-sectional, qualitative and mono-disciplinary studies, not including ethnic minority groups, nonverbally communicable people or children <18 years of age. CONCLUSIONS The trend is that Swedish palliative care research has expanded in volume from 2007 to 2012 compared to during the 1970s to 2006, with increasing participation of non-cancer-specific populations. A domination of qualitative approaches and small, cross-sectional studies with few interventions is still characteristic. Still more strategies are needed to expand the knowledge development of palliative care to respond to demographical, epidemiological, therapeutic and healthcare structure changes.
Dlx6 regulates molecular properties of the striatum and central nucleus of the amygdala

We describe here the prenatal telencephalic expression of Dlx6 RNA and β‐galactosidase driven from a mutant Dlx6 locus. The mutant Dlx6 allele, which we believe is either a null or severe hypomorph, has an IRES‐lacZ‐neomycin resistance cassette inserted into the Dlx6 homeobox coding sequence (Dlx6LacZ). We compared expression from the Dlx6‐lacZ (Dlx6LacZ) allele in heterozygotes (Dlx6LacZ/+), with the expression of Dlx1, Dlx2, Dlx5 and Dlx6 RNA. Like these wild‐type alleles, Dlx6LacZ is expressed in the developing ganglionic eminences, and their derivatives. Unlike the other Dlx genes, Dlx6 and Dlx6LacZ expression is not readily observed in tangentially migrating interneurons. In addition to Dlx6's expression at later stages of differentiation of many basal ganglia nuclei, it shows particularly robust expression in the central nucleus of the amygdala. Histological analysis of Dlx6 mutants (Dlx6LacZ/LacZ) shows that this homeobox transcription factor is required for molecular properties of the striatum, nucleus accumbens, olfactory tubercle, and central nucleus of the amygdala. For instance, we observed reduced of Golf, RXRγ, and Tiam2 expression in the striatum, and reduced Dlx5 expression in the central nucleus of the amygdala. RNA expression array analysis of the E18.5 striatum was useful in identifying the transcription factors that are expressed in this tissue, but did not identify major changes in gene expression in the Dlx6LacZ/LacZ mutant. J. Comp. Neurol. 519:2320–2334, 2011. © 2011 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.